Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

“See? That’s how it works.”

The disgust on Davey’s face was plain.

“You want to try?”

Davey shook his head, slowly working out that he’d spent a large portion of his birthday money on something he had no interest in.

“I don’t want them,” he said crossly. “I want my Curly Wurly.”

“You can have it when we go,” said Steven.

He knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that they were an invitation to Davey, and Davey seized it and RSVP’d in an instant…

“I want to go.”

“In a minute.”

“I want to go now!”

“In a minute, Davey.”

Davey threw himself onto the dusty tiled floor and started to grizzle loudly, flailing his arms and legs about and scattering his jacks across the room.

“Shut up!” Steven shushed but it was too late.

Oliver appeared in the doorway, and they were out.

The rain had stopped and the sun was trying its best but the cars still hissed past and sprayed unwary pedestrians.

Steven knew he was walking too fast for Davey but he didn’t care; he yanked and tugged at his little brother to keep him going, ignoring the boy’s whines as he half jogged to keep up. It had been a wasted day; they only came to Barnstaple three times a year—Christmas, school clothes shopping in August, and for birthdays. Steven’s was in December, so his birthday trip was combined with the Christmas trip, but this was Davey’s birthday trip—1 March—so it would be months before Mum brought them back in to moan about the size of Steven’s feet and the rips in his school shirts.

And what did he have to show for it? Nothing. A crude map and an enemy in the form of Oliver who would probably never let him back into the archives, or perhaps even the library. Stupid Davey with his stupid jacks.

As they hurried, the faces of the throng of shoppers started to emerge at Steven as if he were noticing for the first time that a crowd was made up of individuals.

Individual whats? Individual farmers? Chemists? Perverts? Killers?

Steven felt a sudden eerie fascination with the shoppers of Barnstaple. Arnold Avery would have shopped. He would have appeared normal to his neighbors, wouldn’t he? The books Steven had read under his sheets were filled with quotes from friends—even family members—who were baffled when their “normal” neighbor, son, brother, cousin was exposed as a homicidal maniac. The thought of Arnold Avery or someone like him walking free on this street made Steven feel nervous. He looked around him warily and his grip tightened on Davey’s hand.

A grey-haired man stared about as his wife cooed over something in Monsoon’s window, his eyes hooded and predatory.

A girl in a dirty skirt played an old guitar badly and sang “A Whiter Shade of Pale” in a dull monotone while her lurcher shivered on a wet blanket, too dispirited to make a break for it.

A young man walked towards them. Scruffy yellow hair like Kurt Cobain, a brown goatee, bike jacket. Alone. Was alone bad? Steven caught his eye and wished he hadn’t. The young man appeared uninterested, but maybe that was a ruse. Maybe he would walk past Steven and Davey to lull them into unwariness and then turn and slip his fingers around Davey’s right arm, starting a tug-of-war which a screaming, pleading Steven could never hope to win, as shoppers stepped politely around them, not wanting to get involved…

“Ow, Stevie! You’re hurting!”

“Sorry,” he said.

They were almost at Banburys.

“Where you going, Lamb?”

The hoodies.

Steven’s heart bumped hard, then sank; he was a good runner and fear made him a very good one. On a Saturday in Barnstaple he would have lost the hoodies easily. Without Davey, that is. His anger at his brother flared again.

“Nowhere.” Steven didn’t look into their faces.

“We’re going to meet Mummy,” said Davey. “We’re going to have cakes.”

The hoodies laughed, and one made his voice squeaky and gay. “Going to meet Mummy. Going to have cakes.”

Davey laughed too and Steven suddenly felt his anger swing from his brother and redirect itself at the leering hoodies. He couldn’t fight them, and if he stayed where he was he was going to get pounded. His only advantage was surprise—right now, while Davey was laughing…

Emboldened by the crowds of shoppers, Steven lunged past the hoodies, almost pulling Davey off his feet. The three boys were momentarily stunned by his sheer nerve. Then they came after him.

Davey was initially surprised by the speed of the move but one look at Steven’s face told him this was serious and he did his best to keep up. Elbows and hips banged his head as Steven towed him heedlessly through the crowds. The pair of them bounced off shoppers like two small, scared pinballs.

If he’d been alone, Steven would have run as far and as fast as he could, but with Davey in tow he knew he had to make every step count, so he headed straight for Banburys’ glass doors a mere twenty yards away.

The hoodies realized his destination and tried to cut Steven off. They weren’t as fast, but they were more brutal and less inclined to go around people. Davey screamed as the crowds parted to show the hoodies just feet away from him.

A woman with a buggy wandered unsuspectingly into their path.

“Fuck!”

One of the hoodies crashed over the buggy and the other two were distracted long enough for Steven and Davey to burst through the glass doors of Banburys.

A fat, middle-aged security guard immediately turned towards them, and Steven forced himself to stop running. Davey peered behind them, scared although he didn’t know why.

Outside, the hoodies were hurling insults behind them at the angry mother, and barrelling towards the doors.

“Stevie…?”

“Ssssh!” Steven jerked his hand to make him pay attention and led him at a sedate pace towards the racks of bags, beads, and belts. The security guard frowned—stymied in his readiness for action now that the two boys had slowed right down and started to look like customers.

The glass doors banged open and the hoodies ran straight into the guard.

Steven looked back as he and Davey stepped onto the escalator. The hoodies were angrily yelling about their rights while the security guard hustled them out of the doors.

“We’ll get you, Lamb!”

Polite shoppers looked around, confused. Steven reddened and looked straight ahead; Davey gripped his hand as if he’d never let go.

AVERY WAS SURPRISED. THE LETTER SAID NOTHING! IT DID NOT beg, it did not plead, did not offer to help him at his parole hearings—the first of which had already taken place without him, and had led to his transfer from Heavitree to the lower-category Longmoor.

He read the letter again and a slow anger started to smoulder inside him. His own letter had been offhand and cryptic; he knew, because he’d taken some days to work out the precise tone he wanted to convey—ignorant, to get past the censors, and yet with enough of a tease in it to tempt a smart and determined reader into an answer. Avery’s in-tray had been empty for eighteen long years and he barely dared admit even to himself the thrill it gave him to receive a letter. Even more, to receive a letter dealing with his favorite subject. And—the ultimate—to receive a letter from someone connected in some way with the family of one of the children.