Gary McMahon: Nightsiders

The boy watched the wounded kitten as it struggled gamely through the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden, then followed patiently on all fours. He paused for a moment to lick the blood from his fingers. It tasted good, like the memory of something special on his tongue. He had not eaten properly in days—his thin, undernourished body was testament to that—and any food, even this meagre feast, was to be savored.

The girl sat on the porch, her legs swinging as she rocked back and forth, back and forth in the wicker rocker, watching the boy; enjoying the hunt. She turned toward the house, to the powdery light that filtered through the wooden shutters—one of which had been destroyed when the boy had first grabbed the kitten—and smiled. On her thin, pale face, the expression looked venal.

The man and woman were inside, doing things on the kitchen floor. Noisy things. Soft and hard and ugly-moist things the girl didn’t really like to see but couldn’t stop herself from watching whenever the opportunity presented itself. She was interested in a way that made her feel detached, and it set her apart from the others. The man often told her she was too sharp for her own good, but that only made the girl think of a knife blade. And of cutting.

The other boy—the older one who was almost a man—was in there now, watching, and waiting his turn with the woman. Images of what they were doing flashed across a couple of large wall-mounted TV screens. The screens were broken and splashed with paint, but the girl could still make out the action.

The boy capered across the lawn like an animal, pushing through the wiry bushes and out into the clearing beyond the large garden, then along the narrow stream that bordered the length of the property before diverting into a small stone culvert and disappearing underground. Deep underground, where the darkness dwelled and secrets were always hidden.

The boy smiled. His teeth were crooked, and some of them were stained yellow and diseased. His gums were red, even beneath the layer of fresh kitten blood.

He crept up on the animal as it licked its gashed leg. He’d done that with his hands, his long, untrimmed fingernails. Later, he would be forced to take a bath, and then be preened and tidied like a show horse, but for now he could run like a beast.

The cat made a single sound when he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, his fingers nipping the soft, warm flesh and the soft, warm fur that covered the soft, warm meat.

Soft, warm things were his favorites to play with.

With a flick of his other wrist, the animal’s neck was broken. The cracking-snapping sound it made was clearly audible in the still night, the natural quiet of the countryside this far out of town allowing the sound to travel back to the porch, where the girl sat and giggled.

“Leave me some,” she said. Her voice was low and hoarse, not at all like the unsure tones one might expect to hear coming from the mouth of a small prepubescent girl.

The boy licked his lips before digging in, tearing away the soft bulge of the kitten’s throat and chewing the tender flesh. He swallowed. The taste was…he couldn’t find the right word; his vocabulary was limited, his education negligible after being brought up on the road by the man and the woman.

But his heart responded to the calling of the blood, the sensation of it dripping down across his lips and staining his chin. Oh yes, the words might fail him but the actions were always there, like a second nature, an ancient instinct that had been relearned at some point during his short lifespan.

He stopped short of stripping the flesh from the bone; he saved the rest for the girl. Gripping the dead kitten between his teeth, its wet fur tickling his lips, he walked upright through the low gate and back into the garden. The girl was waiting for him, standing in a wash of yellow light that spilled from the kitchen window in long, thin strips. The man and the woman made moaning sounds from within, their cries rising in pitch and frequency. The older boy laughed.

The small boy held out his kill. The girl reached for it, her hands caressing his wrist. Then she took the fresh meat and retreated to a corner of the porch, where she slid down into a low crouch.

The sound she made while feeding was quite beautiful. It was music to the boy’s ears.

Robert Mitchell was stressed.

He’d known all along it would happen; this response had always been inevitable. After a fortnight spent camping in the Lake District, the entire family relaxed and at ease with the world, he would have bet his bottom dollar that the first sniff of reality, of so-called civilisation, would set his triggers twitching.

And here it was; the absolute proof of his prognosis.

Twenty-five miles outside Battle, the town whose outskirts they’d moved to only three weeks ago (bad timing considering the planned holiday, but Robert had managed to get a good deal at a property auction), and civilisation had returned with a vengeance to bite him in the arse. He’d been idling along at a steady thirty miles per hour, obeying the speed signs and still sustaining a reasonable mood from the holiday, when some prick in a four-wheel-drive Jeep had cruised up behind him, getting closer to his rear bumper and generally making it obvious he wanted to overtake.

The road was narrow, only wide enough for a single vehicle, and there were no passing points in sight. So Robert had carried on at the same steady speed, glancing in the rearview mirror and catching sight of some fat man scowling through his windscreen, his broad tattooed arm and dimpled elbow sticking out of the open side window.

Then the fat man edged even farther forward, his wide, black, mud-spattered front end nudging the rear of Robert’s ten-year-old Volvo Estate…gently, gently, and without causing any damage, but nudging it all the same.

Robert glanced again into the rearview mirror, his mouth becoming dry and his eyes watering. The fat man was wearing a pair of mirror-lens aviator sunglasses; his shiny jowls were cleanly shaven, his hair cut short, like an American army crew cut. His mouth was carved into a thin smile, bright white teeth showing like little fangs.

Robert’s hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel. The man’s very presence was threatening, but in a quiet, understated way. Not like the idiots in the city, where Robert and his family used to live. Not like…like him . The one who’d changed everything; the bastard whose lean, creased face Robert saw behind him, leering over his shoulder, every time he looked into a mirror.

No. No. Not like him. Not this one.

“What’s wrong?”

Robert glanced at Sarah, unable for the moment to speak, to grunt, to communicate in any way. He forced a smile. Then, finally, his voice returned. “Nothing, love. Just this moron sitting up my backside. He’s, you know—he’s getting on my nerves.”

Sarah’s eyes flickered to the mirror in the sun visor; only moments earlier she’d been putting on lipstick, so the visor was down, despite the fact that the sun was not strong enough to warrant the protection.