The Taking of Annie Thorne

by C. J. Tudor

  Annie.

  She wasn’t lying on me. I sat up. She wasn’t next to me, or near me, or at the bottom of the steps. What the –

  I picked up the torch and scrambled to my feet. My ankle still hurt, but not as badly. Perhaps it was just numb, or I was becoming inured to the pain. The back of my head felt sore. I touched it. A tender bump. No time to think about that.

  Annie.

  I stepped cautiously back down into the cavern. Bones and skulls still lay scattered across the ground. Small pieces cracked beneath my feet.

  ‘Annie?’

  My voice reverberated back at me. Hollow. Empty. Nobody here but us, the empty echo seemed to reply. Nobody here but us chickens.

  Impossible. And yet, if she wasn’t here, there was only one explanation – she must have got out.

  I tried to think back. I never saw her getting struck. Yes, there was a lot of blood and she was unconscious, but head wounds bled a lot, didn’t they? I read that somewhere. Even a small cut could bleed loads. Maybe she wasn’t hurt as badly as I had thought.

  Yeah? What about how cold she felt? What about her not breathing?

  A mistake. My mind exaggerating. We were all shit scared. It was dark. I panicked, over-reacted. And there was something else, wasn’t there? I stared around the cavern again. Abbie-Eyes. Abbie-Eyes was missing. I had left the doll down here but now she was gone. Annie must have taken her.

  I took one last look around the cavern and headed back to the steps. I scrambled up them more quickly this time – urged on by hope and desperation – and squeezed through the gap in the rock. A quick scan of the small cave revealed it was also empty. The torchlight flickered. Maybe enough battery life to get me home, maybe not.

  Home. Could Annie have made it home?

  It was barely a ten-minute walk from our house up to the old mine. If she had made it out, maybe she had made it back? Maybe she was there now, telling Dad everything, and I could look forward to a good belting when I got home. Right then, I would have welcomed it.

  I pulled myself back up the ladder. The hatch was partly open (so maybe I had been wrong about that too). Not all the way, but enough for Annie to have squeezed through, enough for me to squeeze through. I stood up in the cool, fresh night air. It stung my throat as I breathed it in. I felt myself wobble slightly, my vision blur. I bent and rested my hands on my knees. I needed to keep it together. Just long enough to get back.

  I scrambled over the slag heaps and slipped through the gap in the perimeter fence. Halfway down the street the torch finally gave up. But that was okay because now there were street lights and the occasional glow of lamps through living-room curtains. How late was it? How long had we been down there?

  I hurried down the alley that ran along the back of our house, and through the gate. In the yard, I paused. I still had Dad’s jacket and boots on. Shit. I shed them quickly, shoved them in the shed and then limped, in my holey socks, over to the back door. I turned the handle. Unlocked. It usually was, because Dad was usually too drunk to remember to lock it.

  In the kitchen, I hesitated. A light glowed in the living room. The television. Dad half sat, half sprawled on his armchair in front of it, snoring. A small collection of lager cans nestled on the floor beside his feet.

  I tiptoed over to the stairs, placed a hand on the banister and dragged my flagging body up the staircase. I felt exhausted, sick. But I needed to see Annie. I needed to make sure that she was home. I eased her door open.

  Relief. Huge. Overwhelming.

  By the light from the hall I could just see a small Annie-shaped mound curled up beneath the My Little Pony duvet. Poking out of the top, a crown of tousled dark hair.

  She was here. She made it home. It was all okay.

  In that moment, I could almost have believed that everything that had happened before was just some terrible dream.

  I started to pull the door closed …

  And then I paused. Did I think, for a second, how strange it was that Annie had gone straight to bed and not even tried to rouse Dad, to get help for me? Did I consider, even briefly, going into her room to check she was all right? After all, she had a head injury. I should have woken her, made sure she was conscious, coherent.

  Should have, should have, should have.

  But I didn’t.

  I pulled the door shut and stumbled into my own room. I took off my dirty clothes and chucked them into the laundry basket. It would all be all right, I told myself. We would sort it all out in the morning. Make up some story about what happened tonight. I would tell Hurst I didn’t want to be part of his gang any more. I would spend more time with Annie. I would make it up to her. I really, really would.

  I collapsed into bed. Something fluttered briefly, like a soft grey moth, in my mind. Something about Annie, in her bed. Something important that was missing. But, before I could grasp it, it was gone again. Dissolved into dust. I pulled the duvet up to my chin and closed my eyes …

  29

  ‘And in the morning, she was gone?’

  ‘She never made it back. The lump in the bed was a pile of toys. The hair – a doll.’ I shake my head. ‘A pile of fucking toys. I should have seen it. I should have checked.’

  ‘You sound like you were concussed yourself, not thinking straight.’

  But I should have noticed what was missing. Abbie-Eyes. Abbie-Eyes wasn’t on the bed. Annie would never have left her down there. She would have brought her back.

  ‘What happened then?’ Miss Grayson asks.

  ‘The police were called. Search parties sent out. I tried to tell them. Tried to explain how Annie would follow me sometimes, up to the pit. How they should look up there.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell them what happened?’

  ‘I wanted to. But by then Hurst had told the police we were all round his house that night. His dad backed him up. No one would believe me. Not my word against his.’

  Miss Grayson nods and I think: She knows. She knows I am a liar and a coward.

  ‘You didn’t go back to look for her?’

  ‘I couldn’t get near and the police wouldn’t let me join the search parties. I just kept thinking they would find the hatch. They would find her. They had to.’

  ‘Sometimes, some places, like people, have to want to be found.’

  I would very much like to dismiss this as crazy. But I know she’s right. Chris didn’t find the hatch. It found him. And if it didn’t want you inside, you’d never find it again.

  ‘I was going to confess,’ I say. ‘I was going to go down to the police station and tell them everything.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  ‘She came back.’

  And they all lived happily ever after.

  Except, there’s no such thing. My little sister came back. She sat in the police station, swinging her legs, an oversized blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Abbie-Eyes clutched tightly in her arms. And she smiled at me.

  That was when I knew. That was when I realized what was wrong. So terribly, horribly wrong.

  Annie’s head. Where was the wound? The blood? All I could see was a small red scar on her forehead. I stared at it. Could it have healed so quickly? Had I been wrong? Had I imagined the blow being worse than it was? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything any more.

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘Something happened to my sister,’ I say slowly. ‘I can’t explain what. I just know that, when she came back, she wasn’t the same. She wasn’t my Annie.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘No, you don’t. No one does. And I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to forget it.’ I look at her angrily. ‘You said you know what happened to my sister. You know nothing.’

  She stares back at me, her gaze cool and appraising. Then she stands and walks to the desk. She opens a drawer and takes out a bottle of sherry and two glasses.

  She fills both to the brim, hands one glass to me and sits back down, clutching the other. I’m not really a fan of sherry
but I take a sip. A large one.

  ‘I had a sister once,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t know –’

  ‘She was stillborn. I saw her, just afterwards. She looked just like she was sleeping, except, of course, she didn’t breathe, didn’t make a sound. I remember the village midwife – an older woman – wrapping her up and placing her in my mother’s arms. And then she said something I’ll always remember: “It doesn’t need to be like this. I know a place you can take her – you could bring your baby back.” ’

  I want to make an acerbic comment. Something pithy, something puerile. I want to tell her that she was a child and misinterpreted the words. I want to tell her that memories become soft over time. As malleable as putty in our minds – we can shape them into anything we want.

  But I find I can’t. That cold draught is back. A window open somewhere.

  ‘What did your mother do?’

  ‘Told the woman to get out. To never speak of such things.’

  ‘Did you ever ask her about it?’

  ‘My parents never talked about my sister. But then, very few of us talk about death, do we? It’s a dirty secret. And yet, in a way, death is the most important part of life. Without it, our existence would be unthinkable.’

  I throw back the rest of the sherry. ‘Why did you want me to come back?’

  ‘To stop history repeating itself.’

  ‘You can’t. That’s what history does. We like to pretend we learn from our mistakes, but we don’t. We always think it will be different this time. And it never is.’

  ‘If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be here.’

  I bark out a laugh. ‘Right now, I have no idea what I believe, or why I’m here.’

  ‘Then let me help you – I believe that Jeremy Hurst has found another way into the cave you discovered. He has been taking children down there. I think he took Ben and something happened to him, just like your sister.’

  ‘And I’m sorry about that, okay? I’m sorry about Ben. I’m sorry about Julia. But I don’t know what you expect me to do –’

  ‘This isn’t just about Ben and Julia.’

  ‘Then what the hell is it about?’

  ‘Stephen Hurst.’

  Instinctively, my jaw clenches.

  ‘What has he got to do with any of it?’

  ‘He’s been obstructing the progress of the country-park scheme for months. Stopping developers getting access to the land.’

  ‘I thought he wanted to build houses.’

  ‘That’s what he wants people to think. I think he’s protecting what’s beneath the ground.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Marie is very ill.’

  ‘Cancer. I know.’

  ‘Terminal cancer. She has months, maybe weeks, left. She is dying.’

  I remember the wave of dread I felt in the pub.

  Marie is not going to die. I will not let that happen.

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Not even Hurst is that insane.’

  ‘But he is desperate. And desperate people will try anything. They’re looking for a miracle.’ She leans forward and rests a cool, dry hand on mine. ‘Of course, that is seldom what they find. Do you understand now why I wanted you to come back?’

  I do, and the understanding carves a deep, cold chasm out of my insides.

  ‘He wants to save her,’ I say.

  ‘And I think you are the only person who can stop him.’

  30

  I sit on the sofa, a glass of bourbon and the pack of playing cards on the coffee table in front of me. I haven’t touched either yet. The fire isn’t lit and the room is in darkness. I still have my coat on. It’s cold, but then it always is.

  In the faint moonlight shining through from the kitchen window I can see Abbie-Eyes on the opposite armchair, regarding me with her new – and even more nightmarish – gaze.

  She is not my only company. I can sense them, close by. Not just the skittering, chittering sounds I have become almost accustomed to. Other companions. Silent, but watching. I open the pack of cards – for the first time in a long time – and start to shuffle them.

  ‘It’s not my problem, okay?’

  I spit the words out into the darkness and wait for it to challenge me. It doesn’t reply, but I feel eyes upon me, full of blackness.

  ‘I tried to stop it before. It didn’t work.’

  The darkness bristles, the chittering increases, like I have said something that annoys it. I deal the cards out. Four hands for my invisible players. Then I reach for my drink and throw it back. Dutch courage. Stupid phrase. False courage, no matter what the tongue.

  ‘I don’t owe Hurst anything. So, let him go ahead. Let him learn. I don’t care.’

  Except, the darkness chides, like a parent to a tantrum-throwing child, that’s not true, is it, Joe? Because this isn’t just about Hurst. It’s about Marie. A girl you once had feelings for. A woman who is dying. Who deserves to do that in some sort of peace. Because there are things worse than death. Because what comes back isn’t always what left. And you’re the only person who can stop it.

  I try to stare the darkness down. But the darkness doesn’t budge, doesn’t blink. If anything, it seems to draw closer, pressing itself against me like an unwelcome lover. And now, I can see something else lurking in its folds. Figures, shadows within shadows. Because the dead never really leave us. We carry them inside. In everything we do. In our dreams, our nightmares. The dead are a part of us. And maybe they are part of something else too. This place. This earth.

  But what if the earth is rotten? What if the things you plant there grow back full of poison? I think about how you can never build the same snowman, or how the tapes that Dad’s mate copied were always fuzzy and corrupted. There are some things – some beautiful, perfect things – you can never recreate without ruining them.

  I hear movement. The creak of a door, the soft tread of footsteps. I’m ready.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ I ask. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Well, for a start, you could turn the feckin’ lights on.’

  I jump and spin around, just as the living room floods with light.

  ‘Jesus.’ I shield my eyes, like a vampire exposed to the burning rays of the dawn.

  I squint through my fingers. Brendan stands near the doorway, resplendent in army jacket, baggy jumper, cords and tattered Green Flash trainers. A large holdall is slung over his shoulder.

  He regards me from within his nest of tangled hair and beard. ‘What the feck are you doing here, sitting in the dark, talking to yourself?’

  I just stare at him. Then I shake my head.

  ‘Am I the only person who knocks on a door any more?’

  Brendan makes terrible coffee. It is also past midnight – not my preferred coffee-drinking hour. But I am too tired, confused and wrung out to argue the case against it.

  He emerges from the kitchen with two mugs, plonks one down in front of me and looks around for somewhere to sit with his.

  ‘I love what you’ve done with the place.’

  ‘It’s called deconstructed.’

  ‘It’s called something.’

  I nod towards the armchair. ‘Sit. Abbie-Eyes loves company.’

  He eyes the doll. ‘This is probably stating the obvious but sitting here talking to a one-eyed doll is even more bloody creepy than talking to yourself.’

  He removes Abbie-Eyes and places her on the floor with a shudder, then sits and clasps his mug. The holdall rests at his feet. I look down at it.

  ‘I was expecting a courier, not personal delivery.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I figured the petrol was cheaper.’

  ‘You haven’t got a car.’

  ‘I borrowed my sister’s.’

  ‘What about work?’

  ‘I can give it a miss for a couple of days. And I’m glad I did. Because you look like shite, my man. Countryside air does not agree with you.’

  I rub at my eyes. ‘Well, I won�
�t be breathing it much longer.’

  One way or another.

  ‘Your plan is coming to fruition.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve got a pack of playing cards out?’

  I glance at the hands of cards I have dealt on the table.

  ‘I was just killing time.’

  ‘You’re not planning on winning your money back?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Thank feck for that. Don’t take this wrong, but you’re a shite card player.’

  ‘And you couldn’t have told me that before someone made matchsticks out of my leg?’

  ‘You’ve got to want to hear it.’ He looks down at the holdall. ‘So, presumably – and I don’t think I’ll be stepping on Sherlock’s toes when I deduce this – it has something to do with what’s in this bag?’

  ‘Bravo, dear Watson.’

  ‘So?’

  I raise an eyebrow. Or at least, I try. The effort is a little too much tonight.

  ‘Someone is going to pay me a lot of money not to take that to the police.’ I lean forward and lift the holdall on to the coffee table. ‘Have you looked inside?’

  ‘I figured if you wanted me to know, you’d show me.’

  I unzip the top and carefully take out a bulky shape wrapped in an old sweatshirt. I unfold the sweatshirt, revealing two items carefully preserved inside a clear plastic bag:

  A crowbar, and a dark blue school tie, darker in places, where it soaked up the blood. My sister’s blood. Just visible, a name sewn into it: S. Hurst.

  ‘What the feck is this?’ Brendan asks.

  ‘Payback.’

  31

  1992

  Falling doesn’t kill you. Stopping kills you.

  That’s what Chris told me.

  People think that when you fall from a great height your brain shuts down before you hit the ground.

  Not true. It’s possible, because of the speed at which your brain processes information, that it may not have time to consciously comprehend the actual impact. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t furiously working all the way down.

  Right until the final crunch.

  I had English in the Block, last period, the day that Chris fell. We read from Animal Farm. I never liked that novel. I was not then, or now, a fan of overly heavy-handed symbolism.