The Dead Path

by Stephen M Irwin

  He was gaining.

  Nicholas could see the fear on his friend’s face. Neither of them needed to ask why a strange man was chasing them. They both knew- everyone knew-that there were men who took children.

  “Which way?” he whispered. His cheeks were wet; he realized he was crying.

  “We should…” gasped Tristram, “… split up.”

  The thought of being alone with the man after him sent a shock of new terror through Nicholas. “No way!”

  “That way… he can’t… get us both.”

  The woods were becoming denser and darker as all but the tiniest chips of sky remained visible overhead. Wide trunks and buttressed roots grew closer together, forming a shadowed and slippery maze. Flinty rocks peeked sharply from under wet brows of rotten leaves.

  The boys scrambled up a steep slope, grazing knees and palms on spiny vines and hidden shale. The man was just a dozen steps behind them. Nicholas’s ears were ringing as his blood thudded, but over that he could hear the man’s breath pistoning in and out with horrid monotony. He could keep this pace up all day! But it wouldn’t take all day to catch them. Just minutes. Moments.

  The prospect of seeing Tristram disappear between the trees and being alone with that huge, unstoppable man after him made his bowels watery. But Tris was right.

  “Okay,” Nicholas gasped. “Over the ridge. We’ll split.”

  Tristram nodded.

  Nicholas stole a glance back, and let out a yelp. The man was only two body lengths behind, striding up the sharp rise, arms stretched out for balance. Years later, he would be watching Boris Karloff in James Whale’s Frankenstein, and the image of the monster lumbering, arms out wide, made him suddenly lose control of his bladder. The most terrible thing of all was the man’s face. It was slack and expressionless. There was no anger, no lust. He was as emotionless as a crocodile. And he would catch them.

  Nicholas felt fresh hot tears sting his eyes. Lungs burning, he drew the deepest breath he could and yelled: “Help!!”

  The word died without an echo, swallowed by the trees. What idiots! Why didn’t we yell when we were near the street? Their stupidity made Nicholas cry harder.

  “Help us!” yelled Tristram. Again, the words were held tight by the greedy trunks of black figs, the dark ferns, the endless leaves.

  They were nearly at the top of the slope. Nicholas looked at Tristram. No tears, but his face was tight and pale. A wave of jealous love went through him. Tristram pointed at himself, then left. Nicholas nodded-he’d go right. They crested the hill.

  Their plan fell apart as Tristram suddenly vanished.

  Nicholas, a step or two behind, saw him simply drop away into nothing. He slowed a second, just enough to brake his momentum so he, too, didn’t fall over the steep edge. Crash! Tristram hit the gully floor three meters down.

  “Oh.” The small sound was much worse and packed more pain than a scream.

  Nicholas swung to look behind. The man was only a few steps away, powering up the last of the slope-close enough for Nicholas to smell him: a mist of sweat and cigarette smoke and Old Spice.

  Without another thought, Nicholas jumped.

  He dropped through the air for what seemed an endless moment, waiting for huge hands to snatch him back… then hit the moist, leafy gully floor. Tristram was rolling onto his feet, nursing his right arm; his wrist was bent at the wrong angle.

  “Your arm-”

  Tristram shook his head and looked up.

  The man had reached the cliff edge above. His massive chest, thick as a horse’s, swelled and sank with huge breaths. He regarded the boys, the drop, the cliff that diminished as it ran left. Then he cocked his head as if listening to something far off, some distant siren song only he could hear.

  “Come on!” hissed Nicholas.

  He and Tristram ran up the creek bed at the bottom of the gully, their feet rocking on the smooth stones, risking sprains for speed.

  Tristram stopped. “Oh, no.”

  Ahead, a huge shape had appeared behind the trees. Horrible despair returned like a forgotten nightmare. “The pipe.”

  They’d rarely come this far in, and only once down here to the gully and the huge, old water pipe that crossed it.

  The man was clambering down the cliff face, hands neatly grasping the wild quince and cudgerie saplings growing stubbornly from the rocks. He moved with the speed of a gorilla born to the forest.

  There was no splitting up. The woods to the right were choked so thick they were impenetrable. The very air seemed dark green-not a glimmer of sunlight, just ancient shadow. Nor could they go back: their pursuer was less than thirty paces away. Left was the only course, unless…

  Tristram peered at the base of the pipe. Two tunnels, like barrels of a giant shotgun, penetrated the concrete. Nicholas knelt to look in. The circles of light at the far ends were thickly dotted with familiar shapes. Spiders. Hundreds of them.

  His heart seemed to stop in his chest and his eyes watered. The thought of a single spider made his skin crawl. These long, dark nests turned his terror into panic. The world grew silver at its edges-he was going to faint.

  “Tris, I can’t…”

  “Get help.” And without another word, Tristram dropped to his knees and crawled into the closest tunnel.

  Nicholas looked around. The man was striding toward him. His hands were huge. For the first time he noticed the bulge at the man’s crotch.

  “Fuck you!” he yelled. He turned and ran.

  Smack into a branch.

  He had just enough time to stagger back and see the man’s silhouette fill his vision… then everything fell away to instant, coal-black night.

  H e woke to the whisper of leaves.

  His eyes flickered open. The trees surrounding him were so deep and dark that he could have been a drowned sailor on the cold floor of the sea. No wind moved the ocean of black branches above him, yet leaves still rustled somewhere out of sight. He turned his head.

  The movement made nausea flood through him. He opened his mouth and a pitiful stream of half-digested biscuits and cordial spilled out. But now the sound of movement was louder. His vision rolled like a poorly tuned television, lurched, rolled, then steadied.

  A small distance away, white flesh drifted above the ground. Limbs drooped like the necks of dead swans. Everything was so dark. Nicholas raised his head and strained to focus.

  Tristram was being carried past, cradled in large, dark hands. The boy’s naked limbs were starkly white in the stygian gloom, swaying loosely. His head lolled back too far, his fulvous hair streaked with something darker. A wedge of darkness divided the white of his throat. Then Nicholas caught a glimpse of bone.

  He tilted his head to see who carried Tristram, but the world slipped off its axis, heeled, and fell… He retched again, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  H e woke a second time to feel tears on his cheeks.

  No. Not tears. Rain. Drops clattered on the canopy of leaves overhead, coalesced, and fell in heavy, cold dollops.

  Nicholas rose to unsteady feet, and, arms outstretched in a pose that, had he been able to see himself, would have reminded him horribly of the man who had pursued them. Nicholas began shuffling his way home.

  F our hours later, he was wrapped in his mother’s arms. After seeing her brother was home safe, Suzette had curled on the sofa and fallen asleep. Police cars were parked out front, their blue lights coruscating sapphires in the downpour. A bath, and a policewoman with his mother inspecting his head, his neck, his penis, his bottom. Questions, questions, questions. Did he know the man who chased them? What color was his car? Did he say anything while he chased them? Was he bearded or clean-shaven? Tris’s parents sat with Gavin in the next room. Mrs. Boye sent hollow glances through the doorway at Nicholas, as if by the intensity of her concentration he might suddenly transform into her youngest son.

  The Boyes left. The police left. The kettle boiled. Sweet tea. Bed.

  And, through
it all, rain.

  T he search of the woods for Tristram Hamilton Boye was postponed due to the unseasonably heavy rain. As it turned out, a search was unnecessary: the Frankenstein’s monster man told police where to find the child.

  Nicholas sat rigid beside his mother watching the news. A television reporter described how Winston Teale, second-generation owner of furniture retailer Teale amp; Nephew, had presented himself at Milton Police Station and told the desk sergeant where they could find the body of the missing Tallong child, Tristram Boye. The television flashed images of plainclothes detectives poking around a demolition site not a kilometer from the police station, two suburbs from Tallong.

  A week later, Katharine Close made Nicholas wear a tie for his court appearance. All through the hearing-including when the prosecutor asked Nicholas to point out the man who had chased him and Tristram on November 1-Nicholas watched Winston Teale. The man no longer looked terrifying. He seemed smaller. His eyes shifted like caught mice in a cage, as if he couldn’t quite believe that he was in the docks of the Magistrates’ Court. And when Teale looked at Nicholas, there wasn’t a gram of recognition. He seemed even more confused by his own words during questioning.

  “You killed Tristram Boye?”

  “Yes.” Teale’s voice was that of a smaller man.

  “How?”

  “I… I believe I cut his throat.” He explained that he had used a carpet knife from his warehouse.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  Teale blinked, frowning. The courtroom was so silent that Nicholas heard a train horn sound at the distant railway station.

  “Mr. Teale?” urged the magistrate.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “And transported him to the lot on the corner of Myner Road and Currawong Street?”

  “Yes.” Teale’s voice was unconvincing.

  “How?”

  Again, Teale shook his head. “My car. The trunk of my car, I think. Yes…” Teale shrugged and gave an apologetic smile.

  Nicholas felt eyes on his neck, and looked behind.

  His mother was watching him, a frown line dividing the brow between her eyes. Her lips smiled, but her eyes kept watching.

  W inston Teale was convicted of murder and deprivation of liberty, but hanged himself with his shirt the night before he was due to be sentenced.

  Nicholas had no more cause to jump the back fence and run past Mrs. Giles on his way to visit the Boyes.

  Cyclone season came and its hail-teeth winds blew away newspapers carrying the photo of his murdered friend.

  One school year finished. The river flowed brown. The city sighed a mournful puff of car fumes and stale perfume and electric train ozone, then shrugged her steel shoulders and braced for her footpaths to be stamped upon by New Year’s drunks and her spiry hair stained bright by fireworks.

  Time ticked on.

  Katharine Close forbade her two children to ever walk past the Carmichael Road woods.

  Chapter 6

  2007

  N icholas watched his younger sister alight from the taxi, her chatty, white smile winking at the cabbie unloading her bags. He let the blinds fall and sank on the bed. Suzette hadn’t brought her husband on this trip to see her sad widower brother, nor her children. I’ll be nice, he decided. Answer her questions. Accept her sympathy. Send her home tomorrow.

  “Your sister’s here!” called Katharine brightly.

  “I know!” called Nicholas in matching tone.

  Rattling of the latch, the birdsong of greetings and compliments, rustling of plastic bags, the friendly thump of footsteps. Then Suzette was in the doorway, arms folded.

  “Get out of my room.”

  The last time he’d seen her was at his wedding in Osterley Park. Her hair was longer, but she was still tall and pale and pretty, with a stance like a bouncer.

  “No.”

  “It’s my room.”

  “Not any more.”

  “I’ll tell Mum.”

  “Then you’d be a dirty little snitch.”

  “ Muuum! ” she yelled, as brutally as a cheated fishwife. “Tell Nicholas to get out of my room!”

  “Nicholas, let your sister have her room back,” called Katharine. The smile in her voice suggested she enjoyed this old game.

  Nicholas sighed and got to his feet. He walked up to his sister. She grinned. He kissed her cheek. She grabbed him and squeezed him. He found himself sinking into the hug. She rubbed his back.

  “Dear, oh dear,” she said.

  S uzette felt him gently release himself from her hug, watched him turn his face away and suggest that while she unpacked he might “make some fucking tea or some shit?,” then he was down the hall. The room felt hardly emptier without him. She hadn’t expected him to look so… gone.

  She stood in her old bedroom a moment, trying to reconcile the thin, insubstantial man with the resilient voice she’d heard on the phone just weeks ago. No, don’t come to the funeral. She’s gone. Thanks, Suze, but Nelson and Quincy need you there. Cate’s folks are looking after me. I’ll be fine. Suzette chastised herself. She prided herself on being sensitive to people, to being good at reading faces, decrypting moods, and deciphering subtle expressions-yet this huge lapse had occurred and she’d missed her own brother slipping over that twilit border into a dark place.

  She lifted her suitcases onto the single bed. The springs let out a familiar squawk. She unzipped the larger case and pulled out her toiletry bag and makeup purse.

  She’d failed. She and her mother both. Even before Cate’s accident, he’d had enough death for one lifetime. Now he looked like death himself.

  “Tea’s made!” called Katharine from the kitchen, amid the staccato ticking of cutlery on china.

  “Okay!”

  All this brightness. Pleasant voices and biscuits and tea. No wonder Nicholas was a mess. This was how they’d been taught to deal with grief and heartache: a cup of tea, then back to the washing or into work or on to the bills. Keep busy, don’t worry others, the world’s got enough problems of its own without yours. That was the Lambeth Street motto. Totally fucked.

  “Oy!” called Nicholas.

  “Coming! Christ…”

  Maybe it wasn’t too late. She was here, wasn’t she? She must have sensed something was wrong, because…

  She pulled from her suitcase a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper. This might help. She slipped it into her pocket.

  “I don’t have sugar any more!” she yelled sunnily, and hurried down the hall.

  K atharine let her children wash up the dishes, casting her ear into their conversation like an angler who doesn’t really care if she catches a bite. Nicholas asked about his nephew and niece. Nelson was fine. His sixth birthday had a pirate theme and he got too many presents so Suze and Bryan returned half to the stores. Quincy was enjoying her preschool and had taken to looking through Bryan’s old telescope at the moon, which pleased Suzette for some reason.

  Katharine went and folded laundry. Her family was together again; well, as much as it could be. So why did being a mother again feel so… empty?

  It had been fifteen years and she was happily out of practice. She wasn’t in the mood to play the wise matriarch and offer explanations for how she’d coped when Donald left her in the lurch with two young kids. And she certainly did not want to confess how her heart had jumped to her throat when she saw two policemen at the door a few nights ago; how she’d had the helpless feeling of being wrenched back through time to a rainy night thirty-odd years ago when two constables stood at the same door telling her there’d been a car accident and Don had been at the wheel.

  She folded the last towel, smoothing down a sharp crease. No. Her grief was her own, and Nicholas’s was his. He’d have to cope.

  And now a child goes missing the very night Nicholas returns. Nicholas had lost a father, a friend, a wife… and now he was back, and more death. When Nicholas was born on a Sunday night in April, Don’s smiles had been peppered
with frowns. “Funny day,” he’d kept saying, as if even then he recognized a mark of congenital bad luck on the boy.

  “Hey.”

  Katharine jumped at Suzette’s voice at her shoulder.

  “Hay makes the bull fat,” she replied, trying to disguise her racing heart. Such nonsense. Old wives’ tales and rubbish. “What are you up to?”

  “We’re going for a walk. Need anything?”

  Katharine nearly blurted, I need you to stay here. She bit her tongue.

  “Can you pick up some milk?”

  A minute later, she was at the window in Suzette’s bedroom, watching her children close the front gate behind them. They walked down toward Myrtle Street, just as they used to twenty-five years ago-her daughter, still with the mop of brown hair she’d had as a child, and her son, tall and fair but with a crane frame so familiar that Katharine could swear it was Donald walking away. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She had a sudden urge to fling open the window and shout to her little girl, “Get away from him! He’ll get himself killed and you with him!”

  She smoothed her dress to wipe the stupid thought away, then went to the living room and turned the TV on loud.

  N asturtiums blazed cold orange fire on the sloping banks that led down to the train tracks. Two pairs of silver rails curved like giant calligraphy around a far bend. They’d come from the nearby 7-Eleven and let themselves under a rusted chain-link fence to sit on mossy rocks at the top of the bank. From here they could look along to Tallong railway station and its sixty-year-old wooden walkway that crossed above the tracks. Beyond, red and green tin roofs marched through the trees up the suburb’s hills. They reminded Nicholas of pieces in a Monopoly set, playthings in some larger game. He chewed fruit pastilles. Suzette ate caramel corn from a brightly colored bag. Overhead, clouds the color of pigeon wings tumbled in loose ranks. Evening was coming.