by Mason Sabre
His stomach growled in cruel protest at the lack of food it had received throughout the day. He rummaged in his bag, hoping that he might find a chocolate bar or some crisps that he may have forgotten on one of his school days, but all that his search turned up was a couple of sticks of gum. He looked at them sadly, unsure if he should at least chew those. With cold, wet hands, he pulled one free of its wrapper and put it into his mouth. Less than ten seconds later, he spat it back out, pain reverberating up his face as he moved his jaw.
He begrudgingly slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked with a heavy heart to the end of the driveway. He guessed it was some time in the middle of the night. All the houses along the street were in darkness. He could hear the echo of the rain as it spattered into a gutter somewhere, every sound around him sharper. He found that he could purposely hone in on one. To the left he could hear a cat. It wasn’t calling or fighting, just eating. He didn’t know how he knew the sound was a cat, but it was, and he was sure of it. To the other side, he could hear the sound of the ocean. The roar of the waves as they reached up, bellowed in their glory, and then crashed back down again, only to be pulled out into the current once more.
He listened all around him. There were no cars, no people, nothing. Everyone else was in their nice, warm homes. He cast a glance back at his own house … his old house. The curtains to his room remained open and all the windows were in darkness. The night was endless, like a deep dark hole. The boy didn’t know where he was going ... not really. He just put one foot in front of the other and walked. He kept his head down, his blonde hair now dark and stuck to his head with the weight of the rain. It was plastered annoyingly to his face.
Each time he saw the headlights of a car bobbing in the darkness ahead and coming closer, he pretended to be entering a garden as if he lived there. And each time the red rear lights faded into the darkness the other way, he came out and carried on walking.
He hadn't intended on it, but when he stopped, he found himself where they had laid his mother to rest. He had just been walking, not thinking, his mind somewhere safe and warm, a stark contrast to him. He stopped at the gates, not because he was afraid to go in, but because he wasn’t sure he wanted to see his mother’s casket lying there in the dark and the rain, and knowing full well that he was the one who had put her there. He’d do anything to take it back. Anything at all.
He curled his trembling fingers around the black metal of the gate and rested his forehead on one of the bars. “I’m so sorry, Mum,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to.” Nothing moved in the darkness. He stood there, absolutely still, and let his eyes roam over the path, searching for answers. But the problem was he didn’t know what the questions were.
He knew that he couldn’t go in there, but he knew that he couldn’t leave, either. She didn’t like the dark or the outside. How could he leave her alone? He had nowhere to go anyway. No relative to take him in. No friends to speak to. He was just a boy, alone, no one and nameless. There was a bus shelter outside the gates. He ducked into that for cover, not taking his eyes off the gates. The smell of stale urine and beer made him retch and seemed to burn the inside of his now overly sensitive nose - but at least it was dry. He slumped down in the corner and leant against one of the walls, hoping that he was hidden enough not to be seen by any passersby. He winced as his stinging back came into contact with the hard wall. He reached under his shirt to feel the damage, but it was stuck to his skin where it had already begun to heal, making the stinging worse. He shuffled around to get as comfortable as was possible and shut his eyes. They were so heavy ... he hadn't realised before. “Please don’t let them open again,” he wished. Maybe in sleep, death could come for him, too. He didn’t deserve death’s mercy, though, he knew that. But the world would be a better place if he wasn’t in it. He prayed that his mother would forgive him, too.
It was the rattle of the milk wagon that woke him. It startled him awake as it drove past, making his eyes snap open. He sat up abruptly, forgetting his injuries for a moment. He howled in pain as his body protested the sudden movement. Now, added to his pain, was the stiffness of sleeping in the shelter. His shirt had dried and was completely stuck to his back. He had to lean forward and tug at the hem to pull it off, but it was like removing Velcro from his skin. It was on fire as he pulled.
His suit had dried, at least, he supposed, but the dye from it had bled through to the front of his once white shirt. My mother is going to go mad, he thought to himself for a moment. Pain and desolation slammed into him as harsh reality settled back in. She was dead. She wasn’t going to do anything. It hit him like a ton of bricks. Straight in the centre of his chest. Struggling to breathe, he leant forward and pulled his knees up, wrapping his arms around them. The movement made his back hurt more, but it was nothing short of what he deserved.
He flexed his hands, wishing for some kind of liberating ache. He needed something to distract his thoughts and vanquish the inner pain he was feeling. That was infinitely worse than any physical discomfort. But there was no pain in them now. Nothing. He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the palms of his hands. Blood trickled down and he focused on that until his breathing grew steady.
He couldn’t stay in the bus shelter. People would come. The day would start. Children would go to school. Everyone would all move on with their lives. Everyone but him. He was stuck in some odd kind of limbo that kept him grounded in yesterday. He had to move before someone saw him. Not that he was sure what they would do. No one could send him back now. His dad wouldn’t have him. But he was just thirteen, which meant he would likely land in the system somewhere, and he didn’t want that, either. No one escaped the system alive - not when they were no longer Human.
Slinging his backpack over his shoulders once more, he stifled a yelp as it hit his back. He didn’t know where he was going, but he couldn’t stay there. He couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, either. He walked over to the still-locked gates; it was too early for the day to begin.
With tears welling in his eyes, he looked beyond the metal bars once more. “Goodbye, Mum,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
THREE
The soles of his feet burnt with the pain from walking. His soul burnt with the pain of all he had lost. He must have walked for three hours, or four. He wasn’t quite sure. His shirt stuck to him, but through sweat now. It rolled down his back. He could feel it at the nape of his neck, turning the ends of his hair into sharp little points. He had tied his jacket around his waist and he only stopped to swap his shirt for a t-shirt, using the ruined shirt to wipe his face and his hair. The shirt was dirty, spotted with blood and tears from where it had been shredded by the glass where he had fallen, but he was loath to throw it away. He stuffed it into his bag and carried on.
Stopping had been a mistake, though. His legs seemed to ache more than they had before and his back needed a good crack. He tried to bend forwards to ease the pain, but that was nothing compared to the protests given by his stomach and the lack of food and dryness of his throat. He didn’t even dare to think about water - that just seemed to make everything more intense. He had never felt hunger to this level of intensity before now. He craved something … something he couldn’t quite grasp. He could hear every person he passed. Not just them, but their thoughts, their heartbeats. He could feel their emotions. It was as if he became one with them. It all pressed in on his temples and just seemed to make his hunger stronger.
He made it a block before stopping again. His hands shook as he held them out in front of him. His arms itched, that horrible itch he had felt that day in the car with his mother, and then …
He didn’t want to think about that. His skin prickled and fur poked through the pores on his skin and then receded again. It was like a wave. He needed to feed. No, not feed. Eat. He needed to eat. Perhaps there was some loose change at the bottom of his bag … Perhaps he was clutching at straws because he knew there wasn’t, but he looked anyway. Three pence was all
he found. His shoulders slumped, defeated for a moment. It wasn’t even enough to buy water, let alone anything else. He took the three coins and thrust them into his pocket. He squinted up at the signs. He knew vaguely where he was. He had driven past here with his father sometimes. He was near town.
The boy slung his bag back onto his back and walked. There was nothing else for him to do. He occupied himself for a while by looking at people he passed. He glanced in shop windows, but then looked away when he saw food and drink and knew that he couldn’t have any. Except … could he? He could just take them. He had watched some of his more hot-headed friends do that a couple of times. His friends. He scoffed at that. What would they think of him now? Like this, and after all that he had done? No, whatever friends he had were now in the past. They’d want nothing to do with him anymore.
His mind was drifting, too hard to keep one thought in his mind. He imagined waking up and realising this had all just been a very bad dream. He imagined opening his eyes and seeing he was actually home, and this was all just a mistake.
A small shop stood on a corner, one of those family-owned newsagents that hardly stocked anything except the daily papers, some cans of juice and packets of crisps. He had always found them peculiar. They always had shelves with the odd tin of something that no one ever bought. This one was no different. He wondered why they bothered.
The man behind the counter gave him a suspicious look when he entered, keeping his eyes on him as he went to the fridge and pretended to be trying to decide what he wanted. The shop had a display in the centre; it was meant to simulate a mini convenience store, where the centre part created an aisle. In the top corner, he noted that there was a mirror, angled so that the man behind the till could see what was going on all around. But that wouldn’t be a problem. The man was behind the till, enclosed by a drop down hatch, on which sat a display of cheap chocolate that was reduced and out of date. He’d have to move those first and unlock the hatch to catch the boy. It would give him plenty of time to get away. Still, the boy’s heart hammered so hard in his chest that he was sure the shop owner could hear it. He rubbed his sweaty hands down his shirt nervously, praying this would not all end badly. His dishevelled hair flopped over his eyes, hiding his face somewhat so that the man wouldn’t be able to recognise him if ever asked, or stop him to ask about the bruises there. He imagined how that would go down. If anyone stopped him and then took him home, his father might actually be pleased. It would give him reason to beat him all over again.
His mouth watered as he glanced along the lines of bottles. He could imagine how they would feel in his mouth - the coolness of them, the sweet satisfying taste that would quench his thirst. He tried to swallow, but his dry, sore throat objected and complained. Now, panic threatened to completely close it.
He tried to control the tremor in his hand as he opened the door and retrieved a bottle of cola from the shelf. The urge to turn his head and check on the shop owner was almost too much, and he had to force himself not to turn and look. Much to the boy’s relief, another customer came in at that moment and started talking to the man. With his heart in his mouth, the boy swiftly tucked the bottle under the coat around his waist, trapping the bottle neck at the side.
He turned then and walked right out of the shop, not looking, not hesitating. He just walked. He didn’t stop until the feeling that someone was behind him had faded. He dared to glance behind him then, never dropping his pace. He was sure that the entire street of people knew what he had just done, and that at any moment, one of them would grab him and hand him over. But as he watched them, no one cast him a second glance. He was just a dirty kid on the street to them. Heaving a sigh of relief, he stopped and leaned against the side of a building.
He pulled out the cola from under his coat and twisted the lid off, revelling in the fizzy hiss that escaped as air greeted it. He raised the bottle to his mouth and drank until he couldn’t breathe, until his heart was protesting and his lungs were screaming for air. He drank until his body refused to swallow until he took another breath. He gulped it all down but his thirst remained unsated. He needed something more. He tossed the empty bottle into the rubbish bin and started to walk again.
There was a butcher’s shop not far from where he was. He knew because he smelt it before he actually saw it. The aroma of blood and meat made his mouth water in a way that he wasn’t used to. He could do nothing but walk in the direction his senses told him to. With an iron grip on him, they led him in the direction of the tantalising smell.
A couple of blocks down, a display of fresh meat in the window of a small shop greeted him. Little white flags were propped into the tender morsels to indicate the price. His stomach grumbled loudly as his mouth watered. God, he was so hungry. With a dirty palm pressed against the window, he stared in, swallowing hard. The need to devour what was in front of him raw threatened to overwhelm him. No. He shook his head, trying to dispel the thought. “No,” he repeated out loud, hoping the sound of the word would take away this irrational, consuming need.
Forcing himself to step away from the glass, he turned his back on the display through sheer strength of will. Blisters had formed on his feet, and they brought tears to his eyes with every step he took now. He had new shoes on, not that anyone could tell. They were dirty and dusty and scuffed at the sides. His mother would have been so mad if she saw them. A new surge of pain lanced through him at the reminder that she no longer could.
Shoes - they were the last thing his father had ever bought him. Perhaps it was fitting that they were the part of his clothing that was hurting him the most.
He pushed away the pain. The pain in his feet, his face, his back. But most of all, he pushed away the pain that nestled deep down inside, one that he didn’t know how to control. All he could do was bottle it away and hope the contents didn’t spill over.
As he walked, he used games to pass time and keep his mind occupied. He counted steps as he walked, making himself walk one hundred steps and then one hundred more. He wondered how long it would take to get to a thousand. When he finally did, he aimed for another, and then another, until he reached ten thousand steps, then fifteen. He became so engrossed in his game that he stopped to get out a notebook and mark off every new hundred, challenging himself to just do one more set.
The notebook had been a gift from his mother. A reward, she had said, for doing well in his test at school. On the cover was a Phoenix. “It’s a bird,” she had told him with a smile. “They never die. Not properly. They rise from the ashes of their old lives and start a new one. Like a new chapter.” He had loved the idea of that. He had used the book to write his stories, lying on his bed, his pencil in hand and his imagination running faster than his hand could write.
That had been another person, another life. It was a life that was far away now ...
Maybe he was like the Phoenix.
It was just after he had reached sixteen thousand steps that his hunger and need to use the bathroom reached an unbearable level. The bathroom was easy. There were plenty of back alleys. But then he spotted a petrol station ahead.
He was on one of those roads where there were no houses. It was a means to an end really, where cars drove fast to get to motorways that took them to different places, and the petrol station was often the last chance to fuel up before hitting the road. They were always overpriced, of course. The boy recalled that his mother had often used the bathroom in these places. She had always blamed it on the cup of tea she had had before they left. He just hoped that there was one he could use in this station.
When he entered, there were a handful of customers and one attendant. None of them spared him a glance or a care. “I’m just here to use the bathroom,” he said to a man standing nearby. He frowned at the boy’s sudden need to explain, and the boy turned and scuttled to the back of the shop. The door there read, Bathroom. Customers only.
He sighed in relief when the door opened, and there was no need to get the key from the sta
ff. He pushed the lock into place and used the toilet. He did everything hurriedly, hoping that no one would knock on the door. He rummaged in his bag and got out his old shirt. The sink was simple. He turned the hot tap on and held his shirt under it, waiting for it to heat up. But it only seemed to get colder. There was hand soap, at least. He squirted that onto the cold, wet shirt, rubbed it in and brought it up to his face. He jumped when the cold material first touched his skin, then he carefully started to wipe the dirt from his face.
He looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his face. He was hideous. His lips were cracked, his eyes were bloodshot, and his cheek was darker in colour, a complete contrast to his normal pale face. He stared at himself, almost impossible to recognise the reflection staring back at him. It was the vile face of a killer. He looked away then, hating his face. He turned and lifted his shirt to examine the injuries on his back in the mirror instead. His back was marred with cuts and bruises, the cuts dark and scabbed with dried blood. He couldn’t help but look at his face again - the eyes, the mouth, the nose. He wanted to scream at the person there. “I hate you,” he spat. “Look what you did.” His breathing came fast as anger and self-hatred screwed his face up. His eyes glistened, but it wasn’t with tears. They shimmered with different shades of gold. He shut his eyes tight, forcing away the sight. “You deserve all of that. You killed her. This is what you wanted.”
