I will tell you about the last few days and perhaps you will understand.
Wednesday night we stopped at a motel with only minutes left till sunset. I pulled into the carpark and turned off the engine and sat there a moment in the quiet. A red neon sign and a single streetlight shone weak over the empty lot, their colors reflected in a dozen dark windows. I looked back down the road for any sign of pursuit but there was nothing to be seen. Pages of discarded newspaper dancing in the wind were all that moved.
I touched my daughters shoulder to rouse her and she woke with a start, eyes wide and body rigid in the passenger seat.
“It’s okay honey.” I took her hands and met her gaze. “Lilly. It’s okay, we’re safe. It hasn’t found us. Just time to stop for the night.”
She nodded and when she was calm I got out and went to ask for two rooms. A white haired man no younger than 70 was at the desk reading a tattered novel with the cover missing. He took the name I gave him and payment without so much as a word in reply and I accepted the keys and returned to the car. The light was fading. Lilly stood beside the vehicle waiting for my return, coat zipped tight to her neck and hands tucked into cuffs. We took a case each from the trunk with clothes and essentials and carried them to our rooms.
The temperature had dropped again and our breath clouded in the cold air. The glow of the sunset and the streetlight and the neon sign cast our shadows in triplicate, dark shapes come alive at our heels like tethered ghosts.
Inside we ate sandwiches and chips bought at a gas station then Lilly showered and dressed for bed. She had been quiet since I’d woken her and I knew she was thinking of something to ask me and I knew what it would be.
“Can we call mom yet?” her words hesitant, hopeful.
“I told you already sweetheart. What did I say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Come on Lilly. I told you it would be weeks till we could call her, didn’t I? It’s only been a week. I’ll tell you when it’s time, alright?”
She didn’t answer just looked down and away, biting her fingernails as if I hadn’t asked her to stop it a thousand times. I poured her drink and handed it to her and when she finished I took away the glass and washed it in the bathroom sink. She stayed silent as I finished repacking her bag for the morning.
“Are you angry with me?” she finally asked in a small voice. I turned and saw she was fighting back tears, saw them welling in her water blue eyes.
“No, no of course not.” my own voice cracked at that sight of her, my girl, 7 years old and this was her life but I did not know how to change it for the better. “I just need some sleep is all sweetie, okay? We both do.”
I took a seat beside her on the bed and put an arm around her and she pushed in close against my chest. I wanted to say something more, anything more but I couldn’t find the words.
“Dad?”
“What’s wrong honey?”
“Can you stay in my room tonight, please? I’m scared.”
“You know I can’t honey. I’m sorry. I’ll stay until you are asleep, okay?”
A disappointed sigh and a muffled “okay.”
A few minutes later I felt her drift off, breathing grown heavy and slow, her grasp on my shirt become only a touch. I heard a car approaching and tensed but it passed by without slowing, the sound receding into the distance until it was only in my imagination. I slid from the bed and tucked her in, brushed her hair from her face then turned down the light and gathered my things.
Once outside I locked her door behind me and put her case in the car, then entered my own room and flicked on a lamp. I didn’t undress just poured myself a glass of water and dragged a chair across the floor and sat in it by the door. Took the gun from my bag and checked it was loaded then placed it in my lap and slotted the key in the door lock.
I do not believe I had ever felt such fatigue, body aching and eyes burning. I remember I had tried to stay awake the first few nights, to watch over her, but that was both foolish and impossible to maintain. We’d passed through Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and now into New Mexico and still I had no real plan other than to keep running.
It had been 9 days since I’d found her mothers body.
*
On the kitchen floor sat upright against the wall, skin gray in the moonlight and eyes open yet empty, the woman who had been my wife. Her clothing was torn and her phone was still held tight in one hand. Wounds on her palms and forearms, deep and dark and red. A mess of bandages pressed against a ragged tear in her left thigh where the dressings had soaked through but hadn’t stopped the blood, blood which now pooled around her a cold and glassy black in the night.
She had called me for help just 30 mins earlier, panicked and desperate and hurt but I was too late. I wasn’t there to protect them and it had killed her.
The monster.
That was what Lilly called it, “the monster”, a childish name for such a thing but we never used any other.
I took the gun and the house keys and a handful of other items and tossed them in the car. Then I went to our daughters bedroom where she was locked safe inside, still fast asleep and unhurt. When I lifted her from the bed and carried her to the car she barely stirred. Someone was hammering at the front door as we left and I saw the flicker of flashlights through the glass. We were gone a minute later and when Lilly finally woke we had already been driving for hours.
I told my girl as much of the truth as I could bear. She knew the monster was real, had known it almost all her life. She remembered it coming in the night and killing her brother when they were only 3 years old. Lilly saw him die and though the images never left her they remained confused and unclear, those of a frightened child, just flashes and emotions. The full horror of it stayed hidden from her and for this small mercy we were thankful. I told her then that the monster would never return. That we would keep her safe. That the nightmares would pass.
Then when it came again and we had to flee in the night, leaving blood and bodies in our wake, there was no longer any point in even those lies. This thing was real and we could not seem to escape it no matter how we tried. Instead of hoping for the best we prepared for the worst, trying to live a normal life but always ready to run.
So on the night of her mothers death, when Lilly woke in the car, her first words were a simple question.
“The monster found us, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered, “it found us.”
But I didn’t tell my daughter her mother was gone, couldn’t bring myself to hurt her with that. I told Lilly we had got separated but her mom was fine and would meet us later. More lies. Just as I had done since we lost her brother I hide things from her. Was I trying to protect my girl or myself? In a way I felt like it wouldn’t be real until she knew. Perhaps I thought I could just keep us running, fleeing across the country so I didn’t have to face the reality that we could never be safe. There was nowhere we could go the monster would not find us.
*
In the motel room I buttoned up my jacket and took a drink of water and sat the glass by my feet. My dusty hands trembled so I clasped them together and each fresh breath bloomed a sick pain in my chest. The last of the dusk light fell across me through a single window. A dull fire on the horizon was all that remained of the sun and as it bled away into the clouds above I watched it go, layered whites and grays and blues of day turned all to black, a growing darkness both vast and impenetrable. I tightened my hand on the gun, closed my eyes to it all and waited for sleep.
I have heard it said that people are most afraid of the unknown but I have never felt that way myself. My greatest fears have always been those things which I know of yet cannot escape.
The terror of the inevitable with nothing between it and me but time.
*
From my wifes diary, March 2020.
“Steven left this morning. I didn’t want or plan to but I asked him to stay. Pathetic! Angry with myself but at least I didn’t cry in front of Lilly. Still coming to terms with this I think, as if it’s all just a mistake and he will be home tonight. It’s been hard for him, I know that, of course it has. 1 year since the funeral next week and I can see it drawing closer in his face, hear it in his voice. He has never really dealt with what happened, not in any way. Will being away from us help? He must think so. Selfish. I try not to be angry with him for Lillys sake but it’s difficult. He seems to think no-one understands how he feels but I’m right here! It’s as if he has forgotten Conor was my son too. As if the pain of it is all his own, something to hide and hoard. Impossible. I can’t read his mind and he won’t talk to me and I can’t keep trying. What happened wasn’t his fault, or my fault, or Lillys. She misses her daddy already and it’s only been a few hours. I told her he’s only going away for a little while to work because I don’t know how i’ll handle saying anything else. I hate lying to her, hate it hate it hate it but it’s become almost commonplace out of necessity. I think only seeing her father at weekends might do more hurt than good but we will just have to see.”
*
“What are you reading Dad?”
“Nothing sweetheart. You ready?”
I closed the diary and slid it into my bag. Did I have the right to read it? Why had I taken it? It had been sitting there open on the kitchen counter that night and I had picked it up without a second thought. My wife is gone but those words still belong to her. I keep telling myself I will stop but then I open it again to hear her voice. I don’t know.
We left the rooms just after daybreak and found ours was still the only car in the lot. The morning sun gave no great heat and a dry wind whipped dust across the pale ground. Birds watched us from the motel roof as I changed a tyre while Lilly tried to tease them down with the offer of a breadcrust.
Then we were driving again and the hours blend into one long road until night. The first few days we only ever paused for food or gas but that wasn’t sustainable for either of us. I had begun to take more stops for Lilly, at museums or parks or anything to take her mind off our circumstances. To stop her from asking where we were going when I could not answer. To stop her asking about her mother.
“Want to play eye spy?”
“Not again Dad.”
“What about the guessing game?”
“The guessing game is even worse!”
“Hey … I put a lot of effort into coming up with that game.”
When she laughs I see her mother in that smile, in the way she carries herself.
The miles passed, the land as far as the eye could see all washed of color beneath an overcast sky. Distant mountains broke the horizon and the shadows of approaching rain seemed to rush down from them and across the plains toward us. A coyote watched our passage from the roadside and Lilly rose in her seat, excited at what she thought was a wolf but when she looked back through the rear window it was already gone.
I stole glances at her as I drove when she didn’t know I was looking, as she read a book or played a game or pointed out landmarks. Over the years her hair had become lighter and features sharper but I still saw my perfect girl, no matter how she changed. She had grown up so fast and I had missed too much. Our choices shape our children and I wondered what I had given her. The tenderness was from her mother no doubt, the wariness I think from me. I worry that I will see in her my flaws, signs of the mistakes I have made, my failures etched on the that which I love.
We stopped that night in a deserted park overlooking a deep blue lake, long shadows painted across its still surface. We played with a football on a clear spot of ground then walked down by the water until the air grew cold. There were tracks in the dirt as if people had been there not long before us but we did not see anyone.
When night came on she lay in the back seat where I had laid out blankets and we read a cheap childrens book bought that morning. It was too young for her and we both knew it but I read and she listened like she had years before. She took her drink then I kissed her forehead and sat by her side until she slept. I had the urge to wake her, to tell her again it would be alright and she was safe but I no longer believed it.
*
The simple truth is that I have always been a coward. It’s a hard thing for any man to face but there it is. I have covered it with lies and justifications, hidden it from others and even myself but the fact remains. I left my wife and daughter for 3 years because I was afraid and told myself it was best for them. Stress, depression, anxiety, I am not blind to how these things consumed me but I cannot use them as excuses. The choices were mine alone. I was afraid and I could not beat it. Who would die next? I was powerless and this fear ate into my every waking moment and so I ran. They needed me and I failed them.
*
I left the car and locked the doors then lay in my sleeping back under the nearby trees. I lit a cigarette, felt for the gun and closed my eyes.
It was around 1am that Lilly cried out from the vehicle. I rose as quietly as I could, raising the weapon and stepping forward from the shadows. Looking in through the side window I could see her by moonlight, face calming, tension leaving her limbs. Just another bad dream. I scanned the clearing and the treeline then returned to my spot.
I could not sleep for many hours. I watched the stars as time passed, watched them so long I do not know when the emptiness and darkness I saw became a dream of the same. I dreamt of a white fire in a cold desert and I was by its side, empty land stretching in all directions with no road or path to follow. I reached down into the black ash and in burning hands took the embers of the dying flame and carried them into that desolation I do not know where.
*
Her diary, August 2021
“Steven took Lilly to the beach for the afternoon, nice for her to spend some time with him. Felt so awkward when he was here. Stupid. We were married! We had two children together! but now we can hardly manage a conversation. It’ll get better, I’m sure it will. Hope. I showed him the new doorbars, windowgrates and extra locks we had fitted like we discussed. He never has anything to say to me anymore, just yes or no or fine. Spoke briefly about the issues I’ve had with dosages and timings. Becoming more erratic, unpredictable. This problem has been in my family for hundreds of years but we still haven’t gotten much better at protecting ourselves. Each generation thinks they will do it differently, that they know better but here we are. Lost my sister and my grandfather and I didn’t learn did I? This thing, “the monster” Lilly calls it, is a living changing curse. It learns, grows, gets smarter and stronger and is never the same when it returns.”
*
The next morning my face was on the television in the cafe where we stopped for breakfast. Lillys too a moment later.
“Suspect missing with daughter after brutal murder of wife. Steven Wright and Lilith Wright, pictured here, have not been seen since the day of the incident.”
I pulled down my baseball cap and put on my sunglasses and made for the exit. Lilly was talking to a boy around her own age out by the cars, playing and laughing. His parents had been drinking coffee at the table behind me and I could feel their eyes on me as I left.
“Hey Li …” I stopped myself before I said her name aloud, the name that had been on the news. “Hey sweetie. Time to go okay.”
“But …”
“We need to go honey, come on.”
“But please, can …”
“No debate. Say bye to your friend.”
She frowned and mumbled a goodbye and the boy replied with a shrug and a wave of a hand. I folded up my map with all its sketched routes and notes and stuffed it in my pocket.
I had known the police would be looking for us, still expected to see them pull up behind us everytime we stopped but I hadn’t been prepared to see our faces on TV. I tried not to look back at the screen for fear of Lilly seeing me and doing the same. She buckled her seatbelt in frustrated silence and stared out of the window as we pulled away.
I changed course north in case we had been identified and drove 8 hours before stopping, smoking cigarettes out the window so Lilly didn’t have to breathe it in and drinking cold coffee. We must not be caught, that thought repeated in my mind so often I almost said it aloud. I could not allow that future for my daughter.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“Fine sweetheart. Just tired.”
I recall us passing an abandoned house on a quiet road, the sun high but the air still cold. The building lay empty without doors or windows and I saw dust swirling through each of those dark spaces like a thing come alive and reaching out.
We must not be caught.
*
I’ve thought many times I would pray if I could. I never had faith in any god but when you feel the world bear down there is solace in the thought of some hand at work, some purpose and meaning, not simply the harsh indifference of the dice.
My mother believed until the day she passed, told me once that those with no faith in God have never truly had need of him. She saw atheism as a luxury. I did not agree with her words then nor do I now, but I do not judge her for them as I once did. The only soul you have the right to judge is your own and I have found mine wanting.
*
A voicemail from my wife, January 2023.
“Got the papers this morning. I haven’t signed them yet. I mean, I will. I’m not refusing. I just… we should be sure shouldn’t we? You should be sure this is what you want. Are you sure? Maybe you could come over? We could talk about it… just… I understand if you don’t want to. I thought… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. Fuck. I’m pathetic aren’t I? I still love you. You know that though. And you don’t care, do you? I still love you and I hate you for leaving but I would take you back. If you came home. We miss you, Steven. Lilly misses you. I thought things couldn’t be any harder for us, you know that? Then you left and, I’ve tried, I’ve tried but I will have to fight all my life to keep her safe and I don’t think I can do it alone. You know that. We both know that and you still left us. You left me to do this alone and I needed you and you … you fucking ran away. She needs you and you ran away. Forget it. Forget what I said. Just… don’t call me back please, not tonight. I’ll sign the papers now and you can pick them up anytime. Anytime at all.”
*
Last night. I woke in the dark after dreaming those words, my wifes feelings spilling over at last, unfiltered by her usual kindness and tender patience for all my weakness. But it wasn’t the dream that had woken me. I was still half lost in sleep as I realized this, lost in accumulated days of fatigue. I had been woken by a sound, a crash of something breaking.
Lilly.
An image of her in my mind and I opened my eyes to find myself sat on the bed of another hotel room. I scrambled to my feet as my head cleared and saw the clock reading 1am, reached for the door and fumbled the key in panic. I found myself saying her name aloud as panic took hold.
More sounds, further away this time, shouting and frightened voices.
I burst out of my room at last and saw Lillys room next to mine laying open and empty. That door had been smashed and the pieces torn away from the hinges which now hung in the ruined frame.
A scream came from the floor below and fear hit me in waves, my heart racing as I began to run towards the sound.
No, I thought. Not yet.
Another scream was cut short as I leapt down the first set of stairs. I slid on the final steps, hitting the ground and almost dropping the gun. Then I was around the corner and it was there.
The monster.
20 feet away, outside another shattered door, the body of a young man at its feet with his chest torn open and the jagged edges of broken ribs standing through the ragged flesh. There was another body, smaller, crumpled and unmoving in the doorway but I could not bear to look at it further. Blood dripped from the monsters arms and jaws and it turned it’s head to me, the thing that had killed my wife and son, the thing that only came at night when Lilly slept. I dropped to one knee and aimed at its chest as it tilted its head and looked at me, eyes empty and pitiless, the glint of white teeth through dark blood. It moved and I fired and if I had missed I would be dead already. I had started backing away but it was on me in an instant, claws and teeth and unthinking malice at my throat and we went down together.
I scrambled to my feet gasping for breath but the monster was already unconscious, the tranqiliser dart embedded deep in its chest over its heart. I reloaded the dart gun and tried to slow my breathing, looking around for any witnesses or survivors, trying to keep my eyes away from the two bodies. There was no-one. We were safe.
By the time I reached down to lift it into my arms it was Lilly again, no longer the monster but my little girl once more. My perfect girl, I thought, no matter how she changed. There was blood on my hands and clothes from holding her and when I wiped tears away I left red streaks across my face.
As I carried her to our car she began to seize and foam at the mouth. There were more voices in the distance, more lights coming on. My own memories become disjointed at this stage, confused and unclear with panic and adrenaline, just flashes and emotions.
I check her airway is clear and her pulse, sit her upright in the passenger seat and buckle her in then grab what I can from our rooms. We accelerate away into the dark leaving blood and bodies in our wake once more, taking the quietest of the routes I had planned in advance. After half an hour of driving I pull offroad into the woods and switch off the headlights. I check her vitals again and find she has stabilized. I clean the blood from her and dress her in fresh clothes and toss the others away into the bushes.
Then I am in the drivers seat breathing heavy and soaked with cold sweat and Lilly is still unconscious beside me. The keys are in my hand but that hand is shaking and I cannot stop it. I do not start the engine only stare out into the night and I scream aloud because I cannot not hold it in any longer. I scream and strike the wheel and dash with my bare hands until they are bleeding and numb because I cannot save us, I cannot save her and I do not know where we can go or what I can do. I think of the people that have died because of this curse and I know their deaths are on my conscience. How many more will there be? Lilly looks to me for answers but I have none and I never have. I am leading her into a future where the heart has been cut from the world, where there is nothing ahead but the promise of bones and dust grown deep with time.
*
Her diary, 1 month ago.
“More concerns with recent efficacy of the serum. So many factors at play with no leeway. The 100ml is no longer always sufficient yet I’ve no doubt that any more than 105ml would be fatal. The episodes have always had a degree of unpredictability but not like this. The serum could never prevent them completely of course, only keep them brief and passive, reduced to bad dreams in Lillys mind. But now… one episode last week was only minutes before sunup, never been that close to daylight before. Worrying. I spoke with her yesterday. She told me her nightmares are getting worse again, that she’s dreaming about the monster being in her room at night. Her recollections are getting clearer as she ages, no doubt of that now. She still believes they’re only dreams, that the drink we give her each night is only vitamins but it won’t be long until she realizes the truth. Always knew we would need to tell her but… I just hoped we’d have more time. Need to tell her before she figures it out herself. Steven and I together. Can’t let her come to the conclusion alone, about what she is, about what happened to her brother. Everything feels so fragile now, everything we’ve held onto all these years. Yet we are still here aren’t we? Holding each other together. Maybe my hopefulness is naivety, Steven always thought that. Need to get Lilly to call him tonight.”
*
She woke in the car an hour before daybreak, opening her eyes to passing streetlights. The rain which had threatened all week had finally come down, battering the car with heavy sheets of water and driving wind.
“Dad?”
“It’s okay, I’m here.” I reached over and took one of her hands in one of mine, trying to keep my eyes on the road through the deluge. I had expected thunder and lightning but there was neither only the blinding rain.
“What happened?” I could hear the hesitation in her voice, the confusion as she tried to piece together the previous night. “The monster was there wasn’t it? I had a dream about it but… it was so real.”
I had slowed to a crawl and began searching for a place to stop.
“We had to leave in a hurry sweetheart, during the night. I carried you out to the car, you didn’t even wake up.”
“But… the monster was there, wasn’t it? I remember people shouting and… why didn’t I wake up? It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like…” her voice wavered and faded away. “Why can’t I remember?”
“It didn’t get close, Lilly. Listen to me. It was there but it didn’t get close. You must have heard something in your sleep and had a bad dream. Trust me. I got us to the car and away in time. You know I keep watch at night.”
She didn’t answer, only reached a hand to her chest and felt where the tranq dart had struck. There was no mark or scar but perhaps the memory of it, something I couldn’t hide from her with my lies. I found a place to stop at last and pulled in and switched off the engine. I turned to her and reached out but she drew back, pulling up her knees and shelling in the seat.
“Lilly, it’s okay. We are safe.”
“The… monster.” her words were so quiet I could hardly make them out over the howl of the wind. “Did it hurt anyone?”
I thought of the blood and bodies and empty eyes but still I could not tell her the truth. I do not know if I will ever be able to.
“No sweetheart. It didn’t hurt anyone.”
She didn’t look at me only out of the window, hiding her face, hiding her tears.
“Can we call mom?”
“I’m sorry honey.” the words caught in my throat as I replied. “Not yet.”
She stared into the dark and all I could see of my girl was her pale reflection in the glass.
*
A voicemail, 12 days ago, 2am.
“Steven, there’s been an accident. I’m hurt. Lilly is okay but… she hurt me. Bleeding is heavy but I think I’ve slowed it. She changed too early, seconds after sundown I wasn’t ready. Never been that quick, dose had no effect. You know how fast she is when it happens. If I’d been in the room with her I’d be dead already. She’s gotten stronger, much stronger, pulled those new locks off like they were paper. I didn’t have a chance, went for the tranq gun but she got out the house. My fault. She ran into the road and stopped a car… I… they are dead Steven. The passengers. She pulled them out of the vehicle and… I managed to stop her with the tranq dart but it was too late. Got her back in the house at least, before anyone saw us. Shit. I’m still bleeding. This… I’m not calling an ambulance. Don’t call one. You know what her life will be, if people find out. Can’t let that happen. Swore we wouldn’t let that happen, you remember?”
A pause, the sound of movement and a soft cry of pain.
“I tried to clean her up but… the blood and clothes, too much and I… you’ll need to finish cleaning up. We can’t let her see, know what she done. I got her back in her room but the blood, everywhere, you need to. I… I think someone called the police. Must have. Noise outside, voices. Come in the back way.”
A longer pause, shallow breaths, distant sirens.
“I know you didn’t love me Steven. Have I told you that? I know. Not like I loved you. But it doesn’t matter now. Only Lilly matters. It isn’t her fault, Steven. None of it is.”
And there is nothing more.
I missed the call by moments but when I phoned back she didn’t answer. I drove there in the dark, listening to her message, drove so fast I nearly spun off the road more than once. The police and paramedics were already there in the road outside, half a dozen figures silhouetted by flashing lights. I turned and parked in a side street then made my way into the house through the rear door and that was when I found her there, already gone.
*
Tonight we stopped at another cheap hotel. I stood outside her door smoking and watching the sun fall and cars pass. How long until the police find us? I do not think it will be long now. Metallic smoke curled away from my hand, white and purple funnel flowers by the road swayed in the breeze and on the horizon dark mountains pierced a pastel sky. I think there is a music to this world that is not our own, not in all our frailty, a voice without words which says we are no more than rain on the ocean.
I cannot go on.
I entered Lillys room and she was lying on the narrow bed facing the wall, curled up and quiet. I poured the 100ml dosage of her serum and thought of the bodies we have left behind, strangers with their own families and their own stories. I would care for her forever, every living moment that remains to me but what if that is the crueller choice? How can I save her from more pain? I sat by her on the bed and touched her shoulder and she took the glass and drank in silence. Her eyes were red from the earlier tears and she quickly turned away to hide her face. She never liked to let people see her cry.
With my back to her I poured a second dose with shaking hands and sat it on the bedside table.
“Dad? Can you stay with me tonight, please?”
I thought of the children who had died because of this curse. I thought of the son I lost.
“Sure I can honey. Sure I can.”
That voice in my head said there is no way out, said all our lives are written in blood whether we wish it or not and our faith is nothing against the judgement of time. I hear and I do not know what to believe.
I pulled my daughter close in my arms and she closed her eyes against my chest and I closed mine. A pain inside comes with the memory of the first time I ever held her, that baby girl I promised I would keep safe for as long as I lived.
I just want to go home, I realized, to the home I should never have left but that place is gone and I can never return.
The world outside darkened and I do not know how this will end. The fate I always feared? Or can we find a path? Can we carry these embers and build a fire.