If You Can Hear Me

17 Years Ago

They came lurching across the land from the south. Hard to know how many, but more than enough. Against the embers of the sun their frenzied silhouettes painted a picture of horror against a bonfire-red canvas. 

No one knew they were coming. That was the worst part. For had they known, or had an inkling, they could have blown the dust from the rifle barrels and had them ready. And had they found no ammunition to make a stand then, at the very least, they could have taken the axes and scythes and sickles to the whetstone. Sharpened the blades. Might well have made a difference. Although no one could know for sure. 

A pack of wolves they were at that moment, frothing at the mouth as they glided like some spectral army across the low hills and between the scattered forests. At once the embodiment of madness - some galloping on all fours as a horse would, others on their legs just like any other man - yet something deliberate about it. They had spread themselves into an arrow like a flock of cranes would. Almost elegantly put together. Like something that would not or could not be denied.

And it was this late evening in early September that the unnamed and unmarked village awaited their fate. A few windblown cottages gathered at the foot of Ardoyne forest as if some seabourne storm had spat them out onto the land. 

The young ones and the elderly had made tracks for bed. Those fit to work remained on the fields and would remain on the fields until they’d reaped their quota for the day. With each passing day the men stayed out well after the sun’s last light, for their kinfolk had already begun to wither away. 

Faces turned gaunt, ribcages protruding.

 The land wasn’t producing, but so help them would they return with at least something for the children to eat in the morning. 

A sense of desperation in the air. For what reason did God have to strip them of their food? The land seemed to be alive underfoot with some baleful, twisting sickness. As if it was revolting against an impending death. It writhed with its lasting vitality now, pushing through the soil half-blackened crops and moulded weeds. Even the great oaks which circled this forgotten village seemed to sag and droop sorrowfully.

And so continued the northward loping of that malignant cluster. Cantering now, mouths frothing and eyes faraway and glazed with hunger.

 They passed a lone wooden shack in a blur of tattered clothes and low growls. Inside that shack, through the window, watched Catherine. Old Catherine and her rosary beads. And she looked heavenward with those beads clutched and wrapped around her fingers and said God, if you can hear me. And stopped. Nothing more. 

God, if you can hear me, she said.

 But upon looking at the sky through the cracked window, with eyes pleading, she again discovered a sense of true isolation. Her God was not here with them now. He hadn’t been for some time. He had gone elsewhere. For she did not believe that this horror would take place under his watchful gaze. God, she said, if you can hear me.

The village came into view. Over the hill they came. 

Franz was a German man and tucked his daughter into bed. The priest swept dust from the altar steps. Mary and Maggie, two twin sisters of a ripe age, had long since fallen into slumber in their cramped cottage. John, or Big John as they called him, plunged his shovel one last time into the land on the outskirts, and turned up some cancerous bulb of potato, blackened and moulded. 

Of course, with him standing isolated in the field by the village, he had fallen first. From the pack, one had steered left and swiped at his throat. In the dim light and through the mounds of dirt, he didn’t see them coming. One minute he was digging, the next he was on the ground, his hands clutching the gash in his throat. Blood spilled hot over his fingers and the last thing he thought was just how warm his own blood was. Was this what blood felt like?

Once they reached the houses, the deliberate structure of the group had dispersed. It was a free-for-all now. Feast on what you can. Man. Woman. Child.

They cascaded through the widows and pulled the village folk from their sleep. Battered doors open so hard that some came clean off their rusted hinges. Feast. They buried their faces below their necks and clamped down their jaws with the strength of a Great White. Tore at their throats. 

Screams and howls became one monotonous symphony of terror that rolled across the fields and became extinguished in the darkness.

Cara was twelve years old and had managed to snatch her infant sister from her cot and shelter them under her bed. She grasped that child’s mouth until it’s face had turned purple. When one came through the window it saw no sign of life and left instantly. Her heart thundered in her head and throat and the child’s suppressed sobs rose against the palm of her hand. From beneath that splintered bed she heard the panic and screams and shrieks of her own people. Slowly, the screams died down, and there was silence.

The baby was choking now, but she couldn’t let go lest she give her place away. For a few minutes more she stayed there until she was sure they had left. The only sound now was a slow patter of rain on the thatched roof. It beat and churned the dirt path outside into a brownish-red cocktail of blood. 

When she deemed it safe, she let her sister’s mouth go and the child howled some awful cry that sounded like nothing this world was fit to produce. A sound from some place else. I’m sorry, Cara said. I’m sorry. 

The congregation which had overrun the village in a flash had proceeded up the coast. Their nails black and long and sharp and now their faces black with blood. 

The hunger had come. They had to feast before these people withered away.

God, if you can hear me.