The Tale of Sawney Bean (Complete Novella) (6 page)

Isla, although
unable to have conversations with me stayed the most normal of the
girls for modern day standards. She didn’t seem to have the
savagery of the others but she was the only one. I think most of
our girls, including the stolen ones took after their mother but
Isla always stuck close to me. We had became closer as the years
moved by, her mother taking more to do with the younger children
and Isla becoming more like my partner than Sarah had ever been.
There is many things I could question about my life and have done
in the past but all I can say is I’m happy, my family is happy and
that’s all I care about. Living a normal life I could never have
had as many children and I doubted all the ones I had would have
survived. Death among infants was common and here I was with a
family now with 18 members including myself and Sarah and we were
surprisingly well off in my eyes, not in monetary terms obviously
but I didn’t feel having it would better our situation.

I now didn’t
really know which children were my kids and which were my
grandkids. I also didn’t really know which ones were Wolfs or Hawks
but I didn’t really care. I loved them all the same. Maybe Isla and
Sarah the most but other than that they were all my children. I did
worry about the defects some of the kids had but again in our
little world I wondered how much they would impact the kids lives.
They would be well looked after, never ridiculed, loved
unconditionally and have lots of other kids to play with. It again
seemed like we had taken away problems that we could have faced had
we tried to fit in with everyone else.

Chapter
20

The day the
boys brought back the body of a man wearing some very fine clothes
and with money in his pockets I knew it was probably the start of
the end. Most of the people that had went missing were the type of
people who didn’t have anyone to miss them. This boy however would
certainly be missed. I sat all night at the caves entrance while
the others feasted on the boys body but I ate nothing as my stomach
turned over on itself. Wolf brought me down some meat but I waved
him away. He looked hurt. He knew I was unhappy but couldn’t work
out why. He had no understanding of money or wealth and no way of
really knowing how different this meal was from the others.

The next few
days I spent sneaking around town in the shadows trying to hear
what the townsfolk were saying about the missing boy but it didn’t
take long before everyone in town was talking about it. There were
missing posters everywhere and it seemed to be the hot topic on
everyone’s lips. People had been going missing for years now but
because it was no one of importance it had always been forgotten
quickly. Now that the boy of a very wealthy Lord and Lady had went
missing something would have to be done about it.

Heading back to
the cave my brain was running a million miles an hour. I couldn’t
speak to my family about it for obvious reasons and I didn’t really
see how I could move them from the cave without being discovered so
we were in essence trapped.

Isla could tell
something was up and stayed by my side. Although we couldn’t talk
her warmth pressed against me was still soothing. I worried about
her most. She could almost step into the normal world and make
someone a fine wife. She wasn’t like the others but she still
couldn’t talk and would never leave her family so it didn’t
matter.

I tried to tell
myself I was the master of this family and it was my responsibility
to keep them safe but I had never intended my family to get so big
or to stay at the cave for so long. When we came here I was so
young and I had only wanted to be with Sarah but I had never really
had a plan. I had just taken everyday as it had came and here I was
now.

The more I
thought about it the more I knew we had to stay where we were. It
was our home and I couldn’t think of anywhere else in this world
where we would fit in. I knew what we had done was wrong killing
others for food but I still kept going back to all the rules of the
modern world and wondering if any of them really made sense. We
were still animals after all and all the rules were made up by
Kings and councils that had no understanding of the average man and
his needs. Whether I planned my life out or not here I was with my
family and here I would stay. If the townsfolk were coming for us
then they better be well prepared.

Chapter
21

Over the next
few days all was quiet and although I was constantly sneaking up to
the mouth of the cave to see if anyone was near I spent most of my
time sharpening long sticks I had collected. The boys had seen what
I was doing and joined me quickly. I think they both knew something
was coming too. We had moved most of what we had deeper into the
caves hoping if anyone came as far as the main cavern and seen it
was empty they would just leave.

The girls never
left the cave anyway and the boys were being extra careful when
going out to get anything we needed. They both knew to stay well
clear of town and I had tried my absolute hardest to explain the
dangers of killing anyone else. I’m sure they understood but they
didn’t have the same sense of consequence that most of us have.

Although I
lived in a constant anxious state now, worrying every waking minute
that a mob with pitchforks would storm the cave it never came. I
had avoided town for a while but I knew I had to go back to find
out more.

On my first
trip back into town I had never been more nervous or cautious.
There were far less people talking about it now but I still heard
pieces of conversation about the missing boy. It turned out a lot
of money had been offered to find the boy but no one had known much
about what had happened. The worrying thing this time was that more
and more people were whispering about the Wildman that was
sometimes seen in the woods but the most frightening thing I heard
that day was when one woman was whispering about ‘the crazy family
who lived in a cave at the beach’

Chapter
22

I lay that
night with Isla wishing I could speak to her about our problems. It
had never really been an issue that my family had a limited
capability of communicating but at a time like this I wished I
could share my worries and plan ahead but it just wasn’t an
option.

I had a
restless night and the next day decided that we needed to move much
further into the caves. Over the years we had learned to navigate
our way around miles of caves that went deep into the mountain but
we only ever went so far as there was no real point in going much
deeper. Things had changed now though and the benefit of going deep
into the caves was obvious. We gathered our belongings and the
women carried the younger child and we left behind what had been
our home for longer than I could remember now. It might not have
seemed like a home to most but it was where we had raised our
children and I had many happy memories.

I knew lots of
families lost their homes but living deep within a cave was a whole
different story. There was no sunlight whatsoever and the air was
different. There was a constant dampness and it was always cold. We
had plenty of clothes to keep us warm but depending on where we
were in the cave depended on whether we could have a fire or not
but there were several massive caverns within the cave that you
could burn a fire all day in and it was almost as if you were
outside due to there size.

It was one of
these caverns where we eventually settled. It was two hours from
the cave mouth and I knew there was no way that anyone would come
this far in. I took the boys back with me to the cave entrance and
cleared away any sign that we had ever been there.

I sat alone
that night in our new home, looking around at the fire light
flickering on the walls. Everything was quiet apart from some
sounds coming from the area the woman had set up for the babies. It
took me a long time to fall asleep but I knew I had moved my family
away from any immediate threat.

Chapter
23

When I woke the
next morning I knew I had to take the boys with me today to bring
back more supplies. It was two hours up to the cave mouth from
where we were and two hours back so things were going to take a lot
longer now and I didn’t want us leaving the cave too often any more
so I though us all going at once was the best idea. It was only
ever me or the boys that went out anyway.

Although it
took a while the three of us got into town, got our supplies and
started making our way back to the cave in a pretty uneventful
fashion. Looking at my boys made me feel proud. They might not have
been the cleverest lads around in a conventional sense but they
were seasoned hunters, extremely strong and fast, amazing at moving
while making no noise at all and they had a fierce love for their
family. I knew that a lot of children turned out a lot worse when
brought up in better circumstances so he was proud of the job that
he and Sarah had done, especially considering how fragile her mind
had been in the early days.

As we walked
down to the beach my mind wandered thinking about the early days
with Sarah and how her mental state deteriorated. It left me
wondering what parts of a person that we fall in love with. Sarah
had lost the power of speech quickly and over the years had went
through fazes of being withdrawn and others of being more outgoing
within our family. I was never able to work out what was going on
in her head or what set her off after all those years but I knew I
had never stopped loving her. I would kill every man in town to
protect her if that is what it took.

We rounded the
corner to where the sand started and in our path stepped 6 young
men. They were probably aged between thirteen to about seventeen as
I could best tell and each carried a weapon. All nine of us stopped
dead. I knew the young lads had been searching about the caves
after hearing all the talk in town but I’m not sure that they
actually expected to find us there or that we even existed in the
first place. Looking at us however, there was no mistaking who we
were, even the boys and me were milk white from very rarely going
outside, our bodies were hardened from the life we lead and we were
dirtier than your average person with old worn clothes. I think if
it hadn’t been for the fact that people were looking for a wild
family I would have been able to talk our way out of it but
standing here with my two boys who couldn’t talk facing six fiery
but scared young lads I knew where this was going.

My boys stood
on either side of me, tensed like two pieces of granite, not moving
a muscle because I was their leader and they would await my orders.
I couldn’t bring myself to have them attack these young lads. They
were just boys and on top of that one of my boys could be injured
badly or killed. Without saying a word one of the bigger boys
lunged at Wolf and thrust his spear straight at his chest. Wolf
merely turned his body, leaning back and let the spear pass by him,
grabbing hold of it and pulling hard, the boy came flying towards
him. Wolf snapped the boy’s neck with ease and dropped him at his
feet. That set the group off and they all attacked at once. As they
came towards us I saw a blur out of the side of my eyes as Wolf and
Hawk leapt further than any man should be able to, landing behind
the attackers they grabbed one each and done something that shocked
me to my core. They both sunk their teeth into the boys necks and
ripped out a massive chunk which they chewed on as they quickly
dispatched the other three. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the
carnage in front of me that had lasted a few seconds at most and
then at my blood covered boys who stood there finishing the raw
meat that they were chewing on.

It took us a
long time to get the boys buried and cover our tracks. I had no
doubt they would be found but what could we do? Six boys going
missing wasn’t going to go unnoticed. We kept two of the bodies and
I thought it would be hard bringing them so far into the caves as
it wasn’t the easiest going route but the boys just flung a body
each over their shoulders and marched on as if it was a piece of
cloth they were carrying. By the time we got back and got everyone
fed I had never felt so exhausted. I tried to think back to how
high and far Wolf and Hawk had jumped and the image of them biting
into the boys necks but I was asleep before I knew it.

The next day I
went up to the cave mouth myself. There were footsteps. That was a
really bad sign considering we had used branches to cover ours
behind us so someone had made these in the very short period of
time before the tide came in the night before or had been here
earlier this morning. Either way it was bad. I went straight back
into the caves and checked on our stock. We were pretty well set up
to be here for a long time without any risk of starving. We had
fresh water available to us in the cave and there wasn’t much else
we needed so I tried my best to let the boys know going outside was
off limits and they seemed to understand.

Chapter
24

A few months
have passed since I last updated you on what’s been happening. We
haven’t been found by the town folk yet but I have no doubt they
are still looking for us. Karry, Annie and Susie have had babies,
our first born in this part of the cave but that’s not why I’m
returning to my tale now. There have been some changes since we
moved down here. I knew things would be different but I had no idea
what would really happen and I still question myself as to what’s
real and what isn’t. Changes started happening to some of the girls
in the family. The first signs of the change were expected. The
meat in our diet had lessened and we had all lost a little weight,
we were all extremely white and for some reason we all started to
lose our hair. I wasn’t sure what was causing this but thought it
was probably either linked to our diet or lack of sunlight. As the
weeks passed some of the girls skin started to turn scaly, their
skin covered in little hexagon greyish tiles while others became
almost slimy, their skin having a wetness to it and becoming more
pin, almost like a worm.