“Supper’s ready!”
“I’m not hungry!” It was true enough. He seemed to have lost his appetite lately. Normally he would expect his stomach to rumble well before this time of day. But these last weeks he always felt full, even first thing in the morning. It did not worry him. Nature would take its course. He’d eat when he was hungry, sleep when he was tired. No sleep for him tonight, of course, nor any night until his plan came together. In the meantime he laid in the deepening dark and contemplated his future. His bright, brilliant---
He snapped awake in pitch darkness. At first he was disappointed – shocked – by the realisation that had fallen asleep after all. Then came the question, what had woken him? He listened. No sounds from the room beyond the bathroom, where his mother slept alone, presumably on the bare floorboards now she had burned the bed. But there were sounds from further down the corridor. From the twins’ room. Soft snickering, a regular breathless beat. Stephen suddenly shivered. He had somehow, sometime, taken his clothes off, all of them. He was lying on top of his duvet stark naked. No wonder he was cold. He got out of bed, fumbled for his discarded clothes. Couldn’t find them. No matter: he wasn’t that cold. Curiosity carried him to his bedroom door, which he always left slightly ajar. He hoped nobody had looked in on him. Seen him sprawled atop the duvet in all his glory. He wouldn’t want his mother or Richard to see that. Amelia he was less concerned about. Indeed, he rather enjoyed the idea of Amelia seeing him so. He was through the door before he realised, standing in the corridor. Again, the corridor seemed to him to have closed in on itself. He felt cramped, confined, hemmed in. No matter. He tiptoed down the threadbare carpet. The farmhouse at Oughterthwaite was old and poorly built; the floorboards were warped and splintered and set up a regular cacophony of creaks and cracks if you weren’t careful. But Stephen was careful. He had lived here half his life and knew every idiosyncrasy of the house. He made his way soundlessly to the door of the twins’ bedroom. Put his ear to the woodwork. Held his breath...
To begin with, nothing. Then, a tinkling laugh. Amelia’s laugh. Following by a smothered chuckle from Richard. And the soft, insistent thud-thud resumed. Whispered gasps, unvoiced groans. In a single cataclysmic instant he realised beyond any doubt what they were doing in there. What they had doubtless been doing night after night after night. Richard’s torpor was explained. Amelia’s dreamy detachment.
Horror, disgust, revulsion all rose in his throat. Red rasping fury flooded his brain---
---and he was back in his dream, the dream where he was running, racing, not angry now, not any more, no, excited, exhilarated, the thrill of the chase. They were behind him, the chasers, them. Not far but far enough. This was his province, this slate-grey landscape flecked with silver, hemmed with tall ever-so-slender, ever-so-straight trees. No, not trees because they bent as he swept by and he wasn’t big enough to bend trees. Not quite. Bamboo – yes, that was the word that came into his mind. Golden, starlit Yorkshire bamboo. Ha! They were upon him now. No – beyond him, up ahead. How had they done that? How could they possibly---
They couldn’t. They hadn’t. It wasn’t them. Somebody else was up ahead. Friend or foe? He swerved to the right, crashing through a clump of whatever this golden stuff was, darting across a short clearing, back into cover. Whatever it was up ahead had crossed with him. He had been seen. That wasn’t good. It wasn’t wise. It was exciting, though. He giggled. Something else gurgled. No – that was him. Giggling was gurgling for him now, and that was downright hilarious.
He had been running for ages. But he didn’t feel tired. His energy was boundless. He wasn’t so much running as fly---
---falling. He was falling, tumbling, plummeting. One second the ground was frost-hard, dependable. The next it was gone – gone where? – and he was falling. Falling like a ton of bricks onto soft black earth. A grave, it had to be. It was deep, narrow, black, all hallmarks of a grave. But graves were for dead people and he wasn’t---
A shadow passed across the face of the moon. A tall, gangling scarecrow shadow. He knew that scarecrow. He greeted it. Ow! But it didn’t sound right. It definitely sounded like ow in ouch, a squeal of sheer frustration. The man didn’t respond to the greeting. Instead he stared down into the hole, his jaw loose, muttering bloody hell, bloody hell, over and over, like it made a difference.
Other shadows joined the scarecrow. More shadows he recognised. One small and slim, one large and bulky, and one inbetween. His mother’s face shone like a second moon, albeit a haggard one of hard planes and deep hollows.
The scarecrow told her, I never thought – I mean, it were his idea, the lad’s, the trap---
Olivia ignored him at first. Then she whispered something to the larger of the two shadows who had come with her. A spade was handed to her, presumably the spade with which Scarecrow Lumsden had dug the trap. Certainly, the sight of it set him off on another round of I didn’t know--- How could I? Nobody in his right mind would imagine--- At this point words failed the old man. Instead he jabbed a long bony finger at Stephen down below. Didn’t he know it was rude to point? Didn’t he know Olivia – Mum – couldn’t abide rudeness?
Well he knew now. Olivia stepped back, swung the spade, and struck Scarecrow Lumsden with the sharp edge between muffler and chin. Lumsden fell. He fell to the side, out of Stephen’s limited view. He was glad the old man hadn’t fallen into the hole with him. That would have been ... unpleasant. He stank a little and would be more than a little bloody now.
Thanks, Mum, he tried to say. But nothing sensible came out. Above, Olivia stepped briefly out of sight, returning with shotgun in place of spade. Yes, that’s his gun, Stephen said in his head. Good idea not to leave it with him. You never know. He might not be ... not entirely... Anyway, probably for the best.
Then he heard another voice, also apparently inside his skull. Up top Olivia’s lips were moving, but her words sounded inside Stephen’s head, not really words at all, just ideas or suggestions for words.
...always special... all for you... we had to move... had to when it became... when you became... the twins... company for you when we... a breeding pair... you could have... but no... Finn’s fault... let you run wild... I told him...
And Stephen replied the same way: Not wild, Mum. Feral. There’s a diff---
He let the thought dwindle and die, suddenly aware of his nakedness under his mother’s searchlight gaze. As he lay there looking up his willy lay on his belly, ridiculous and obscene. His reached down, tried to cover it with his hand. But his hand was no longer under his control. His willy neither. It squirmed away from him, like a worm from a crow.
Up above, someone laughed, an ethereal bell of a laugh. Amelia. He saw her now. Moonlight became her. It rendered her smooth, without blemish, like one of the ancient statues he had seen once at the British Museum. He saw Richard beside her. Richard, who he now realised, looked not unlike himself. Perhaps they were related after all. Blood kin. He saw his mother, flanked by twins. He saw her raise the shotgun. Take aim. He tasted meat juice, felt shards of baked skin between his teeth. He saw his mother’s colourless lips form the words of a fond farewell. Then
Also by this author: PATASOLA
Here’s a sample:
I awoke this morning with the realization that I am losing my mind.
I pulled back my curtains and, though the day was grey and drizzly, was blinded by the light. A four-horse removal van passed below my window; the cannonade of hooves on cobbles sent me reeling. Instinctively, I groped my way back towards my bed and only just managed to stop myself. I knew, somewhere at the back of my mind where the old analytical Daladier still lives, that if I returned to bed I would never rise again. I therefore sank onto the upright chair I keep before my dressing table. When I had recovered somewhat I slid the towel from the mirror and surveyed the damage I have done to myself these last weeks.
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My beard is now some two inches long. I have never cared for facial hair, even when it was fashionable, but have decided to keep the beard for now. It hides the sunken cheeks and slack neck of a man who has starved himself almost to the point of no return. I will shave it off when – if – I regain a normal, healthy layer of fat.
The hair on top of my head has started to fall out. I now have a distinct widow’s peak. My teeth are loose in their sockets. My gums bleed when I touch them. My tongue, when I examined it, was covered with a mottled grey coating which fortunately yielded to my scraper.
My ribs, of course, are plainly visible, as are my hips and sacrum. My lower legs are covered with a rash which I take to be psoriasis. There is a similarly unpleasant infection on the skin of my scrotum. But nothing, I believe, that cannot be cured by the resumption of a normal diet.
My mental condition, however, is a far greater cause for concern. The conclusion cannot be avoided that, temporarily at least, I have been clinically insane. This