Someone was screaming.
The sound pulled me from a dream and I woke in the dark, short of breath and damp with sweat.
It was my mother, I realised. Have you ever noticed how you can recognise the voice of one close to you, through as little as a cough or cry? There is no need for words. I heard and knew it was her.
I sat up in bed, confused, frightened. The screams had stopped but I could still hear talking downstairs. My parents.
I slid out from beneath the covers and crept to my door, bare feet cold on the ancient wooden boards. A decade has passed but I still remember the strangest details. The way those floorboards creaked, the dust which made me sneeze. The shadows of night clouds slipping silently across the scene, nipping at my heels. All these things, as meaningless as they were, are burned into me, little scars when I close my eyes.
Mum and dads voices were raised, upset. In our old home they would have woken the neighbours by now but not here, not here in the middle of nowhere. There was no-one within a mile.
I held the door handle and eased it down so it made no sound. Stepped into the hallway leaving my door open behind me. Moonlight spilled out around my feet, a pale wash chasing shadows into corners. It felt like I had only been asleep a few hours but I couldn’t be certain.
I worked my way to the top of the stairs a few inches at a time. I could make out occasional words from below but nothing yet that made any sense.
I had stopped to listen when the door beside me cracked open making me jump. My younger sister Maria was there, only 6 years old, wide eyes in her worried face and tousled black hair wild around her. I recall thinking it was odd that our brother Ryan hadn’t left his room. Usually if our parents woke us with their arguing he would be up first, to get us back to sleep and tell us not to worry. Not to listen.
“Go to bed.” I hissed at her. She frowned and retreated but kept the door ajar. I tiptoed forward onto the top step and listened.
My father, loud, demanding. “…tell you again. Now. Don’t make me do it Lisa.”
Do what?
My mother, angry, tearful. “… crazy. Don’t do this. Call the police. Phone an ambulance, please, David please …”
Her voice went on as I heard footsteps approaching the stairs. They were coming up.
A surge of panic and I turned, rushed back to my room. I caught my sister peering around her doorframe and mouthed “go” to her as I passed.
The footsteps behind grew closer, my mothers voice clearer. I climbed back in bed, heart racing, when I heard their feet on the hallway floor. They went into Ryans room which was opposite Marias, not their own opposite mine. Why? I wondered. Where was my brother?
Dad was speaking, voice thick and heavy. He told mum to sit down, then again louder and she snapped a reply I couldn’t make out.
“Did you break the rules I gave you?” he asked her. “Did any of you?”
My mother replied, inaudible.
“Did you break any of the rules I gave you?” his voice raised again. “Just fucking answer me Lisa.”
“No!” her voice broke as she shouted back. “No. Please, David, for Gods sake phone an ambulance. It might not be too late … it might not, you don’t know. You don’t know it -“
“Did anyone come in the house?” he cut her off, tone low and threatening. “Did any of you leave?”
“No! David please -“
She was still speaking when I heard him stepping into the hall, then the door closing and the rattle of keys. My mothers voice rose to a scream and I could hear her run across the floor.
“What are you doing?” her hands were hammering on the door panels. “David! What are you doing? Don’t hurt them David. Don’t hurt our girls, David, please …”
Why would she say that? I thought. He would never hurt us. My father would never hurt me. What was going on?
I heard the creak of floorboards between her cries and then dad opening my sisters room. He spoke quietly, I couldn’t make it out. Marias door was closed and locked then he was walking again, towards my room. Mum was still shouting, sobbing, calling his name and our names, words collapsing into each other until they were only sounds of frustration and pain and rage.
My door opened. I looked over the edge of my covers, pretending I was still sleepy. I was so scared I didn’t know what else to do. My father stood in the doorway. He was holding a shotgun and it was pointed at my chest.
“Evie sweetheart.” he said. “We need to talk.”
*
We had only been in that house for a week. If everything had went to plan we would have been gone before another month had passed.
At the beginning of the year dads elder brother had passed away. He was the only other living member on that side of the family, so my father inherited everything. Our parents were contacted by the law firm who had been engaged as executors of the will, and a meeting was organised to discuss the detail.
Now, our dad hadn’t spoken to his brother in decades, or any of his side of our family for that matter. Ryan, Maria and myself had never even met them. Dad would never talk about them. Strangely, he seemed more worried than upset by the news of our uncles death.
When my parents attended the meeting the true scope of the inheritance was revealed.
The home left to him was more than a century old and had once housed 20 family and staff. 3 floors, basement, attic, outhouses and miles of private property. At present most of the place was filled with the accumulated possessions of 5 generations of rich landowners. The contents alone could be worth a small fortune, the house and grounds certainly were.
My mum, both shocked and delighted, couldn’t wait to tell us. Dad however remained taciturn, simultaneously unsurprised and pained by this apparent good fortune. He didn’t want to accept it, he said. Our mother couldn’t believe him and demanded to know why.
Because of the conditions of the will, he told her. We would all have to move there and take possession of the house. No-one except family could be allowed inside, not in any circumstances. But he didn’t want to go back there, no matter what was on offer. He certainly wouldn’t take his wife and children to that god forsaken place.
Mum was furious. She thought it was crazy to turn it down. So what if we had to move there? His refusal to explain any further only made it worse.
They argued on and off for weeks. There was silence between them each day until the children were in bed, then the arguments would begin.
Why couldn’t we accept the house? she would ask. Why wouldn’t he explain? My father never answered, just repeated the same refusals and denials.
“Whatever happened there, it’s over.” I heard her say one night. “You never spoke to them, never spoke about them. They’re gone. I’m your wife, we are your family, here and now.”
I lay awake in bed picking out bits and pieces and trying to sleep. I never heard the final argument but Ryan did, he told me and Maria about it on our walk to school.
Mum said she had spoken to a lawyer of her own about the will.
“We could move there, just for a short time.” she had said. “Maybe only a month. Then we claim we can’t stay because it’s hurting the kids upbringing. It wouldn’t even be a lie. There isn’t a school for 40 miles, police or ambulance are further, no other families nearby. It’s isolated. We say it’s affecting all our mental health. There are no living relatives to contest with. My lawyer thinks we could fight it in court and win. Afterwards we sell up we can go anywhere we like, do anything we want. We’ll be rich, David. No more 5 of us in a 2 bedroom flat. We just have to make it look like we tried.”
My father didn’t reply.
Then mum told him she would leave with us if he didn’t accept it. Divorce. To be refusing this opportunity was throwing away all our futures, she said, over a reason he couldn’t even explain. If he could be that stupid and selfish then he didn’t deserve to be our father and wasn’t the man she had thought he was.
Dad had left after that, Ryan told us, went out for hours during the night. The two of them didn’t speak at all the next day. Then a week later our parents sat us down and said they had news. We were all going away together, to clear out and sell the old house we had inherited. It should only be for a month or so, they said.
Then we could come home.
*
“I need you to tell me what you done today.”
“Dad?” I had begun to cry, unable to hold back the tears. “What’s going on? Why is-“
“Just answer me, Evie. I don’t want to hear anything else, okay? Tell me what happened today and nothing else, you understand? When I drove back to the city, this afternoon. Did someone come to the house? Did any of you leave? Tell me the truth.”
He never came any closer than the doorway, keeping the gun on me the entire time.
“Nothing happened.” I was too upset to think clearly, unable to take it all in. My mother told him we never left the house, didn’t she? Why had she lied? Was dad going to hurt her if he found out? I glanced at the wall between our rooms and he noticed.
“You heard what we were saying?” he asked. “Me and your mum? Of course. Of course you did.”
I didn’t reply, just wiped away the tears and tried to hold back any more.
“Okay. It’s okay.” his voice calmed. “I’m not going to hurt you baby.” The barrel lowered. I could see his eyes were red where he had been crying himself. This was hurting him, I realised. Doing this was hurting him. “I just need you to tell me the truth. This is very important Evie. What did you do today? Did you go out?”
I was just a child, overwhelmed and confused. Everytime in my life I had been frightened I would run to my dad, everytime I needed someone I could call his name and he would be there. Now he was the one I was scared of and I was lost. I started to get out of bed to go to him but he pulled back, the gun snapping up.
“No!” he pointed the weapon straight at me. “Stay where you are, don’t move. Back on the bed.” There was a pleading in his eyes and voice. “Please Evie. Don’t make me.”
I had never seen him angry and emotional like this, never in my life. He had never even shouted at me before, he just wasn’t that type of man.
“Evie.” his speech quietened again. “Tell me. Right now. Did any of you leave the house today?”
“Y… yes.”
I saw it hit him, this truth like a physical blow sapping the strength from his body. He took a faltering step back and leaned against the doorframe, face paling to ghostly white, a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth.
“We went to the village.” I kept talking, not knowing what else to do, couldn’t stop the words once they had started. “All of us. We got separated at the shop and mum got angry. Maria. She ran off to see the horses, there were horses in one of the fields. I went after her but she wouldn’t come back. Mum and Ryan had to help till we found her.”
*
I remember that afternoon, chasing my sister down stone side streets under the grey sky.
We were just going for a walk, my mother had told us. “Get out this fucking house for an hour.” she had said, handing us our coats. “But remember, don’t tell your dad.” She laughed and Ryan did too. Dad was being silly, we thought, wasn’t he?
The 4 of us took a winding path through the trees and across fields of wet grass until we reached the village. A church, a shop and a dozen homes. We found everything closed, silent. I didn’t see a single other person, not even a face at a window or a passing car.
“Maybe no-one lives here anymore?” said Ryan.
Mum didn’t say anything.
When Maria ran off I followed but couldn’t make her come back on my own. I went for my mum and brother. When I found Maria the second time we all came home.
Nothing happened.
*
“How long were you all separated?” my fathers words were cold now, flat and emotionless. “How long were you on your own?”
“I … I don’t know. I …”
“How long Evie.”
“5 minutes. Maybe 10. 10 minutes.”
He wasn’t looking at me anymore, just staring at the floor. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand and backed into the hall.
“Daddy. Where’s Ryan?”
He glanced up, our eyes met and I had never seen hurt on his face like I did then. But he didn’t answer me. Just swung the door closed and locked it.
A minute or so passed and I could hear him pacing the floor, steps interspersed with cries from my mother which he ignored. Then his voice, just outside my room.
“Evie. I need you to stay here for a little while baby. Stay away from this door. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
A seconds pause.
“I love you.”
*
I heard him go to my sisters room. He spoke to her briefly through the door then he headed upstairs. My mother kept shouting, calling his name as the footsteps receded. I hadn’t moved since he left, just sat there on the bed, cracked and hollowed out.
“Evie?” mums voice from the next room. I went to the wall and knelt down, pressed my ear against it.
“Are you alright sweetheart?” she asked.
“I’m okay mum. Did I … did I do something wrong?”
“No, no baby. No of course not. I’m going to get us out of here, okay? It’s going to be alright. He won’t hurt you, I won’t let him hurt you. Your dad … isn’t feeling well. He isn’t himself. We will get him help. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
I could hear footsteps on the stairs again and my mother moving away from the wall. The rattle of keys and the door of her room opening. I stayed where I was, still and listening.
“Get back to the window Lisa.” my fathers voice was colder than before, dead and hardened. “I told you not to go out. Why did you lie to me?”
“You were pointing that fucking gun at me.” she didn’t cry anymore, her words were clear, angry. “I was scared. I didn’t know what you would do if I told you. I didn’t know what to say. I’d just seen …” she faltered, “Just seen our …”
“Stop. Tell me what happened today.”
“We went out. Like Evie told you. We went for a fucking walk, David. A grown woman and her children went out for a walk. We’re not fucking prisoners, are we? We’re not -“
“I asked you not to. I’ve never asked anything of you since we’ve been together.” his voice strained, cracking as he spoke. “I never asked you to do anything for me, change anything for me. Not ever. It was just this once. I needed you to trust me, one time, and follow the rules I gave you.”
“Why, David? Why? You order your family to follow these … these stupid fucking rules but you won’t explain why. We thought you were losing your mind, all of us did, you’ve been so fucking strange since we got here. You won’t tell me anything. I’m your wife and you act like I’m some idiot who can’t be told the truth.”
“Shut up!” his reply was so loud and sudden that I pulled away from the wall. “You don’t have any idea. No idea what you’ve done.”
“Then tell me,” her voice changed, pleading, understanding. “Tell me what’s going on. You can tell me, David. We can -“
“Stop it! Stop changing the subject. What happened today? In the village.”
“Nothing, David. Nothing happened. We went to the .. the local shop, but it was closed. Walked in the -“
“You got split up. The 4 of you.”
“Maria ran off, was gone for two fucking seconds, David you know what she’s like. She ran off and Evie went after her. When she couldn’t catch her we split up and found her.”
Something clattered on the floor.
“Put them on.” he said. “There’s a metal bar underneath the window, around that.”
“What? Are you fucking serious-“
“Do it Lisa!”
I heard her moving, then the sound of a chain followed by a metallic snap.
She started to speak again but he was already leaving, locking the door behind him. He went to Maria and a few minutes passed, voices too quiet to understand. I thought I heard Maria crying but I couldn’t make out any words and I was too afraid to move closer to listen. Then more footsteps.
“Evie?” my father in the hall. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” my own voice wavered, coming out as a broken whisper.
“I need you to stand away from the door, back at the window baby, okay? I’m going to come in but I need you to be standing there, you understand?”
“I … uh-huh.”
“Speak properly Evie. Say you understand. This is important.”
“I understand.”
“Do it now honey, okay?”
I scrambled over to the glass on all fours and put my back against the ledge. For a second I saw the keyhole go dark and realised he was looking through it. Then the door unlocked and he came in, gun still raised and pointed at me. He had a pistol now as well, I caught a glimpse of it under his shirt, tucked into his belt. His other hand held a pair of handcuffs. He tossed them on the floor and they skidded to my feet.
“The metal bar behind you, Evie. Under the window. Put the cuffs around that bar then clip them on your wrists.”
I nodded, picking them up and trying to do as he asked.
“You have to trust me baby, okay? I’ve always protected you, haven’t I? Always. I just need you to trust me.”
The handcuffs clicked into place and I tightened them as he instructed. Then he backed out again and was gone.
Through the window a full moon flashed between the clouds. My breath steamed the glass and the metal of the cuffs cut cold into my skin. All I could do was wait.
*
That house was unusual in many ways, not simply its isolation or my fathers fear of the place. Some of these things were small, details I didn’t pick up at first or thought nothing of. But not all.
With the exception of my parents room, every door was thick, heavy and locked with a key. Theirs only differed in having no keyhole, just an iron latch on the inside.
As for the windows, none could be opened from either side, not on any floor. Those metal bars we put the cuffs around could be found under every one of these windows.
The basement was filled with dusty battered books we weren’t allowed to read and mouldy boxes we weren’t allowed to look in.
Then there was the attic.
My brother had gotten a look inside before dad sent him back downstairs. It was filled with weapons, Ryan had told me. Old rifles and pistols and crossbows, marked and faded with rust and wear.
Every part of the house seemed to be wasting away, decaying like a carcass stripped to the bones. It felt like somewhere you hid from life, not somewhere you lived. There was a story there only my father knew, and it was a story he would never tell.
*
When he returned he went to my mother first. I shuffled as close to the wall as I could to listen.
“I’ve checked every part of this house to be certain,” he was saying. “No-one else is in here. No-one else could have got in. It’s impossible. That’s how this place was built, I know that as well as anyone. I survived here for 16 fucking years.”
My mothers replies were quiet now, barely audible.
“You’re sick David. You need help. This … all of this, it’s insane. What you are doing here. To your family. Our girls. Our … son. Ryan. Our son, David. This is insane.”
“Whoever done it is in this house, Lisa, you understand? Do you get that?” he went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “One of the 4 of us. It could be you, you see? It could be you who … “ his voice broke for a second. “We will find out. When the sun comes up.”
“What are you talking about? Please David, please this is fucking-“
“I couldn’t have ever told you. You would have thought … I was crazy. Left me. Taken the kids. I tried to stay away from this place but … you wouldn’t listen. Didn’t leave me any choice, did you? I should have known better. I did. I did know better. But I still made the wrong decision.”
I could hear the waver in his speech, grief and pain and desperation.
“David …”
“They aren’t like people think.” he snapped suddenly, cutting her off. “They are … patient. Easier to stop in some ways. Much, much harder in others. They need to catch you alone. We are safe when we are inside, or together, you see? Should never be alone. Especially not outside.”
He paused for a moment and I pressed closer to the wall.
“The wounds don’t even show, I know that. I remember. So you can’t tell. Sometimes they don’t even know what they are, Lisa. Like two minds in one body, like a parasite inside. Waiting for its chance.”
“David.” her words were calm, focused. “Listen to me. I don’t understand what you are saying. I can’t understand. But we can get help, please, whatever it is, whatever is wrong, we can fix it. Put down the gun. Let us go and call for help. We can go home, we can-“
“No. It’s too late for that. Too late. If you’d done what I asked, just done what I asked it wouldn’t have to be this way. But you never listen to me. Never.”
I heard movement then the door and lock again. He went to my sisters room and a minute later came to me.
He was pale and soaked in sweat, bottom lip cracked and bleeding.
“Evie. I have to do this honey, okay? To keep you safe. To keep us all safe. I’m sorry sweetheart, I’m so sorry but we have to do this. They can hide away from crosses and questions but the light always hurts them, at least a little. So then we will know.”
*
I think I must have slept, eventually. The sounds of my father pacing the hall, the occasional shouts of my mother, they all faded as the empty hours passed. I used my feet to pull down a cover and pull it around me as best I could.
I thought about my brother. Was he hurt? Mum had wanted to call the police, call an ambulance. Why wouldn’t dad do that? What had happened? Ryan couldn’t be dead, not my brother. He couldn’t be.
I watched the forest through the dark window, its glass now touched with frost. Watched for so long I didn’t know if I was awake or in a dream. The wind sighed and moved and the shadows followed, and those dark shapes between the trees could have been figures or branches or nothing at all.
*
Morning was close. As the hours passed I thought I could hear a scraping sound from my mothers room, very faint, only growing louder when my father went downstairs to the toilet.
When he returned she began shouting on him again, loud and sudden. He ignored her for a minute then, realising she wasn’t going to stop, strode to her room. I heard the lock turning, the creak of the hinges.
Then it began.
Rapid footsteps followed by a cry, something striking flesh and a person falling or more than one, my mother cursing and metal hitting the floor. I had sat up, every muscle tensed. I could hear her breathing heavily, moving around the room, lifting and dragging a heavy object.
In seconds she was at my door, unlocking it and pulling it open, saying my name. She had the shotgun under her arm and keys in hand. She took off my cuffs then we were moving together to my sisters room.
As I waited for her to open the door I looked into Ryans room. My father was on the floor, blood flowing from an ugly wound on the side of his head. Beside him lay the metal bar from under the window frame, I could see the holes in the plaster where my mother had worked it out during the night. He groaned and I grabbed my mothers arm to warn her.
“Shit.” she cursed as she stepped past me, then pulled over the door and locked my dad inside. A minute later we had my sister and were headed downstairs. As we reached the steps I heard my father calling our names and slamming against the door.
We didn’t stop, taking the stairs as fast as we could, clinging to each other. As we reached the ground floor my mother gave a sharp intake of breath and pulled us both in toward her, turning our faces away from whatever was there.
Another slam came from above us, my fathers cries echoing down the stairwell.
“Close your eyes for me, both of you. Hold onto me and we will go together. Keep them closed, don’t open them till I say, okay? Don’t look.”
We stumbled down those final few steps as she held us, guiding us forward. A crash from above made her flinch but we kept moving.
“Go, go. Almost there.” We were in the lounge when I looked again. I saw the hallway to the front door and broke into a run, letting go of my mothers arm. Almost there, I thought.
I didn’t realise how quiet it had gotten until I stopped.
The sounds of movement, my mothers voice, the shouts from above. All gone.
I turned and found myself alone.
“Mum? Maria?”
I started to walk back, I couldn’t imagine going without them.
“Mum?” I called again.
And then I saw them, laying together on the ground, mum pale and motionless on her back. Maria was crouched over her, face buried against her neck.
My sister looked up at me and smiled, teeth and lips black with blood. There was a ragged open wound in our mums throat.
A gunshot rang out, a sudden thunder in the cold silence. Marias body spun and fell across my mother, a thin trail of blood raining down across the dusty floor. I cried out but I was frozen in place, too shaken and frightened to move. I could see my father, swaying, blood in hair and on his clothes, pistol in his hand still aimed at my sisters body.
Then she started to get up.
Her tiny frame rose in jerking, unnatural movements, more like a broken puppet than the girl I knew. She made it to her feet and turned towards him, her head hanging bloody and limp. But still smiling.
“Daddy?”
He fired again and the bullet struck her in the chest, knocking her back to the ground. I scrambled away into a corner, eyes closed and ears covered. Another shot, then another.
For a few moments there was nothing but the dark and my heartbeat, flashing images I couldn’t push away.
When I opened my eyes and took my hands from my ears it was over. My father walked towards the still bodies of his wife and youngest child. His feet dragged, arms hanging limp at his sides. The gun fell from his hand and clattered across the wooden floor. He seemed to collapse as he went, falling down to them, making only wordless sounds of loss.
I watched him there in the weak light, shaking and weeping over them, over the ruins of his life, broken and emptied of everything but grief.
A pain for which no words will suffice.
I don’t remember getting up, walking to him. I touched his arm and he saw me at last and pulled me close, the stench of sweat and blood and horror across us both, a wound that could never heal only fester and burn.
Outside the sun was rising.
I loved my father, even there at the end. He tried so hard to protect us, to keep us safe. But when humans are afraid they miss the simplest things.
They make mistakes.
Like thinking my sister was the only one.