The Hibernia Strain (11 page)

By the time I reach the fifth door I’m out of sight of the trio. I turn and face the door before pausing for a moment outside. How’s this gonna go down? The poor
kid lost his family no more than four hours ago, and in such a horrific way, not that he saw much of what actually happened.

I wonder if he’s even old enough to know they’re
gone. He understood enough to keep his head down when it was all happening, or was that what the man with the gun was shouting to him?

The fact he hasn’t asked so
much as a single question about the situation seems to suggest mental trauma more than understanding. Either way he needs someone to talk to him. It looks like he stuck with me, poor little bastard.  All I see when I look at him are his family’s spiteful eyes looking accusingly back at me.  Does he have a grasp of everything that went on at the hotel? Does he see me as the man who betrayed his family? I’ve stalled enough; it’s time to face the music.

I open the door and step into the room expecting to see Tom curled up in a ball, asleep in the bed. Instead I’m faced with the
strange sight of an unfamiliar girl on a foot stool, leaning over as if she’s looking for a contact lens that’s fallen under the tossed, empty bed. I definitely counted five doors.

She hasn’t noticed me come in yet. I knock on the wall inside the door to announce my presence. It echoes across the lar
ge minimally furnished bedroom.

She quickly looks my way to investigate and without pause she effortlessly swings around to a standing position, facing me with her arms out by her side and with a smile on her face she greets me in a theatrical manor with
, “Ah! Look who it is, it’s the hero.”

I’m taken aback, how do you respond to something so bizarrely random like that from someone you’ve never met before? I feel like I’m missing something, she seems a bit off but if nothing else, she strikes me as very interesting.

Before I have to think of a response she continues with, “I’ve being hearing all about you.”

With that a small head appears from beneath the bed, it’s Tom. This partly explains the exaggerated manner of her
greeting; the playful tone was for Tom’s benefit. She must have been talking to him when I came in.

Nothing about
her is what you’d call
normal
. She looks to be about my age and at first glance you’d be forgiven for writing her off as an emo, with her head full of pitch black hair except for one streak of red that runs across her forehead and down over her right ear. She’s wearing impossibly tight jeans and black lipstick, but it’s all juxtaposed by her incredibly cheerful, friendly demeanour and her t-shirt with some motivational kitten themed message that I can’t really make out.

I realise I’m staring so I break the silence with,
“Hey Tom I’ve been looking for you. How’ve you been wee man?”

I wasn’t really expecting much of a response and I don’t get one, he looks almost amazed to see me, it could be the bandages.

I walk across the room and sit on the bed with my hands on my knees. He crawls out from under the bed and sits beside me, mimicking my posture by putting both his hands on his knees. I pull the ca
p he was wearing from my pocket. I’ve had it since I picked it up in the car as we arrived at the house.

“Here, you lost something buddy,
” I say as I pull it down over his head, “How’ve they been treating you here? Did you get something good to eat?”

Without looking away from one of the less girly teddies that
he was hiding under the bed with, probably from Emma’s room, he replies in a muted voice, “Fish fingers.”

Ugh, what are the rules for talking to young children again?
Everything I say sounds so patronising, so instead in an effort to engage with the new girl I ask, “Hey, did this nice lady bring you some fish fingers? Those sound good. I’ll have to get some of them myself.”

I get another nod from him after which the girl chimes in with a smile, saying
, “It’s Jo. The nice lady’s name is Jo. Your
girlfriend
asked me to stay with him after they moved him in here. When I came in he was under the bed, there was no coaxing him out until just now when you came in. I finally got some chat out of him about half an hour ago. I heard all about how you saved him from the baddies who followed him and his neighbours to that old haunted house by the lake. Like I said, you’re quite the hero.”

Hah, hero? If only she knew.
I force a smile in response before she adds, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the others.”

I turn my attention to
Tom again as I stand up to leave and say goodbye, but before I even start, the alarm on his face is evident. He obviously doesn’t want me to go for whatever reason.

“Listen Tom, I
’ve got to go and talk to the people downstairs and then I’ll be back up to talk to you again. You can show me where you got those fish fingers from and we’ll see if we can find a few chips to go with them.”

There was nothing patronising about that, I’m
bloody starving and I want fish fingers.

As we’re leaving the room
the last thing I see before I close the door behind me is a scared little boy crawling back under the bed. But if I judged what I saw outside on the landing a few minutes ago correctly, then this meeting isn’t something I want the wee fella tagging along to.

We start
off down the hallway towards the stairs. Only Meg and Paul can be seen downstairs now, quietly looking out the massive gable window.

I’ve got some questions to ask Jo before we reach them but she beats me to it by asking,
“So, Shawn isn’t it? How’s the head? You were a mess when they carried you in.”

With a smile, I say in my
most charming voice,
“Nothing a little morphine couldn’t fix.”

She isn’t someone you’d miss in a crowd with her distinctively eclectic, quirky look. I’m interested enough to ask with genuine interest,
“Who are you?”

She replies,
“Well like you already know my name is Jo, I’m Fred’s fiancée.”

Ah, Fred
you wanker.

“He’s downstairs;
I’ll introduce you in a minute. Fred is Paul and Meg’s nephew. We were on our way to visit them from back home in Connemara and we gave them a call when we heard some weird stuff was happening. They told us their car was attacked on the way to this house to take care of the plants for the owners and they were afraid to go back out on the open road. It was late when we got here last night to help them home but they won’t even let us leave now.”

The initial confident quirkiness that dominated her personality back in the bedroom has given way somewhat to a hint of anxiety. Her fingers flitter through her hair as she continues,
“I’ve known them for years now as level headed people but their behaviour today is making me nervous. It can’t be all that bad can it?”

It’s obvious by her talk that the two of them have had no firsthand experience of what’s been happening.

After a few seconds pause I reply with
, “It’s bad enough, but we’re in about as a good a situation as we can be all the way out here in this mansion in the middle of nowhere.”

It’s obviously by her reaction that
isn’t the answer she was hoping for.

W
e carry on to the stairs in silence. In an effort to change the subject and get some of my questions answered I ask,
“
So you said Tom was at that old hotel with his neighbours? It sounds like the two of you had a good chat. You know that was the first time I’ve heard him talk. What actually happened to him?”

She replies with some of the confident tone restored and a hint of maternal concern saying, “I’m not surprised, it’s a horrific thing for a six year old to witness, although he doesn’t grasp the entirety of what’s happened to him. In his words, someone hurt his Daddy outside the door of their house and when his he came in his Daddy was cross and started hurting his Mammy. His friend’s Daddy, Dave from next door took him away with them until his parents were better but they left and brought him with them to stay at that old house beside the lake until the people who hurt his Daddy were gone. He got angry and ran away when they wouldn’t let him ring his mammy’s mobile. He had just snuck out and started to walk through the trees when he got scared a turned to go back. Before he got back he saw one of the white faced baddies who hurt his Daddy earlier. He climbed a tree to hide and from the sounds of it became paralyzed with fear as more and more of what he calls baddies gathered below him and all around the house. He doesn’t seem overly aware of what happened from then on, but from the way he spoke about it but I think he knows they’re dead and feels guilty about leaving them. The next thing he described vividly was being rescued by his hero.”

She nudges me playfully with a smile on her face as she says the word hero.

I can’t say I’m comfortable with the term, given the actual circumstances but what can I do but say in a smug voice, “Ah well, it’s all in a day’s work don’t ya know.”

She looks up at me with a coy smirk before adding, “It was tough to get that much talk out of him. He’s a great little guy but he’s understandably confused and in shock. I think he’s just managing to cope with things as they come at the minute. From what I can see, he’s in good hands though. I know who to call on if I’m in trouble.”

She
finishes speaking just as we arrive within earshot of Meg and Paul. They both turn to see who’s coming with a jolt. They must have gotten shaken up pretty bad yesterday. I can relate, I’m still fairly on edge from my ordeal and I’m not even half their age.

Not wanting to carry on any preconceptions from what I saw
on the landing earlier, I decide it’s best to play it by ear and act normal. I’m not sure what to make of their gaze, they seem stuck for words.

I break the ice with
, “Hi, you must be Paul and Meg. Meg, I understand you helped fix me up after I arrived. I appreciate it, I feel good as new.”

Hah, as if.
I feel like shit. I’ve got to get some more of that painkiller from Emma.

They stare at me for a second or two before Meg answers me as if she just realised it was her I was talking to.

“Oh yes, yes, of course. It’s good to see you up and about.”

H
er tone is laboured and unnatural. I’m not sure what to make of the two of them. Are they just unable to deal with what’s happening? I try again on a lighter topic.

“
Emma says you’re her parents neighbours from down the road and you’re looking after the place while they’re away.”

If I wasn’t looking right at them I’d have missed it, but for an instant while I was talking
, they both quickly glanced at each other at exactly the same time before quickly looking away again.

As if she realised how strange it must have looked, Meg quickly replies,
“Yes, we’re neighbours from just down the road.”

Her response is almost an exact repetition of my question, as if she’s afraid to elaborate any more for fear of saying something she shouldn’t.

I look to Jo for some sort of guidance and it’s clear to see from her bewildered expression the odd nature of the conversation isn’t lost on her either. She looks as confused and uncomfortable as I feel.

Paul seems to have no compulsion to be involved in the conversation
at all, but he does seem as focused on Meg’s responses as he is on anything I say. I get the feeling they desperately want me to just leave them be. That’s not going to happen.

I decide on one last attempt at civilized conversation.

“I hear you had a close one out on the road yesterday.”

That wasn’t
the most tactful line ever but at this stage I just want to get a reaction of some kind.

With a slightly more con
fused look on her face, Meg questions, “The road? What are you talking...”

Before she can finish her thought, Paul adjusts his stare towards her in a very quick, subtle movement that has the instant effect of stopping Meg mid sentence. She steps back, moving in closer to Paul’s side. Looks like I got my reaction.

I’ve had enough of this.

“
Right, what’s going on around here?” I demand.

Before they have time to answer, if they were going to at all, the door next to them opens up. From what I saw during our spin around the house earlier, it’s the door that leads out to the back yard and I can tell from the voice coming from the other side that it’s Fred.

The opening door obscures his view of Jo and me, and upon seeing the old pair standing in the same spot they were in when they had their last conversation; he begins to talk as he enters.

He’s excited and his voice is filled with urgency, fear but above all, anger.

“What were you thinking? We’ve got to get rid of those two and fast. If neither of you can do it, I will!”

As he enters my field of vision, I see he’s loading rounds into a rifle.
You motherfucker!
  As he looks up from his gun and begins to turn around to see what the old pair are looking at, every fibre of my being screeches at me to act right now or die.