Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (15 page)

It was better that way, and Don had done his best to safeguard her ignorance.

“Oh.” She looked at the old man, who now looked as though he could be asleep. “How old is Grandpa?”

She looked fascinated. Don suspected that, so far as she was concerned, her grandfather had been present at the creation of the world.

“Almost seventy, so far as I know.”

Billy looked horrified that the old man had been forced to live for such an inordinate length of time. “Does
he
know everything?”

“No, nobody knows everything.”

“But he knows a lot?”

“He’s a gifted man.”

“Who gave him his gift?”

Don’s patience was waning, and he was beginning to slip away towards sleep. “Nobody, he was born that way.”

Billy seemed to be following suit, yet her mouth continued to work, as though independent of her mind. Just when he thought she might have drifted off, she turned towards the fire and sighed. “New Land looks like home,” she said.

Don grunted, on the edge of sleep. “What were you expecting?” he said.

“I don’t know. Something different, maybe.”

A few minutes later, the pace of her breathing relaxed. She was out.

Don hauled himself into a seated position to stoke the fire, barely suppressing a coughing fit. Once certain the flames would burn for a while longer, he curled around Billy, smelling traces of lemon in her hair—her mother’s scent—as sleep overtook him.

He dreamed of better times.

The storm had descended within moments. Alex lost his footing upon the crest of the largest hill for miles and crashed to the bottom of a steep ravine. While his face was smeared with thick, stinking mud, thunder clapped above. He clung to his bag, toppling end over end, until flung face first against waterlogged rock. Gasping, he stared up at the blackened clouds as his battered body sang with fresh agony.

The dog was beside him moments later, yelping in distress, but her cries were barely audible over the roar of the heavens. She tugged at the hem of his trousers until he waved her away.

He groaned and turned over, staring along the ravine and out over the surrounding moorland. Naked granite boulders set in boggy fields of windswept heath were already drowned under an inch of water.

The hills were now skewed by perspective such that they bore down on him on either side, rendered monstrous cliffs.

Beneath a flash of lightning he blundered along the ravine, following the cascading rainwater. His clothes were heavy rags, clinging to his skin. His bag, having been carefully protected, was the only thing that hadn’t been ruined.

After ten minutes, through the enshrouding haze he saw the cottage. Perched atop a distant rise, visible in silhouette only, the oasis seemed to beckon him, welcoming him with open arms.

As he drew closer, the storm grew fiercer, tearing at his clothes, trying to rip him from the side of the hill. After what seemed like an eternity he left the ravine and reached the hilltop upon which the cottage rested. He approached, uncertain.

Uneven whitewashed walls, crooked beams and windows cut into diamond lites by diagonal muntins sat beneath a low, thatched roof. An encircling picket fence guarded a garden of hardy plants against the moorland, failing to quite disguise the crumbling remains of an outdoor privy. The gate flapped in the wind, dragging against a skeletal patch of feather grass, and the door had been left slightly ajar.

Alex paused. It was a stark contrast to its formerly pleasant silhouette. Up close it was decrepit, creaking, unsettled.

The dog seemed to sense his hesitation. She had ceased her yelping and stood beside him, low on her haunches, eyeing the cottage with suspicion.

He stood beyond the gate with the rain crashing down upon him and called out to the storm, “Hello!”

Only a rolling thunderclap answered.

He took a last glance around at the barren moor before pushing his way through the gate and across the threshold.

Inside, all was damp and cold and darkness. An unpleasant, musty smell filled his nose. He faced a fireplace, set against a far wall, nestled within a ring of threadbare furniture. Edging inside, he closed the door against the storm. It snapped shut with a reverberating rattle, an ugly sound that hung in the air, taunting him, jangling in the recesses of distant rooms.

Alex remained still as he acclimatised, his senses overloaded from fighting the storm. His skin danced with the ghosts of raindrops and his cheeks throbbed as blood began to return to them.

The dog, having tired of his reservations, scrambled forwards, spinning in tight circles by the fireplace, spraying the walls with rainwater. Once dry, she set about prowling the periphery of the room, sniffing each object in turn.

Alex staggered after her, leaving long streaks of mud on bowed hardwood floorboards. Besides the squelch of his footsteps and the hum of the rain against the thatch, the cottage was noiseless. He had grown used to quiet homes, but here the silence still sat awkwardly, draped like a blanket over every surface.

“Hello?” he called again. Only a cracked, uneven echo returned from the farthest rooms.

He lingered a moment longer before advancing into the living room and, satisfied that he was alone, tore his dripping jacket from his shoulders. He cast it away into the kitchen, along with his boots and pullover, and then dropped into the nearest armchair.

Exhaustion swept over him immediately. His eyes drooped despite the cold, and he sank low into the cushions. A blissful sensation swept through him, drawing him towards sleep.

He decided he would stay in the chair for a little while, rest for a minute—just a minute—and then get himself dry…

Had a scream not cut through the silence like a lance, he would have fallen asleep without another thought. But it did come, with such suddenness that he was on his feet and standing before the door of the nearest bedroom before he’d had time to do anything but utter a wordless cry.

When his weary mind caught up with his body, however, his blood ran cold. Broken and riddled with a low-pitched gargle, the cry was unmistakably that of a baby.

Panic, raw and primal, surged in his gut. His bones suddenly felt brittle, and bile was rising into his throat. He looked at the closed door before him, listening to the choked, screeching wail, aghast.

His hand reached for the handle of its own accord and pushed the door open. He was left looking in at a darkened room, sweat pouring from his forehead and mingling with the rainwater upon his crown.

The room was as dim and dull as the fireside, but the air was drier, and had a foul odour about it, one that tickled the back of his throat.

Panic was on the verge of overcoming him, and his legs had tensed, preparing to send him running. But then the wailing reached a new crescendo, plastering him to the spot.

Lying beside an unmade bed—upon the pillows of which rested a pair of sleeping masks and the collars of empty pyjamas—was a pine cot, smothered in a nest of blankets, from which rose a pudgy fist.

Alex approached on shaking legs. He was desperate to escape—to hurl himself back into the storm and take his chances with hypothermia—but still he approached on shaking knees, staring open-mouthed at the cot’s occupant.

A pair of green eyes, insectivorous in proportion, gazed up at him. The infant clasped its hands together with a blank expression on its face, blinking. Alex felt a thud deep within his chest, unable to break its gaze. Neither of them moved again for what seemed like an age, growing accustomed to each other’s presence.

The infant must have been in the cot for days, and during that time clearly hadn’t been fed, changed, or had anything to drink. On closer inspection, he saw that it was closer to a toddler than a baby. It had appeared so small at first due to dehydration; it was almost pruned, with colourless lips and sunken eye sockets. He was certain that it would be unable to move to save its life, let alone stand.

He bounded from the room in search of water. His mind was still too shocked to offer up thoughts of any clarity, but his limbs were content to operate under their own power, marching him into the kitchen to remove any containers from the cupboards. He then carried an armful out to the garden to fill in the rain.

By the time he fled back inside, he was shivering, and could do no more until he had hunted for replacement clothing. Also draping a thick duvet from the spare room over his shoulders, he proceeded to carry out his tasks with at least some semblance of comfort.

Having grown bored with exploring, the dog had slumped down on the floor beside the armchair, and watched him with faint curiosity.

In the study he found thick piles of tax returns that would be of little use to their owner now, ideal fuel. He hauled them to the living room fireplace and dumped them into the sooty grate. By the time he’d fished his matches from the depths of his bag and the flames had caught hold, the toddler’s cries had begun to weaken. The sound of its slurring, half-uttered whimpers was far worse than the previous wailing.

He stoked the flames for just long enough to be sure that they wouldn’t go out, and rushed back to the bedroom. At the sight of him, the infant’s wailing resumed. Desperation now filled its eyes, and it proceeded to work itself into a state of giddiness, crying with such force that its face turned a shade of puce.

Alex reached down and wrapped his arms around it, retching at the stench. He was shocked by how cold it was to the touch, how rubbery its skin felt against his, how feebly it held its head—how very close it was to death.

He hurried to the fireplace, where he set the child down, throwing off the duvet hanging around his shoulders and building a kind of nest in which to settle the wriggling creature. Sliding the nest along the floor until he was certain that the child wasn’t in danger of rolling into the grate, he coaxed the fire to full life and stood back.

The warmth stemmed the child’s cries, but only for a moment, during which time it glanced into the flickering flames, its eyes bulging with wonder. But then a strange expression crossed its face—perhaps as it had remembered it had a good deal more crying to do—and then resumed its wailing.

Shivering once again—the time taken to light the fire had been enough for the chill of the storm to have eaten its way to his bones—and now also cursing, Alex dashed back out into the rain. He collected as many of the filled containers as he could manage, returning with a gust of wind at his heels.

Searching the kitchen until he came across a suitable bottle complete with a plastic teat, he filled it with rainwater. He set it beside the fire to warm and took the infant into his arms, swaying it experimentally. It had no effect. The wailing continued.

It was some minutes—minutes full of mind-withering screams and hacking cries—before the water was fit to drink. When he finally pressed the bottle against its mouth, it latched onto the teat with astonishing zeal and began to squelch away, its eyes fixed upon his in an eternal stare.

He laid it back into its nest with the bottle, knowing that the peace would only last until the water ran out, and filled another from the containers, setting it beside the fire.

He changed his clothes once more and searched the bedroom until he found the child’s compartment in the wardrobe. Picking out whichever items he thought suitable, he took a pile to the living room.

He returned just as the child drained the bottle, and the wet squelching sound shifted to a dry whistle. Before the wailing could resume, he replaced the empty bottle with the new one. The squelching began in earnest once more.

Leaving the pile of clothes beside the fire, he wandered away to assess the cottage. He tried the telephone and heard nothing, no dial tone or noise of any kind, just as with every other he’d tried since…since that day.

How long had it been now? Three days? A week? More?

A laptop left on the coffee table was unresponsive to every attempt he made to bring it to life. When he shook it, he heard only a rolling hiss, and was at once certain that the innards had disintegrated into dust.

The lights, however, still worked. He wondered how long the power grid could operate on its own, without anybody to maintain it. He guessed they had a few days, maybe less.

He’d have to find some candles; it was going to get dark at night.

In the study he rifled through cheque books, utility bills and bank statements addressed to William and Martha Chadwick—who he supposed had been the ones wearing the sleep masks and pyjamas in bed before vanishing, leaving their child to wilt in its crib, alone. On the desk he found a book containing the child’s birth certificate, first handprints and suchlike. He took it into the living room and sat down in the armchair to read while the toddler rolled in the blankets, drinking in great gulps. Already, he noticed, colour had returned to its lips, and it looked a good deal stronger.

The birth certificate named the child as James William Chadwick. He flipped through the baby book to find a large, colour photograph of the toddler bundled into the arms of a beaming couple in their forties. Together, they all smiled giddily out at him.