“But...” Donald tried to swallow his anger and made a second attempt on his sentence. “But if this is going to work, we’re gonna have to start being civil to one another, you dig what I’m sayin’?”
“Is that right?”
“Look, if you hate me that much, then why come to the pond?”
“Because it’s a necessity, dumb fuck, that’s why?” Yoler huffed and chewed the inside of her mouth in thought. Donald knew there was more to come, so he remained quiet.
She said, “You’re just scared in case we kick you out.”
“That won’t happen,” he chortled.
“You reckon?”
“If I go, then Helen and David will go with me. They’re like family to me,” he said smugly. “And we all know that Simon likes Helen.”
“And we all know that you have a thing for Helen as well. That’s why you’re so snappy with Simon.” Donald never responded, allowing Yoler to continue her little rant. She continued, “And what makes you think Helen will go wherever you go? She has to do whatever makes David safe; even if that means turning her back on people she’s known for a while. Your kid comes before anything and anyone.”
“I know,” he mumbled and lowered his head.
They went into the trees, careful where they were putting their feet, and were soon out at the other end and by the pond.
“Right,” Yoler snapped, grabbing Donald’s bucket off of him. “I’ll dip these buckets and then you can get yourself washed. I promise I won’t look.
She took her shoes and socks off, rolled up her trousers, then walked into the pond. Once the water was just below her knees, she filled both buckets.
She walked back to the grassy bank and plonked the buckets on the ground.
Donald had his top off and was giving himself a quick wash, using the soap. Yoler could see a tattoo on Donald’s upper back. It was in bold, in an old English style, and the word that was tattooed on his back was Charlie.
“Who’s Charlie?” she asked Donald with zero hesitation.
“You said you weren’t going to look.”
Donald was still washing and never turned to face the woman. It took a while for him to answer, as if he was thinking about it, and finally said, “Charlie was a dog I used to have.”
“You must have really loved that dog, having a tattoo of his name on your back,” Yoler persisted, not believing a word he had said.
“I did,” was his short response.
Donald’s legs waded through the water once he was finished and put his shirt, trousers, socks and boots back on once he was back on dry land. Yoler realised that Donald hadn’t taken a towel with him, but it wasn’t something he moaned about.
“Right, let’s head back.” Donald went over to Yoler and picked up both full buckets.
“I can lift one of them, you know,” Yoler said.
“Don’t want you breaking a nail now, do we?”
Yoler never cracked her face and turned to walk into the cluster of trees, but a rustling from the other side of the pond made the pair of them pause.
Donald, still holding the buckets, turned and looked into the woods. Both turned their heads and gazed at one another, unsure what the next move should be. Donald briefly thought about his old camp that was deeper into the woods, and wondered if it was one of the people that had escaped. He was in two minds whether to call out or not. It could be anything, he thought. It could be a Canavar, a wild dog, a survivor, a gang of thugs.
Anything!
No more noises could be heard, and Yoler whispered over to Donald, “Whatever it was, I think it’s gone now.”
Donald never flinched. He remained staring into the woods, still holding the buckets.
“Don’t you think we should check it out?” he asked her.
Yoler looked at him and could see that he wasn’t as relaxed as her. Donald Brownstone wasn’t as tough as he made himself out to be, she thought. All bark and very little bite.
“No, I don’t.” Yoler headed for the cluster of trees. “It was probably just a squirrel. No need to shit yourself, Donnie Boy.”
Donald could feel his blood boil and caught up with Yoler, carrying the heavy buckets.
“I wasn’t shitting myself,” he snapped, making the young woman smile. “I’m just being cautious, you dig what I’m sayin’?
“Oh, I dig what you are saying,” she mocked.
Donald flashed Yoler an evil glare and could see her smiling. “So, is that you taking the piss out of the way I talk now?”
She shook her head. “God, you’re so sensitive. I never had you down as the sensitive type. Is that why you’re always mouthing off? You trying to hide your gentle side.”
“Mock away all you like, little girl.”
“I bet you cried watching Titanic, didn’t you?”
“Is that the best you’ve got?”
“You must have been real heartbroken when you lost Charlie. Was that dumb dog your best friend, your only friend?”
Donald dropped the buckets and saw red. He grabbed Yoler around the throat with both hands, making her scream at the man to let her go. He pushed the woman over, forcing her to fall to the ground.
Donald took a step back, looked at his hands as if he had no control over them over the last few seconds, then lowered his head, about to apologise.
“Prick.” Yoler stood up, took out the machete, and held it up with both hands, as if she was ready for a fight. “Touch me again, and I’ll open up your ball sack, you bald cunt!”
“You need to stop pushing people.” Donald glared at the young woman. “You need to know when to stop.”
“It was banter,” she snapped. “I was having a laugh.”
“Well, it didn’t feel like it.”
Minutes later, the two of them walked across the field and could see the hill up ahead with the farmhouse on top of it. Yoler breathed in some fresh air and a smile emerged on her face. This had been the happiest, and the safest, she had been for months.
She took a quick glance at Donald and thought that maybe if she got to know him, he’d be okay. She knew she could be fiery tempered and had a mouth on her, but he seemed to be the same. Maybe that was what was wrong. They were similar.
“Look, we’re going to have to live together,” Yoler said. “Whether we like it or not.”
“True.” Donald nodded.
“We’re probably not going to be friends, but we may as well be civil to one another. What do you say?”
Without looking at her, Donald replied, “I suppose I could give that a try. It’s either that or I get kicked out.”
Both were now walking up the hill, and Donald was struggling with the buckets, but to his credit he never moaned about the weight he had to carry.
Once the pair of them reached the back of the house, where the vegetable patches were and Imelda’s grave to their right, Donald put the buckets down and began to shake his arms out.
He picked the buckets back up whilst Helen opened the door and let Yoler in. Both females went into the living room, whilst Donald took the buckets straight into the kitchen, and placed them on top of the sink.
“Oh.” Yoler popped her head into the kitchen and said to Donald, “I’m sorry for mocking your dog. I know what men are like with their dogs. I suppose it was like losing a family member.”
Donald nodded and lowered his head.
“So ... sorry for slagging off the Charlie tattoo.” Yoler smiled thinly at Donald and added, “I'm not normally a cruel person.”
“I’ve never owned a dog,” Donald said, and decided to go back outside and headed towards the back door.
“What are you talking about?”
“Charlie was my son.”
Chapter Eight
“This is not the way we came,” Simon said.
“I’m going a different way.”
Dicko put the vehicle into fourth and was now doing a steady thirty along the windy country roads. Simon was about to ask Dicko the purpose of going back to the fa
rm a different way, but as if Dicko was telepathic, he began to explain the reason.
“There was nothing on the way here,” he began. “Maybe we can come across something on the way back if we go a different way.”
Simon leaned his head back on the restraint, looked to the side and glared out. The trees and bushes that whizzed by hypnotised him and made his mind wander. He thought about his son and about the first weeks when the disaster was announced by the media. He thought about the rhyme about the Canavars that his son Tyler would use to scare Imelda, his younger sister. He could be so cruel sometimes, but at the same time he could be so sweet.
A couple of years ago, Simon had taken his son to his friend’s house to put up a cupboard. Whilst Simon and his friend were assembling the furniture, his son was in the back room, being cruel to his friend’s cat, trying to scare it and running after it around the house. However, he could also be a sweet boy. A year ago, at his and Imelda’s sports day, at school, his son came first in a flat race and he received a winner sticky label that was placed on his chest, which made him very proud.
When it came to the last race of the day, the parents’ race, Simon’s wife volunteered to be one of the runners in the mum’s flat race. Ten yards into the race and she had tripped and fallen over. She was clearly embarrassed and so was Imelda. However, Tyler went up to his humiliated mother and said, “Don’t worry, mum. You’ll always be a winner to me.” He then took off his sticker and put it on her shirt.
Simon’s eyes were filling as he thought about this story, and before he became too emotional, his daydreaming had been disturbed when Dicko announced, “Something up ahead.”
Simon looked forward and could see an abandoned red car, a Renault Clio, and a minute later Dicko had pulled up behind it. “I knew that hose pipe and that jug would come in handy in the boot.”
Simon knew what Dicko was talking about, but he was unsure if siphoning the fuel from the vehicle would be worth it. How long had the car been there? Even if it had been there longer than a month, then surely somebody must have already beaten them to it. Simon turned the engine off and told Simon that he didn’t need to come out if he didn’t want.
Simon remained silent and stayed where he was. Dicko went outside and opened the boot of his car. He took out the hose bit and jug, shut the boot, and then went over to the Renault with cautious steps.
He unscrewed the petrol cap, stuck the pipe in, and gave it a suck. Unbelievably, petrol came out and he began to fill it with the jug. After a few minutes, the petrol had run dry and the two-litre jug was two thirds full. Dicko went over to the Mazda and emptied the jug into the car. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing and the tank was now half full.
Dicko went back over to the abandoned car and walked around it, looking inside. From the passenger seat of the Mazda, Simon could see Dicko waving at him. Simon wound his window down and asked Dicko what he wanted.
“Come and have a look at this,” Dicko said.
Simon sighed impatiently and stepped out of the car. He just wanted to get back to the farmhouse.
He walked over to Dicko and stood next to him, staring into the driver’s window.
“I was contemplating whether you should take this car for yourself, but that’s not gonna happen now.” He pointed at the window.
Simon could see a Canavar, a female Canavar, writhing around in her seat. It was strapped in and the stupid fucker didn’t know how to unbuckle itself.
She must have been bitten outside and then fled in her car, Simon thought.
“Shall I put her to peace?” Dicko asked Simon.
“I don’t care,” said Simon, coldly. “You brought me out of the car to show me this? Is that it?”
“Okay, Mr Grumpyguts,” Dicko laughed.
“Don’t call me that. Yoler calls me that sometimes, and it gets on my wick.”
“I thought you could take it out.” Dicko smiled at Simon. “Give yourself some practice.”
“Now you’re being patronising.” Simon glared at Dicko and huffed. “I have killed these things before, you know.
“There’s no winning with you, is there?”
“Just leave it there,” Simon spoke almost in a whisper. “It’s dead. It doesn’t matter if it walks, it’s still dead.”
“Look, if you don’t want to do it—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Simon sighed. He opened the driver’s door and pulled out the machete with his right hand that was under his belt. He gazed at the dead thing and could see it snarling, snapping its teeth together, and reaching out to grab him, but this scene didn’t move him.
He grabbed the handle with both hands and his son’s rhyme that he used to tease Imelda with swirled around his head like cigar smoke. He couldn’t shake the words off.
The Canavars are coming, so you better hide and pray.
He raised the blade, pointing it at the ghoul’s face.
If you don’t believe me then you’re going to die today.
He then rammed the blade into the side of the Canavar’s head.
They’ll eat your flesh, they’ll eat your brains, and they’ll eat your heart and more.
It stopped moving and slumped in the seat once the blade was removed.
The Canavars are everywhere, you better lock your door.
Simon wiped the blade on the shirt of the female ghoul and said to Dicko, “There, happy now?”
“Delighted,” was Dicko’s sarcastic response.
Chapter Nine
Helen Willis snuggled up to her tired little man and urged him to have a nap. He kept on protesting that he didn’t want to. He was fighting it, but she knew him. She knew when he was tired.
“Just a little nap with your mum,” she encouraged him. “You’ll feel a whole lot better.”
Eventually, she had won him round and both mother and son lay on the couch and Helen’s eyes were becoming heavy already. It wasn’t surprising, considering the terrible night’s sleep she had. Her dreams were plagued with macabre images, and even David had yelled during the night after having a nightmare about Imelda Washington. He had only known the little girl briefly, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Imelda during the day, and now the dead girl was hijacking his dreams.
He felt his mum’s hand stroking his forehead, and could feel that he was losing the battle to stay awake. His mum continued to stroke his head and eventually he dozed off. Two minutes later, Helen was next.
*
Yoler went inside the house, bolted the door shut, and helped herself to a cup of water. She went into the living room and could see mother and son asleep, so she crept by them and headed upstairs. Once she reached the landing, she went to Donald’s room with no hesitation and gently knock the door.
“What is it?” he asked from behind the door.
“I want to speak to you,” said Yoler.
“Why?”
“Jesus Christ on a cross, just open the bloody door, will you?”
Yoler waited and eventually heard steps coming towards her and the door opening. Donald opened the door wide, turned around and sat down on the bed. He sat where the pillows were and placed his knees up to his chest, as Yoler shut the door behind him, and sat at the foot of the bed.
“I want to apologise about what I said on our way back from the pond,” she began to explain. “Obviously, I had no idea you used to have a son, and—”
“You don’t have to come in here and apologise,” Donald muttered. “It doesn’t matter. Honestly.”
“I don’t have much of a filter when it comes to speaking my mind,” Yoler said. “But I’m not a heartless bitch. I wouldn’t have said anything if I knew that Charlie was your son.”
Donald gently nodded, and Yoler took this as some kind of acceptance for her apology.
“So ... what the piss happened?”
“What?” Donald scratched his hairless head, unsure what Yoler was asking. “You mean ... how did Charlie die?”
She nodded.
Donald took in a deep breath and said, “Look, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not say.”
“I understand.”
“It’s not something I really want to talk about.”
“Okay.” Yoler slowly stood up and headed for the bedroom door, ready to let herself out. “If you change your mind, you can talk to me.”
“Thanks,” Donald smiled. “But I won’t.”
Yoler let herself out of the room and left Donald in peace.
Chapter Ten
Lisa Newton had no idea where she was. As soon as she left the caravan park, she headed over the field and kept going once she had reached a country lane. From there, she walked and walked for ... she didn’t know how long for, and had no idea how many miles for, but it had been for quite a while.
She had remained on the lane for a while, but the sound of an engine forced her to go into the woods and hide. This happened on two occasions, and on the second time, she decided to stay in the woods and see if she could find something edible or even some kind of brook so she could wet her dry mouth. She hadn’t been away from the caravan long and she was already struggling. Her feet were aching and she decided to sit against a tree and rest a little.
She sat down and put her back against the trunk of a fully bloomed birch, and closed her eyes. The thought of her little girl, alone in that caravan crippled her, but she had to flee. She didn’t have a choice.
The images of the caravan flashed through her head and the pale face of her youngest daughter haunted her. She then thought about Grace. Thank God she left. She was a beautiful young girl and there was no chance that those animals would have left her alone. She must have heard the commotion coming from the living room and then fled, Lisa thought.
Tears fell from the woman’s eyes and she dropped her head as she sobbed. She couldn’t believe that her youngest daughter had survived this long, only to be brutally stabbed by a bunch of thugs. Lisa’s concern when the announcement was made of June last year was the dead, dehydration, and starvation. But it was men that had taken away her daughter’s young life. The same men were probably fathers a year ago, worked for a living, and probably had respectable jobs. Why or how did they become so vicious and vindictive, she would never know. Had they experienced tragedy of their own and had become psychologically traumatised by what they had witnessed? Or did they just think ... fuck it! Life on this earth now was going to be a short affair, so they may as well enjoy the ride before their demise, even if it meant abusing and killing people that didn’t deserve it.
Ghostland (Book 2): Ghostland 2 Page 4
