All caution gone from us, we crowded against the fangs of glass at the broken window. Standing on the grass outside was a band of people, gripping torches like stubby swords in their fists, men and women alike, jeering at the sight of us.
‘There they are,’ someone screamed.
The leader of the pack was a smallish, curly haired woman, frothing and yelling, using the butt of her torch to chink the remaining glass into us. John Bun was there too, his bawling head one among many. Now I remembered where I’d seen him – in that pub, with Sam.
We went out through the cabin’s back door and into the woods. We flew across the ground like jungle cats, like bulls.
A voice from the lochside shouted, ‘Get them,’ before the trees blocked it out.
Over and under bough we went, panting, skipping over noose-like roots in the darkness. Screams pursued us, the odd flicker of torch’s light on wet leaves above our heads.
‘What’s going on?’ heaved Mikey when we had some distance on them. ‘Was that the police?’
‘Did you not see the woman?’ I asked, my jogging making my voice staccato.
‘No. What woman?’
‘Sam,’ I said.
He glanced over his shoulder, not losing pace. ‘From Duncan?’
‘I think so. I saw her in this pub near the camp.’
‘What pub?’
I didn’t want to bring up speaking to our mother again, so I said, ‘Just this pub’, and as I recalled that evening I remembered the prim-looking gentleman she’d been speaking to. John Bun.
‘Let’s stop,’ he said, and we paused, leaned on trees, let our eyes adjust to the darkness, sent our ears crawling over branches.
‘We’ve lost them, I think.’
Mikey leaned over, palms on quivering knees, and spat a yellow chunk of phlegm. He winced up at me. ‘What did they want?’
I squeezed my eyeballs with fingertips. ‘I think she’s rounded up a mob, for Duncan.’
We were quiet for a long time. We were by ourselves. We shivered, alone.
A few crashing sounds off in the distance, muted to a rustle.
‘Fuck,’ we hissed, taking off again.
I had to get Mikey to safety, to the road.
I was so tired. I was beat, but I kept on, kept jogging through the trees. Every so often we would come to rest, hoping we had lost them, every so often they would track us down. We were not alone any more though. The ghosts had come back and they were trailing along beside us, watching. I felt no animosity from them, just a cold interest in their watchful eyes.
Up ahead the trees began to thin – the road forming.
‘Here it is,’ said Mikey, pulling me up.
We had a breather by the roadside, looking back across the treetops to the dark water. No moon shone in the sky, everything held the same shades of navy and grey.
‘I think we should split up,’ I breathed.
Mikey squinted. ‘How come?’
‘Confuse them.’
Mikey shook his head. ‘That’s not a good idea.’
‘I think we’ll have to,’ I said, pointing back into the woods. ‘I’ll head back the way we came. You try and take the road.’
Mikey looked into the trees, he looked at the road. ‘Paul,’ he said.
‘It’s the best way to do it,’ I confirmed. ‘You’ll be fine. We’ll meet up in town. OK?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not a good idea. We can both go along the road.’
I put my hands in my armpits. ‘You’ll be fine,’ I repeated. ‘But, just in case…’
‘What?’
‘Tell Mum I said sorry?’
He choked then, putting his hand out for me. I stepped back.
‘Will you?’
He nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘Because I am, you know that?’
He nodded again.
‘Right. Well. See you in a bit, Mikey.’
‘See you, Paul,’ he said.
I walked backwards, down the hill, into the trees, allowing them to reabsorb me. He watched me going, his pointed elbows jutting from the hem of the robes. I waved, once, and he waved back.
I had company along the way. Each of them had joined me, in time, as I fought back through the trees. Every single one of them, except for the wee lassie. They moved in line with me along the path, stopping when I stopped, changing course when I changed course. Coming close to me when I felt brave, putting these rushing judders of fear up me when our skins touched. The air around me was thick with dead men.
I found the mob eventually. They had holed up in an overgrown area of pathway, branches intertwining overhead. The beams of their torches flickered through the spaces between trees to my hiding place a few feet from them.
‘…keep going…’ I heard one voice say.
‘…lost them…’ said another.
‘…kill the fucker…’
Wedging myself between two ancient trees, I did my best to concentrate, to try and overhear what their plans were. I didn’t let myself think about what I was doing because if I thought about it I would try to talk myself around. We could not afford that, not after how far we’d come, the things we’d had to do.
There were more mumbling voices but nothing I could pick out. So I had no choice – I let myself go. I was alone in the world and because I was alone I was free. Pushing out of my hiding place I fell onto the path, revealing myself to the mob. I caught a rapid glance of them all before torches swung to my face and I was blinded by light. Hands grabbed me and hurled me against a trunk and then to the floor.
‘Which one is it?’ someone asked.
‘Is that him?’ asked another. ‘Is it?’
‘Let me past, let me past,’ screeched a female voice, and a break in the light formed and a face came to me. The hands on my shoulders dug in and pulled me up to face her.
It was Sam. She wore an expression I’d never seen before on any human.
‘Do you remember me?’ she asked.
I told her yes.
‘Did you know I was looking for you?’
I shook my head. What good would it do to explain?
‘You killed Duncan, didn’t you? You and your brother?’
I looked at her for a moment, at the creases and wrinkles that rage made upon her. All I hoped was that I could take some of that from her. I told her yes.
‘We found him,’ she said to me. ‘He was down river. I had to identify the body.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.
‘You sick fuck,’ she said and she spat, right in my face, her warm liquid trickling down my nose. ‘Get him up.’
The hands pulled me to my feet and the torches shone in my face.
‘Take him into town,’ she told the men on my side, the faces I couldn’t see. ‘He’s going away for a long time.’
‘Wait though,’ one of the gruff voices said. ‘Which one is he?’
‘What does it matter?’ asked Sam. ‘We’ll get the other one soon enough.’
‘Are you Michael Buchanan?’ someone shouted.
‘Yes,’ I said.
All around me a groan rumbled through the mob. Lips manifested by my ear and someone screeched, ‘Fucken beast!’ directly into my brain.
‘That poor wee bairn,’ I heard a woman mutter.
And with that they were on me, spitting into my face, pulling me back to the ground. The torches were being discarded and the mob was revealing itself. I was surprised by how normal it was. Your plain, average blokes and wifeys, maybe a dozen of them in total. They set about me, laying punch after punch into my waiting face. I felt my teeth move in the bone and the fragments of my nose come away.
Not a single blow hurt me. I could barely see them in fact. I was watching someone else, the short figure beyond.
The wee lassie was waiting for me.
‘Stop it,’ screeched Sam. ‘We need to take him to the police.’
She was ignored, pushed back. They kept up the beating for a good while, concentrating on my face and torso. I was slick with blood. I was slick with their saliva.
I lay on the ground once that part was over. I could hear Sam screaming away, telling them it was going too far, pleading with them to stop.
‘Look at his pretty hair,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Just like in the photo.’
I was pushed forward to my knees, the mob milling around me, arranging themselves. A hand on the nape of my neck, forcing it forward. At the other end of the path one of them was holding Sam by the waist as she fought to try and get to me. She’d underestimated my brother’s reputation.
Something cold scraped over the back of my skull, something that stung. My neck tickled and big fingers grasped at the ticklish area, then the same fingers forced my mouth open and pushed the ticklish stuff inside. It was my hair. They were shaving me.
They kept going until my mouth was filled with bloodied bundles of hair, lodged tight, deep into my throat. I struggled to breathe, so mashed was my nose. I couldn’t tell how much they cut but I knew they were taking the skin with it.
I looked past them all, past the busy mob, past the writhing Sam, to the wee lassie. Waiting for me.
‘Here it comes,’ she whispered and her voice was as loud as an avalanche in my head.
‘Will it be all right?’ I asked. ‘After?’
‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ she said.
A kick in the back. I hit the dirt.
‘What’s he fucken saying?’ someone shouted. ‘He fucken talking, is he?’
‘Must be enjoying himself,’ spat another.
‘See how much he enjoys this.’
They were quiet then as they prepared the next stage of my punishment. I let myself lie on the earth and feel the muck push itself against my ruined face. Sam kept on with her howling. ‘No. Not like this. You can’t.’
A hand lifted my head, rather tenderly, and slipped something over my face and onto my neck. I slumped forward and the rope around my neck tightened.
Ah, I thought. So this is it.
It tightened further and its pressure lifted me up. I was on my knees and then I was standing, pirouetting around. The path was busy with people, watching. My body did the rest for me, automatic, my toes scrabbling to stay connected with the ground, my fingers struggling against the rope on my neck. My skull was filling with the last of my blood, growing heavy and tight.
And then they gave a great heave on the rope and I had to give up, because I was airborne.
They hoisted me further and further until my crotch was level with their heads.
Just a matter of time.
And there she was.
Waiting for me.