“Puulease… Naw…. Pulllease… dinnae.”
Beside me, dad continued to sneer and impatiently folded his arms. I watched my sister move even closer towards the woman who tried to back away, further against the wall, but all she ended up doing was moving sideways, moving along the bricks and into the tight corner of the alley.
I remained frozen with fear and just stood there watching my sister move ever closer towards the terrified woman. She was stalking up on her like she was some wounded deer that needed to be finished off so that we could all eat that night and survive.
In that terrifying moment I prayed that dad wouldn’t notice me still standing there, utterly paralysed, doing absolutely nothing. Praying that he wouldn’t demand me to take out my knife too and get over there to join my sister. But then the inevitable happened. He did turn towards me and kicked my thigh hard, nudging me forward a few steps.
“On ye go then. Go join your fuckin’ sister.”
I don’t know how, but I found myself moving forward. I found myself walking up to stand beside my sister, but it wasn’t me controlling those steps. I felt like I was on some kind of autopilot. Like it was someone else entirely. Some other higher force making those movements for me.
I didn’t understand what was happening anymore. The best way to describe it was like some out-of-body experience. Was I even there? I wondered over and over again. Expecting to wake up from that brutal nightmare at any second, only to find myself sprawled out on top of my sister in the back of our car as my father continued to drive along the never-ending road north, back to our home.
But I never did wake up from that nightmare.
My sister stood over the woman. Arms spread wide. Knife clenched hard in her hand. Ready to strike. The sharp blade glistening in the headlights. The woman tried her utmost to get back up onto her knees but her arms soon gave way. She just didn’t have the strength and balance to even crawl anymore. She began sobbing and breathing hard as if she was going to hyperventilate.
“Puu-lease. Why… why are ye’s… daen this…? Pu-lease”
My sister stepped closer. She clenched her knife harder. I really believed she was just going to stab the woman and soon. I knew it in my heart and bones. She would never go against dad. Never in a million years. Like night would follow day, my sister was guaranteed to do anything that my father asked of her. She lived and breathed for his pride. For his acceptance. For his respect.
“Just one stab at a time, mind,” came dad’s chilling voice. “Ye, then your bloody sister, then back again. Make sure ye’s both get a good wee shot while she’s still alive. Ah want ye’s tae both get a good feel of what it’s like tae take a life.”
I could see my sister’s breathing becoming harder and faster, just like the woman’s, like she was building herself up to make her strike like some kind of wild queen cobra. She even started grunting and groaning out through her gritted teeth like a car engine, revving herself up more and more, readying to accelerate into her target. I’d never known such a sound to come out of her mouth. It horrified me to my core.
“Hurry the fuck up,” dad continued. “We’ve no got all night here, ken?”
The woman raised her hands as far as they would go, as if to protect herself from the brutal slices, stabs, and slashes that were about to be severely unleashed upon her.
“Noooooo…. Puleaseeeeaaaa Nooooo,” the woman painfully yelled and sobbed.
Suddenly, I threw up. I didn’t even notice it was happening at first. The nausea came over me so fast. Everything I’d eaten in the past twenty-four hours came out of me all at once.
I heard my sister drop her knife.
Relieved of the distraction, she stepped away from the woman and rushed over to comfort me and to see if I was okay.
“For fuck’s sake!” I heard dad yell.
I fell onto my knees and vomited again. My sister crouched down beside me. She started rubbing and patting my back. At the same time, I heard dad get off the car bonnet. He came storming over towards us in a blaze of fury. Shaking his head, he kicked me down hard onto the cold har ground so that I landed right in my own sick, then he pulled my sister back up onto her feet.
“Ah expected that kind of cowardly shite fae her, but no fae you. No fae fuckin’ you.”
Dad dragged my sister back over towards the woman. He picked up my sister’s knife and shoved the handle back into her hand.
“NOW FUCKIN STAB THE BITCH!” he roared.
My sister began shaking her head. Tears began streaming down her face.
“FUCKIN’ STAB HER YE STUPID WEE CUNT. STAB HER. FUCKIN STAB HER!”
My sister dropped her knife again. She began crying hysterically that she couldn’t. That she just couldn’t.
Raging, my dad threw her ferociously against the side alley wall. She smacked her head hard and fell to the ground, still very conscious. The woman was sobbing out even harder. Still begging for her life. Pleading and mumbling something about her own children. She knew the end was nigh. We all did. It was only a matter of time unless there was some kind of miraculous intervention from the outside world.
In a rage of pure and utter, frustrated insanity, dad picked up my sister’s knife with his right hand. With his left he grabbed the woman by the roots of her dirty blonde, blood-stained hair and lifted her right up off the ground with a freakish strength. Like he’d done to both of us before.
He then began stabbing her all over her upper body, all over her face, neck, throat, chest, arms, breasts, repeatedly, over and over, until she was just a mop of silent and unrecognizable, blood, pulp, and flesh.
As father continued to stab the poor, defenceless young woman again and again, I somehow began to see my mother’s face in hers, even though I had no recollection of what my mother even looked like, since I’d never even seen a picture of her before. And in that one, crazy, surreal, horrific but sadistically beautiful moment, I finally realized what fate had befallen our mother. Even if that wasn’t her skeleton down in dad’s cellar.
“Ye want something done right, then dae it your fuckin’ self. That’s whit ma da always used tae say,” raged dad once he’d finally finished stabbing. He was still clinging onto the roots of the dead woman’s hair and didn’t look like he’d be letting go anytime soon.
Both my sister and I were still on the ground. Her, sitting up against the side wall; me, still lying flat on my stomach and face soaked in my own vomit. “Am only trying tae teach ye’s something here, ma girls,” dad continued with a gentler, unfamiliar tone. “Give ye’s a life lesson here for fucks sake. Give ye’s some kind of practice and experience for the future for when ye’s have tae really dae something like this with-oot even thinking aboot it. So that ye’s can one day save your own lives. Kill or be killed. That’s the name of the fuckin’ game here.”
Over beside the alleyway wall, my sister wiped away her tears.
“Dinnae shed tears for this. Ye dinnae shed tears for all they deer, fish, rabbits, and squirrels you’ve killed and butchered over the years. And believe me, they’re much more worthier of life than this fuckin’ pathetic thing. This cunt is just one part of the problem why this world is gonnae, one day, very fuckin’ soon, implode in on itself. Scum like her and all they other walking deadbeat trash you saw oot there on they city streets the night. None of them are worthy of your fuckin’ tears or your fuckin’ pity. So, the sooner ye’s get that through your thick fuckin’ skulls, the better off you’re both gonnae be in this life.”
Dad hesitated. He took a few deep breaths. He was trying to regain his composure. The look on his face at that precise moment told me that he was in pain. An emotional pain of turmoil.
“Am actually, truly fuckin’ hurt the now, ma girls. Ah thought ad brought ye’s up stronger than this. More bold and brave. More savy and street smart. You’ve really fucki’n hurt ma feelings the night girls. Truly. Av never been so embarrassed or ashamed of ma ain fuckin kin before. Never. Never in ma whole entire life than ah
am at this very moment in time.”
He ranted some more about how we still both weren’t ready. That we needed so much more training and exercises to make us harder, stronger, and sterner inside. We needed a cold, hard, ruthless streak he said. And more important than anything else, we needed our emotions—pity and remorse—thoroughly gutted from the inside out.
Chapter 11
I didn’t want to fall asleep, even though I was more tired than I’d ever been before in my life. I did everything I could within my power to desperately clutch to consciousness, but I felt too emotionally drained after everything that had happened the previous night. And within one hour of dad driving back up north again, I’d joined my sister in the black world of deep sleep as we huddled together on the back seat.
After dad had killed that woman, he’d swiftly ushered us back inside the car as he proceeded to wrap her soulless, lifeless, bloodied body up in a dozen black bin liners. Next, he taped them all together until not a single drop of her blood or foul, rotting odour could seep its way out through the bags.
With my heart still pumping at the back of my throat, I watched him lift the mummified body up onto his shoulders before throwing it into the boot of our car. At first, I thought he was just going to dump the poor woman’s remains into that wide, black river that flowed west on the opposite side of the alleyway. But when he began driving into the night without stopping, eventually taking the A road back up north again, just as the new dawn was beginning to gently break into the darkness of the east, I quickly realised that he had something else in store for us.
When I woke up it was bright daylight outside. The sun was shining in from the passenger window on my left, which meant that it was sitting high up in the north west and gradually making its decline back down to the horizon again. My heart skipped a beat as I soon realised that the time of day was well into the late afternoon. I’d slept nonstop for roughly eight or nine hours. What also didn’t make any sense was the fact that the car was stationary, yet I could still feel a gentle rocking motion from side to side. Then there was that strange, open air roof, directly above our car and two huge white steel walls on either side.
I sat up. There was no one in the vehicle but me. When I took my first proper glance out through the car window, I could see another half a dozen or so cars all parked around ours, either side of the huge white walls. But to my rear, all I could see was water. The cold, hard, rough, grey water of the sea.
Another series of shivers ran down my spine. I must be on a ship. There was no other explanation for it. In front of me, north by north west, where the sun was towering overhead, must’ve been the front of the huge vessel. It was some kind of large, open-topped ferry but I still couldn’t make head nor tails of it all.
I’d seen plenty of ships before, big and small, sailing past our farm house on the coast from time to time, but I’d never actually been on one until that very moment. I felt a little anxious but excited at the same time. Where the hell was I? And where was my father and sister? Most curious of all, where the hell were we going?
The car was unlocked. I opened the door and climbed outside. I made my way towards the nearest barrier railings on the other side of the huge white walls. I couldn’t see any other people around, so I just stood still for a while, gripping the railing hard while I glanced hypnotically down at the trailing grey water beneath.
When I glanced back, following the white wavy tracks of the ferry, I could see the faint sign of a distant land way over on the south-eastern horizon. That must be Scotland. That must’ve been where we’d boarded the boat.
Turning my head and glancing towards the front of the ferry, I couldn’t see any other land at all. Just acres and acres of dull grey sea. For a fleeting second a funny thought entered my mind - even with sunshine and blue skies in Scotland, the sea still remained a miserable, dull grey.
I made my way over towards the front of the ship, before pushing my way through a strong steel door and heading up some inside steps towards the upper decks.
A family of five passed me on their way down. Most of them smiled, while I did not. More people came into my view. A group of middle-aged tourists with cameras. I say tourists because they looked nothing like the Scottish people I knew. They had darker, healthier-looking skin for a start, unlike the sickly pale white of most Scottish folks I’d been in contact with throughout my life. They all had nice smiles though and sparkling happy eyes that made me slightly jealous and suspicious of them at the same time.
Out on this new deck I instantly spotted my father and sister.
They sat together at the very front of the outdoor seating area. Dad, wearing a dark pair of sunglasses with his feet firmly up upon the rails seemed to be sleeping soundly. My sister had her feet up too but looked wide awake. She seemed to be just gazing out at the endless sea in front of her. Hypnotically deep in thought.
She looked so beautiful, peaceful and innocent in that moment, like all little girls should appear at our age. Trouble free with no worries and not a care in the world. But Jesus Christ, how looks can be so deceiving. Especially that of a preteen girl. To look at us both right then, no one would have been able to guess in a million years all the cruel horrors and hardships we’d been forced to endure, and not just last night, but for the entirety of our young lives.
Without making a sound, I sat gently down beside her. She turned and smiled warmly at me before taking my hand in hers. She asked if I wanted to go for a wander around the ship. There was a café down below where we could get some food and drink. I was hungry, so it sounded like a good idea.
We both gazed up at dad who was snoring away for Scotland. My sister smiled and giggled at his antics. I did not. I couldn’t even force a fake cheerful laugh in that moment if my life depended on it. I wanted nothing more than to get away from his presence before he had the chance to wake and rant and rave some more about our failures from the night before and how disappointed he still was with the two of us, especially me.
Hand in hand, my sister led us down to the surprisingly quiet café way down on the lower deck. I felt absolutely famished, and was looking forward to eating something, anything. I chose a cheese and ham sandwich and a glass of orange juice while my sister just had an orange juice. She paid with some change dad had given her earlier.
We sat down a few tables along from an old couple who smiled at us with big gooey eyes like my sister and I were their long-lost grandchildren. We didn’t smile back and tried our best to ignore and discourage them from doing anything else but look.
As I ate my sandwich, I desperately wanted to ask my sister her thoughts and feelings about what had happened the night before back in Glasgow. Thoughts that I furiously battled to believe were even true and perhaps weren’t just a bad nightmare I’d had while sleeping all day in the back of the car, which I secretly knew, deep down inside, was not the case.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything her at all. I knew she wouldn’t welcome such a conversation and I knew she wouldn’t want to speak about it either, especially after breaking down in a fit of uncontrollable sobs right in front of us and not being able to go through with my father’s wishes, which was not like her at all.
Instead, I asked why we were on the ferry and where we were supposed to be going exactly. Surely, we should have been home hours ago? She told me that she’d woken up shortly before they’d boarded the ferry at Ullapool. I’d heard of Ullapool. I’d never been there before, but it was almost the same distance North from our home as Glasgow was South of it.
I asked her why we’d travelled so far north. My sister just shrugged her shoulders and said that dad was taking us someplace special for another adventure. That he was still deeply upset and felt let down by us after what had happened the previous night. But he hadn’t yet spoken to her about what this so-called new adventure might be about. All she knew was that we were heading over to one of the remotest and furthest north-easterly islands of Scotland—The isle of Lewis. An
d whatever happened once we got there was anyone’s guess.
I silently prayed to anything who might listen way up above—to any of the hundred and one gods up there in the skies and space that we wouldn’t have to try and kill some nice and innocent young woman again. I really prayed hard about that.
Chapter 12
We were on the ferry for around two and a half hours before we finally came into a small-town port on the new coast.
Dad was fully awake and surprisingly in very good spirits. He made no mention of the night before either, as he ushered us to sit beside him at the front of the quiet ferry. He made us watch, with a childlike glee, as the ferry came into port at Stornoway town, the capital of the Scottish Island. It was like we’d never left the main land in the first place. Still so much vibrant green and roaming hills, valleys, and lochs every which way you looked. It was if we were returning back home again.
Back in the car Dad put on his radio and, with his sunglasses still firmly transfixed to his face, began singing along to his tunes.
Within an hour, we had driven out to a distant, secluded clifftop somewhere in the north of the island. There, dad took out the body of the woman, still wrapped up in bin liners in the boot of the car. He flung her over his shoulder before walking towards the edge of the steep towering cliff. He lowered her body down into his arms, held her out in mid-air for a long moment like he was saying some quiet prayer for the poor woman before letting her fall effortlessly into the rough sea and jagged rocks below.
“That’s task numero uno oot the way,” he bellowed in a cheerful jest. “Now, ontae ye guys,” he continued with a sly glance straight at my sister and I.
“Am taking ye’s tae a very a special place now. A special place very dear tae ma own heart. A place where ma own father once took me once upon a time. Although, ah was just a wee bit older than ye guys are likes. But there’s two of ye, so that will more than make up for it.”
My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands. Page 9
