by Tobias Wade
“He never ate, or drank anything. He never went out, never seemed to sleep. He was just there, ready to listen, ready to talk. He took nothing from her, and gave himself completely.
“At night, when she was falling asleep, he would lie next to her, his head resting on her pillow, and whisper in her ear. It was always the same thing, a mantra he used to get her to fall to sleep:
“The Little Man is by your side
The Little Man has you in mind
Let no one harm what belongs to him
Not a single hair, or hand, or limb,
Those who do will disappear
For The Little Man is always near.
“Meanwhile, life moved on for Ellie. She began to make friends outside of her relationship with the Little Man. She started getting invited to parties, nights out to the pub, shopping trips, cinema trips, even the odd date. She began to feel more confident. The years rolled by, and Little Man was a reliable constant in her life, even as other friends, boyfriends, jobs and apartments came and went. When she needed him, he was there. When she didn’t, he was there anyway.
“And then one day, she woke up and felt... wrong.”
I drew a breath, my voice growing a little hoarse from overuse.
“The Little Man was gone. He no longer sat at the end of her bed, waiting for her with those blank, white eyes. Ellie called out for him, worried, and scrambled to look underneath the bed. He wasn’t there either.
“She checked all the cupboards and drawers. Nothing. She ransacked her apartment, feeling sick with panic and fear, but found no trace of him.
“The Little Man was gone.
“She didn’t go to work that day. She sat at home, opposite the front door, and waited.
“The Little Man didn’t come.”
A tear rolled unbidden down my cheek.
“Are you okay, Ellie?” Dan was looking at me with a strange, wary expression. I fixed him with a cold stare and dashed the tear away with the back of my hand. “I’m fine,” I said, my mind moving on to what was coming next. “I’m almost done.” I looked at the campfire, checking to see what sort of state it was in. It had burned low, and we were growing cold as a result, even me, fortified as I was with my beer jacket.
“Ellie stayed at home for the rest of the week, watching and waiting for him, her heart slowly breaking. How could he have come into her life for so long, been a part of it for so many years, only to leave without warning, without a backward glance? Wasn’t he supposed to be her friend?
“She felt her mind crumbling to pieces in her skull as each day passed, and each day, the Little Man remained lost to her. She was plunged back into the loneliness, even surrounded as she was by people at work, despite her busy social calendar which she kept to as a means of distraction from the grief pulling her heart to shreds. She realized she could still feel desolate and lonely when she was standing in a crowded room, surrounded by people she knew. She half-heartedly tried a few relationships, but no one understood her like the Little Man had understood her.
“Then, one night, sitting at a table in a trendy restaurant surrounded by young, fashionable people, she decided she just couldn’t take it anymore. She quite literally couldn’t bear the emptiness any longer.” I paused for dramatic effect.
“Couldn’t take what anymore? I’m lost,” said Molly, mournfully, as she said everything. I’d almost completely forgotten about Molly. She was the only person I’d ever met who was more of a high-functioning depressive than me. She’d kept a low profile so far this evening—in fact she’d barely said a word all day. No doubt she hated these things as much as I did.
My voice hardened.
“It. All of it.
The bullshit.
The indolence.
The rampant obsession with buying crap that people didn’t need, the stupid, private jokes her friends all shared and re-shared amongst themselves, pathetically convinced of their own cleverness. The sleeping around with each other behind everyone’s backs, and then the gleeful gossip that arose from the simple, moronic act of fucking someone else’s boyfriend or girlfriend, especially when that someone else was a supposed friend, someone who would never suspect that anything was wrong.”
My eyes flicked to Max once more, and he dropped his head, looking sheepishly down at the bark-strewn ground.
“She began to feel violently sick inside every time she sat amongst them, every time she listened to them drone on and on about their mundane, unimportant, ugly little lives.”
An almost complete silence reigned around me, and only had the gentle noises of the trees and the crackling of the campfire dared to interrupt.
I swigged again, sweeping my hand back through my hair and feeling an energy awake in me, pushing away the sadness. Surreptitiously, I began to flex and clench the fingers on both hands, working and loosening the joints, cracking the knuckles, limbering up.
“The worst thing about these people, you see, is that they just didn’t think there was anything wrong. They assumed that this was how all people lived. They went around high-fiving each other in public, and plunging knives deep into each other’s backs the second they were turned. They complained about the price of property, and how they were being pushed out of the market, and they moaned about the government and how ineffectual they were, how down the politicians were on the hard-working man, and then they complained about the next election, how it was such a drag to have to vote again.
“They walked past homeless people sleeping rough in the freezing winter, and told themselves it would be useless to give them anything, because they’d just spend the money on drugs, or piss it up against the wall instead of finding shelter. Yet they thought nothing of buying designer label clothes, convincing themselves that an Armani suit was ‘an investment’.”
I moved my head from side to side, cracking my neck, feeling my shoulder muscles tense up.
“They ate, and consumed, and lied, and cheated, and stole, and fornicated. They came up with their own skewed moral codes and a complicated set of life instructions and ideals which they then failed to live up to. They woke up with clear consciences every day, and went to sleep feeling the same way. That they were untouchable.”
Anna now lit a cigarette, leaning into the fire to do so. She blew a column of smoke above her head as a dragon would, a thick pillar of swirling white that vanished in seconds. She inhaled again, languidly, and looked at me, and her eyes were as black and hard as coal.
“So she woke up one day and realized her friends were all horrible human beings. Then what did she do?” she asked, and I think that perhaps she was beginning to understand, because I could see that underneath her calm poise, she was tense, her jaw muscles working in tiny circular movements. I smelt a worry and fear on her, and I liked it. I sucked it in along with the night air and the cigarette smoke and the combined reek of my so-called “friends,” who all sat there looking at me as if I’d grown horns from my head. For a moment I was tempted to lift up my hand and feel my hairline, check myself. The urge passed, but it left me with a tingle on my scalp.
I spoke, holding Anna’s gaze.
“Well, then one day, as I said, she grew tired of it all. So, she devised a plan: she concocted an excuse to go camping.”
“An excuse?” Max interrupted, raising an eyebrow, an infuriating mannerism that he nurtured because he thought it was ironic. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it? Isn’t that what this whole trip is about?” He waved his arms at his surroundings, as if the pine trees and fir trees were somehow my fault.
I leaned forward, deadly serious for a moment. “How long have you know me, Max?”
He thought about it, then said with certainty: “About ten years.”
“Then you should know that my birthday is in November, not August.”
“Shit,” he breathed, and started laughing. “Really?”
I nodded. “Really.” I made up my mind then and there, on the spot: he would
be first.
Dan shifted uneasily. “You’re not doing much to help our cause here, buddy,” he said half-jokingly to Max. He gave him a meaningful look, one that was meant to convey a single message: be careful. Ellie’s gone bat-shit crazy.
The shadows growing around Anna’s eyes as the fire died, and the light with it, were enormous. “And?” she asked me, softly. “What did she do then?”
“Well, if you must know, she lured them out into the woods... and then killed each and every one of them with a hunting knife while they were sitting around the campfire.”
More silence. June looked confused. Molly half stood, looking around her for reassurance. Dan, Kieran and Max gaped at me, mouths hanging open. Louise narrowed her eyes and watched me through her cigarette smoke.
Anna stayed seated, staring at me with her dead, block-of-coal eyes.
“I don’t like your story,” she said eventually, breaking the tension.
“Never mind,” I said, fumbling in my hoodie pocket for the hunting knife I’d had concealed there throughout the evening.
I drew the wide blade out and turned it over several times in my hands, twisting the sharp, serrated steel edge so that it caught and threw back to me the crimson glint of the fire. I heard a series of sharp breaths being taken, muttered curses as my friends looked at me in pure disbelief.
“It’s only a silly story,” I continued, and rose to my feet, smiling from ear to ear.
None of them thought to run, so convinced were they of their immortal, godly status on this earth. Invincible, that’s what they thought they were. Well, they weren’t. Their screams echoed around the woods as I cut my way through them like a hot knife through warm butter.
I was fast, and lethal. I’d trained for this moment for years, practiced for hours in the privacy of my own home, the Little Man, my only true friend, egging me on, showing me how to move, twist, thrust, jab, eviscerate.
As promised, I began with Max, gutting him efficiently with a few swift, sure movements. He collapsed to his knees, and for a moment, as I looked at his agonized face turned up to me pleadingly, a handsome face that displayed such a tender vulnerability I almost regretted what I’d done, I had a flashback to an earlier time. A time when he’d kissed me, told me that it would be okay, that we could just “regret it in the morning”. That we would still be friends. Then he’d bedded me, and afterwards, grew instantly cold. He’d refused to speak to me for nearly a whole year, to really drive the message home. I had served a purpose, and was now no longer required. My hurt and shame was still a raw red wound: I sliced a crimson arc across his throat, so that he had a raw red wound too, and watched him choke on his own deceit.
I lost myself in the movement and rhythm of death. All the while, the pale moon sat there high up above me, coolly observing, not unlike Anna, a thick halo wrapped around its perfect shape, a great big silvery eye in the sky.
Speaking of Anna, I left her until last, and I couldn’t resist a final, fond fuck-you, so I cut out her vicious tongue and threw it into the fire pit. The noise it made as it met the heat was indescribable, a noise I will remember, and savor, for the rest of my life.
Then, I removed her slippers, splattered now with blood and ash. The ridiculous, furry bunny ears sagged and curled from the heat of the blaze. I slipped them onto my own bare feet, wriggled my toes to make the ears move around like real bunnies. I giggled. The slippers were rather cute, actually. I decided to keep them.
When I was finished, I fed the pieces of my friends to the fire. It flared and roared, popped and spat at me as the fat and the meat and bones within the flames charred, bubbled, diminished, slowly. I stayed with them, cutting more wood, fanning the embers, pouring petrol, feeding and coaxing the blaze for hours, until it became a huge pyre, so hot I could hardly face it, so hot my cheeks burned and my hair rose up and floated around my face, carried by scorching eddies of wind. The noise was immense. Have you ever stood near a bonfire and listened to the sheer chaos of sound that happens when things burn? They don’t just burn: they roar, and shriek, and pop, and crackle, as if it were not a fire at all, but an orchestra playing out a concerto. I swayed in time to the music the fire made, my slippered feet tracing patterns in the earth around me.
When it was over, it was dawn. I’d kept the fire burning until morning, as I’d promised.
Exhausted, I stopped dancing, and closed my eyes, letting the first traces of light brush against my eyelids.
I heard a faint crackle behind me, the sound of twigs snapping under tiny feet. I turned, and the Little Man moved out from behind a tree.
He stood for a moment, and then moved slowly towards me. A pale sun broke through the trees, sent fingers of light through the thick smoke that hung in the air, and lit the Little Man up as he walked. The light also broke through the heavy grief in my heart, and I sank to my knees.
He stopped before me, somehow larger, somehow no longer a Little Man, but a human-sized man. I trembled with longing, overwhelmed with joy at seeing him again.
He gripped my blood-smeared cheeks in his delicate hands, and bent down to whisper something in my ear.
I closed my eyes again, and a thick blanket of calm and peace descended on the maelstrom in my heart.
“Well done,” he said, and touched me gently on my forehead. “Well done.”
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Grant Hinton
Camp Credence
The small white bus skidded to a halt, and brick-colored dust whirled around like a magician exiting his stage. Mrs. Hart's seat squeaked as she rose, all corduroy and white blouse like she remembered the sixties and had apparently got stuck there. Her skinny hips eclipsed the driver's face as she stood in the aisle.
“Pay attention please, before we disembark I want you all to be on your best behavior. A few other schools will be joining us this year, and I will not have Sedgehill secondary school's good name dragged through the mud.”
A greasy-haired boy sniggered in the back seat. The kid next to him covered his mouth with his hand to suppress his laughter.
“And that means you too, Scott and Lee. If you take a step out of line, I will send you back faster than you can say stickleback.”
Her vivid green eyes went wide to emphasize her point; the two boys puffed out their cheeks and tried to hold their breaths.
“Now, gather your things and...”
The boys burst into silent giggles. A blonde girl in front turned in her seat.
“You fucking ruin this trip for me and my brothers will fuck you up.”
Scott poked his tongue out at Jessica when she sat back heavily in her seat as Mrs. Hart prattled on.
“...outside move to the left and stand by the doors, Mr. Welbeck will give us the tour.”
Scott and Lee scampered down the aisle, pushing past Mrs. Hart. She bumped into her colleague and sighed with an exasperated look.
“It's gonna be a long three days, Steve.”
Steve Thorne, head of Geography at Sedgehill ruffled his paper and looked up distractedly.
“Sorry, Harriet. Did you say something?”
Mrs. Hart rolled her eyes and shook her head as she continued to count off the five teenagers descending the steps. A tall, middle-aged man in faded jeans, blue shirt, and a brown hunting vest approached with a raised hand.
“Hellooo campers, welcome to Camp Credence. You're the first ones here.”
Mrs. Hart stepped off the bus and extended a hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Welbeck.”
“Please, call me John, and that goes for everyone.”
The assembled group chorused his name. After a brief discussion with Mrs. Hart and Steve, the bus driver unloaded the bags. John turned to the small group.
“Right-o, we have a few to w
ait for so just make yourself... ah, here they are now.”
Four vehicles rattled down the dirt path and came to a stop by the white bus. A canopy of noise erupted as doors slid open, bags hit the gravel floor, and swarms of children assaulted the camp. After a few minutes of waving and shuffling, the assembled crowd waited for John to speak.
“Okay, quiet down now,” he said.
The congregation fell silent, although the underlining excitement buzzed through them.
“Hello and welcome to Camp Credence. My name is John Welbeck, and I'm your host for the duration of your stay. Sally, my colleague, will be joining us at some point tonight, she's just running a quick errand.
“In a few moments, I'll be showing you where you'll be sleeping. These...”
He jabbed a thumb behind him.
“Are the bathrooms, this is where you'll shower and use the toilet. Unless, you want to use mother nature which is also fine. Ladies, yours is to the left, gentlemen, yours is to the right. Under no circumstance am I to find you entering the opposite bathrooms.”
John glared around at the innocent eyes. He knew he would catch at least one curious boy in the girl's bathroom before camp finished. He always did, and sometimes even a girl would go where she shouldn't.
“Okay campers. Follow me.”
The group followed John down a path that led to an open space of grass surrounded by a vast forest. A large number of orange tents ringed the field in two decreasingly neat rows. A recently prepared campfire sat at the center with round logs surrounding it. Their surfaces polished shiny by generations of bottoms rubbing at their bark.
Soon the camp was bustling with activity as teachers and children alike unloaded their bedding and things into their tents.
