The Slaughter Man

by Parkin, Cassandra;

  She can’t tell. She’s not even sure who she really is. Is she the self who lies beneath the covers, breathing slow and even, warm and well-fed, essentially safe and protected, despite her dreams? Or is she the self who stands barefoot at the top of a flight of stone steps, her dead sister tugging at her arm?

  “Come on.” Laurel is surprisingly strong, much stronger than Willow remembers. In life, they were equally matched. But Laurel drags her down the steps, one by one, until they stand together on the ground. Willow stands obediently and waits for Laurel to tell her what to do.

  “And now you can come and be with me,” Laurel says. Her eyes are bright and eager. “You will, won’t you? I miss you so bloody much. It’s awful without you. We’ve never been apart until now. Do you remember what it was like at the beginning? It was so warm and dark, and we were all squashed?”

  And for a minute, Willow does remember. The water swooshing in her ears; the warmth. The tightness. The sense of peace.

  No, she thinks. I’m making it up. Nobody remembers before they were born.

  Laurel’s smile is beautiful and terrible.

  “That’s not your memory, that’s mine. You can’t remember properly until you die. But then it comes back to you. It’s like a book, and you can look at any bit of it you want. It’s really lovely. Come on, I’ll show you. Out in the woods, there’s someone who can help us. He’s waiting for you. That’s why you came here. Didn’t you know?”

  Laurel’s tugging at her arm with that surprising strength, trying to lead her towards the woods. But now, the memory of her warm body resting beneath the sheets tugs her in the other direction. The result is a stretching, tearing feeling that drags at her chest and her pelvis, a feeling that begins as mild discomfort but rapidly becomes almost unbearable. If it doesn’t stop soon, she’ll be torn in two.

  “Stop fighting,” Laurel whispers. “Trust me, if you stay, you’ll be sorry. There’s something going to happen soon, something you won’t like. But if you leave now, you can get away from it.”

  Please, Willow thinks, please stop hurting me like this.

  “I know I’m hurting you,” Laurel says, sounding as if she’s carrying out an unpleasant job that she’s only persisting with for Willow’s own good. “But if you come with me then I won’t have to do it, will I? Oh come on, Willow, please, I hate having to do this to you. Stop messing me about and come on.”

  I want to go back, Willow thinks. I want to be back in bed, right now. If I close my eyes and open them again, that’s where I’ll be, and it won’t hurt any more. This is my dream, so I can control it.

  She closes her eyes. Opens them again. The tearing feeling still drags at her centre. Laurel watches calmly.

  “So are you ready now?” she asks, and increases the pressure on Willow’s arm until Willow, desperate, almost believes for a moment she might be able to scream. “Trust me, little one, I know exactly how much this hurts. Transitions are always painful. But I’m doing this for you. I’m only here because you called for me. Once you’re where you belong, everything will feel better.”

  And, with a shock that shakes her heart and turns her knees to water, Willow realises this person beside her, this person wearing Laurel’s skin and looking out at her through Laurel’s eyes, is not Laurel at all.

  “Well, of course I’m not,” the creature in Laurel’s body says. “She can’t come back for you. It’s a one-way journey, I’m afraid. Whatever it is you’re seeing is a product of your imagination.” And then it laughs through Laurel’s mouth, spreads Laurel’s arms out wide, except the laugh is not a laugh, it’s the hoarse shriek of a crow, and Laurel’s arms are enormous and covered in black feathers while her body is suddenly small, small and light, and her face has contracted into almost nothing around the fierce thick jab of her beak, and she flies at Willow’s face, and Willow is falling, falling, falling as the crow tries to tear out her eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She wakes then, as the living always must. She’s left her bedroom, and she’s standing at the bottom of the steps, in the place where Laurel led her. For a moment she thinks she’s still dreaming. But then she comes fully into her own body and feels the penetrating cold that creeps and presses against the soles of her feet, the stirring in the air that moves her hair, and the ache in her bladder that tells her she cannot wait a second longer. Beyond embarrassment, she pushes her pyjama bottoms down, squats and pees, glancing around for the accusing gaze of the neighbours she knows aren’t there, for the windows she knows aren’t looking out at her, all the while thinking defiantly, At least I didn’t do this in the bed. A rat, sleek and glossy, rustles out across a flat patch of dandelions, glances in her direction with bright intelligent eyes, then dives between two clumps of grass and is gone again.

  She stands up, impressed and disgusted at the volume of liquid she’s produced, and the steam that drifts upwards. For once, her sleepwalking’s paid off, but she can’t rely on this happening every night. First thing tomorrow, she needs to find the washing machine, and then go through the cupboards until she finds where her uncle keeps the spare sheets, so she’ll be ready when the inevitable happens. But what if the sound of the washing machine disturbs him? And where will she hang the sheets afterwards? Joe told her mother he didn’t mind, but how will he feel when he’s confronted with the reality? Why can’t she be normal, the way she used to be?

  Her feet ache with cold, but still she waits, fascinated by the darkness. Has she ever been outside, on her own, at night, before? Although she feels in a general way this must have happened at some point, when she tries to recall the specific circumstances, she can’t find anything that fits. Her parents have never been the camping type. They’re glorious comfort-seeking technophiles who take pleasure in hot sunshine, nicely furnished villas, and soft beds. As Brownies, she and Laurel slept in church annexes and sports halls. They never even camped out on their own lawn. Perhaps this is the first time, after all.

  At the bottom of the garden is a fence, and on the other side of the fence, the trees wait with their arms spread. Is Laurel dancing somewhere beneath them, waiting for Willow to join her? She feels loose and dreamy, as if she might be still asleep, and her body’s growing oblivious to the cold. Without letting herself stop to think, she climbs over the fence – it’s easy to do, as if it was built for climbing – and then she’s alone in the woods, and the world stretches out in front of her like an ocean, split by a dusty line of pathway that winds between the trees.

  That’s it, croons Laurel. Come and find him. He’s waiting.

  Within a few paces, the darkness becomes alarming. She’d assumed there would be light coming from somewhere or other, perhaps the moonlight, perhaps some sort of leftover from the day, turning her skin blue and her clothes white but nonetheless, enough to see by. Now she realises she’s simply imagining the way the world looks on screen when actors roam through a filtered day-for-night landscape, pretending to be lost in the dark. She takes three more steps, stumbles over something that could be a tree root or a dead body or just a bump in the earth, and comes to a stop. Then a flat heavy weight bumps against her thigh, and she realises she has her phone stuffed in her pyjama trouser pocket.

  You’re bloody glued to those phones, her mother and father used to say on a regular basis, and sometimes, For God’s sake don’t take them into the toilet with you, it’s disgusting. But even alone and even in her sleep, she’s a child of the twenty-first century, and she’d no more leave her room without her phone than without her clothes. Now, she holds it out in front of her and lets the bright circle of light guide her way.

  I’m lost in the woods and nobody else even knows I’ve gone, she thinks, with savage gladness.

  The woods might go on for ever for all she knows, but she keeps walking anyway. Not all the brief rustles and disturbed twigs seem to come from her footsteps, and she imagines small creatures scattering as she passes clumsily through the space that’s usually just for them. What do they think
of her? Are they frightened? Or only curious? She’d like to see a rabbit, but there’s nothing much for them to eat in the woods. The soil beneath the trees is dusty and parched, and the occasional clearings are filled with tangly, spiny shapes that make her think of fairy tales. The pathway reaches a fork. One broader branch that leads downwards, and a thin little line, barely wide enough for both of her feet, that seems to lead nowhere in particular.

  Which way should she go? The narrower path is more alluring. On the other hand, this adventure is already bordering on the stupidly dangerous. She’s not sure she wants to tempt the universe any more than she already has, by ignoring the clear signal left by all the people who have passed this way before her. She’s turning away from the narrow path, about to take the broader fork, when the light of her phone snags on something bright and glossy high up in the trees, a flash of white that she instantly knows must be man-made, because nothing natural would advertise its presence so boldly, and before she can stop herself, she’s off to investigate.

  This is how horror movies start, she thinks as she picks her way delicately along the thin rivulet of earth. This is literally the start of a horror movie. You’re out at night, in your pyjamas, and you’re about to do something you’ve already decided is stupid and dangerous.

  The white splash is beginning to take on shape and form, growing square and solid. It’s a notice board, nailed to a tree. The nails have leached iron oxide in long rivulets down the bark; or perhaps it’s the tree’s wounds, bleeding. She can see the shapes of letters, almost ready to form up into a message. Another few steps, and she has it.

  PRIVATE PROPERTY

  NO TRESPASSING

  The lettering is meticulously neat, as if it’s been printed by machine rather than painted by hand. Nonetheless, she can see the lines left by the brushstrokes, the faint indentation where someone has marked out the shapes of the letters with a ruler and pencil, the tiny imperfections at the edges where the damp has begun to steal the first vulnerable flakes of paint. There’s something eerie in the competence of the unknown sign maker. The effort they’ve put in seems far too great for the task. When she tries to get closer, to see if she can reach up and touch it and make sure it’s real, something thick and sharp presses against her stomach, and something else grabs at her ankles, almost sending her over. Someone has strung two long taut reaches of barbed wire around the trees, cordoning off a patch of land.

  There are other signs on other trees, all proclaiming the same message. PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. VISITORS NOT WELCOME AT ANY TIME. NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY. POSSIBLE ARMED RESPONSE. And, most alarmingly, IF YOU TRESPASS ON MY LAND I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS.

  But it’s the middle of the night, Willow thinks. It’s not as if she’s doing this in broad daylight, in a bright crowded place where everyone watches everyone else for signs of deviation. In this whole cold world, she’s surely the only human being awake. No one’s going to be patrolling the woods at this hour. And for all she knows, the patch of wood they’ve claimed goes on for miles and miles and miles. The chances of them both being in the same spot at the same moment must be miniscule.

  Besides, look at how far she’s come already. She’s left her room, climbed a fence, followed the path and she’s still here, still alive and intact and perfectly fine. What difference can it make if she goes a little further? Just a little bit further. Just to prove she can.

  Moving carefully, she lifts the barbed wire and ducks beneath it, feeling it take a few strands of hair in painful tribute. The woods on the forbidden side of the wire are exactly the same as before, until the path dissolves beneath her feet and the ground becomes scuffed and bare and she has a sudden sense of change.

  The wavering circle of light from her phone exposes patches of shapes and textures with merciless detail and clarity, but it takes her a while to put it all together. It’s only after she’s scanned the puzzlingly large and regular shape in front of her for the fourth time that she finally understands she’s looking, not at a huge and confusing group of trees, but a wooden house.

  I’ve found an old deserted house, she thinks, forgetting all the clues that tell her otherwise – the path she followed, the signs she studied, the barbed wire fence she climbed through – Maybe nobody but me even knows it’s here. How long has it been here? Maybe there’s even furniture.

  But then she looks again, and sees that the house is robust and solid and well kept, a building in the prime of its life rather than an empty shell. A wall of split logs huddles under the eaves. Cords of fat black electrical cable sag from the veranda roof. The door fits neatly and cleanly in its frame and the three steps leading up to it look solid and strong. Running beside the steps, the railing looks as if it was repurposed from stolen scaffolding; it’s ugly, but it stands straight and true and bare of rust.

  VISITORS NOT WELCOME AT ANY TIME. The competent construction of the house, its craftsmanship and its ugliness, makes her nervous. IF YOU TRESPASS ON MY LAND I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS. She ought to stop, she ought to go back, but she can’t tear herself away. As she takes in the details, running the light of her phone methodically up and down over pitch-coated boards and steel-drum furniture with the logos half worn off, a square of yellow light appears in the wall.

  It’s a light going on; nothing more. She tells herself this even as her knees clench and her palms turn sweaty. It’s a light going on, nothing more, but still, before she’s aware of making a conscious decision, she’s turned off the torch on her phone, and crouched down in the shadow that pools at the base of the nearest tree.

  She’s waiting for someone to call out, to open a window and shout Who’s there? Is there anybody there? She tells herself that she must have frightened whoever’s inside. The white glare of her torch must be as visible to them as the yellow glow inside the house is to her. At night, in the heart of the forest, the only possible source of light is another human being, and whoever lives in this house is someone who doesn’t want to be visited. They’re frightened, that’s all. She doesn’t need to worry. In a minute they’ll assume they imagined it and settle down again, and she’ll be free to leave in her own time. She sits in the darkness. Waits for her eyes to adjust. Waits for the person in the house to speak. Waits and waits and waits, listening hard over the sound of her own breath. She’s aware once more of how cold and sore her feet are.

  There’s still no sound from inside the house. Only the square of light, that stares out at her as if the house has opened a never-blinking eye. Maybe the house’s inhabitant is too terrified to investigate. Or maybe they’ve woken up on their own, nothing to do with Willow lurking in the darkness, and now they’ve decided to read for a while before going back to sleep. The person in the house can’t possibly be watching her. They’d never see her, looking out from a room filled with light to the darkness of the trees. Maybe they’ve gone back to sleep with the light on. Whatever they’re doing in there, Willow doesn’t need to see any more. She should leave and go back to her bedroom. She tenses her muscles to stand up.

  Then, with startling suddenness, a figure appears in the window. It’s tall and spindly, so tall that the top of the head is above the top of the frame, and because the light’s behind it she can’t make out any features. It waits by the window for a moment, then the house turns dark and blank once more as the lamp flicks off.

  Has it seen her? Has she been seen? Her skin prickles with fear. PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. She’s alone in the woods, without even shoes on her feet, and she’s trespassing. What’s going to happen if she gets caught? POSSIBLE ARMED RESPONSE. They can’t actually mean they’d come after her with a gun, can they? She hears the creak and scrape of a door opening, and then another light blooms out into the night and she can see a man, standing in the shelter of the gable over the door.

  He’s not quite as elongated as he looked in the window, but he’s high and thin and narrow, and his arms hang loosely at his sides. She thinks at first he’s leaning on a st
ick, and feels a thump of relief. If he needs a stick to walk there’s no chance he’ll be faster than she is. Then she looks again and realises he’s holding a rifle. He’s not aiming it or even preparing to, just letting it rest at his side. His head’s shaved so close to the skin that she can see the shape of his skull. If he makes eye contact with her, what will happen to them both next?

  Don’t look at me, she thinks frantically. Even the small rustlings of the woodland creatures have stopped. Maybe they can smell her fear. Or maybe they know better than to get so close to this man who stands in his doorway, his face turned towards the dark.

  Just as Willow reminds herself that this man, however sinister he looks, can’t possibly see her – that he’ll be blinded by the porchlight, and besides, he doesn’t even know if there’s anybody there, he doesn’t even know she’s still there – he reaches up one gangly arm and turns out the light.

  Now they’re both blind in the darkness, waiting for their sight to return, waiting to see who will crack first. Does he know where she is? Is he coming towards her? Could he move quietly enough to get closer without her realising? If she moves, will he hear and come after her? She waits and waits and waits. Is he going to say something? Her pulse is thundering in her ears, and she’s breathing very fast and very shallow, keeping the movements of her chest as small as possible. She has no idea how long she’s been here. She blinks, blinks again and then suddenly she can make out his shape, still standing on the porch. He’s scanning the forest, turning his head slowly from one side to another, his eyes like searchlights sweeping the darkness.

  He knows she’s there. Of course he knows. She’s trespassed on his property. She’s the unwelcome visitor. Now he will not be responsible for his actions.

  And as if he’s heard her thought, he turns his face towards the place where she cowers, and – can she really be seeing this, or is she making it up? – he smiles, a slow understanding smile, as if she and he are sharing a secret, as if he’s someone she knows and loves, and they’re playing a game they both adore. Then, with the unhurried precision of someone who knows he has all the time in the world, he leans the rifle carefully against the porch.