The Watchers

by A. M. Shine

  ‘What will you do?’ Daniel asked her.

  ‘What?’ Ciara replied, spooked by another’s voice amidst her sadness.

  It was as though Daniel knew she needed saving. Despite what Madeline thought, his kindness wasn’t a weakness. It was his greatest strength.

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘what will you do when you get out of here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I suppose I’ll go home, but I don’t really want to. I’m more scared of going home than I am of this place, I think.’ She forced a little laugh. ‘It will be so empty. At least here I have you. I have company. As horrible as it is here, I’ll never forget it. I don’t want to. This is the last place that John and I were together.’

  ‘Maybe you could stay with someone?’ Daniel said.

  ‘I could stay with my parents, I suppose,’ she replied. ‘But they’ll have so many questions, and I can’t talk about it, Danny. I can’t. And they don’t need to know about any of this. I love them too much to tell them the truth.’

  Mina knew that Ciara had lost everything, and she wouldn’t be able to share with anyone the reasons how or why. What could she possibly tell John’s family? Months had passed since their disappearance. Were photographs of them shared around the internet or on the evening news, pleading for information? Her parents probably hadn’t given up their search of them, even after all that time.

  ‘And you,’ she asked Daniel, ‘what will you do? Will you go home to your parents?’

  ‘It’s just my dad,’ he said, sadly.

  Daniel had never spoken about his family. There was a shared respect for the past. It was painful to talk about that which they might never see again. And some memories were sacred. They had no place in the forest.

  ‘Will I tell you something?’ he said, whispering now, but Mina could still hear him.

  ‘Of course,’ Ciara replied.

  ‘That day, when I left on my bike, I was leaving. My home, that is. I just wanted to ride as fast and as far as I could and see where my life took me.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘It didn’t take me very far. But it’s far enough from my dad. I’m never going back there. So, I suppose I don’t have anywhere to go, but that’s okay. I’ll figure it out.’

  ‘You’ll come with me,’ she said, reaching over to touch his hand. ‘I’ll be glad of the company.’

  Empty cans were scattered around her. The soup was just another stain on a jumper that was green once upon a time. None of them were in the shape of their lives, but Ciara seemed to shun the very thought of exercise. The trek south could be too much for her. But Mina knew she was stronger than those kind eyes let on. They had all witnessed that side of her.

  Daniel was a different case. He was fitter; probably the strongest amongst them. But it wasn’t his body that would slow them down. The boy’s fears were out of control. It made him unpredictable.

  And then there was Madeline – the eldest and weakest but only in the physical sense. If any one of them could make the journey, it was her. She didn’t join them on the floor where they dined within an arm’s reach of another helping. Instead, she brought her food back to the desk and ate alone.

  They were an unlikely outfit. Their strengths and weaknesses spread thin between them, but Mina had to believe that together they could do it. Otherwise, what was the point in trying? She couldn’t imagine the loss of any one of them. They were the weird family that lived in the woods, dysfunctional and damaged, but always too stubborn to die.

  ‘Mina,’ Daniel whispered, calling for her attention, ‘do you really think that there’s a boat?’

  Madeline hadn’t heard him, or if she had then she didn’t react. Huddled in her shawl with her back turned to them, she kept on scratching away at the can with her long fingers, chewing slowly, like she always did.

  ‘Kilmartin went to a lot of trouble setting this place up,’ Mina replied. ‘What would be the point of risking everything to study these things if he didn’t have an escape plan? He knew that nothing works here and he found a way around it. The fact that we have light is nothing short of a miracle.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ciara put in.

  ‘Think about it,’ she said, leaning forward. ‘Cars don’t work. Danny’s bike broke down. If there’s any way out of here, then it has to be by boat. So long as the river runs fast enough, we’ll make it.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’ Daniel asked, his worries multiplying by the second.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mina replied, sitting back. ‘We’ll all go skinny-dipping and scare the watchers away.’

  ‘What if someone has already found this place?’ Ciara whispered nervously. ‘They would have seen the video and they would know about the boat.’ She hugged her body as if suddenly cold. ‘What if the boat is already gone? We would never make it back here on time.’

  ‘We will be lucky to make it to the boat at all,’ Madeline said, turning in her chair. ‘I don’t know how large this forest is, but I guarantee you that the river is a full day’s journey. And no, Ciara, no one has set foot in this place since Kilmartin. Look around you! Nothing has been disturbed. No food other than what he himself ate is missing. The man was spotlessly clean. It’s a shame that the same cannot be said about you.’

  ‘Fuck this place,’ Mina shot back, coming to Ciara’s defence. ‘Feel free to pick up the mess if it makes you happy, Madeline. In the morning we’re out of here and we’re not coming back.’

  Madeline seemed not to hear, or else she was simply so uninterested in Mina’s response that it didn’t even register. She collected the compass from the table and held it flat on her hand. Her long neck arched over it as she paced around in a circle, making sure that it was functioning correctly. The woman would stop and she would frown, and then she would repeat the process again and again.

  ‘It’s working,’ she said eventually, speaking more to herself than to anybody else.

  A sudden thud echoed through the hatch above. One of the watchers must have jumped down from the ceiling, throwing all its force at it, and probably breaking itself in the process. Everyone flinched. Everyone except Madeline who still stared, hypnotised, at the compass.

  ‘I hope, Mina,’ she said, ‘you’re not planning on taking that bird of yours with you.’

  Mina looked at the yellow one, still smiling, and still waiting for its dinner. There were five of them making the journey, and all five of them would make it.

  ‘Don’t you worry about the bird,’ she replied. ‘Remember what I told you. When I leave this place, he’s coming with me.’

  Just as Mina expected, Madeline said nothing.

  20

  They had rushed inside like a plague of locusts, wrestling one another to fall first upon their feast, their untold talons scarifying this building of brittle, plastered blocks. The coop’s light didn’t deter them. They scrambled beneath it without hesitation, smashing the open door aside. Their waxen skin shimmered like wet marble. Their muscles contorted like worms, glistening in sweat and spittle. They all fought towards the hatch, piling their naked flesh atop of it, tearing at each other, their teeth whetted and salivating. The chaos did not abate. All night they indulged this frenzy. The steel may have dampened their ungodly screams to those buried beneath, but they were never so loud and their rage never so wild.

  With her eyes closed Mina listened to the horror above, trying to count how many were up there, fighting over who got to kill her first. She had joined Ciara on the bed and sat with her back against the wall, one bare foot dangling over the floor. She might have slept. She couldn’t remember. If she had then she had dreamt only of the watchers and of this coffin that was now their home.

  Underground, there was no knowing what time it was. This made the anticipation all the worse. They could be summoned at any second. Unprepared despite expectancy. The stars – like embers in the ether – would be quenched. All that black would bleach to light, and the sun would chase the watchers back into their dens.

  21


  A sliver of light framed the floor when Mina lifted the hatch. The silence hinted at the watchers’ retreat. The darkness of the coop confirmed it. Their frustration was commemorated on every inch of concrete, in a room mauled and hewn out of shape. Fluids born from their breath and bodies dripped down the glass like sweat. Blood, too, was sprayed in patches, from when their anger had turned inward. Everywhere there was disease and infection – a poison you could taste in the air; black and alive. Mina guessed that this was what Madeline knew was coming. This was why they couldn’t wait another day.

  ‘The light’s off,’ Ciara whispered, voicing what everyone already knew.

  Morning’s light had yet to perforate the forest. The night’s inky black still pooled around the corners. With the lid open, and the glow of the safe house slipping up into the chill air, the thought of staying below had never been so appealing.

  The birdcage was light enough to carry for now. Mina’s sojourn in the forest had weakened her; deprived of light and food, there were days when even the short walk to the spring had left her exhausted. She remembered how her body had ached that day when her car broke down, and the shoulder pain that never really healed. She was so determined not to leave the yellow one behind. But what if Madeline was right?

  ‘You ready for this?’ she whispered to the bird; both shivering against the cold.

  ‘Good to go,’ Daniel said, rubbing his hands together furiously, not entirely sure who Mina was talking to.

  ‘Wait,’ Madeline snapped, her large hands held the compass, pivoting her body to mimic its magnetic needle.

  ‘It is working, isn’t it?’ Mina asked.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course it’s working. South is in that direction,’ she said, pointing towards the wall to the right of the mirror, where their bed used to be.

  ‘Well?’ Mina pressed.

  ‘Well, what, Mina?’

  ‘Let’s get fucking moving,’ she said, hoisting the cage up into her arms.

  Through the broken door and down the corridor they walked in darkness. Mina heard Daniel retch. He was gasping into cupped hands, his fears rising like acid in the back of his throat. The taste in the air was vile. Madeline went about releasing the chains and bolts. Their bodies piled up against one another, all eager to breathe fresh air. When the door was unlocked it yawned open ever so slowly like some grand reveal, teasing them. Every speck of faint light and particle of that crisp, raw air carried with it some illusory sense of promise.

  One by one, they stepped out like prisoners released, unsure as to how the woodland had changed in their absence. The cold was startling. It stiffened their bodies and fogged their breaths. Teeth rattled aloud like castanets. Mina was stood behind the rest, staring at her feet and the toes that squelched into black soil. They had numbed to the point that the pain seemed to belong to someone else. They weren’t her feet. Mina’s feet could never be that filthy.

  ‘Mina,’ Madeline whispered, so loud that she might as well have shouted, ‘where are your shoes?’

  ‘The watchers took them,’ she said, ‘that night when…’ She knew better than to open old wounds. ‘I lost my socks, too.’

  ‘And you just thought that you would walk barefoot to the boat?’ she snapped.

  ‘I didn’t think,’ Mina replied, feeling genuinely stupid, but what other choice had she?

  ‘Well,’ Madeline said, ‘if you can’t keep up, then that’s your problem.’

  ‘It’s not Mina’s problem,’ Ciara said. ‘We’re all in this together, and we’re getting out of here together.’

  ‘Well, let’s go then,’ Madeline replied, already turning to walk away. ‘You can all die together, if ye so please.’

  There was a time when Mina thought the woman was content to live out her years in exile, never considering for a merciful moment that escape was possible. Looking at her now, as she stormed ahead through that wilderness of horror, there was no stopping her. For one so frail, she moved with a haste that surprised them all, her long gangly strides hidden beneath the blanket that she was never seen without.

  Daniel glanced over his shoulder. Mina thought for an addled second that he had forgotten something. But no, the boy in him – the one that Madeline had brutalised so effortlessly – wanted to run home. The safe house was warm and its steel impenetrable. She followed his eyes north, where they searched for the coop that was now nowhere to be seen. It was too late. The opportunity had passed. The forest had swallowed it out of sight. So dense were its untold trees and so sprawling the brake that he may never have found it again. There was one option remaining – south. And only Madeline knew the way. The compass was hers to hold and nobody else’s.

  With her feet soaking into a soil that was cold but comforting, both brittle and soft between her toes, Mina had never been so perceptive to textures nor so disturbed by their each and every imposition. The blanket that cocooned her body drew the damp from above and below. It made her sweaty, but never warm. The frost was far from content to settle by her toes. It had gripped her ankles, before swelling like a rising tide to the height of her knees, and then it seized her thighs like a vice carved from steaming ice. She ignored the pain as best she could, until eventually she felt nothing. Legs ploughed forward like dead, wooden stilts, and even these early minutes in a journey of unknown hours dragged on like a cruel joke. Her fingers were locked through the cage’s bars and the bird was quiet. For all Mina knew, the yellow one was slowly dying. Maybe she was too, but she just couldn’t feel it.

  Madeline had led the way, charging through great covens of brambles and ferns, all snagging and sticking, slowing their pace to a crawl. She abided by the compass’s needle, resolved to travel as the crow flies in a land that the clever crow knew to avoid.

  ‘Madeline,’ Mina said, as she stood behind her, with Ciara and then Daniel taking up the rear, ‘we can’t keep going straight.’

  However much time had already elapsed, they had made little ground. The sun was higher, Mina knew that much. Here and there it tore through in javelins of light. There was no horizon – no open ground or river. There was an endless parade of trees. If this was indeed their path, then they were the first to break it. There were no fissures to slip through and no gaps to guide them home.

  ‘What would you have me do, Mina?’ Madeline said, turning to face her, seeming taller than ever before.

  ‘We’ll fan out and find the fastest way through,’ she replied. ‘There are four of us, Madeline. We can help, you know?’

  ‘With your bare feet, can you?’ she said. ‘Can you really help?’ Her frustration unleashed.

  ‘You can have my shoes, if you want, Mina?’ Daniel said.

  Everyone stopped. He was already unlacing them before Mina reached over to grab his shoulder.

  ‘I’m not wearing those old things,’ she said, smiling, and almost crying from the cold. ‘Let’s all just find a way through this. We’ve gotten this far, haven’t we?’

  Mina liked these people. Their flaws were as obvious as their situation was grim, but she cared for them. She loved them. And as opposed as she was – as she had always been – to these bonds, these ties that stretch and strangle you, she wanted them to get through this. These weren’t the kind of people that you walk away from without saying goodbye. Not anymore.

  ‘Okay,’ Madeline said, looking around her, reassessing everyone’s role and worth, like a manager burdened with a team of amateurs. ‘Let’s all spread out.’

  With their lives aligned south they worked to find the quickest passage. Their efforts strengthened by fear and hope. The former tracked their every step. The latter lay ahead of them, but always out of sight, hidden within a maze made up entirely of dead ends.

  One would make a breach in the thicket and together they would funnel through, tearing up great chunks of briars, searching for the next, calling to each other whenever they found some means to penetrate the next unforgiving tract. They swept the forest, searching for tomorrow. The days used to com
e so easily. Now Mina had to work for them.

  ‘Over here,’ Daniel called out.

  The boy had seldom spoken since that night. The sound of his voice, and the fact that he thought it necessary to use it, caught everyone’s attention.

  ‘What is it, Danny?’ Ciara asked; Mina couldn’t see her fiery red head anywhere, but she sounded close by.

  ‘It’s a path, I think,’ he replied.

  Sunken into the mud, and hastily arranged, were a number of tiles. Slate shards coarsely cut by hand, with no distinguishable shape. The brambles had thrown their spindly selves over them. This wasn’t nature’s doing. Someone had been here before.

  ‘All paths lead somewhere,’ Mina said, running a toe along the slate, thinking of her mum’s mantra that had seen her through life’s every misadventure.

  ‘Move out of the way,’ Madeline ordered as she stormed forward, swinging at the briars. Daniel shrank back behind them, eager to relinquish his discovery. He was content to follow Madeline’s lead from a distance. Ciara joined in, beating back whatever stood in their way, though her strikes lacked the same speed and violence. Mina followed close behind, her grubby, bare feet avoiding the thorns and sharp things that now littered the way.

  A thatch of gluey branches clung to Mina’s shoulder like a distraught child. She pulled it aside only for it to throw its neediness onto Daniel. Everywhere – as they drudged over the black tiles – thorns and thistles whipped at them from all angles. Keeping an eye on the ground was impossible. This, of course, wasn’t a problem for those wearing shoes.

  Mina’s yelp nearly sent Daniel tumbling over. All sensation in her toes and feet had been forgotten until that moment, when the thorn shot up through the skin. She held on to his shoulder for support, hopping on one foot whilst Madeline cast her that look of abject disapproval. How dare she hurt herself and slow them down? Mina clenched her teeth through the pain. She could see it in her foot – the thin black needle that still protruded out, just enough to pinch between her fingernails.