Looking down the twin barrels of Blackwood’s ancient shotgun, Tom drifts the sights over what he’s laid upon the bed. As he does so, he wonders how the life of his daughter became dependent upon a roll of masking tape, scissors, two pillowcases and four shotgun shells.
His once carefree Gracey is in critical care, wracked with infection and blind in one eye; his marriage is ruined and his dog is dead. Even after all of that, he struggles to process this moment in which he holds a heavy, oily shotgun inside his bedroom and plans a home invasion.
His neighbours hold a god captive.
Tom lowers the barrel and places the gun on the bed. In Fiona’s dressing mirror, he looks at himself, all dressed in black. Semi-tactical, or an old-fashioned burglar?
His thoughts have raced and stumbled for hours, leaving him weary. Dusk fades the newly painted walls and shadows the sanded door; renovations that are now akin to memories, discarded and irrelevant. Delusions and a source of shame.
His view since he arrived home in late afternoon has been, once again, the neighbours’ garden. The Moots have remained indoors since he’s been here, their property left in darkness. The woods beyond are clotting with forbidding shadows. If Blackwood is right, they will head to the mound at full dark. He must take up a position before then and lay an ambush. And unless he gets to them first, his neighbours will be inside this last bastion within a few hours, with him. If they remain indoors, he must pay them a visit and either draw them out of their burrow, or hobble them inside their home. Before he starts digging.
Tom’s mind drifts to his recent dreams of his fingers snapping inside the pig’s hungry mouth and of his upside-down body, hung in an arboreal abattoir. Portents in sleep; his dreaming mind impregnated with a dreadful augury. Nowhere is safe outside and he’s been backed into a corner, a few rooms. And yet still he struggles with the enormity of the act he has been instructed to carry out, to execute . A step he can never retrace on a path that will soon be lost far behind his heels.
Assault. Grievous bodily harm. The use of an illegal firearm. He’ll go down for it. For a long time. If the Moots resist, it’ll be even worse. He might actually… That doesn’t bear thinking about. He daren’t imagine that , nor how ludicrous he’ll sound in court as he explains why he murdered two old boomers.
Tom uncaps and raises a new bottle of rum. After leaving Blackwood’s house, he picked up fresh supplies on his way to the hospital. He never saw Fiona. She’d finally succumbed to exhaustion and was sedated inside a family room for the parents of critically ill children. Gracey’s infection has worsened and can’t be arrested to permit her weak immune system to recover and fight back. A solemn-faced doctor told him to prepare for the worst.
They are the conduit.
Who would do that to a child?
But why be shocked? he asks himself. Such cruelty is inflicted upon children in the wider world every day, without the embellishments of magic.
There can be no more bafflement and indecision. The neighbours must get onto their knees before the twin barrels of Blackwood’s gun and allow him to bind and hood them. Or, he must discharge this weapon into them and disable them. Blast away at their old legs.
As he contemplates whether he’s going to throw up, he’s distracted by a flicker of motion at the edge of his eye.
He peers outside but sees nothing. From the distance, above the old wood, he’d suffered a sense that a black object just shot into the air. Up and away.
A bird. Must have been.
He slugs rum. Sits on the bed. Closes his eyes. Grips his face inside hands that now smell of old metal. Thoughts circle, repeat, cut grooves. For hours.
Eventually, Tom picks up his phone and initiates a call to Fiona.
To his surprise, she picks up after two rings.
‘Fi’.’
Silence.
‘Fi. I have to do something tonight.’ He clears his throat. ‘Whatever you hear, whatever’s said, I did it for Gracey. For us. I want you to know that.’
Silence. He has nothing to say that she wants to hear, or will ever believe. Still, he waits as if for an old friend’s recognition.
‘Us? If you were thinking of us, you’d be here now. With me and Gracey. She hasn’t long left.’
‘Don’t say that. Please. God. Don’t.’
‘This is about you. It’s all about you. Always has been.’ Fiona’s voice breaks and the sound of her anguish initiates the sensation of a landslide inside Tom’s chest.
‘I wanted us to have a future here, Fi’. I did. I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.’
‘A future? With what you’ve become?’
‘I’ve not been myself. I know. But once this is sorted, she will be okay. I swear, Fi’. I can finish this tonight. Make Gracey better. I can. I promise. I can.’
Silence returns to the line, tarries a while. When Fiona finally speaks again her voice is softer, sadder. She speaks to herself and allows him to listen. ‘That bloody house. The dream of it drove you mad. I was as bad for believing we could have that life.’
‘Fi’. We can—’
‘None of it was ever going to happen. Our own home, in the country? What a sad joke. Those times have gone for people like us. But at least we had each other. Even in that shitty flat. Only we put our child, our angel, in there, in that place. Where it wasn’t safe for her. In a place that made you crazy because we were so bloody skint and desperate. And now we’re going to lose her too.’
Pips insistently pierce Tom’s ears and shock. Buzzing phone flies that must be addressed. He looks at the screen. Another call coming in: BLACKWOOD.
Tom hesitates. Then swaps to the incoming call.
The voice that blurts through the handset shocks him even more than the sound of his wife’s despair. ‘They’re coming! For me! I can feel them. The gun. Bring it. Come quickly!’
The call ends.
Tom stares at the screen. Fiona is holding.
He shuts down the phone, pockets the handset and reaches for the gun.