Desperation Point

by Malcolm Richards

  Moving through the darkness, he slipped from the room and entered the hall. He stopped still. Jacob’s voice should have been filling the house with his sermon. But Cal heard only silence.

  Stealing along the hall, his furtive eyes searching through the dark, he stopped outside the meeting room. He looked over his shoulder at the closed door of Jacob’s office.

  Moving along, he came to the kitchen.

  Voices floated down from upstairs. He could hear the children chatting in low whispers. The sound brought no relief.

  Cal was alone in the world. He belonged nowhere. He thought he’d belonged here but he found it difficult to follow the rules. The rules were like the bars of his cage in Grady Spencer’s basement.

  The one place he longed to be, the place where he thought he could be again, had just been snatched from him.

  He was nowhere. Nothing. An empty void. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to drive the knife into his grandmother’s chest. He wondered if she would live. He wondered what his mother thought of him now.

  He waited in the darkness, wondering if he would feel anything ever again. But he did feel something. Thirst.

  Tiptoeing into the kitchen, he moved to the sink and reached for a glass.

  “You lied to me.”

  The voice made him spin on his heels, made him brandish the knife. Jacob was sitting in the corner of the room, knees pressed together, hands resting on top. He stared at Cal, his eyes glittering in the shadows.

  “I asked if you would ever doubt me. You told me you wouldn’t. And yet, here we are.”

  Cal stood by the sink, his breaths thin and shallow, watching Jacob’s every move. He felt something else as he lowered the knife—shame. Maybe he did have feelings after all.

  Jacob looked at Cal for a long time, saying nothing. Then he leaned back again, bringing his hands to his temples.

  “It’s my own fault. I said it before, I’ve let you run free for too long. Were you happier in our father’s basement, Cal? Should I have left you there? Do you long to go back?”

  Cal lowered his head but kept his eyes on Jacob.

  “I should have stopped this behaviour. I shouldn’t have turned a blind eye. I know where you go, Cal. I’ve known all along. But I thought you’d realise your life with your mother no longer exists. I thought you’d see you weren’t wanted there. Now I truly believe you don’t think you belong anywhere. But you’re wrong, Cal. Your place is here. You just need to open your eyes and see it for yourself.”

  Jacob stood. Shadows moved in the doorway. Cal turned to see Heath and Morwenna.

  “But I can’t let you betray us again,” Jacob said.

  Cynthia appeared behind Heath and Morwenna, her eyes staring wildly into the room until they found Cal. Her face filled with anger.

  “Go and get the children,” Jacob instructed without looking at her. “Leave Alison with the boy. Bring everyone else to the barn.”

  Cynthia hovered for a moment, her mouth opening and closing. Then she lowered her gaze and headed for the stairs.

  At the door, Heath folded his arms across his chest, a smug smile rippling across his lips. Morwenna shifted her feet.

  Jacob smiled. The shadows curved his lips into a demonic grin.

  “Bring him up,” he said.

  Cal watched Heath and Morwenna leave. He glanced back at Jacob, his thirst becoming unbearable.

  “I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I’m afraid by then it will be too late,” Jacob said. “It’s time for your final test, Cal. It’s time to prove your commitment to the Dawn Children once and for all.”

  38

  SILENCE PERMEATED THE hospital waiting room. Melissa was asleep, sprawled across Dylan’s lap, her father’s arms wrapped protectively around her. A uniformed police officer stood in the corner, her gaze fixed on the carpet.

  Carrie paced the room, biting her nails. Her heart wouldn’t stop racing. Sally was in the operating theatre. The blade had punctured her left lung. It had missed her heart by two centimetres.

  She pictured her mother slumped against the bedroom wall, blood blossoming at the centre of her chest and pooling on the carpet. Melissa had seen it happen. She’d watched Cal stab her grandmother in full technicolour glory. But Sally hadn’t been his intended victim, had she?

  The knife had been meant for Melissa.

  There were no words to describe how Carrie felt about it. Just numb horror. Her son had tried to kill her daughter. If Sally hadn’t checked in on Melissa at that very moment. . .

  She shook the thought from her head. She couldn’t go there. If she did, she’d never come back. And she had to be here, present and focused, because her son had almost murdered her mother. There was a chance he still might. She glanced at Dylan, whose gaze was cast downward at Melissa’s sleeping form. He looked exhausted. Deep worry lines taunted the corners of his eyes. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since they’d arrived at the hospital, but Carrie knew he was blaming her.

  This was her fault because it was her son. This was her fault because she’d kept saying she needed more time. This was her fault because she’d kept Dylan and Melissa at arm’s length.

  Now, as Carrie pressed herself up against the wall, trying to make herself disappear, she wondered if Dylan was right. Would any of this have happened if she’d kept her family together?

  Cal had been watching her, that was obvious now. He’d been following her on her nightly walks. He’d been watching the house. He’d seen that she was alone, that Melissa and Dylan had gone to live elsewhere. What had he thought? That he could come home again and it would be just the two of them like old times? Did he think Carrie would just forget about Melissa?

  Had she unwittingly given him that impression? Now her mother could die. Now Melissa would be traumatised for the rest of her life. Now Dylan would want a divorce. Carrie felt sick. She was going to throw up.

  A soft knock on the door disrupted her panic. She looked up and saw a familiar face enter the room; a handsome man in his early forties dressed in a charcoal suit.

  Detective Constable Turner smiled politely.

  “Hello again, Carrie,” he said, then nodded at Dylan. “It’s nice to see you both. I just wish it was under better circumstances. How are you both holding up?”

  Carrie only stared at him

  Dylan laughed and shook his head. On his lap, Melissa stirred a little. “Oh, we’re just fine, Detective Turner. Why wouldn’t we be? I mean, if you lot had actually done your job three months ago, maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here right now at the bloody hospital, waiting to see if Sally lives or dies.”

  His eyes flicked accusingly toward Carrie as he nervously stroked Melissa’s hair.

  “We’re doing what we can, Dylan,” Detective Turner said, that polite smile still on his lips. “Cal can’t have gone very far. We’re putting together a team right now and we’ve requested the dog crew. Plus, we’re trying to get the helicopter.”

  “Trying?”

  “It covers both counties of Devon and Cornwall, as well as the Isles of Scilly, so it may already have been deployed.”

  Dylan snorted. “Explains why you failed to find him three months ago.”

  The smile wavered on Turner’s face. “It’s the reality we’re facing right now. We’ve had another police station close this month, resources are scarce. As I said, we’re doing the best we can.”

  The detective turned away to speak to the uniformed officer in the corner. Carrie watched them, her paranoia growing. She glanced over at Dylan, who looked as if he might put his fist through the wall at any second. Everything was coming apart.

  The uniformed officer was leaving the room. Turner was coming back over. Carrie couldn’t breathe. Where had the air gone?

  “I understand this must be a shock,” he said, addressing Carrie directly. “But I need you to go over exactly what happened tonight.”

  “But I already told the—”

  “Please, Carrie. I’d like
to hear it from you.”

  Feeling exhausted and weak, Carrie slumped into a chair and pressed her face into her hands. Detective Turner sat down a few seats away. Dylan just shook his head.

  Carrie went over it: her meeting with Aaron Black, the surprise visit from Dylan and Melissa, the horrible screams they’d heard coming from upstairs, finding Cal in Melissa’s bedroom and her mother bleeding to death on the floor.

  When she was done, she leaned back in the chair, exhausted and spent.

  Detective Turner looked up from his notepad. “And tonight was the first time you saw Cal since he disappeared?”

  Carrie hesitated, her mind racing back to that night at the cliff. “In the flesh, yes.”

  Turner frowned. Dylan looked up.

  “What exactly does that mean?” he said, staring uncertainly at his wife. Avoiding his gaze, Carrie sucked in a breath. Her chest felt tight. It was too hot in here.

  “Carrie?” Turner prompted.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and tasted blood.

  “Last week, I walked up to Desperation Point. I thought I heard someone following me through the wood. But they ran away before I could see who.”

  “What were you doing up at Desperation Point?” Dylan’s mouth hung open. His eyes were wide. He looked afraid, Carrie thought. As if everything he loved was slipping away from him.

  Her mouth was dry. She needed a drink. Whiskey. Water. Anything. And now she was going to have to tell the truth. Now Dylan was going to find out she’d been lying to him more than he knew.

  “The next morning,” she said, ignoring his question, “I had a visit from Aaron Black. . .”

  Detective Turner frowned. “The writer who came to see you today?”

  “Yes.” She could feel Dylan’s eyes burning into her, could feel his anger and disappointment, their marriage falling apart. “He told me that he’d followed me on my walk because he’d wanted to talk to me, to ask me to be part of his book. He told me he saw Cal, and that Cal had been watching me but then he’d seen Aaron and had chased him through Briar Wood.”

  The detective scribbled into his notepad. “Did this Aaron Black tell you anything else?”

  Carrie dug her nails into the side of her thighs. Her thirst was becoming unbearable. And where were the bloody doctors with news of her mother?

  “Answer the damn question,” Dylan said, spitting the words out.

  “He told me that he wanted to find Cal. That if he found proof of where Cal was hiding, he’d bring it to me in exchange for helping him with his book.” Tears ran down her face. Her voice trembled. “So that I could have a chance to reach out to my son before he was taken away from me for good.”

  The truth was out. She didn’t have to lie anymore. She no longer had to pretend. And yet, there was no relief.

  Carrie looked up, meeting Dylan’s gaze. His face was scarlet. His eyes were wet with tears. In his arms, Melissa looked safe and comforted.

  “This is your fault,” he said. A tear escaped and ran down the contours of his face. “Your mother is in that operating room because of you. My daughter was almost murdered by your son because you knew he was out there but you didn’t say anything. You didn’t say anything.”

  Dylan stood up, clutching Melissa’s sleeping form to his chest.

  “I don’t know you anymore,” he said as another tear escaped his eye. “I can’t even be in the same room as you.”

  “Dylan. . .”

  Carrie watched him move to the door. She watched him balance Melissa against his shoulder while he fumbled with the handle. She watched him leave the room. She watched the absent space left behind by her husband and her daughter.

  Beside her, Detective Constable Turner cleared his throat.

  She turned, unable to meet his gaze.

  “He’ll bring her back, won’t he?” she asked him, her voice a numb whisper.

  The detective placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  “Do you know where Aaron Black is right now?” he asked.

  But Carrie wasn’t listening. A doctor in surgical scrubs was entering the room and staring at Carrie with eyes she could not read.

  Slowly, Carrie got to her feet.

  “How is she? How is my mother?”

  39

  AARON DREW CLOSER TO Burnt House Farm, his heart beating faster with each step. He reached the yard. The farmhouse was directly in front of him, transformed by the moonlight into a haunted house filled with ghosts.

  Except these ghosts were very much alive.

  Staying in the shadows, he cocked his head and listened for signs of life. The only sound was the lonely howl of the wind.

  Aaron pressed on, moving in a clockwise motion, checking each boarded up and shuttered window, then entering the field on the left. Above him, clouds shifted, hiding the moon. He passed the scarecrow, moving through the field in a circle, until he reached the back of the house.

  He froze.

  A single light shone from an upstairs window.

  Ducking down, Aaron took a few steps back, trying to get a clearer view. Standing in the middle of the field, he felt suddenly exposed, not just to the elements but to whoever was inside that room. All they had to do was look down and they would see him.

  He took more steps back, his boots sinking into mud, his gaze trained on the rectangle of light. The room inside was becoming more visible. He could see the ceiling, part of a wall.

  The top of someone’s head as they darted by.

  His heart racing, Aaron continued to walk backward. He was at the wrong angle. He needed to get a better view. He spun around, staring into the vastness of the field, and saw a tree.

  Letting the camera hang around his neck, he hurried toward it. It was an old sycamore with gnarled, leafless branches that were in easy reach. Casting a look over his shoulder, Aaron began to climb. It was a struggle—he hadn’t climbed a tree since his childhood—but he persevered, hoisting himself up until he was almost level with the window of the house.

  With his back pressed safely against the trunk and his legs wrapped around a sturdy branch, Aaron raised the camera to his eye and twisted the zoom ring, until the window filled his vision. His finger hovered over the shutter release.

  He could see them. Figures moving about a large bedroom with peeling wallpaper. There were children mostly, and a few young women no older than their mid-twenties. One of the them cradled a baby while the children ran about.

  Aaron held the camera as still as possible and pressed the shutter release. The camera snapped away, taking grainy image after grainy image.

  Switching the camera to video mode, Aaron began filming. He watched the scene through the viewfinder, growing increasingly confused. Who were these people? How were they connected to Cal? To Grady Spencer?

  His mind racing, he continued to film.

  Someone else was coming into the room. It was the red-haired woman he’d encountered yesterday. The children froze. The women visibly tensed and exchanged looks. What was going on? Any frivolity he’d witnessed in that room had vanished.

  And now they were leaving. The children first, exiting in a neat line, followed by the women. But the woman with the baby was staying behind. Aaron zoomed in closer. He could see now that she was no woman but a young girl, maybe sixteen, seventeen years old. There was someone else staying behind, too. He zoomed the camera in further. A young boy was huddled in the corner of the room. Although the image in the viewfinder was grainy at best, Aaron could tell the child was frightened.

  Where were the others going? And where was Cal?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Aaron carefully made his way back down to the ground. He was suddenly aware of how cold it had become, of how much his body was shivering, but he pressed on, heading back across the field, then flanking the house.

  Rounding the far corner, he passed a rusting water tank and a large shed. Machinery hummed inside. Wires ran from the shed to the house. A generator, perhaps?
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  He edged along the side of the house, passing a large transit van and a car, then slid to a halt. He was at the edge of the yard, standing between the house and the barn.

  The doors were open. It was pitch black inside. But the cold was becoming unbearable.

  Slipping between the doors, Aaron was enveloped by darkness. Trying not to panic, he cupped his hands together and blew air into them. Even though the barn was just a couple of degrees warmer, it felt good to be less exposed.

  From here, he had a perfect view of the house. But what did he do now? Did he lie in wait, hoping to spot a glimpse of Cal and whoever else lived here? Or did he look for a loose window board, maybe try to get inside?

  Not unless you want to get yourself killed.

  The only option then was to wait.

  But he didn’t have to wait for long. From somewhere outside, he heard hushed voices and footsteps cross the yard. Aaron ducked down in the darkness, his heart leaping in his throat. Seconds later, he heard vehicle doors open and close, then an engine roar to life. He inched closer to the barn doors, trying to see outside.

  Headlight beams splashed across the concrete. The van he’d spotted moments ago rolled through the yard, passing the barn and heading in the direction of the dirt track that led back to the road.

  Who was inside? Where were they going? He thought about the women and children he’d seen leaving the bedroom. Were they being taken somewhere? And where the hell was Cal?

  The questions plagued him as he listened to the rumble of the engine slowly fade. And then they were torn from his mind as a strange, strangled noise came from somewhere behind him.

  Aaron stopped breathing. Goosebumps crawled over his flesh. Slowly, he turned.

  Something was in here with him.

  And now he could smell a terrible odour; a rancid concoction of piss and shit and blood and fear.

  With a trembling hand, he slipped his bag from his shoulder. Slowly, he pulled on the zipper and reached inside for his phone.

  He was going to touch the screen. To activate the torch. He was going to hold it up and shine it on whatever the hell was in here with him. And then he was probably going to scream.