A shout rose clearly above the grunting and swearing, carrying through the still night air.
‘Jason!’ It was Lee shouting and Samuel thought it sounded awful. Lee’s voice was thin and desperate and sounded too short, as if something dreadful had stopped the sound part-way.
Mother was sobbing and heaving as she struggled with Samuel through the paddock. Samuel saw the stars, nestled beside the narrow sliver of moon that had crested the hills and a few goats bleated with curiosity as they passed. Mother did not stop running or crying, even after they made it amongst the trees and Samuel could hear, just as well as she, the men’s calls that followed behind them.
Dark laughter echoed after them through the trees. Mother’s breathing became more rapid and frantic as her steps became irregular and she began to stumble. The branches scratched Samuel’s face and he cried and sobbed as much as she. There was a jolt and a moment of vertigo and then Samuel crashed onto the ground. Mother regained her feet and this time she began dragging Samuel by the hand. His heart thudded hard inside his chest as he struggled to match pace with her-she was nearly pulling his arm from its socket. After a few frantic moments, she lurched to a halt and dropped to her knees as surely as if something had struck her. Samuel was sure a drum was beating in his chest, booming in his head.
‘Go on, Samuel!’ she sobbed between labouring breaths, her hair matted to her face. ‘Go to Tom’s house!’
Samuel could only nod through tears as he let go of her hand and ran off down the narrow path that snaked towards Tom’s house-blackness snaking through blackness-while his mother lurched away in the opposite direction.
A laugh sounded closer, not far behind and a coarse cry of ‘Got you!’ broke the silence. Mother’s shrill scream then cut the air and curdled Samuel’s blood.
‘Where’s that little mongrel?’ another voice could be heard demanding, but Mother’s sobs only carried though the trees in reply.
Samuel stopped, suddenly afraid for her and he turned and ran back towards them, holding one hand over his own mouth to try and subdue his sobbing. Crawling through the bushes as silently as he could, he could see them through his tear-filled eyes, standing in the wan moonlight. Two men stood over his mother, who knelt in the dirt. She held her face in her hands and was wailing and pleading all at the same time, making her words incomprehensible amongst her grief. A terrible shadow had surrounded her healthy glow and it ate at her like a disease, creeping in towards her and smothering her light. It emanated an inescapable vileness that seemed to stab Samuel in the heart; it was almost as horrific as the men themselves. Samuel tried to squeeze his eyes shut to blot out the scene, but his eyes refused to obey him and he felt frozen in place.
‘Oh, forget the little crapper,’ the taller man said. The moon shone down through a crack in the trees and lit his face. His crooked nose threw a twisted shadow across his face, but that could not hide the silver scar that ran all the way from his eye to his chin.
The other man spat on the ground and smiled widely towards Mother. Only now did he stop his incessant chewing. ‘Now don’t make any trouble or I’ll make this worse, witch,’ he hissed and leapt upon her.
She screamed and beat upon his shoulders as he laughed and wrestled on top of her. All the while, the scar-faced man watched on dispassionately. Soon, Mother stopped her cries and was silent. Her healthy glow was gone, consumed entirely by the blackness around her.
A silver blade shone in the spitting man’s hand and he bent and wiped it on Mother’s skirt hems. She remained silent and unmoving. ‘Suit yourself,’ he told her and he looked quite indignant. ‘Hell-damned bitch wouldn’t keep still.’
‘Now she will,’ the scar-faced man returned bluntly.
‘That’s what we’re here for. Don’t be upset just because I got to her first. It was my turn, anyway. Ah, damn it! I think I got blood on me! Well…what about the boy? Shall we track him down before he makes trouble? The boss wants to be sure they’re all good ’n’ dead.’
The scar-faced man then looked directly at Samuel and raised an outstretched finger. ‘We won’t have to look far. He’s just there.’ His wicked smile returned as he glared towards Samuel and he held his knife up, as if to show it off in the moonlight. He nodded at Samuel and bared all his crooked, yellow teeth.
With a start, Samuel backed out of the bushes and scampered through the trees, their branches biting his face, cold tears streaming down his cheeks. Great boot steps crashed through the undergrowth behind and then the spitting man was beside him, grinning as he easily matched Samuel’s tiny steps. His smile vanished as he collided with a thick trunk and dropped like a sack into the shadows. Samuel was away again and willed his legs even faster beneath him.
With horror, he realised he had strayed from the track to Tom’s house and the river suddenly loomed below him. For an instant, he teetered on the edge, almost tumbling into the silent waters, soil collapsing from under his bare feet.
‘He’s over there!’ came a shout and Samuel leapt back into life, clambering along the top of the steep bank, grabbing the bushes and branches for support.
The soil crumbled under his shuffling feet and Samuel tottered backwards. He snatched out for an anchor and grabbed hold of the long, spiny leaves of a black-jack tree. They slid between his fingers and cut deeply. He let go with a yelp and fell, splashing into the darkness below.
‘Over here!’ came a voice.
The water was so cold Samuel almost yelled again, but he put one hand over his mouth and held the noise in as best he could. He knew the men would be attracted by his splash and so he ducked under the water and kicked his feet, swimming like a trout. Underneath, the river was absolute blackness and ghostly silent. When he had swum as far as he possibly could, he carefully surfaced, filling his desperate lungs as silently as he could. The craving in his chest slowly eased as he took longer and more deliberate breaths-yet the noise of each still seemed deafeningly loud. He kept his mouth barely out of the water and scanned the banks for the men. They were standing a bit further back, illuminated in the pale moonlight, searching for him near where he fell. Samuel carefully back-paddled away from them, keeping close to the bank where his feet could just touch the bottom. Every trickle and every tiny sound he made carried easily across the water, but somehow the men still did not look towards him.
‘Ah, damn him!’ he heard one man finally say, his frosty breath forming a cloud before him. ‘It’s too cold and it’s as black as sin out here. I can’t see anything and I’m not getting wet on a night like this for some brat. Let’s just tell the boss we gave him the test and he failed. That will keep him happy. What’s one more dead kid?’ The other nodded and they were gone-vanishing abruptly into the trees.
Samuel stayed in the river for a long time, numbed and shivering. At first, he was too terrified to move, but after a time he realised if he stayed where he was, he would probably freeze to death. He waded along until he recognised the flattening in the bank with the dark shape of the swing rope hanging over it. He dragged his heavy legs onto the river’s edge and realised he was almost paralysed with cold. His body was so cold it burned like fire. Hugging his arms around him, he hauled himself from the river and hurried as well as he could up the rough, winding path towards the faint light of Tom’s house.
He banged on the door with his trembling fist again and again until, after what seemed like an age, it opened in before him. Tom’s father was there looking down at him with obvious surprise, still chewing on a mouthful of his dinner.