For The Night Is Dark Read online

  I feel a whisper of cool air at the back of my neck, moving left to right. Towards Mick.

  “Fuck this.” Mick gets up—I feel it in a fast whoosh of coppery air to my right and then faster still in front of me. I start trying to get up too, but my dead left leg drops me onto all fours. Wendy starts screaming for Mick to take her too, but I know he won’t. She pushes against me as she struggles to get back onto her feet—the someone kicks her hard enough that she falls forward into me instead, sending us both sprawling onto the carpet. It’s wet. It smells.

  Mick makes it as far as the kitchen, maybe even the back door. His scream is far away, but I can hear the dismay in it before the horror gets louder. And then nothing. More silence.

  Wendy is sobbing when the someone comes back. We still can’t hear him, can’t see him. And now we can’t even feel him. But he’s still here. He’s here.

  Would this be when Wendy and I hug and clutch at each other like we never did when we were kids? Is this when we realise that there are worse things than each other? I grab for her when she gets up; I scream for her, because my leg still won’t work and she’s my big sister whether she wants to be or not. I remember the books Mr Ingles gave me; I remember him telling me that family is the worst and best of everything—that it’s why we exist at all.

  Wendy screeches and falls back against me again, scrabbling for a hold of my sweaty cold skin. I shoot out my good arm and it slides through the hot slick wet of her chest. I don’t scream. I don’t take my hand away. Instead, I half kneel, my heels digging into my numb bum, my free hand drawing into a fist. I feel Wendy die: she runs over my good hand in hot hiccups. I hear her die in frothy breaths that are still trying to scream.

  After, I don’t try to get up because there’s no point. I can’t smell pork sides anymore. Just blood. I know the someone is still in here with me. Prowling around the front room. And I don’t much care. We’re despicable, is that it? Is that why? If it is, then it’s a worse reason than no reason at all. It’s worse than jacked up kids knocking down telegraph poles; worse than the olds setting fire to everything they hate; worse than drunks beating up their useless wives and children, or jealousy spent through ugly sex, or councils making fancy spreadsheets and calling dirtshit poor something no one else can pronounce. Worse than the good ones jumping ship and leaving the rest of us behind. Worse than teachers pretending that there’s something else, something better. Somewhere else.

  Eventually, I lean back, wiping Wendy on my jeans. My hands are still shaking, but it’s not because I’m scared. Not anymore. Even I can see that despicable people can only breed despicable people. It’s no reason at all.

  I reach out my palms so I can stand, and my fingers brush against metal. Wendy’s fake Zippo. I pick it up. It feels very cold. I thumb the wheel once, twice; the second time it sparks but doesn’t take. I stand up slowly. Swallow. The third turn bursts into bright light. I hold it up and away from me. Dad and Wendy are sprawled on the carpet: Dad on his back, his neck a red smile; Wendy on her side, still letting out hiccups of blood. Her skin is pulled back in one big flap, and I think there’s the white of her ribs inside it. I can see the shadowed, open-mouthed gape of Mum in her armchair. There’s no blood on her at all.

  I turn the light towards the front room door and the someone scuttles across it on all fours. I balk before remembering that I’m not scared. I step around Wendy, being careful not to stand on her outstretched fingers. I finally hear a sound, but it’s not one I like. My imagination thinks it’s a chuckle, but it didn’t sound like one.

  I creep towards the door, mainly because I’m being allowed to. Is it because I’m not as despicable? Maybe the someone doesn’t know about Mick or all the stealing. I hold the lighter high and out, and it makes me feel safer even if it only exposes me and more shadows; even if it only makes the dark around it darker. It feels like a torch, a priest’s cross. I feel for the door’s edge with shaking fingers. I step into the hall.

  I smell the petrol before I feel it splash against my skin. I’ve flung the lighter forwards into the kitchen before I start screaming. It lands on its side on the lino, flame hissing bigger, exposing Mick’s curled up body against the kitchen unit under the sink, pulling his face about. His cut out eye dangling against his cheek.

  I forget that I shouldn’t be screaming. I forget that I’m not scared anymore. And then the petrol hits my face like it’s been thrown from a bucket and I gag instead of scream, trying to turn my body away. More petrol hits my shoulders, my back. Another throw soaks my jeans, sucking them in against my shaking legs. The stink is bad—the stink is terrible—but the threat of it is worse.

  I don’t try to run back into the front room because I don’t want to die with my dead family, and I don’t run down the hall towards the bedrooms because I don’t want to die anywhere else. I don’t run towards the front porch because the door is always locked and I don’t know where the keys are. My only escape route is through the kitchen and the back door, but the still lit fake Zippo is there, spitting and hissing, barring my way. And I know—I know—that the someone is there too.

  I cough, try not to choke. Try not to cry. I edge my way into the kitchen, my soggy feet squeaking on the lino. The fake Zippo is lying right in the centre of the room and it’s not a big room. I pretend that it’s my only enemy because it might as well be.

  A couple of feet in and my hip bangs hard against the kitchen table, making me shriek. I grab for its edges with my sore fingers, never taking my eyes off that hissing flame. The table pushes me out towards it, but I let myself get no closer than I have to, even though I just want to run—to take my chances and run for the kitchen door and the back door a few feet past it. I don’t. I’m too terrified of what it’ll feel like to go up like a bonfire. I know it’ll hurt a lot worse than having my oxygen cut off or my throat slashed into a smile.

  I try not to look at Mick either as I keep on edging towards the door, and that’s easier to do, even though the fake Zippo keeps catching the dangle of his eyeball, making me think that it’s still moving.

  The kitchen door is very light—I don’t even think it’s proper wood—when I hit it with my shoulder, it starts swinging shut. I grab for it with a nearly quiet shriek, yanking it back too hard, banging it off the table. I make my hands into fists and stop its backswing with my foot. The fake Zippo is now far enough away that I can move out towards the space that the open kitchen door has left. The back door is less than two feet away.

  The someone stands up. Like he’s been crouching on all fours inside the kitchen doorway, waiting for me to think that he’s gone. I still can’t see him, but I can hear him in a slow whoosh of air rising up from the lino. And I can feel him. He doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t sweat. But he’s there. Inches away.

  Two hands punch against my chest, staggering me back into the kitchen. Towards Mick. Towards the fake Zippo.

  “No, please. Nopleasenopleaseplease.”

  He stops pushing long enough for me to run as far away from him and the fake Zippo as I can without giving up any more ground. I smack hard into the kitchen table again, doubling myself over it, whacking my chin against its top, my teeth cracking together, singing high inside my head. I spit what tastes like more blood, and then turn around.

  The light from the fake Zippo has gone. I don’t know if it’s because it’s really gone or because he’s standing between me and it. I try to listen for its hiss, but all I can hear is my own breathing and the blood rushing through my ears.

  And then I hear a muted thump, maybe a kick. A groan. I bite down on my swollen tongue again. The groan is Mick. Mick isn’t dead.

  Another kick. Another louder groan. Mick isn’t dead.

  I imagine eyes looking at me in the dark. My heart kind of stops, and then starts banging too hard and too fast, making me feel sick again. I suddenly realise I’m being offered a choice. Mick and me. Or just me. In Mr Ingles’ books, the main character always knows what to do. In the end, they kn
ow what is the right thing to do. I don’t. And not just because the petrol and the fear and my heart are making me feel sick and a bit dizzy. Not just because if one of them was still going to be alive, I’d want it to be Mick.

  If the someone is a vigilante like the olds down the Mermaid and Bobby’s Bingo, he wants me to leave Mick behind. But if he’s the Devil like in Paradise Lost, and God is waiting to see what I’ll do, then I’m supposed to take Mick with me. And if he’s just a man like Dad said—a man come to get money or his kicks—then I’m fucked whatever I do. But he’s not just a man. I know that at least.

  A finger—I think a finger—traces the left tendon of my neck, down to my collarbone where it digs in. I hear the raspy turn of the fake Zippo’s wheel. I see its brief spark inches from my face. And as far as I care, it takes away my choice.

  I turn and run. I run into and then around the kitchen’s flapping door, my wet feet skidding on the lino as I grab for the doorframe, bending back my nails. My sore fingers scream. The back door feels cold against my skin. I scrabble for the handle even as I hear Mick’s groans getting louder, more awake. For a few seconds I think that it’s all a lie—that the door is locked; that I never had any kind of choice at all—and then the back door gives in its usual bang, and cold briny air rushes in, pushing me backwards.

  Not for long. I lunge through the new space, ignoring the door’s stupid loud creak. I’m already down the steps, around the house and into the street when I hear the bigger bang as it shuts again. Mick screams high and long, but I pretend it’s the wind. It could be—the wind off the Sands is as sharp as a bitch’s tongue, Dad says.

  I stop running when I reach what I think is the middle of the street. I stand shivering instead. There are no lights anywhere in Brooklands. I look right, where I know the black skeleton of the Red Lion is, but I don’t go towards it. I look in the direction of Fat Bob’s chalet, but I don’t want to go there either. If I squint, I can see the lights that Mick saw out on Breckfield, but that’s far too far away. I look back at the dark of my house.

  I should be running, I know that. But I can’t. This is my home, and it’s surprisingly hard to leave it. I don’t know what it was all for—what it is all for. Am I safe? And if I am, what do I do? Where do I go? What do I say?

  I’m still shaking so hard that my knees keep nearly giving way, pushing my bum out, making me flail about for blind balance. I can smell the sea, which should be impossible because I’m still covered in petrol and Wendy’s blood—but I can smell it all the same. I can even hear the crash of waves out on the Sands.

  He comes out through the back door. It doesn’t bang or creak open. It shuts with a tiny snick that I still hear. Over the wind, the waves, the shaking chatter of my teeth, the stutter of my breath.

  I imagine eyes looking at me in the dark again. I imagine that dark sucking close until nothing else is left between us. I push my sore tongue against my incisors.

  A hand grabs at my wrist, bringing it up in front of my chest. Fingers prise mine open and something crinkles inside my palm. When my fingers are forced shut, the round feel of it scratches at my skin.

  I feel a breath that isn’t a breath. A chuckle that isn’t a chuckle. A threat that isn’t even a whispered word. And then my fist is let go—dropped like a stone against my sore thigh.

  I close my eyes because they won’t stop watering. I take one breath and then another.

  “Go away.” But I don’t think I say it. And no one is there to hear me even if I do.

  He’s gone.

  I stand in the middle of Brooklands for a long time. Long enough for clouds to move inland, first spitting against my skin, and then beating down hard enough to echo inside the Red Lion’s ribs and against steel shutters.

  The sound wakes me up a bit. Or maybe it’s because the worst of the petrol is washing away in the rain. I lift up my fist and let my fingers fall open. The paper doesn’t crinkle so much now it’s wet. I think of playing rock, paper, scissors with Old Western on the front porch as I peel it away from the rounder thing beneath.

  I know what that thing is, of course. I let my numb fingers slide over its slick, bumpy surface for a second or two, and then I push it into my jeans pocket. I don’t know why. Maybe because it belonged to Mick.

  The paper is wet and getting wetter. I try to smooth it out, but I don’t know why I’m bothering. I can’t see it any more than I can see anything else. And I know what it says—I can guess what it says.

  21 Brooklands: next to Old Western, opposite the burnt out Red Lion.

  I screw it into a ball between my palms, and my skin is now numb enough that it doesn’t hurt at all. I throw it into the dark.

  And I start walking back towards Julie’s bit.

  THE RIVER

  —ARMAND ROSAMILIA—

  Harlan heard the body before he saw it. Bloated with flies and critters, the cacophony echoed through the strip of forest that was left, keeping up with the fast-moving cars on the overpass ahead and the shallow river gurgling along its dying noise as the sun drained it drop by drop. It’s not the heat. It’s the humidity, his granny used to say to them. Harlan believed it, covered in sweat and now in no mood to go fishing before it became a mud hole.

  The banks sloped down, wet and brownish black, into the water, the sun attacking spots it hadn’t touched in decades. Momma said this was the worst drought in fifty years, but Harlan was only eleven and had no idea if she were right or just exaggerating like she was apt to do.

  Harlan got as close to the muddy bank as he dared.

  He didn’t think she’d been dead long. She still had skin and hair and teeth, although her eye sockets were empty. Half submerged in the muck about twenty feet from the sloping bank, with a thick chain around her waist and threading up around her neck and down to her wrapped feet, she was jammed under a fallen tree branch as thick as Harlan’s body. He glanced up at the whizzing cars and wondered if anyone could see her down here, if anyone had stopped or even noticed in their rush.

  The flies were surrounding her in angry waves. The stench was strong but he didn’t know if it was the body or just the muck of the river drying out.

  Harlan felt sorry for the girl, whoever she was. His impulse was to slide down the bank and approach her, but he knew from watching Momma’s television reality shows that you never messed with the crime scene. He suddenly felt very sad for the girl and began to cry.

  ***

  Harlan wiped his muddy sneakers on the worn welcome mat outside the kitchen door, put his fishing pole against the house, and hoped lunch was ready. Most days Momma was in the living room, watching her stories, and he made himself a sandwich.

  Not today.

  “Hey, Son,” his daddy said with a warm smile. He was seated at the kitchen table eating a ham and cheese sandwich, a cold glass of sweet tea in his hand.

  Momma, beaming, put a napkin in front of her husband. “Harlan, honey, your daddy is back.”

  “For how long?” Harlan asked and refused to enter the kitchen. He hadn’t seen this man in four years and now suddenly he was back and eating a sandwich.

  “Forever, Son.” His daddy pushed the chair next to him out with a foot. “Sit with your old man while I eat. Man, you got big, Harley.”

  “No one calls me that. My name is Harlan, or did you forget?”

  His momma raised her hand as she wheeled on him. “You show some respect for your daddy and for an adult, do you hear me, young man?”

  Harlan’s daddy put a hand up before she could slap her son. “It’s fine, I deserve that.” He smiled again and took a sip from his sweet tea. “Come and sit with me, Son.” His daddy glanced at his momma and she retreated to the living room.

  Reluctantly Harlan obeyed, but pulled the chair as far away as he could. He remembered the beatings his momma would take from this man when drunk, and the last night before he stumbled out when he sliced Harlan with the broken beer bottle. Harlan rubbed his thumb against the scar as he stared at the m
an.

  His daddy lost his smile for a second but recovered. “I’m really sorry about that, buddy. I was a different man back then.” He took the last bite of his sandwich and talked around his food. “I swear to God I haven’t had a drink in four years, and don’t want to.” He looked away and seemed to stare at the cheap painting on the wall. “I’ve learned so much and made peace with all my mistakes.” He turned back to his son. “I know I have so much to prove to you, little man. And I intend to, trust me. Your momma is just happy I’m home; I know she’s been struggling without me here. But you . . . you’re just like me, boy, you need someone to prove to you they’ve changed. I intend to do that.”

  Harlan liked the words but knew enough about people already in his short life to remember the old man, drunk and raging around the kitchen, threatening to kill his momma.

  “I’ll tell you what: tomorrow we’ll toss the ball around. When I left you were too young to get in a good game of catch, but now we can do all the things we missed. Can you ride a bike?”

  “I don’t have a bike.”

  “Well then the first thing I’m going to do when I get me a job is buy you one, a brand new bicycle and we’ll go for rides together. How does that sound?”

  Harlan smiled despite his reluctance to believe his daddy.

  “We’ll go into town and see a movie and get out of the heat, too. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’m sure your momma would love to see a romantic comedy.” He smiled at Harlan. “Sometimes, Son, you have to watch a Jennifer Aniston movie to keep on the good side of a woman. That’s a lesson for you, right there. No more bad lessons from your old man, got it? I’m only going to teach you the proper things to do in life. Like treating women with respect, or working hard for what you want instead of trying to take it. I’ve been given a second chance with you and your momma and I won’t ruin it this time.”

  “Can we get a swimming pool?” Harlan asked.