Severed

by Peter Laws

  ‘Can’t you see, Ever?’ Prosper kept calling to him, even as Dust pulled back from Ever and helped him into the van. ‘Can’t you see how it’s starting? There’ll be more of them coming soon. Hundreds of them … thousands … might be a million of those things running through the fields as we speak.’

  Ever reached for Merit’s shivering hand and held it.

  ‘Unless we do what’s right and show the world …’ Prosper glared at the dead, dripping Hollow. Then he picked up rocks from the floor and started flinging them at the body. ‘Spread the word … tell the others. End’s comin’! End’s comin’!’

  Ever shivered at the cruelty. The manic, laughing hysteria of it, and though he closed his eyes, he could still hear the sickening wet thuds of rock on bone, which was when Ever realised what was happening. Even when they were dead, these Hollows could corrupt good people with little more than a constant stare. Prosper was strict, but he wasn’t evil. But now as he danced and hammered rocks at the car, he was changing into something that Jesus wouldn’t like or approve of.

  If this was the world, if this was what these enemies of Christ could do to good people, Ever had to join the fight. He clicked the van door open, slid back on to the grass and walked to Prosper. He slipped a hand into his. Prosper tore his gaze from the staring demon and looked at Ever’s hand.

  ‘We better get back,’ Ever said. ‘We better pray.’

  Prosper waited for a long, scary moment but then he dropped the rock from his other hand and nodded. ‘Okay.’ There was a smile on his face, but it was a thin, desperate, heartbreaking thing. He nodded to the car. ‘Milton, Dust? Get the tow rope. We’ll drag the car back and hide it.’

  It took a while to get the car tied and connected, but they did manage to drag it all the way. Nobody spoke on the way back. Mum and Pax came running to meet them. When they saw the mangled car, they threw up tears into the darkening sky. Especially Pax, who immediately ran up to the chapel, pulling and scraping at her hair, looking for her wire brush. Prosper shouted for Mum to join Pax in the chapel to pray. He said she certainly wasn’t to see the Hollow in the ruined car, not under any circumstances.

  They hauled the car around the back of the shed, and they all pulled a massive tarpaulin over it. Ever helped with that. Now they had one dead Hollow, just a few feet from a fully living one, still in the shed. It was when the living one started battering on the shed walls that Prosper dropped to his haunches and looked Ever in the eye.

  ‘Don’t be scared, son,’ he said. ‘Remember Jesus chose you. You’re going to open the doorway.’

  ‘But I am scared.’

  ‘You’re not.’ He put a hand on Ever’s chest. ‘You see, this shiver in here, I know it feels like fear … but it’s not. This is courage, Ever … it’s courage that Jesus is pulling out of you. It’s feels like a bad thing, but it’s a good thing. This shiver is glorious.’

  Ever put a hand to his own chest and tilted his head.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ Prosper said. ‘The tremble? The coldness?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s courage … and calling. That’s what you’re feeling. And all you need to do is do the things we say over the next few days …’

  He trailed off, because the shed door started rocking and the voice of the Hollow moaned from inside, asking to be let out. It could obviously tell someone was out there listening, but Ever didn’t run. They both just listened to it speaking. Saying its name was ‘Sam’ and that it had ‘done nothing wrong’. And just as it sounded kind and almost human, it asked them to take the tape off its eyes, which showed Ever what it really wanted.

  Ever kicked the shed hard and shouted, ‘Shut up in there.’

  The Hollow obeyed. It gave up talking and the horrible scrape of fingernails on metal came to a slow and laboured end. Prosper just ruffled Ever’s hair and said it was time to go in, so they did. Ever stopped on the porch and looked out across the field, and the dirt track where so much had only just happened.

  In the air, he heard a distant rumble. It sounded like the strangest thunder he’d ever heard.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Matt and Bowland stood waiting at the door of Rev. David East’s private ward. Through the glass square they could see the nurse leaning over him, changing a dressing. He lay on the bed looking frankly as comatose as before, and he still had tight bandages around the back of his head, but there were less of them now, and less machines and tubes, too. All the main lights in his room were off, except for one single Pixar-style lamp on the bedside table. If it was possible for an intensive care unit to look cosy, this one did.

  ‘Look at them,’ Bowland nodded down the corridor to the waiting room where the church pensioners milled around a coffee machine. They were laughing and hugging, amazed and excited that a resurrection had come. They were desperate too, to get in this room and see the faith-building sight of their very own Reverend Lazarus, but the nurses were keeping them at bay. Bowland had special permission to ask a few ‘brief’ and ‘non-taxing’ questions. Quite how they’d keep topics like axe attacks and dead sons in the ‘non-taxing’ category was something Matt was eager to see.

  Matt turned back to watch the nurse, fixing some sort of wired clip to East’s earlobe. ‘Does he know about Micah?’

  ‘Yes. I told him earlier.’

  ‘How’d he take it?’

  She whispered it. ‘He screamed.’

  Matt jumped when the nurse opened the door. ‘Keep it under ten minutes, please.’

  They both nodded and stepped inside the dim, blinking room. Matt assumed Bowland would start with a gentle whisper. Something soft to ease the fella in. But she dived right in with a clean, loud, clipped approach, with gaps between each word. A sort of William Shatner voice people use with deaf folks, or when they order lunch in a very foreign restaurant. ‘Reverend East … I’m DS Jill Bowland … and standing next to me … is Matthew … Hunter … he’s assisting us with—’

  ‘Volume.’ East’s voice came out as a croaking rasp. ‘Please. It hurts … my head. And I can hear you fine.’

  ‘Apologies.’ She dropped her voice. ‘It’s good to see you’re speaking again. Your congregation say it’s a miracle.’

  ‘So, do the doctors … I’ll keep my eyes closed, if you don’t mind. The light’s a bit much.’

  ‘Shall I turn it off?’ Matt said.

  ‘Best not. Don’t want you tripping over and yanking my mains plug out.’

  For a short and welcome moment, Matt laughed.

  ‘We’d like to ask you some brief questions.’ Bowland and Matt went to sit.

  ‘About why he did it?’

  ‘That was my main question, yes,’ she said.

  The grinding strain of his voice grew a little harsher, but he pushed on. ‘Well the first thing you need to know … is that Micah wasn’t a bad boy, and he wasn’t confrontational. Conflict isn’t in his nature. Or mine, either.’

  ‘So why did he—’

  ‘Attack me? Isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ Matt added. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Ah, but it is, Mr Hunter.’ He swallowed, and winced as he did it. ‘Are you aware that the most underappreciated form of abuse is neglect? It’s when a caregiver … through forgetfulness, or disinterest’ − he winced again − ‘when they take the attention they ought to give to a loved one and they squander it on other matters. And the worst type of neglect, the easiest type, happens through presumption.’

  Bowland flicked a look at the clock, for time.

  ‘We presume those closest to us will always be there, so we spend our time with those on the fringes instead, because we think the fringe is fleeting. Then you wake up one morning in a hospital bed with the police staring down at you, and you find that the ones you thought were for ever were actually on short-term loan. And you realise it’s your neglect that caused them to go. Both of them. I’ve preached on this topic many times. About the importance of family. But I only p
reached it to others. Never to myself, it turns out.’

  His eyes were still closed, and he had an astonishing calmness as he spoke, and though his voice was raspy and quiet (they both strained forward to hear it), it was steady and clear. Amazing, for his condition. Miraculous, even. But then Matt also knew that vicars were trained to hold things together under extreme stress. He remembered sitting in a class full of ordinands at Bible college, where the tutor specifically said: When you lead a funeral, even a heartfelt one of a little kid, you can never be the one who needs consoling. Others may weep, but you must stay strong. You must lead the ship.

  ‘Is neglect the only reason for the attack?’ Bowland said.

  ‘Isn’t that enough? The power of rejection is profound, Sergeant. Even more when it’s a father to a son … I ought to know because my own father did the same to me. He was a doctor, you know, and his patients were always more vital than us. I admired that for a while. Then it made me sad, and lonely … which became anger. And it stayed like that until he died. Today the irony is … I’m now him.’ With some effort, he finally started to open his eyes. Matt saw the sticky lids peel, tug, then finally pop apart. The narrowed gaze fell on Matt, and he was taken aback for a moment. The whites of his eyes weren’t white any more. They were a mixture of milky red and glazed yellow. He looked like a horror movie zombie – a talkative and erudite one yes, but a zombie none the less.

  Now the eyes were open, Matt said, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ East tried a smile.

  ‘You said you caused them both to go …’

  ‘Yes. Micah and Zara.’

  ‘We’re having trouble tracking her down,’ Bowland said. ‘Do you know where she’s travelling?’

  For the first time, East’s chin started to shudder.

  ‘Reverend East?’ Bowland said. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘That’s just what I told the congregation.’

  Matt and Bowland looked at each other. ‘You mean she isn’t travelling?’ Matt asked.

  He shook his head. ‘That was a … well, it was a lie.’

  Bowland frowned. ‘Then, where is she?’

  ‘In the hills …’ His chest started to heave, the emotions of it all whirling inside like a personal hurricane. But like a good, steady vicar, he battened the hatches down. ‘There you are. This is the first time I’ve told anybody about this, or at least anyone who wasn’t God. She left me. She found somebody new. Somebody who paid her attention, which makes him infinitely wiser than me. I don’t know his name … but he lives in the hills. You’ll find her there. Happier, no doubt. I followed her there, you see.’

  ‘When did you follow her?’ Bowland said.

  ‘A couple of months ago, after we argued. It was a rather loud one. She said I loved the old ladies more than her and more than Micah. I called her selfish, said she was losing her faith, and then she told me she didn’t care any more. Which is when the penny dropped. Micah heard it all, I’m sad to say.’

  Matt tugged his chair forward. ‘Where are these hills?’

  ‘The Chilterns. The beautiful Chilterns. See, she drove off after our row and so I got in my car and followed her. It was like a sordid little soap opera. I drove after her, and the higher we got, the more I knew. I just knew she’d found someone. I watched her pull off the main road and stop at a gate. Then a man opened up to let her in. She drove up a long dirt track and I was furious enough to trespass on his property. I followed her up thinking she was some sort of Judas or Jezebel. Imagine that, being furious that she was ignoring me. The irony …’

  ‘Did you confront her?’ Matt said.

  ‘I parked my car on the dirt track and looked through the bushes down this big hill, and there she was, sitting on the porch of a pretty little farmhouse. There was a field and a stream nearby and birds in the air too. It was heaven − no more, no less. And the man with her was holding her hand.’ A tear glistened in his zombie eye. ‘And do you know what? All my anger vanished at that precise moment, because I spent a good ten minutes watching him listen to her. I could see it, even at a distance. When they embraced for a long time I heard God’s voice. He said, David, this man is more worthy than you. He should have her. So, I came back down the hill and I drove home and I led a funeral that afternoon for an eighty-year-old man I’d never met before. The family asked me for dinner and of course like always I said yes. Always the last one to leave, that’s me. Zara came back that night. I found her in the church praying at the altar. I tried to talk and beg for forgiveness but she … she wouldn’t even look at me. I was heartbroken. Next day her things were gone. She’d left a note saying she wouldn’t be back. The only thing that really shocked me was that she’d leave Micah behind. They were very close. So, I’m not surprised Micah blamed me for her leaving, because he was right. And do you know what she called our marriage? In her note, I mean. Do you know what word she used?’

  Matt nodded for him to continue.

  ‘She said our marriage was hollow …’

  Matt tilted his head. ‘Hollow?’ The same word Micah used, just before the train.

  ‘Yes, she said our relationship was hollow … and that I was hollow too. And do you know something? She was right …’ His lip started to tremble. ‘I thought that was the perfect way to say it.’

  Bowland shifted in her chair. ‘Did Micah know about this other man?’

  ‘Yes … but I made him lie. I told him to tell the congregation she was travelling, and he wanted to lie. To protect her reputation, you see? I told him that his mum might change her mind someday, but I knew she wouldn’t … to be honest, I knew she shouldn’t.’

  Bowland said, ‘Well, she needs to know what happened to Micah … and to you.’

  He didn’t answer. He wept instead.

  They sat there for a moment, staring at this minister quaking. He wasn’t even able to reach up and cover his face with his own hands. So Matt reached out and placed his fingers on East’s kneecap. Then he said something he hadn’t heard on his lips in a very long time. A quote from Psalm 20. Back in his vicar phase, he’d found this particular Bible chunk to be pretty effective medicine for those in despair.

  ‘May the Lord answer you when you are in distress,’ Matt said it softly, ‘and send you help from his sanctuary.’

  The fact that there was no God to comfort Reverend East was kind of by the by. Mere facts didn’t strip these verses of their psychological power. Placebo or not, East gradually stopped crying and he looked up through his fluttering lashes at Matt. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, and East mouthed the words ‘Thank you.’ To which Matt did something he didn’t expect. He asked one more question. ‘Did you ever see the upturned crosses in your son’s bedroom?’ But the man winced and shook his head. He was through. Spent.

  The clock ticked over into ten minutes, and at that precise moment the door clicked open.

  ‘That’s all, folks,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Wait, where was this farm?’ Bowland said.

  He peeled his lips apart. ‘Old Moat Farm. In the hills … near Speen.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ the nurse snapped. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘And tell her …’ East was sobbing now, all his vicar power dissolved. ‘Tell her that the church isn’t crooked … and that I’m sorry. For forgetting what we had, for turning hollow … and tell her I wish her well with this man … that she deserves it …’

  ‘We’ll tell her,’ Matt said.

  ‘Personally …’ David stared at Matt. ‘You must tell her personally, Mr Hunter. She needs another Christian voice—’

  ‘Shhhh.’ The nurse threw a killer stare at Matt. ‘That’s enough for one day, don’t you think?’ Then one of the beeping machines upped its rhythm and the nurse snapped one more word. ‘Out!’

  They both hurried into the corridor, where Bowland was checking her phone.

  ‘That poor man,’ Matt said. ‘What an absolute nightmare.’

  She nodded, and they started walking.

&nbs
p; ‘Well, I’ll be fascinated to hear what Zara has to say,’ Matt said. ‘I’m around in the morning if you wan—’

  ‘Around for what?’

  ‘To head up to Old Moat Farm.’

  Bowland slowed her pace.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And you want to be the one who tells Mrs East that her son’s dead?’

  Matt slowed too.

  ‘I’ll send an officer up to inform her in the morning, then I’ll chat to her at some point.’

  ‘You’re not sounding very urgent.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not.’ She fixed her eyes on Matt. ‘For now, I’m satisfied.’

  Matt stopped walking, ‘Really?’

  ‘Look. It’s coming together. Micah had a lot of pent-up emotion about his dad. Now we know his dad might have even driven the mother from the home. Eventually all that anger exploded, and he lashed out.’

  ‘The magazines … the pissing on the church altar …’

  ‘You said yourself that teenagers lash out symbolically … at the things their parents value. Urinating on the altar was just mocking his dad’s job.’ She smiled at him. The kind of look a teacher gives to a dumb kid. ‘Do you realise what most murder statistics boil down to?’

  ‘Killing?’ He didn’t hide his frustration.

  ‘No … it’s emotional, relational breakdown. They’re almost always domestic issues. What I’m saying is that life isn’t always epic. Sometimes death isn’t a conspiracy. Sometimes’ − she looked away at the women in the waiting room, then put a hand across the band of beads on her wrist − ‘sometimes the world isn’t about big miracles or evil curses. It’s just broken people lashing out at the ones they love. And that’s about it.’