Ruin (The Ruin Saga Book 1) (8 page)

“O-Okay.” As her shuffling emanated from beneath the awning, Don’s heart skipped a beat. Images of an arrow soaring over his shoulder and plunging through the tarp leaped into his mind’s eye. He cursed, certain that at any moment the first volley would be fired.

But no arrows came.

He didn’t dare look back again, concentrating only on the next stroke. The raging hollers washed over the rowboat as they slipped away from the harbour, slowly fading, until the ruins had dimmed to a distant smattering of darkened shapes.

Still, he didn’t look at the jetty. He was afraid of what he might see—afraid that instead of the mindless faces of a group of country bumpkins, he would see a band of grieving neighbours, robbed of a loved one by a foolish brawl.

They passed the broken breakwater and left the harbour. The sun was still below the horizon, and in the shades of grey his tired eyes had trouble finding distinction between land and sea.

Without the harbour’s protection, they were battered by monstrous waves. The stern climbed some four feet in a single moment, followed by the bow. Before Don could regain his balance, they were falling down the other side of the crest. He and the old man cried out as their stomachs fluttered. Under the awning, Billy screamed.

Despite the fact that the storm had moved away, the waters had yet to settle in the slightest. Don tried not to look at the giant, froth-capped rollers colliding with the sea wall farther along the coast. Nevertheless, his imagination subjected him to flashes of their tiny boat slamming against concrete and being shredded in an instant.

The wind was colder on the open water, but the salty air and proximity to the sea was somehow warming, robbing the gale of its icy bite. This distant warmth, however, could do nothing to ease the chill that had stiffened Don’s bones.

The orange lights had become as indistinct as the shrinking hillside, and Don felt his stomach begin to settle.

From then on they worked in shifts. Don rowed until his arms seized and he could move no more. The old man then pushed him into the bow and took his place. He himself rowed feebly, but kept them moving.

The old man said that there would be more land elsewhere, even claimed that it lay just over the horizon, but Don couldn’t bring himself to trust such an ancient memory. Something in his gut shirked the possibility of so much more lying so close, just beyond sight. Despite laying eyes on so many maps and hearing stories from so many people, he still couldn’t quite believe that there was anything but water beyond the harbour.

Yet there was no option now. The farm was lost. Every farm was lost. This was their only chance.

As the first hour wound to a close, only a brief glance back to shore made it obvious that they had made little progress. Land was still very much in sight—the very same land from whence they had come, the only land he’d ever seen with his own eyes—a mere two miles distant. Their one saving grace was that the water had grown almost glassy-smooth. The rowing from then on was easy enough for Don to let the old man take a double shift, allowing him to recover his strength.

Billy wept quietly under the awning, but Don kept her there for the time being. She couldn’t see him this weak. He needed to rest first.

He sat in the bow, staring up at the lightening sky as his arms took on an agonising ache. He tried shaking them again to keep them from swelling, but that made his joints ache, and so he was forced to compromise with a pathetic shuddering.

The ugly sensation in his lungs came again soon after, washing over him in an unstoppable wave, and the coughing returned. He doubled over the side and retched, spitting a bloody mixture into the water while his body was overcome by a spasm. The old man kept a watchful eye on him until the worst had passed, his brow furrowed and his eyes shimmering with stifled tears.

Don collapsed back and tried to catch his breath. For a while each inhalation was accompanied by a high-pitched wheeze.

“I loved that horse,” the old man said. He sounded conversational, if not sorrowful, but Don knew nonetheless that it was an attempt at distraction. “Raised that one from birth, you know.”

Don nodded and spat over the side again. “I know, I was there,” he said.

“He was beautiful.”

Don nodded, grasping at the threadbare material over his chest, still gasping. After a while the pain lost its edge, and his breathing settled. The throbbing ebbed, ever more dim, until he felt it no more. He watched the clouds pass overhead and drank in slow, deep breaths of coastal air.

Sometime later, a tentative clatter jarred him from a dazed stupor. It had come from the awning. He waited for it to come again before sitting up, composing himself.

Billy muttered from the dark, mousy and tearful, “Daddy?”

He smiled. “Come on out.”

In the youthful morning light, a little girl of no more than eight years poked her head from the canvas flap and peered about the stern. She took stock of their swaying motion and the surrounding waves, and then looked into Don's eyes. There wasn’t yet enough light for anything colourful, but to Don she was cast in the deepest rouges and the softest pinks. She clambered underneath the working arms of her grandfather and settled herself amongst the folds of Don's mud-spattered coat. “Hi, Daddy,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry I kept you under there so long. It wasn’t safe.” He gave her a squeeze. “How do you feel?”

“Okay.” She hesitated. “Why wasn’t it safe?” She indicated the sea. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to home.”

He stroked her cheek and smiled. “I’m sorry, Billy. We had to leave in a hurry. Somebody was…upset. But you can still see home, over there. See?”

He pointed towards the gap in the distant grey cliffs where the harbour lay. He shielded her eyes from the glittering water and turned her head until she followed the line of sight he’d drawn out for her.

“It’s so far away,” she said, agape.

“It looks farther than it is.”

“How long have we been moving away?”

“Not long.”

Billy looked around at the sea. She leant over to inspect the gentle swell of the waves and then sat back, as though to take in its grandness. “Where are we going?” she said.

Don sighed and slumped lower, feigning exasperation. In truth, he was bordering on breaking into a laughing fit, but he made sure to keep his face level. “Billy, we’ve been through this hundreds of times…”

Her eyes glittered, every bit in on the play-talk as he. “I know, but I like to hear it. Where are we going, Daddy? Please, tell the story.”

Don sat back, wrapped an arm around her, and recounted the tale he’d built up over endless twilight story times: they would travel to a new place, away from home, where there would be other people who spoke strangely; where there would be more boys and girls for her to be friends with, thousands of them, and they could start again; and there would be food there—all the food they could eat.

“And we’re going now?”

“Yes.”

She purred, settling into his coat. “I like that story,” she said.

Don frowned, but let it pass. It was all still a mere fiction to her. He decided to keep the truth close to the chest for a little while longer. At least there would be no disappointment in store for her if the tale turned out to be a fantasy after all.

The old man rowed for a long time, his arms moving back and forth hypnotically. Father and daughter watched him from their heap in the bow as the land shrank upon the horizon. Meanwhile, darkness drained from the sky and the clouds blossomed from grey whiskers to enormous, fire-red streaks.

Billy soon fell asleep. From then on, Don divided his time between watching her slumber and staring out at the far distance. It was another hour before he felt strong enough to sit beside the old man and take an oar again.

In the back of his mind he knew how far they had still to go, and was equally disheartened each time he remembered it. Occasionally, the old man brought out a rusted compass and consulted their grubby map, and the two of them would correct their course.

Hour after hour passed, during which time the two of them rowed, rested, ate and drank. By the time the cliffs disappeared, the sun had clawed a fair way into the sky, bathing the boat in soft light. The tiny, prickling warmth upon their skin provided just enough of a boost to keep them moving. Billy slept while they rowed well into the day. All the while the boat crawled along, heading into unknown waters, carrying them away from their homeland.

When Alex finally returned home, the fires had begun to extinguish themselves. The sound of the door slamming shut behind him was deafening. Before he’d even taken a single glance around, he was sure the house was as much a tomb as the world outside.

The dog emerged from its bed under the stairs and nuzzled his hand, whining. His heart almost broke at the sight of her—a companion. He sat against the wall facing the living room and allowed her to lick his face, whimpering at the contact. The tears finally came then, and he cried there beside his mother’s wilted ficus tree, holding the mutt to his side. The hallway swam before him, but still his gaze was drawn to the kitchen, where he was sure his family had sat not an hour before.

He didn’t bother to call out. They were gone.

Once his shuddering cries had abated and his cheeks had dried, he struggled to the living room and fell into his father’s chair. He hesitated for a moment, keeping his gaze on the carpet until he felt strong enough to look at the brightly wrapped gifts waiting upon the mantelpiece.

They had been presents, early gifts for exams not yet passed. His parents had surprised him that morning, promising that he’d be opening them later that day. His father had ignored his protests—Alex had repeatedly insisted that it was entirely possible that he’d fail—and laid a firm hand on his shoulder. Alex had looked into his kind eyes and let his father’s words crash over him: “Alex, some men have to put in the hours. They have to fight for everything they get. Men like me. But other men have something different, something else on their side. Some men have a destiny. And you got that, boy. You got that in spades.”

Alex’s throat constricted at the recollection. He would never hear that voice again, nor his mother’s or sister’s. The truth was beginning to sink in: They were gone
,
gone
, vanished into thin air along with everybody he had ever known. The entire world had been pulled out from under him.

He continued to stare at the gifts, until the intricate spots and swirls of the wrapping paper were burned onto his retinas and he lost track of time. Despite the dog’s occasional attempts to rouse him, he didn’t move for what must have been many hours, for by the time he stood from the armchair, the sky had turned from a pale blue to a dull orange.

Dusk was approaching. An entire day had passed.

Alex hadn’t heard a single siren or passing aircraft. He was sure the phone would ring any minute. A game show host’s voice would come ringing out, telling him that he’d been a good sport while the walls of his living room slid away to reveal a studio, filled by an audience bellowing with laughter.

But, inwardly, he knew that it was all real, and that it had struck far more than just Radden County. Maybe the entire world.

Once the room’s shadows had started to grow longer, for reasons that he couldn’t fathom he moved to the mantelpiece, piled the gifts in his arms and returned to the chair. Slowly he began to unwrap them with great care, ignoring the throbbing pain in his burned hand. But before long, something stopped him. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to unveil their contents. After minutes of struggling he put them aside and instead opened the single envelope that sat atop the pile.

It was a joint card from his parents, adorned by his mother’s long and flowing hand. Despite its beauty, what Alex enjoyed most was the manner in which his father had signed at the very bottom in an enormous, ugly scrawl. He kept the card in his hands, smiling through fresh tears until its charm waned. By then he had sunk to a new low.

Sunset grew closer. Still he didn’t move from the chair. Without any real hope, he picked up the phone and dialled his mother’s number. He waited, unsure of what to expect, but there was no response at all; not a dial tone, not a recorded error message—not even static. Just silence.

That was enough to rouse him. He set about the house, prodding computers, televisions, microwaves, radios and digital clocks. Each was dead to his touch.

Only the lights still worked.

Without thinking, he ascended the stairs to his bedroom, looking around at the carpet of detritus littering the floor. That morning he would have insisted that every piece was vital, that the clutter was an integral part of his identity. Now he felt as though looking upon it all from a great height. A profound sense of futility seemed to emanate from every surface.

The crushing weight of what had happened was cleaving a cavity in his chest. It was no dream. He wished it to be with all his might, but at the same time knew it wasn’t. The look Paul had given him in his last moment had been something only reality could have conjured.