The Tale of Sawney Bean (Complete Novella) (7 page)

I knew we
couldn’t go back up to the surface and there was less chance than
ever to move my family somewhere else now. I made my mind up that I
would take one last trip to town to see what I could learn and have
a last attempt at formulating a plan that will keep my family safe.
I would just leave it a few more weeks in case anyone has been
watching the cave mouth.

The weeks
passed by slowly as I watched most of my family change. It was as
if they were adapting to suit there surroundings. Here we were
buried in the earth and my girls were taking on qualities that
looked similar to worms and lizards. The most heartbreaking of all
was Isla. The others acted as if they didn’t notice what was
happening. Either that or they just didn’t care but Isla was
different. She was always the most human of the lot and was taking
it hard. She cried a lot and very rarely left my side but there was
nothing I could do to stop what was happening to her. I’m not sure
if it was because she was one of our first children or because she
was the oldest but she was changing quicker than the others. As she
became less like herself my heart broke completely and I distanced
myself from the others spending every waking minute with her.

I awoke one
morning to find her missing along with some of the others. I roamed
the caves for hours and never found her. I knew what had happened.
She had changed too much and either didn’t want to be seen by
anyone or she was now more animal than person and I had left her
thoughts forever. I just didn’t know. I still didn’t even know why
this was happening. I had never heard of anything like this in my
life but I had been young when I moved here so I missed out on a
lot of learning. I wondered if this was what happened to people if
they had no sun light at all. Similar to the way our eye sight
adapted. I wondered if this was our bodies adapting but then why
wasn’t it happening to us all. Myself, Wolf, Hawk, Sarah and the
younger children seemed to have no signs of any change. As I
wandered the caves I heard what sounded like bare feet moving
across rock quickly and rocks skittering across the floor but I
still never managed to find any of the missing girls.

Chapter
25

As time passed
by more of my family changed and so did the younger girls. It
turned out that when they turned around seven they would start
showing signs of the change but it would happen over a much longer
period than it did to the older girls. It was heartbreaking to
watch my family disappear before my eyes and I wondered if we were
any better off down here now that our numbers were dwindling
anyway. Would we have been better standing our ground and fighting?
I still didn’t think so.

I had taken to
spending most of my time roaming the caves now in the hope of one
day seeing Isla again. I missed her most of all and not having her
to lie with in difficult times made everything that little bit
harder. I think everyone needs someone. A few of the girls who were
changing slowly had started coming to me in the night for sex, now
wanting there own babies and although I took no pleasure in it I
gave each of them what they needed hoping that my family would once
again grow. The new babies however were born with their skin
already pink or scaly and their eyes were different to ours,
completely black and less round. There was something about them
that made them seem like they were born for this life but I
wondered what they would be like when grown.

Some days I
wondered if I should slit all their throats in their sleep and put
and end to it all but how could I? They were my family and I loved
them, no matter what we had become and I wasn’t sure I could take
my own life before seeing Isla one more time anyway, just to know
she was okay wherever she was.

One morning
after waking up before everyone else I got the fire going and put
some food out for the others to have when they woke. I went walking
deeper into the caves than we had ever been before. After an hour
or so of walking I stopped for a rest and sat on a rock, I lay my
torch against another and had a drink of water. As I sat
daydreaming about what my life may have been I heard a skittering
on the roof of the cave across the other side of the large canyon.
I looked up, straining my eyes, trying my hardest to find what had
made the noise and then I seen her. Isla. I knew it was herb
straight away. I could tell by the way she tilted her head to look
at me. Her body had changed more and there was no way any normal
human being could be clinging to the rocks hanging almost upside
down the way she was but it was definitely her. We held each others
gaze for a long time and I wept, I wiped my eyes and she was gone.
I stayed where I was for a while hoping that she would come back
but she never did.

I made my way
back to the cave to join what was left of my family. I know there
are less of us left now but I also feel in my heart that my girls
who have changed and left us will always be part of our family
anyway. They may be different now but we are all different. I lie
here tonight wondering what the future holds in store for my family
and I can only hope we manage to keep going on. I don’t know if we
will all die out in the caves we live in now or if in years to come
descendants of the Bean clan will live on here or somewhere else.
There is no way of knowing. I’ve done my best to keep my family
safe and provided for them like all good men should and like most
men I regret the mistakes I’ve made along the way so I will leave
it for you to judge if I was a good or a bad man but before you do
I would ask you to look deep down at yourself and the decisions you
have made along the way and ask yourself how moral you really are.
I hope this isn’t the end of my story or my family but only time
will tell.

Sawney Bean
1708

The End

Afterword

So you made it
to the end of The Tale of Sawney Bean. This was my first work of
any real length, normally sticking to writing stories under four
thousand words. As I said at the start this is a completely
fictional story based around the legend/myth of our lead character.
I had a lot of wild ideas about what would happen in this book but
it would have taken it too far away from the original tale so I had
to rein myself in. If you have made it this far I thank you and
hope you enjoyed it. I did my best. All I ask is that you share it
somewhere or leave a review. If the book is well received there
will be a few side stories to it, ranging in length from flash
fiction pieces to possibly another novella in the future.

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