by Sian Rosé
The idea sat in the atmosphere for a few moments, its fragments settling slowly like stardust on top of the family.
“You know what,” Ronnie finally said, “I think that sounds like a cracking plan.”
Minnie nodded, “it’s genius,” she agreed. “And I think I already know exactly how we can pull it off.”
Chapter Seven
Summer, 1999
That evening in the fiesta in the woods melted away quicker than lemon sorbet in the sun.
As 10 pm approached, Minnie found herself nestling closer into Ronnie, gripping the fabric on his chest even tighter with her fingers, as if she were worried that he would simply fade into nothingness. They laid beneath the blanket in comfortable silence; the only sound the low fuzz of the radio, the distant rustle of wildlife, and the steady beating of their hearts.
“What will you do next year, Ron?” Minnie asked suddenly, in a voice that came out far more solemn than she had intended. Her head swam pleasantly, and the pit of her stomach was warm with the wine.
Ronnie yawned and chuckled, “God, you sound like my mother.”
“Oi,” she nudged him in the ribs. “I’m not nagging, I just… well, I’ll be going off to university in a few years. I want you to come with me.”
He sighed and moved her chin with his hand so that she was staring up at him, his icy irises twinkling in the moonlight. “I will. I promised you, didn’t I? Maybe I’m not exactly Oxford material, but I’ll learn a trade. Apparently, plumbers get shit tonnes of money…”
“You could do an apprenticeship!” suggested Minnie, brightening. “I’ll help you look. By the time I go away, you could already be working.”
“I’ll save up for a deposit on a flat,” promised Ronnie, tracing the smooth skin on her cheek with his forefinger. He pushed her long blonde hair behind her ear and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head...”
He spoke so genuinely that, at that moment, Minnie was certain of their future. It was all going to pan out exactly how she had always dreamed it. The dream job, the beautiful house, the lavish white wedding, and then someday a perfect little family of their own.
She wasn’t to know then that this was all merely a fantasy that would be cruelly torn away from her that same night.
Chapter Eight
2019
In spite of the heavy grey pellets of rain hammering down across the wide windscreen, Jared Rostas was in high spirits. He hummed along to the radio as he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and even murmured the occasional lyric underneath his breath.
Since he was a child, he’d always wanted to be an explorer. He’d read about Columbus and watched Indiana Jones until he knew the script off by heart, hopelessly besotted by the dream of one day discovering his own country.
The memory made him chuckle to himself.
Perhaps he would never find untouched soil on this earth, but he could still enjoy the pleasures of following in others’ footsteps. And just maybe, if all went to plan, he could even make a decent living out of it.
Footsteps distracted him from his thoughts, and he smiled.
“Nice nap?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the grim landscape in front of him.
Jared’s wife, Sienna, sat in the passenger seat and placed a hand on his knee. “Couldn’t sleep,” she answered, “this rain is far too loud.”
“Aw, baby,” Jared teased playfully, “perhaps we’ll stop in a while. I’m starving, and it’ll be dark soon.”
Sienna glanced out through the glass and grimaced. They’d gone off-road at the request of one of their YouTube fans. It wasn’t a part of their original plan, but it was too good an opportunity to miss. Viewer engagement was key to gaining popularity on YouTube; Sienna had matter-of-factly informed her husband when they’d received the message.
And then, when they announced their plans to visit Lonely Loch, dozens of other viewers had suddenly chimed in, gushing about how excited they were for the vlog of their detour. They’d even gained a hundred or so more followers, just for announcing it!
“I can see why they call it lonely,” Sienna commented, squinting her eyes to study the foggy, marshy landscape that stretched out all around them. A cold shiver prickled up and down her arms. She shuddered.
“Come on, let’s park up,” she said, squeezing her husband’s thigh. “I’ll make some nice hot soup; then we can crawl into bed and watch a movie.”
Jared traced his lower lip with his tongue, “well, I was hoping to find somewhere that didn’t look so muddy to park, but I don’t think I’ve seen concrete for miles…”
“That’s what the thousand dollar tyres are for,” Sienna said, “we won’t sink. Come on; you can barely see anything anyway; it’s too damn foggy. Hopefully, tomorrow the rain will have cleared, and we can put on our boots and go exploring this wasteland properly.”
Thousand dollar tyres were only the beginning of the seemingly endless flow of cash that had needed to be pumped into the double-decker RV. It had cost the couple over a million in total, money that had come from inheritance and a life insurance fund from Jared’s birth father- a high-profile criminal who Jared had never even gotten to meet.
Still, the money had been a nice surprise and had meant that Jared and Sienna could finally live out their dream of travelling the world in a motor home. However, Jared’s inheritance, although an extremely generous amount, had quickly diminished thanks to the RV. It cost a fortune to renovate; it cost a fortune to maintain and run, and it had cost a fortune to transport the thing to Europe.
That’s why it was so very important that their YouTube channel took off and started earning them some money before what was left of their rapidly vanishing bank balance was totally obliterated.
And it was getting there, ever-so-steadily.
The RV tour video was the most popular, understandably. People were in awe of the double-decker and its lavish interiors. At campsites, strangers were always left dumbfounded by how functional it was as well, with two bathrooms (including a designer bathtub); a state-of-the-art kitchen and laundry room; five beds; a dining table, and five separate plasma TV screens. It was, Jared and Sienna thought proudly, a true work of art. It was their love child and well worth every single cent.
As predicted, the sky soon began to melt into a dark, inky blue, and Jared finally gave in and parked. They folded down the shutters and locked the doors, ate their soup, and then snuggled up under the bed covers to finish watching the crappy horror movie they’d started on Netflix.
Jared tutted under his breath, irritated when the Netflix error sign appeared on the screen. “What the hell?” he muttered, frowning as he senselessly jabbed at the buttons on the remote control.
“Maybe there’s no signal,” suggested Sienna, yawning sleepily. “We are pretty far out.”
“Do you have bars?” Jared asked, reaching for his phone. “Damn. No signal.”
Sienna laughed hazily and pattered her fingertips across her husband’s bare chest. “It’s just like in the horror movies,” she smirked, “out in some desolate place with no signal. Maybe there’s a murderer out here…”
Rolling his eyes, Jared tossed the remote to the side and slumped back against his pillows. “Why couldn’t we have had a request to go to Spain?”
“Because that wouldn’t be interesting,” Sienna answered, poking out a tongue playfully. “I bet viewers are more interested in watching a young, beautiful couple getting all muddy together, stuck in a Scottish marsh, as opposed to drinking cocktails and sunning it up in Ibiza.”
Jared ran his tongue over his lower lip and shifted, so he was on his side, propped up on his elbow, leering hungrily down at his wife. “Hm, well… when you put it that way,” he winked.
The young couple giggled as they collapsed into one another, the lack of signal and torrential rain immediately forgotten about, both of them completely oblivious to the mortal danger that lurked outside in the icy darkness.
/> Chapter Nine
Summer, 1999
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Minnie asked as she nervously watched Ronnie slide the driver’s seat backwards and chuck the empty wine bottles out onto the pitch-black woodland floor. “I’m feeling woozy, and I ate a big dinner.” The pleasant warmth in the pit of her stomach and the buzz that the wine had given her had slowly faded into a mild headache, and both of her eyelids felt as heavy as bowling balls. Minnie wasn’t sure about the rules surrounding drink driving or how much the limit was, but the way her boyfriend moved and the way his eyes were flickering groggily gave her a bad feeling.
“I’m fine,” he slurred, collapsing into the driver’s seat and resting his head backwards. “And even if I wasn’t, you really want to feel the wrath of your parents if I take you home late?”
Minnie nibbled her lower lip, “I’m sure they’d rather I was late than mutilated by a tragic car accident.”
Ronnie laughed and slammed his door shut. It was a different laugh from normal; Minnie couldn’t help but notice. His face was hazy, and he sounded mad. The skin on the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably.
“Stop,” she said softly, resting her hand on top of his as he started up the engine and reached for the gear stick. “Come on; it’s not worth it. Let’s just walk back.”
Groaning, Ronnie shook his head like an overtired toddler. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, shrugging her away. “I’m not drunk…”
“You don’t have to be rude,” Minnie replied quietly, hurt seeping into her expression.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ronnie sighed, switching off the car and glaring at his girlfriend. “Fine, come…”
BANG!
Startled, both of their faces fell as they turned towards the sudden, sharp eruption of noise. Minnie held her breath, her entire body tensing as she squinted out of the car window.
“What the fuck?” Ronnie muttered beneath his breath. He pressed his face up against the cold glass and peered into their gloomy surroundings. But all he could make out was the faint outline of trees and shrubs.
Swallowing, Minnie clasped her hands in her lap. His heart pounded loudly in her rib cage. “What was that?” she whispered.
A few more split seconds of silence passed between them. Just as Ronnie was about to open his mouth to speak, both the driver and passenger seat doors were opened, a flash of something passing too quickly through the glass to make out.
Minnie screamed, tears immediately welling up in her eyes as the cold sting of the night slapped her skin, and she was roughly pulled by the shoulder out of the car.
A man.
Mostly bald with just a thin stubble of hair; dark, tatty clothes and knuckles covered in shitty, faded tattoos. As she fell on her arse outside the car, he towered above her, keeping his hands on her shoulders, leering down at her with a nasty gleam in his eye illuminated by the moonlight.
“Evening, princess,” he grinned, revealing a row of yellowing, uneven teeth.
“RONNIE!” screeched Minnie, kicking the bastard straight in the crotch so that he released her shoulders. Her pulse hammering in her eardrums, she scrambled up from the ground and sprinted around to the other side of the car. “RONNIE?!” she screamed as she caught sight of him, lying sprawled on the ground, a large, bloody gash weeping crimson on his forehead. Another man squatted above him, wielding a thick, jagged knife in one of his dirty, meaty hands.
“No…” Minnie cried, shaking her head. Her knees wobbled and knocked so violently; she felt herself sinking down to the ground, although her eyes remained fixed to the horrific scene that unfolded in front of her. “Please, leave him alone…” she cried.
The young girl’s heart sank as the thug with the knife abandoned Ronnie, who remained seemingly unconscious. A horrible, gut-wrenching thought occurred to her.
What if he was dead?
Fresh tears, bitter and hot, squeezed from the outer corners of her eyes; her earlier fantasies of their lives together cruelly smashed into jagged, hopelessly broken glass shards. However, she did not have long to dwell on it, as terrible, immense pain suddenly flooded the side of her skull.
She collapsed onto the floor, her face smacking into the dirt whilst sharp agony seared in her head. Bile churned in her stomach as she watched a pair of chunky combat boots walk towards her.
“Got ourselves a spitfire here, have we?” a man’s voice rumbled, a different one to the first.
A rough grip hooked her beneath her armpits and hauled her aching body upright so that she was forced to face their two attackers. They both kept their faces close to hers, their hot, stinking breath attacking her nostrils and forming a sickly layer of condensation on her skin.
“Little bitch kicked me right in the bollocks,” the first one complained, tightening his vice-like hold on her so that she winced.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, her breaths heavy and panicked as she desperately tried to calm herself. “Please, just take the car and be done with it. Please just don’t hurt my boyfriend and me.”
Minnie had always been taught that in a situation like this, it was better to give over whatever it was the muggers wanted and escape the situation alive. Even if it meant grovelling, humiliation, and trauma.
The two men glanced at each other, unpleasant smirks dancing on each of their faces. One of them licked his lips. Minnie shuddered.
“Don’t worry, pet,” smiled the guy with the knife. He pressed the flat of the blade underneath her chin, so the teeth teased the skin over her jugular. Silently, she closed her eyes and continued to cry. “We won’t hurt ya. We just want to have a bit of fun, don’t we?”
Both men laughed. They sounded so sleazy that it made Minnie’s skin crawl.
They dropped her so that she fell down to the ground again in a sad puddle on the ground, like a hopelessly broken and mangled china doll.
“Hold her down,” the man with the knife instructed the other as he forced her to lay straight and put his whole weight on her knees so that she could not move. “Hold her arms.”
“No… no, please no…” sobbed Minnie, writhing on the ground amongst the dirt and twigs whilst a vile paste of snot and tears and blood trickled down her face. “Please… please, leav…”
“Shut the fuck up!” the man with the knife bellowed into her face, striking her hard across the nose so that a gush of crimson blood erupted from her nostrils and poured into her open mouth, causing her to choke and splutter.
Through the blur of her tears, she watched the vile monster struggle with the belt on his trousers. “No…. no… NO!” she shrieked, struggling harder then, kicking and thrashing her limbs, fuelled by an intense burn of rage that screamed in her muscles like an angry forest fire.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”
Chapter Ten
2019
The rain had stopped. No longer were the heavy pellets thundering down upon the roof of the RV, causing the entire thing to vibrate and shiver in the miserable weather.
But there was one single noise.
Sienna sat bolt upright in the darkness, her senses pricking. She remained perfectly still in the warm mould of her bedsheets, listening carefully to see if the sound was just a fragment of her dream or if it was real.
There it was again.
A high-pitched moan, long and drawn-out like the call of a bird.
“Jared!” she hissed, furiously tugging on her husband’s sleeping shoulder. “Jared, wake up!”
“Wha?”
“Can you hear that?”
“I can hear you…”
Rubbing her eyes, Sienna crawled across the bed towards the shutters. She heard the noise again; this time louder, more animated, more like a wail of pain than the early morning call of some strange Scottish bird.
“What the hell is that?”
Jared tutted and rolled his eyes, “probably a fox,” he mumbled drowsily.
“In the middle of a damp marsh?” Sienna questioned him, lifting an eyebrow.
“I think it sounds like… a person or something.”
Groaning, Jared forced himself up onto his elbows. He squinted his eyes, peering across at his wife through the gloom of the RV. “In the middle of a damp marsh?” he repeated her own question back to her to make her realise what an absurd suggestion she had made.
Swallowing, Sienna hesitated as her hand hovered above one of the shutters. “Can you just go and check? Please?”
“What? No!”
“Jared,” she pleaded him quietly, cocking her head in his direction. Although he could not properly make out her expression, he knew the exact pitiful face she would be pulling at him.
“For god’s sake, woman…” he grumbled to himself.
“Please?”
A pause. “What’s in it for me?”
“Unlimited blowjobs,” Sienna replied in an instant.
Jared chuckled. “I should be so lucky,” he murmured as he sat up and pulled the bed covers off of him.
He took a torch and switched on the outer lights of the RV so that the area all around the motor home would be lit up. Shoving his feet into a pair of wellingtons and throwing on a heavy, padded coat over his pyjamas, he reluctantly opened up the door.
Instantly, a blast of hard coldness swept in through the opening, washing over him like a tidal wave, leaving him shivering in his boots. Teeth chattering, he shone the flashlight up ahead, then yawned sleepily as he scanned the mud-soaked, glistening grass that stretched around the vehicle.
“I can’t see anything,” he called back to Sienna, blinking his sleep-filled eyes.
That time, he heard it. A loud wail, carried by the cold breeze and sailing through the frosty atmosphere. He tensed uneasily.
“Shit…” he muttered, descending the first step.
“What is it?” Sienna shouted.
“It… it sounds like a kid…” replied Jared doubtfully, his face falling into a confused frown.
“Hello?” he called out into freezing, Scottish night. Shuddering with the cold, he took another step downwards and shone the light all around again, scanning the bleak horizon. “Anyone there?”
