Weeping Season

by Seán O'Connor

  He was just about to answer along the lines of not knowing, when he noticed a patch of dirt near her tree – a different colour to the surface around it. “Over there, look.” He pointed. “There’s a bit of a mound there, different to the rest.”

  She looked along his arm and finger and ran over. Using her fingers, she clawed away at the clay and dug into the earth, then squealed with delight when she retrieved a silver key.

  “Yes!” he roared, tears of relief brimming in his eyes. “Quick, Eight, quick, bring it over.”

  She sprinted over and unlocked the manacle around his ankle. He groaned when it fell off, grimacing at the sting from the flayed flesh where the steel had cut in.

  However, he didn’t care. They were free from their shackles, and that’s what counted. Time to get out of this nightmare.

  TWO

  The naked pair wandered through the woods, making their way between trees in what they hoped was a straight course towards escape or help. With the forest being mostly dark and silent, they had no real way of knowing which way was which. The bark on the trees had no moss or lichen, and the canopy caused shadows to gather in all directions across the forest floor.

  The man – Seven – searched the corners of his mind to remember something, anything, before his awakening, but nothing of substance came to him other than disconnected flashes: a vision of a man – possibly himself – with long brown hair tied into a bun, cycling through busy streets. London? He stopped in his tracks. Am I a Londoner? No, can’t be. Not with an accent that screamed Irish.

  There was no telling if these fragments were real or figments of delusion. Then images of an office flitted across his mind, where he sat at a desk, casually dressed, with code scrolling across his PC’s screen at a rapid rate. Perhaps some sort of IT gig? He couldn’t be sure. But the one thing he was clear about was the image of the woman he loved. A shiver raced across his shoulders. His wife? Girlfriend? The relationship status didn’t matter at this point. She was there and that was the only certainty he had, albeit nothing but a small, vivid silhouette. He loved her, unlike his job, whatever it was. For all he knew, he may have been the UK’s Prime Minister – a thought that made him smile.

  The girl seemed to be deep in thought, too, probably catching glimpses of a young woman doing something somewhere she couldn’t quite grasp. Like him, she wasn’t sure who she was, or how she’d got here. She’d told him she could picture a college and possibly a graduation, but nothing beyond that. And certainly nothing before waking in the woods. She rubbed the scabs on the back of her scalp and shook her head.

  Though he didn’t say it, not wanting to scare her any further, he knew in his gut that what was happening was no accident. As they wandered along, trying to figure out which direction they were heading in, a sickening smell grabbed their attention. Instead of moving away from it, they decided to follow it. If anything, it might lead them to some form of civilisation – some answer. With every cautious step, moving from the cover of each tree, it grew stronger, until they came to its source – a grey chain-link fence, about ten-foot high, with razor wire looping along its top. Fused to it were bodies – dozens of them – all naked, their charred remains blackened and reeking from the stench of electrified death and decomposition.

  Eight gasped in horror at the sight, turning into Seven’s chest to shield her vision from the hordes of flies, swarming and crawling all over the poor souls.

  Seven held her tight, unable to look away from the burnt remains of these people who so obviously had tried to escape from their harrowing predicament, or simply chose an easy out. Whatever the reason, Seven and Eight embraced as the realisation of their reality dawned. Beyond the fence stood nothing but trees as far as the eye could see, and they were obviously on the wrong side of it. He scanned along the structure until it was swallowed up in the far distance by the forest. We’re trapped.

  The eerie silence broke with the sound of a woman’s scream, from the direction they’d just come from, or so he guessed, considering the echoing effect of so many trees around them. He grabbed the young girl and ducked back into the woods and beneath an earth bank. “Hang on,” he whispered, “let’s wait here a second.”

  “It sounds like someone's in trouble?” she said.

  “We’re the ones who’re in trouble here,” he snapped.

  The scream roared up through the trees again. Then, “Help! Help me, please!”

  The girl pulled at his arm. “We have to go help her.”

  He ripped free of her grasp and turned her to him, hands on shoulders. “Are you mad? We could be walking into a trap.”

  “But she needs help.”

  Before he could respond, she shrugged free of him and took off towards the continuous cries.

  Icy shivers gripped him as his heartbeat pounded through his ears, his sweat stinging his eyes. Fuck! What the hell am I doing here? Nothing felt right. It was all too surreal to comprehend. But at the same time, he couldn’t stay where he was. He ran after the girl.

  They passed numerous trees, the screams echoing in the brisk air, until they arrived at a ridge – a gap in the ground, possibly forged many years before by a river or flood. A woman lay at the bottom of the embankment. Like they had been, she was naked and chained to a tree, except she hung upside down from her manacled ankle. Her shaved scalp also bore a fresh tattoo – the number Two. Number Two was older than him, probably old enough to be his mother.

  That threw him, because he couldn’t bring up a visual of his mother. He pushed the effort aside and focused on the problem at hand. This poor woman was frail, shaking from the cold, with blood oozing from beneath the steel clamped around her ankle. She’d obviously exhausted herself struggling against her predicament and made the wound worse by doing so.

  Despite her distressed state, she had the strength to fill the space with another scream.

  “Hey! Hey now, we’re here.” Eight crawled down the bank to distressed woman.

  Seven watched from above, glancing around to make sure they weren’t under threat. However they’d got into this situation, it didn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out that they were in deep shit, probably the deepest he’d ever been in – if he could remember what had come before.

  The old woman’s tree stood on the opposite bank, and he reckoned she’d been in her upside-down position for quite some time, what with her ankle injury and her utter exhaustion. He looked around once more, then climbed down to join Eight.

  “There must be a key – like there was with our chains,” Eight said, scanning their immediate area. She grimaced and shrugged. “Her ankle is in bad shape.”

  They tried to comfort Two, but she wouldn’t respond, just continuing to shriek and cry, snot bubbling from her nose. Each scream shot a wave of panic through Seven, his heart pounding as the forest swirled and closed in on him.

  “Hey!” Eight shouted at him. “You’re drifting. Stay with me here.”

  While he heard her, it was as if she stood beyond – outside – her words not connecting. The forest swirled again and black spots clouded the edges of his vision. He reached up to steady himself and stop the trees from spinning, but they moved too fast.

  Something clicked in the distance, over and over. Was it his past trying to reconnect? Eight was waving, miles away. Why was she so far away from him? He needed her here, to stop the trees.

  Then his head smashed into the heavens and he hit the ground. Everything became still. Fuck! He looked up at Eight standing over him, rubbing her hand. His cheek stung and he held his cold palm against its heat.

  “Don’t have me do that again,” she said. “Go see if you can get her foot free.”

  He shook his head clear and followed the chain up the bank to the tree, dragging himself the final few feet. Got to focus. He needed food and water if he was to keep going. C’mon, man. Concentrate.

  Just like his restraint, the chain was padlocked around the pine. He looked for possible burial sites for a key
, but nothing unnatural or different stood out to him. Maybe in the branches? The prospect of another agonising climb didn’t sit well with him, but he’d do it if he had to. He looked up but, again, nothing. “There’s no key. No-one else chained up, or anything around here. Only trees and dirt.”

  Eight looked up at him. “Okay. We have to do something. If we don’t get this chain off her leg soon, she could bleed out, or die of shock.”

  Seven climbed back down and studied Two’s ankle. The cuts were deep, her blood pouring from around the manacle, the flesh open to the bone in places. He held her foot and ran his fingers around the steel. “I could probably manoeuvre it through.”

  Eight looked at him with wide eyes as she rested Two’s head on her lap, “You’re serious?”

  He shrugged, then whispered to the woman, “Madam, I can try to get you free this way. Can I try?” He watched for a response, but the woman was lost in a state of delirium, struggling and jostling within Eight’s arms.

  “Just go for it,” Eight snapped. “Fuck it, we have no alternative.”

  Seven gripped the ankle and chain, then put pressure on the dug-in manacle. As it shifted, it took her bloodied flesh with it, but he had no choice if he was to create leverage to bring it over her heel. Blood soaked his hands and hindered his grip.

  The woman howled again, so much louder than before. Panic welling in him as he struggled to keep a grasp on the situation.

  “Damn it,” Eight cried, “take a deep breath and force it!”

  Using Two’s blood to lubricate her ankle, and bending her foot, he applied more pressure to the shackle. It worked to an extent, but not enough. He looked around in a desperate attempt to find something to help. With nothing but dry cold dirt surrounding them, and the woman’s howls filling his head, he had no choice but to keep going. He took a deep breath and pulled with all his might.

  The manacle slipped free with a loud snap and Eight had to grab hold of the old woman to prevent her slipping down the slope. Two’s horrific screams reverberated through their immediate area.

  “Did you just break her ankle?” Eight asked, fear and dread filling her eyes.

  He looked at her, his mouth open. They had to get her free. What else could he do? “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He dropped the bloodied chain, leaving it dangling from the tree, and went to see if he could help.

  Eight retched and gagged, but nothing more than a string of bile came out.

  The elderly woman grabbed the back of his neck and whispered something into his ear, but before he could decipher her words, her eyes rolled up and she collapsed back into Eight’s arms, unconscious.

  THREE

  Seven and Eight struggled to carry Two along with them – the injury to her leg packed with handfuls of mulch. It was the best they could do and it would have to suffice for now, but they needed to find something to help clean the wound. They each had an arm draped across their shoulders, continuing to move in what felt like a downhill direction, mainly in the hope that it might lead them to water. Several times they stopped and listened, hoping for the sound that would save their lives; the gentle flow of a forest stream.

  Seven couldn’t get over how fast the light was fading. One minute it filtered through gaps in the canopy, next it was like they were surrounded by a heavy dusk, and with it a creeping night chill that brought goosebumps to every part of him. Their already depleted energy levels had them gasping for breath, stopping at increasingly regular intervals to regain enough strength to carry on. The freezing air stung the tips of his ears, and his joints throbbed with the impact of every step.

  He had no idea when he’d last eaten – it might have been days, and probably more considering the constant grumbling and groaning from his stomach. But that was nothing to the sharp, acidic pain creeping through him, as if something had drilled its way in through the back of his head and into his mind. Probably just a headache brought on from dehydration.

  Darkness engulfed the forest.

  “What the…?” He looked around, shocked at the sudden onset of what seemed to be deep night. “That was fast. We’ll have to stop, I can barely see a thing.”

  “She needs a hospital,” Eight said, helping him lay Two on the ground.

  “We all need a fucking hospital,” he snapped.

  “Yes, but you’re not the one bleeding to death. That lump of muck isn’t stopping the flow.”

  He looked at Two’s wound, covered with dirt they’d scraped from the forest floor in an effort to staunch the blood. She was right, it wasn’t working. “Okay, but burning ourselves out walking in the dark isn’t going to get us there any sooner. Wherever there is.”

  Her shoulders dropped in quiet acquiescence. He saw it in her eyes. Like him, she was too tired and scared to fight.

  Consumed by exhaustion, with both struggling to breathe easy, they rested themselves as best they could. Seven’s heartbeat drummed through his ears, with each breath deepening the chill within. As the night went on, the absolute silence and pitch darkness weighed on him like a solid block.

  Then it came to him. At first, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, questioned it when for so long before he’d heard nothing. The prospect of salvation sparked him to life and he was on his feet before he knew it. “Can you hear that?”

  Neither woman responded.

  He stepped towards the sound, unable to see a thing, but certain his ears weren’t lying to him. Or were they? Maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear? That stopped him in his tracks.

  “Hey? Hey, girl? Eight? Can you hear me?”

  Nothing. What the hell is going on? He felt around on the ground for them – he’d been close earlier – but could only find frozen dirt, crisp with frost. No way could he go out there on his own, and he daren’t move further for fear of creating distance between himself and the women. He had no choice but to hunker down, hug his knees tight, and try to conserve his body heat until the light returned.

  ∆∆∆

  Time passed, and he eventually managed to doze, constantly chased by abstract and disconnected visuals he couldn’t stop long enough to gain any sense of. When he opened his eyes next, morning was breaking, with a dim light filtering through the canopy and onto the forest floor. All around him tall trees stretched to the skyline. It hadn’t been a dream – he was here, trapped, and starving. Then he remembered what he’d heard and he struggled to his feet, his limbs stiff and his muscles screaming their pain straight to his head.

  A short distance away, the two women lay cuddled together beneath a film of frost. Panic shot through him as he ran over, quivering. “No, please, no. I can’t be alone in this place.”

  He leaned over and reached out, his hand shaking. While they were cold, their flesh was soft – subtle to the touch, and when he noticed a gentle plume of vapour appearing beneath Eight’s nostrils, a stifling relief coursed through him, bringing tears to his eyes.

  Taking pains not to frighten her, he shook the girl's shoulder, then stepped back when her eyes flickered open and she looked up at him.

  “I…think there’s water – a river – over there somewhere. Listen, can you hear it?”

  Eight extricated herself from Two and groaned as she got to her feet. She had to cough and slap her chest several times before she could reply. Then she closed her eyes and listened, for what seemed an age.

  When she opened her eyes, she simply nodded. “Okay, let’s go. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  “What about her?”

  “All we can do is pack her wound and take her with us. It doesn’t sound like it’s too far.”

  They did this, but he knew that without medical attention it was likely to become infected, if it wasn’t already. When they picked her up, she groaned, but with their combined effort, they managed to hoist her enough to carry her forward.

  Two seemed to gain weight with every laboured footstep, but working as a team, they developed a rhythm and pace that saw them only stopping every s
o often – long enough to catch their breaths and solidify their hold on their patient. Even with the struggle, Seven kept part of his focus on point, until he heard that beautiful sound above everything else and knew he hadn’t been hallucinating.

  “It’s close.” His tongue felt bigger and courser now the reality was upon them. Then he smelled it – like clear, pristine air, drawing him forward without any effort or waste of energy. When they reached the bank, they lay Two on the ground and crawled down to the running water, unable to resist the compulsion to fill their depleted bodies with this pure elixir of life.

  For the first time since they met, they shared a smile. Seven drank and drank, until he couldn’t take in another drop. Life sparked its way through him, from his stomach into his limbs, his chest, his head – everywhere.

  Eight cupped handful after handful, first splashing it against her face, then massaged herself with it, whimpering with delight. It changed everything. She turned her attention to their patient, carrying handfuls of water up the bank and trying to get her to drink, but most of it ended up running off the side of her face. Instead, she opted to clean the old woman’s wound.

  Seven scanned downriver along the bank. He wasn’t certain if that was downhill, with the landscape looking so level on all sides, but it had to be. Everything surrounding them bore the signs of winter. Nothing but trees, dense in most places, with the forest floor covered in a mix of dry dirt, frost patches, and the odd stone – all of this surrounded by a fence that could kill at the faintest touch. His thoughts drifted, but not enough to miss something he swore was real. A tree, off in the distance, shimmered, almost hologram like – probably the last of the dehydration playing tricks. Now, though, it looked just like the others. He lifted his gaze skywards, but the few gaps in the canopy showed nothing but erratic cloud movement.

  A crazy place, with nothing but barren wilderness beneath the mass of trees.