by Julian Cheek
Then they stopped. Silent. Waiting.
Their hair was adorned with bits of feather and bone and some were wearing head dresses from some wild fantasy, but none were as terrifying as the individual standing in Sam’s direct line of vision.
The largest and most evil of them all stood proud of the group of men, his eyes staring intently around the quivering community as if seeking out his first victim of the day. This “leader” was covered in tattoos of intense patterns and Sam saw a fretwork of cuts and gashes over his torso and legs as if his position as head of this clan of dogs had been a hard fought occurrence. Long, dirty hair hung loosely down his back in contrast with the others. Black, soulless eyes stared out over the crowd until they settled… on Sam. A scar running from forehead to chin flexed as he chewed on a piece of grass sticking out of his mouth. He was grinning wickedly from ear to ear and then spat the green squib out!
“What is this?” he asked, expecting the crowd to be running in fear but instead they were standing still, their backs turned outward and away from his men, looking, he noticed, at a solitary figure, Sam. “Are you their chief?” he queried. “If so, you will be the last to die. Do you not know who I am?”
“We know who you are, Half tooth,” said the old man who had first addressed Sam. “But do you know who stands before you?” gesturing towards Sam, who, for all the world, wished he could just disappear. “If you did,” he continued calmly, “perhaps it is you who would be afraid!”
As for Sam, he found himself frozen to the spot, not believing this nightmare he had stumbled into. His fear clutching at his throat prevented any sound escaping from him.
The leader’s eyes grew enormously large in his face as he battled to understand what had just been said, and that from a frail, old, bent runt of a man who, even now, was insulting not only his name, handed down from his forebears, but also his position and rank as leader in front of all his men.
He pushed out his already extended barrel chest and cried out, his voice carrying over those around him. “I am Napayshni, the Strong, leader of the clan of P’rui of the people of Bjarke. Run, little chickens, run, and try to escape that which lies in wait here to cut you down. Let’s have a little sport with you while you still have breath.” And with that, he drew his crescent shaped sword from within his tunics and held it aloft.
No one moved! Not the men, not the women. Even the children stood still, all looking inward. All looking at a small, insignificant young whelp who, for some reason, held their eyes, and their faith.
Napayshni had never been insulted or made to feel worthless like this, and his anger bubbled out of his mouth as he spat and dribbled out his next command. “So. You stand as men? You die as dogs!” And he slid his blade up to the hilt into the back of a man nearest to him, who, without a sound, looking pleadingly at Sam, slipped slowly off the dripping blade and sank to the floor. Napayshni became enraged that his planned “sport” for the day was not going well. “What?” he cried. “Is this some sort of holy man that you feel no pain? No fear? Men… Kill or be killed and tomorrow we will pray over their bones.”
Needing no further excuse, his men sprang to the attack, their war cries renting the air in sick jubilation. The outer row of people fell quickly. There was no order to things. No decision to spare those nearest. All started to be hacked down where they stood, the knot of people remaining, slowly becoming tighter and tighter, still focussed on Sam. No cries of fear tore through the space, though an electric air of emotion was tangible to all. To Sam, this was like a silent slasher movie gone wrong and he, the sole spectator.
“Stop it! Stop it! Stoppppppppp ittttttttt,” he screamed, as, one after the other, the people around him fell where they stood. All keeping their eyes on Sam. All hoping. All believing. All dying. He didn’t know these people and yet, for some reason, they “saw” him. Believed in him. “For what?” he questioned. “What possible purpose could this all serve?”
All around him was utter carnage. The living now being pushed forward by the dying falling into them. The dying seeing their life force drain away and their outstretched bodies, concentrically arranged like petals of a flower, with Sam, the centre. He willed himself to awake from this nightmare but it evaded him and slowly but surely he witnessed what no person should. Wanton death and destruction was occurring all around him, and, for some inexplicable reason, he was supposed to be partly responsible for this mess!
The torch bearers lost their grip on the torches, which fizzled out on the sand, merging flame and smoke with the blood of the innocents.
Only one man remained. The tribe of blood-thirsty men seemed to pause for a moment and in the eerie silence, Sam was dealt the worst blow.
The old, wizened, half-blind man who had first greeted Sam spoke. “I am Arana, the Rock, of the beloved clan of the she bear, Ia-pea. I refused to listen to the others, Sam. They said, at Tangaroa, that you stood there and did nothing. That you allowed their deaths to occur, but I did not believe it, until now. You stand here before me, and refuse to help. How long, Sam? How long will you exist without being? Do you despise us that much?”
And then he gasped as the end of a dirty blade blasted out from his chest, pushed with huge force by Napayshni. A soft, almost whispering breath escaped Arana’s mouth and he too, like his kin, slid off the blade and slumped to the floor.
There was no noise to cover the screaming silence Sam now experienced. He was lost in emotion never before felt. His eyes scorched with the smell of death and the smoke curling up as insence mocked him. Before him stood this so-called “leader”, but all Sam saw was a coward. And his anger focussed itself solely on him.
“What?” Napayshni spat. “You still do nothing? Are you, nothing? You will die just like these around you and then we will feast on your flesh, just like we did to those at Tangaroa, and P’nui and Rudhjanda.” And with that, a low cackle escaped his lips as he raised his sword high, ready to chop down yet another life.
In the periphery of Sam’s vision, a blur of lightning seemed to shoot through the open tent flap behind Napayshni, lancing through a few unfortunate men, who for the briefest of moments, were not aware of the gaping holes in their chests, revealing darkened cavities, ribs and lungs. Shock took them shortly thereafter and they fell hard, landing amongst those they had just killed. The “lightning” headed straight for Napayshni, who sensed this new disturbance before he registered it on his face. His body froze as he recognised that this energy was indeed, even now, at his door, and looking to break it down with force.
His chest burst outward with a loud “clap” spewing sinew, bone fragments and bloody gore onto Sam, who now saw that, rather than a bolt of energy, this “thing” was indeed something animalistic. All fur and teeth and claws. Eyes of steel and teeth as sharp as knives. Napayshni was dead long before his body felt the weight of gravity and succumbed to it, falling before Sam in bloody finality.
Sam stepped back instinctively from this new “enemy”, finally shocked into movement after what seemed an eternity of terror. He was aware of a questioning thought escaping his mind. “Babu? Is that you?” But before he got any further, his backward steps took his feet into contact with an inert body and he started to fall. As at the bridge, seemingly eons before, he felt himself looking at this scene almost in a detached sort of way. He sensed his body falling backwards, his arms rising up into the air. He was also aware of this animal now turning its attention to the remaining attackers, who slowly started to flee and scatter, but it was too late for them. Way too late, and the furry blur disappeared into the throng, ripping, slashing, repaying the damage caused.
Sam hit his head hard on the dusty ground, one last thought firmly etched on his mind.
I did nothing!
Rain on the windows
Sam became aware once more of his surroundings. His eyes remained tightly shut as he fully expected that “thing” to turn on him at any second and end his miserable existence, as it had seemed to do for the other inva
ders. His hair on the back of his neck crackled in expectation and he felt his skin go from clammy and hot to shivering and cold in rapid succession. There was no noise, however, from outside the comfort envelope he had created for himself through the closing of his eyes, so he carefully opened them to see what dangers waited in store for him, out there.
Silence! Emptiness. No animal, no people on the floor writhing in agony, no dead enemies around him. No! Instead of this, he saw another form of destruction all around him with the coffee table, mats, glasses, chairs and destroyed picture frame dotted around like so much broken kindling. He was home. Lying on the living room floor, blood trickling down and into his eyes, stinging them into an involuntary blinking movement. It looked for all the world as if a giant had trampled through the room and left chaos in its wake.
“Oh my goodness,” he moaned. “What on earth has just happened to me?” His mind flitted back to what he had just experienced, convinced that the enemy would, at any moment, come bolting out from behind the curtains and stab him through the chest. But the only thing that launched to stab him was the sunlight of the late afternoon sun filtering through the living room window, which, miraculously, had remained intact. His mind went back over the things he could vaguely remember from his dream a few seconds ago. At the time so vivid, now, apparently so unreal. Arana, the old man, who appeared to have thought that Sam was some sort of hero, Napayshni, that weird Indian, now most definitely dead, but where? He thought of these and the people who had died all around him, worshipping him, and he felt embarrassed. Why on earth would I dream such a load of old codswallop? he thought.
Looking around the decimated room he recalled why it had become like this. “David!” he began, “You were the reason for all this.” He saw now that his fit of frustration and anger a few minutes ago almost definitely was the cause for his blacking out, and the toppled candelabra besides him with a few dried blood stains evident on the stand proved that this was no freak occurrence. “And it bloody hurt!” he said to himself, rubbing his temple gingerly. He linked the sight that greeted him here with the articles in the dream, and peace settled onto his shoulders lightly and gently, as if massaging them for him. The loss of his brother and the resultant grief and frustration that he could have, or should have, done something to save him from that cruel death, even though he knew in his heart of hearts that he really would not have been able to do anything to save David, merged with the dream world he had just been “swimming” in as if hand-in-glove. Merging. Becoming one. And the only message that stayed true when everything else faded into silence was a simple fact weaving through both situations.
“I did nothing!”
He stood up slowly, the blood pounding in his temples as the pain ebbed and flowed through his head like a whirling Banshee. A groan escaped his lips and he moved falteringly out of the living room, pushing the weird dream away from his mind, putting it down to the emotional turmoil he had just unlocked by stumbling unexpectedly on the photo frame. If he was being brutally honest, he thought afterwards, it was more to do with not being able to cope with yet more guilt at doing nothing, and this time, for a world that didn’t even exist, rather than as a result of it being a dream in the real sense. Sam walked slowly out of the destroyed room, not bothering to clean up the mess he had made. He knew, and yet was seemingly unfazed about it, that he would have a lot more to deal with when his parents returned back from wherever they were, if they were at all bothered.
At around 6pm, Sam heard the car doors close below from the driveway and the sound of feet heading towards the front door, crunching through the “river-washed” pebbles dad had bought from the DIY shop last year. He heard the keys rattle the front door and the voices of his mum and dad as they entered the hallway, talking about one thing or another. They seemed to be quite animated, for once, which in itself was a miracle. But that would soon stop… It did. The voices were cut off as if by a knife as Sam imagined them entering the living room and seeing the damage that had been caused. He heard the sharp intake of breath by his mum as she saw her “sanctuary” destroyed by some evil hand. A loud, “What the…?” from his dad.
Sam waited!
Downstairs, Paul, Sam’s dad, was at once at a loss as to what on earth had transpired here, as when he had left earlier this morning, the room certainly hadn’t looked like this; and also was acutely aware, at some subliminal level, that “whoever, or whatever” had caused this mayhem may yet still be in the house. He quickly scanned the room for any sign of a break-in. The windows were intact, the door appeared to be secure and there did not appear to be any forced sign of entry. In his “male-ness” he did not look at the actual damage around him. This task fell, naturally, to Margot, Sam’s mum. It was she who looked with increasing horror at the smashed table, the broken chair. Saw, with some increasing confusion, the candelabra sitting amongst the jumbled articles which should have been on the mantelpiece. Noticing, without registering at first, that the stand had blood dashed on it. Her eyes swept now over the rest of the floor as some sixth sense started to warn her that something prized was missing from where it should be in her mind’s eye. What is it? her panicked mind was shouting. David! It came at her like a thunderbolt. Where is the picture of David? Now real fear overtook her addled brain and she scanned in terror, trying to find him amongst the wreckage, any similarity to her thoughts that he had been “trapped” once before, and was now no longer with them as a result, too true and painful to accept.
There, under the plant pot. A glint of brass and shards of glass. She leaped forward, crying out as it dawned on her. The picture frame was bent and distorted and the glass cover was long since shattered. His picture, at one time smiling and innocent and “her’s”, now torn and crumpled and wet from being trapped under the plant and the now cracked pot.
“Noooooooo,” she keened. “Nooooooooooooo.” Margot was lost in utter despair and blackness as she was forced to face this physical manifestation of her loss and emptiness at losing her son. She was not aware of anything else at that moment other than a total emptiness and blackness upon blackness as David was, once again, lost to her under the unmoving fronds of the plant. She sunk slowly to the floor cradling the crumpled image of David to her chest, deep, cutting sobs rattling through her body.
Paul looked down at his wife of 25 years. From where he stood, the sunlight filtering through the window landed on Margot’s face, illuminating her deep sorrow in high definition. He looked down at her and, as always, yet never expressed, felt utterly helpless to help her and bring her out from her deep pond of depression she kept swimming in. Hers was the externalisation of a deep motherly despair at the loss of their son, so cruelly taken. Hers was the need that had to be fed, to be noticed by their friends and consoled. But what about my needs? he felt. Where is my helper to resolve my loss? My despair? My guilt! I am the one that keeps quiet so she doesn’t hurt any more. I am the one who has to sort things out…
Paul didn’t like the way his thoughts were going and he turned away in anger. Anger at himself, and anger at whoever had caused this chaos and opened up the wounds again within Margot, that he thought should be healing. Paul looked out through the living room window, lost for a moment in his own battle and then, like a switch had been turned on by some unwanted and evil hand, he saw his thoughts coalesce into a strange, yet to him now logical, answer to all this destruction, and he was powerless to stop it avalanching off his mountain of pent up frustration.
Sam! Where the bloody hell is Sam? he thought. Now, as if a strong ray of light had cut through his mist bank, which had prevented him from seeing an obvious answer, he saw a clear cause to all this chaos, and, unfortunately for Sam, also saw a scapegoat to unleash all his anger and guilt at not being strong enough to reach his wife.
“Sam!” he shouted, startling Margot out of her darkness. “Sam. Are you here?” Looking up through the ceiling into where Sam, had he been here, should now be sitting. There was a slight movement upstairs, but suff
icient for Paul to launch himself off towards the living room door and out through the hallway to the foot off the stairs. “Sam!” he shouted with his face already turning red, “get yourself down here and get down, NOW!”
Margot’s head appeared at the living room door entrance, peering down towards Paul with confusion etched in the lines of her tear-streaked face. “Paul, dear,” she began, but he was in no mood to listen to anyone right now.
“Darling,” he said with some tightness, “let me handle this, OK?” And he turned back to look up the stairs to see the slow shuffling form of his son appear at the head of the stairs and gaze down at him in evident guilty mode.
Sam came down the stairs, all the while acutely aware of the arrows of wrath being shot at him from his father. He didn’t care! What could he do to me which I haven’t already had done to myself previously? he thought.
Paul could sense that his anger was just washing off the shoulders of his son, which just added to his anger and guilt. Not only am I incapable of reaching Margot, even my son despises me! This from a mind long since prepared for a battle against one, he thought, who would give up easily and allow his anger to be placed on his young shoulders but instead, saw his wrath and batted it away like an annoying fly.
For the first time in many years, Paul was aware of a part of him leaving his body and looking down at the unfolding events as if dissecting it for future analysis. He saw his arm snake out towards Sam before he had reached the foot of the stairs, grabbing at his shirt and yanking him off the last two treads and hauling him back down the hallway and into the living room, Sam’s feet furiously backpedalling trying to maintain his balance. Margot was in the way and Paul pushed past her, Sam bouncing into the door frame and Margot at the same time. “Paul, please!” she cried.
