Keening Country

by Seán O'Connor

  Abi resigned herself to defeat. What other choice did she have? The lunatic could fire at any second and then the truth would never be free. But what would happen if she went with him? Would her mind be corrupted like his? Would she be assimilated into this brain hacking regime?

  “Turn around,” Deegan ordered as he removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

  Abi, terrified, obliged. She wanted to cry and wished for this nightmare to end as she waited for the steel to clamp down on her wrists. But the clamp never came, instead she heard gurgled cries. She turned and, to her surprise, he was on the ground clutching his neck – blood pouring from an open wound. Standing above him, a blood-drenched Lucy with a large shard of broken mirror in her hand.

  “Oh my God!” Abi screamed in disbelief.

  “Abi—” Lucy answered as she dropped to the floor.

  Abi rushed to her aid and noticed that Lucy wasn’t only covered in Deegan’s blood, but was soaked with her own.

  “Lucy—”

  Lucy signalled to her to be quiet. “They can hear us. The aerials. Soon, the signal will be in everyone’s head.”

  “Not us, Lucy. They can’t get to us. We won’t let them,” Abi answered firmly.

  “It’s outside of our control, Abi. This is what your sister found out. The answers are right there in the logs on the USB key. One-X plan to implant their signal into everyone. The first phase was done through mobile phones. This broke the human mind down easier, allowing the signal to enter, consume and control. Melissa knew this and tried to blow the whistle. You live off the grid, which makes your mind harder to break down as you’re not surrounded by signal-emitting technology.”

  “Lucy, this can’t be—”

  “It is and you’re the only hope now. Take the USB key and get the data to a foreign agency. Get it outside the EU to the Americans or even the Chinese. Anyone who can—” Her words were interrupted by a violent cough. Her body convulsed, shuddered and she fought to catch her breath.

  “Oh fuck, Lucy,” Abi cried. She rose to her feet and ran over to the front desk. Emergency services were just a call away. Abi frantically grabbed the handset and raised it to her ear. She turned to look back at Lucy and to her horror, the girl was up on her knees, Deegan’s gun in hand, raising it slowly.

  “Put the phone down, Abigail. They’ll hear you,” Lucy said, her voice shifting into the familiar monotone.

  “Not you too, Lucy?” Abi begged.

  Lucy looked her dead in the eye, raised the gun, pointed it at her own temple – the sound triggering the building’s alarm.

  It took Abi a few seconds to comprehend what had happened. Lucy’s body lay motionless on the floor, blood pumping from her head. The bullet had exited the other side and shattered the glass window on the front of the building.

  Abi didn’t have time to think, her instincts kicked in and she made haste for the door, down the street and into her car. The car struggled to life, slipped into gear and took off, leaving the deserted street in her rear-view mirror.

  As she went beyond the city limits, she noticed the aerials dotted along the road. Lights blinked as they transmitted whatever it was that got inside of people’s minds. Abi tossed her mobile phone out of the car window, pressed the accelerator and headed for home – she had to get Shane away from the aerial in front of the house.

  Dawn broke to the sound of a murder of crows circling above her house. Light mist blanketed the fields and tarmac as she approached slowly. The house looked empty, no lights or signs of life anywhere along the countryside road.

  Abi parked the car about a half-mile from the house, got out and slowly crept up. The aerial stood tall, blinking and signalling operation.

  “Fuck!” Abi muttered to herself. “Please, Shane, tell me you’re oblivious to all of this.”

  She hurried past the aerial, ran up the garden, unlocked the front door and entered the house. Everything seemed to be exactly as she’d left it – nothing out of place. She went to the bedroom to fetch her husband, her chest beating as she opened the door. Inside, the bed was made, never slept in and there was no sign of life anywhere in the room. She checked the en suite – nothing.

  After checking the top floor, Abi searched the ground floor. At first, she didn’t notice him in her hurry, but there he was – alive and well, drinking coffee in the kitchen.

  “Shane, darling, are you okay?” she asked approaching him cautiously.

  “That’s the question I should be asking you? Where have you been?” he replied.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…”

  “Try me.”

  “I know the truth about Melissa and that thing outside our house,” Abi answered.

  “You know nothing of it,” Shane snapped, his voice suddenly shifting to the now-familiar monotone, almost robotic. He turned, dropping his coffee on the floor, his eyes dull and sunken.

  “Oh no, my love. Not you as well?” Abi blurted out in horror at what stood before her. Her husband, one of those zombies.

  “Yes, Abigail,” he replied, revealing a revolver in his hand. “I know all about you and your sister. I even know about that device you carry in your pocket.”

  “How?”

  “We are united. Interconnected and together as one. And because I love you, I’ll give you a choice, hand over the device and join us or…” he said, raising the gun, the end of the barrel aimed straight at her.

  “I can’t do that, darling. Whoever these monsters are, they killed my sister. It’s not right and now they’re inside your head. Please, darling, please, use your mind, think past whatever hold they have on you. Let’s out of here and get away. Please—”

  “I can’t…”

  “Please, Shane. Be strong. I know you can do this,” Abi begged as she watched her husband battle his inner thoughts. His eyes struggled to focus, his face crumpling as he tried desperately to break free from the aerial outside. Then, his eyes aligned and he was staring at Abi. “I love you, Abigail. But this ends now.”

  He lifted the revolver, pulled the trigger back and watched his wife plead for her life. In spite of everything, it was not enough. Whoever had control at the centre of the hive emitted the signal that took milliseconds to travel across the network, to the newly erected aerial outside of their home, pinging into his powerless mind.

  As she hit the floor – the USB key sprung loose from her grip – the last thing she saw before her eyes closed was her husband taking a cigarette lighter to the little plastic device.

  THE END

  DOWN BELOW

  Banished to his bedroom, Daniel McGovern was alone, crying in the dark. The burden of legacy is a mighty one, be it living up to the family name or struggling with the weight of parental expectation – it was something he struggled to cope with on a daily basis.

  Outside the window, wind howled, while rain pelted the glass with relentless force. Wiping a tear from his eye, Daniel could not help but stare out into the night, wishing for an escape from the small village of Lusk.

  His view overlooked the back garden. It was waterlogged from the back step to the small shed at the end of the path – raindrops echoing and chiming with unnatural rhythm as they pinged against its corrugated roof.

  Beyond it, dim illumination from streetlights in the distance flickered as the storm continued to rage – he found himself wondering about how he’d cope away from home, but quickly resigned himself to the fact that this was his life…

  His concentration broke suddenly when something hit the back of his head. He turned quickly to see the culprit, and saw his little sister standing in his bedroom doorway, grinning cheekily from ear to ear, revealing her missing front teeth.

  “Piss off, Jess!” Daniel roared. His warning fell on deaf ears, prompting Jess to pull another object from her pocket and take aim again.

  “I mean it!”

  A tennis ball shot across the room, narrowingly missing his head, spurring
him to spring into action – the whole upstairs of the house rumbled from the galloping footsteps as he chased her across the landing.

  Jess went to her room and tried to close the door, but was easily overpowered as her big brother forced his way in.

  “Get out of my room! Mom? Dad? Get out!” she screamed in protest. But the words didn’t stop her older brother pushing her to the ground. As he dragged her along the floor by her feet, roars from both parents filled the air for them to stop the horseplay.

  Daniel silently signalled to his sister to be quiet, but she refused to stop screaming.

  He was already in trouble and the last thing he wanted was for his father to come down on him again, as he was already grounded.

  “Jess, stop it. Shut up! You’re gonna get me in deep shit.”

  From downstairs, Hugh McGovern issued his last warning for the pair to stop messing around with one of those booming orders that made both kids stop in their tracks – they knew the next warning would not come in the form of stern words.

  Daniel bent over to look Jess in the eyes. “You scream again and you’re going into Dad’s shed, you hear me? Ollie will get you.”

  It was the one threat that would always make her listen. The shed was a source of fear for the pair of them. Father used to say, you better be good or you’ll spend the night in the shed with Ollie! For as long as they both could remember, Ollie had been a giant man-eating spider who lived in the shed and, even though Daniel was nearly sixteen, a little part of him was still wary of the shed.

  Jess on the other hand, was petrified of spiders and always heeded her father's warning about the beat-up shack at the back of the garden. In her mind, it was a place that no one should ever enter. But the reality, of course, was that the shed was nothing more than a place for their father to store tools, a lawnmower and the wheelie bins…

  Or was it?

  “Ollie’s not real. I’m nearly thirteen, you know. And I’m not afraid of make-believe things like that,” Jess protested, trying to sound grown up but lacking any conviction in her statement.

  Daniel didn’t argue; in his mind she was one hundred percent right. He wanted to keep scaring her, but found it hard to keep up the game – especially when he was living in fear himself. In the end, their conflict was settled by a lingering silence and they both sat watching the rain – a rare moment of sibling truce.

  The silence was broken when a noise erupted from the end of the garden; a loud squeal that could be heard over the rain clattering against the tin steel roof.

  He turned to find Jess staring at him – a look of reassurance, much to his delight, she had heard it too. “It’s your mind playing tricks on you. It was probably just the wind.”

  They listened carefully some more; the wind had slowed to a gentle breeze as the heavy rain began to ease.

  Satisfied with his answer, Jess scrambled across the room and grabbed her iPad, then disappeared into the warm glow of her iPad screen.

  Daniel watched her as her eyes turned zombie-like in the screen’s light.

  He envied her.

  She always seemed to get away with murder and he wished Father would treat him the same way. But he had come to terms long ago with the fact that his dad must have had his favourite at this stage, so he’d just have to get on with it. Get school out of the way and then move away from Fingal County once and for all. That was his plan, anyway. It wasn’t concrete, but gave him something to work towards.

  The rain receded to a light drizzle that elegantly danced in the streetlights’ haze. Daniel could feel his eyes getting heavy, and his sister was not far behind.

  Time for bed.

  Reaching across the bed to break her concentration, Daniel aimed for her shoulder, but before he could tap it, the strange noise bellowed again – this time a little louder, then it was followed by a loud moaning.

  Jess dropped the iPad against her chest, her eyes wide. “That was not the wind!?”

  Daniel found it hard to disagree, as the pair darted for the window…

  Nothing stirred in the damp, dark garden below; it was eerily quiet.

  “Ollie?” Jess whispered, with a hint of fear.

  “It’s just our minds playing tricks on us. Ollie isn’t real, you said so yourself.”

  They peered out the window for a while longer, concluding that the noise was the work of their imaginations or indeed, it could have been the wind.

  After they both got themselves into bed, the house began settling for the night.

  The strange noise kept repeating in their heads…

  Eventually, Daniel managed to force himself to sleep.

  Jess plugged her ears with her iPad headphones. Just another one of Dad's tales to scare us and keep us in line, she told herself over and over again.

  Ruth McGovern went to a great effort to serve up a big family dinner. Hugh sat at the head of the table, as always, and didn’t thank her as his wife placed a plate of hot food in front of him. Instead, he was fixated on Jess and Daniel, observing their demeanour. He was a stern man and poor table manners were a pet peeve that could easily trigger his short temper.

  The kids were quiet, picking silently at their food.

  Ruth pottered around a little more before sitting at the opposite end of the table. With a shy smile she glanced up. “Enjoy, everyone.” The quartet sat in silence, nibbling – listening to the cutlery clinking.

  “Anyone going to tell us about their day?” Hugh said. His question went unanswered.

  Ruth replied with a story about her trip to the supermarket – it was met with silence and the quiet clinking of cutlery returned.

  “What about you two? What’s going on? Any news?”

  Daniel looked up from his plate to find Jess staring at him. He knew instantly what she wanted to say, but instead he opted for a shrug of the shoulders before looking down at his grub.

  “Dad… Is Ollie, real?” Jess finally blurted out, her eyes not daring to look up from her plate.

  Hugh took a moment to swallow what was in his mouth before glancing at Ruth, who knocked back a glass of wine in response.

  “What was that, darling?” he asked, his voice sounding timid for the first time in ages.

  “Ollie… You know. The monster in the shed?” Jess said, her eyes slowly lifting upward, wide with expression.

  “Oh! Took me a moment there. Ha, the giant man-eating spider? Good memory, darling. But no, of course not. Don’t be silly,” Hugh replied.

  The silence continued.

  While they ate, Ruth appeared to venture off elsewhere in her mind. She stared out the window, drinking wine while her dinner went untouched and cold.

  Both kids found themselves wondering why she was so absent. The sullen look on her face suggested something was on her mind.

  Jess kicked Daniel under the table and, when he looked up at her, she nodded towards their mother. He responded with an eye roll.

  “We heard him last night,” Jess continued.

  Her statement caught Ruth’s lost attention. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Jess proceeded to tell her mother about the strange noises emitting from the shed, but before the story was fully finished, Ruth had pretty much consumed the full bottle of wine, then turned away as if all interest was suddenly lost – a regular occurrence at the McGovern dinner table these days.

  “That’s just an old story, darling,” Hugh interrupted, returning with his trademark stern manner. “I only told you it when you were little, to scare you. Kids liked being scared… Now finish your greens and help your brother with the dishes.”

  A storm raged after dinner, but not outside. Instead it came from downstairs – Jess and Daniel listened to the confrontation taking place in the kitchen. The door was closed, so the exchange of words was faint to the children’s ears, but they both figured it was over Mam’s drinking again. They weren’t sure when this problem had started, but Daniel was convinced it h
ad been well over a year ago now. In fact, he found it hard to recall what she was like before the excessive boozing.

  These arguments tended to end in the same way, with Daniel intervening on his mother’s behalf, which in turn left him beaten, bruised and sent to his room.

  To cool off, Hugh would take Jess and Ruth on a drive. When they came home, the family would go to bed while Hugh locked himself away in the shed – sometimes for hours at a time.

  However, the usual pattern didn’t play out the same way tonight. The shouting stopped, leaving Daniel in limbo about whether he should go down or not.

  When his mother eventually left the kitchen, heading for bed, she left his enraged father pacing the kitchen.

  Jess came into Daniel’s room seeking comfort, and in typical big brother fashion, he wrapped his arm around her and held her. “Hopefully he’ll leave us alone tonight.”

  The back door slammed with a force that shook every eave in the house.

  The kids ran to the window and watched their father storm across the wet grass towards the end of the garden. In one hand, a set of keys glinted in the moonlight – in the other, a plastic bag.

  It was hard to make out from the window, but as Hugh fiddled with the lock on the shed door the kids watched.

  When door eventually opened, a light came on, revealing the white plastic bag and its contents – something deep red, bulging, dripping what appeared to be a red liquid onto the floor.

  Hugh stood in the doorway, then turned around, his gaze fixated on the back of the house – both kids looking on, scared.

  They could see he was taking deep breaths, almost as if he was gearing himself for something. His eyes were transfixed, intense, frightening Jess.

  He flinched, then was out of sight. The light went out and the door slammed shut.

  It was the one area of the McGovern household that was strictly off-limits to the children. When they were younger, it hadn’t bothered them as they were both scared of the man-eating spider that lurked within. But as they grew older, they started noticing signs of odd comings and goings.