The Creeper, page 9
A branch snapped under Ben’s foot. He guided his torch skyward where skinny tree arms stretched overhead. Their fingers fanned apart just enough to let a glimmer of moonlight wink through. It was years since he had been in the countryside at night-time. He’d forgotten the quietness and that heightened sensitivity – the sound of the softest breeze and the crunch of leaves underfoot, curled up like balls of tinfoil.
He gathered whatever sticks he could find into a mound. Ben could hear Chloe talking to herself across the stillness of the field. She was either reading the instructions aloud or conjuring a spell. The latter made more sense judging from the way she was waving her arms around. Within the light of her torch, the tent’s frame was quickly taking shape.
‘That should do it,’ Ben whispered, dashing any dirt from his fingers.
He was standing stock-still – shining the light onto his pile, judging if he had enough – when he heard a branch crack behind him.
He froze.
Something was there, behind the trees. Ben listened, limbs set as they were.
Seconds passed. He looked over to Chloe, to the tent nearly erected.
Branches don’t just snap from the cold.
Was it the blind woman from earlier? But the animals were supposed to be on the other side of the village; not the mark of a great shepherd to wander off from her flock.
It could have been anything. A fox, a badger, even a fat mouse that had missed a step. Still, Ben listened, and still the night yielded not another sound.
‘Benny Boy, what are you doing over there?’ Chloe called out. ‘I’ll have this thing ready by the time you pick up a few sticks.’
It was nothing. He wouldn’t tell her. She’d only worry.
‘Sorry,’ he replied, scooping the wood up in his arms, ‘I’m all done here.’
*
The kindling cracked and split. Its flames bravely fended off the cold from their nest of stones. Ben and Chloe sat close enough to wave their fingers over it, as though it were a sleepless child craving constant attention. Oily shadows rippled around them, never settling on the crisp grass; rigid from the promise of a frost that was felt but not yet seen.
Chloe had laid down a scarf between them, patterned in mustards and navy blues with tassels on all four sides. On it they set their bread, tins of tuna, and a packet of sliced cheese. As their sojourn was to be but a single night, they now had more than they needed. The quantity as opposed to the quality was what mattered to the cold and famished.
Aoife would probably be asleep by now, divided from Ben by more than mere distance. He often wondered if she knew how much he thought about her and how he regretted all that he had already missed – those first moments that happened only once.
With Sparling’s money he could finally make some changes. He could stop being so selfish all the time.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Chloe asked.
‘Nothing really,’ he lied, zoning back. ‘Just this place and how strange it is. I didn’t expect it to be so quiet, you know?’
‘There’s not much night life around these parts.’ She chuckled. ‘I’ll give you that.’
‘Did you get to check out that cottage we saw?’
‘Yeah, but I couldn’t get into it. Whoever boarded it up wanted it left alone. Oh, and lest I forget, there were some markings on its walls.’ She reached over to her backpack and pulled out a sketchbook. ‘Feast your eyes on those.’
They were symbols, or so Ben assumed them to be. He saw only shapes and dots like one of Aoife’s finger paintings. Their meaning and significance, if they held any, was lost on him. Chloe watched his reaction and smiled.
‘Same,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea what they’re about either. But hey, it gives us something to put in Sparling’s report. I’ll look into them when we get back to the city. Who knows, maybe they do mean something. It could be some secret code that explains why everyone here is odd as shit.’
‘Would you not just take photographs?’ Ben asked as he handed back the sketchbook.
‘Oh, I did. I’ve my phone turned off to save the battery. I can’t exactly trust you to guide us home tomorrow, can I? But I always like to draw what I find. It’s more old-school, like you and your gammy tape recorder.’
‘Hey,’ he replied woundedly, ‘that’s a collector’s item.’
Ben hunched forward, scooped the tuna onto his bread slice and carefully arranged the cheese atop it like fresh linen. He held it before the fire, goading his stomach into growling. The first bite was enough to roll the eyes back into his skull. It was devoured in seconds and his hands began assembling another.
Chloe nodded her approval. ‘Do you reckon you and…’ Here she hesitated. ‘What was her name, Tess?’
‘Jessica,’ he corrected her. ‘She doesn’t work on a ranch.’
‘Do you reckon ye can work it out?’
Ben chewed thoughtfully over the question, ‘There’s really nothing to work out,’ he replied, smiling sadly with a mouthful. ‘We’ve absolutely nothing in common, except for Aoife.’
‘Was there ever any talk of, you know, an abortion?’ Chloe asked.
‘No,’ he replied, swallowing hard to keep the tuna from jumping up his throat.
If Ben had had his way, Aoife would never have been born. It made him queasy now to imagine his life had Jess listened to him; how pointless it could have been.
‘What about you,’ Ben asked, ‘any partner on the scene?’
‘No time. Besides, partners only slow me down.’
He let his eyes rest and angled in towards the fire, inviting its flames to fan his cheeks. Ben tried to ignore the cold and the dark, and any thoughts of that blind woman shambling silently towards them.
‘Why archaeology?’ he asked, sparking up any conversation to chase the phantoms away.
Chloe held up a finger that said one moment, please and nodded her head in synch with every chew. She must have taken an almighty bite just as he had spoken.
‘My mam,’ she replied, still working the food around her mouth. ‘She wasn’t an archaeologist but she loved anything that was old. When I was a kid, she used to take me to antique fairs and we’d spend hours rooting through all the trinkets and treasures. It sounds dull, I know, but she used to make up all these crazy stories about whatever we found.’
A softness swelled on Chloe’s face that Ben hadn’t noticed before. Fond memories have a habit of awakening the light, even on the darkest of nights.
‘What kind of stories?’ he asked.
‘Mad shit altogether.’ She chuckled. ‘There wasn’t a knife or pistol that didn’t belong to some pirate or cold-blooded highwayman. I loved it. And then, when it came to university, I thought maybe I could get some stories to tell her for a change. You know, to keep our tradition of bullshitting alive for another generation.’
‘Was your dad into all that stuff as well?’
‘Jesus, I couldn’t tell you. He made a runner shortly after I was born. Fuck knows where he went. Probably Australia or somewhere. It was just me and my mam.’
Ben instantly regretted touching on that topic, though Chloe didn’t seem all that bothered by it. Her dad was never there and so the man might as well have not existed.
‘So you’re going to be the next Lara Croft,’ Ben said with mock earnestness.
‘Eh?’
‘She’s probably the world’s most famous archaeologist after Indiana Jones. I just assumed you’d modelled your life on a video game.’
‘That’s a pretty bold assumption.’ She smiled. ‘I doubt Lara Croft ever had to scratch through ten feet of mud with a trowel for weeks on end. But who knows, maybe if I get this PhD the university will buy me a massive pair of fake tits so I can look the part.’
Ben choked a little, mid-swallow, on a crust of bread.
‘Don’t make them too big,’ he said. ‘I hear it’s not good for your back.’
‘As if that’s ever bothered you men before,’ she replied, tearing off some bread and throwing it at him. ‘I reckon I’m too small to be lugging around a big pair of boobs anyway. I’ll just get some booty shorts and a skimpy tank top, and stuff my bra with a few socks or something.’
Ben enjoyed the imagery more than he let on. As one prone to maddening bouts of worry and self-induced despair, Chloe’s nonchalance had an almost calming effect on him. If only he’d had her around when Jess told him she was pregnant. Ben didn’t sleep for a month after that bomb dropped. It still gave him nightmares occasionally.
He broke up some branches and propped them across the flames. His breath fogged heavy through the air now. Ben could feel the damp earth seeping into his jeans, chilling his skin like meat behind a butcher’s counter. The day’s clemency had been a rare stroke of luck but there was no escaping the cold once night had fallen.
‘Do you remember when we were introducing ourselves back in the village?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘What about it?’
‘Did you hear something? I mean, like someone crying out?’
‘Not that I can remember. A fair few of them were wailing around the place.’
Ben took a deep breath and frowned into the firepit. ‘It was in one of the cottages. There was an old biddy guarding the door so I couldn’t take a look. I just thought it sounded odd, that’s all.’
‘Maybe they’re sick,’ Chloe said. ‘I didn’t see a pharmacy anywhere so I’m guessing they’re shy a few paracetamol. I wouldn’t worry about it. They don’t need our help here, trust me. This crowd is beyond saving.’
‘I suppose,’ he agreed. ‘It’s probably none of our business.’
Whenever Chloe’s eyes looked elsewhere, Ben found himself glancing to where he had heard that crack, where the field was full of darkness and only the trees’ highest branches reached above it, snapping at scraps of moonlight. He would listen more than look. There had been something there. A strong step had split that branch.
‘I wonder how Sparling’s going to react when he hears that we’re leaving after one night,’ he said, poking around some glowing ash with a twig.
‘Sure listen, we’ll achieve nothing by staying here for another day. They won’t talk to you. They won’t let me examine their homes. And I’ve already surveyed whatever I can, which wasn’t a lot if I’m being honest. This place doesn’t have much going for it. Sparling probably won’t like the report we write up for him but it’s still a report and we’re still getting paid. And you did get something on that creeper thing he asked you for. That’ll probably put a weird little smile on his face.’
They sat for a while, eyelids flagging, watching the campfire slowly dwindle. An inky blackness flooded in around them.
‘Come on,’ Chloe said, stretching her stiff legs, ‘let’s get some sleep. I’m wrecked and you look as though you’re about to fall into the fire.’
‘Best idea I’ve heard all day.’
Sparling’s envelope had been packed with fifties to the tune of two thousand euro. Frugal spending wasn’t an option that Chloe was willing to entertain. Ben had kept his unease hidden – some veiled attempt at appearing laid-back. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He was a poor man buying premium camping gear with someone else’s money. But now, squeezing the silky softness of his sleeping bag as he rolled it out, he regretted nothing. It was comfier than his bed at home.
Chloe threw her torch down between their beds, splaying shadows across the tent’s blue walls. It was dome-shaped like an igloo and could probably fit four or five people, so there was more than enough space for their rucksacks. Chloe could stand at a slight crouch, which made her appear even shorter than she was.
‘It’s fucking freezing,’ Ben said, on his knees, frantically rubbing his hands together.
‘Don’t worry,’ Chloe said, dragging down the door’s zip and sealing them in, ‘you’ll be fine once you slide into your bed. It’s the thermal, quilted kind. If anything, you’ll probably be too warm and start complaining again.’
She squashed down onto her sleeping bag to unlace those huge boots. Ben couldn’t imagine her wearing anything else. Tiredness had obviously switched off his imagination for the night. His body’s internal lights were dimming one by one. She had to pull one boot off with both hands, freeing her tiny, socked foot. Being a seasoned shoe salesman – not by choice – he knew a size three when he saw one. Any smaller and she would have to buy from the children’s section. Ben hadn’t realised he was staring until she had already peeled a leg of her skinny jeans down to her ankle. He turned his back so abruptly as to make her cackle with laughter.
‘Ah, Benny Boy, what’s wrong?’ she said. ‘Don’t you like my sexy legs?’
‘Shit, sorry,’ he replied, suddenly aware of his cheeks burning in the cold. ‘Jesus.’ He laughed, holding his tired head in his hands. ‘I need to sleep.’
He listened to the swish of Chloe’s body sliding into her sleeping bag and then he knew it was safe to turn his head. She was lying on her side, head resting on her hand, grinning at him.
‘Pervert,’ she whispered before falling back in a fit of giggling.
*
Ben’s sore muscles seemed to sing with every stretch. He was glad to have answered nature’s call before lying down. His feet went limp, and their limpness quickly crept through his entire body. Breathing slowed – now steady as a black tide sweeping the shore. Thoughts were fast to fade into some senseless fantasy. But before the plug was pulled on his consciousness, he imagined that blind woman from earlier, standing in the dark, screaming at him. In the opacity of those eyes, her pity was never so transparent.
She was telling him to run. But all Ben could do was sleep.
7
‘Wake up!’
Ben was suspended in a lightless ocean. He could hear a voice – faint and distant, but it was getting louder. His shoulders were being shaken. Exhaustion, like a weight, held him down. He tugged at its chain, tensing its links, but it was rooted in the seabed of his subconscious; so deep in dream that its scape was still his reality.
It was Aoife. It had to be. She had awoken during the night.
‘It’s okay,’ he whispered, reaching out to hold her, ‘it’s just a bad dream.’
‘Wake the fuck up,’ snapped the voice, definitely not his daughter’s.
Ben jolted up, eyes blinking, seeing nothing. The black void of the tent seemed to press against him as he reached for the hands gripping his shoulders. They weren’t Aoife’s. Small as they were, they weren’t small enough, and yet such was the darkness that he held them regardless.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘There’s someone outside!’
Chloe’s hands were still on him. He could hear and feel her every panicked breath. She lifted off and her fingers chafed frantically around them, searching for a torch. Before he could brace his eyes, the tent exploded in white light. Blind again.
‘What did you hear?’ Ben asked, shielding his face.
Chloe was knelt on the floor of the tent, holding the torch in both hands as if she were gearing up to swing it. Her legs were bare; she was wearing just a tank top and underwear. The girl was spooked. Ben was mindful enough to focus on her eyes when eventually he could see again.
‘Footsteps,’ she replied, barely a whisper, ‘outside.’
‘How close were they?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Too close. What does it matter how close they were? There’s someone out there. They must have followed us?’
‘Could it have been an animal, like a badger or something?’
Chloe shifted over on her knees towards the door of the tent. Her fingers pinched its zip like the pin of a hand grenade. She glared back at him, biting her lip.
‘What are you doing?’ Ben asked, slipping out of his sleeping bag.
‘I’m going to shine a light on this fucking badger of yours.’
‘Wait,’ he said as he patted around, searching for his own torch.
He shuffled up beside her and together they listened before committing. There wasn’t a sound other than their knees balancing on the tent’s nylon floor. Ben gripped his torch like a baton. Their eyes locked. They nodded their heads. Ready. One, two…
On three, Chloe hitched up the zip and cast her light outside. Ben had no clue as to the time, but their fire was long dead. A light enamel of frost glistened on its stones. They tracked Chloe’s torchlight. It flashed around the field, taking in its walls, its corners, and every blade of crisp grass in between. There was no sign that anyone had approached their tent. Amidst the stillness, their breathing fell into a slow and steady synch.
‘I don’t see anyone,’ Ben whispered.
The cold air was glazing over their mouths and clinging fast to any bare skin. Still the torch swept from side to side, revealing nothing and no one. Chloe pushed up onto her feet.
‘What are you doing now?’ Ben asked, talking directly to her naked legs.
‘I’m looking outside,’ she replied, her knees clattering together in the cold. ‘If someone’s out there we won’t see them if we’re peering out the door, will we?’
She stepped out and walked across the grass on the tips of her toes. Ben was equally underdressed but if he stayed behind to drag his jeans on, he would never hear the end of it. Man up, Benny Boy. Chloe was already standing by the stones that had cradled their campfire, spinning her light around in every direction.
Ben brought his torch’s beam upon the copse of trees. They rose out of the night like scrawny giants. That was where he had heard something crack. He regretted not telling Chloe now. Ben watched and listened, as before. There was no movement that he could sense, not even the nervous foraging of some nocturnal animal. If there was something in the bushes, his torchlight should have startled it into revealing itself.
This is insane, he mouthed, but no words escaped his lips.
