My sister Jo and I didn’t always live alone. There used to be our parents – our warm and gentle mother, our care-worn father. We owned a farm in the English countryside miles from anywhere, a situation which most children would have been in a great hurry to get out of. But Jo and I weren’t like most children.
It was always ‘Jo and I’ ever since we were small; she came first, she was the oldest and the natural leader. I followed her every order but never resented her. I adored Jo and would have followed her into a burning house if she had asked me to, but I knew she would never ask. I mattered as much to her as she did to me. My glamorous dark-eyed big sister had inherited Mother’s looks, whereas I had Father’s lanky awkward frame. She was fifteen when they died; I was just nine.
Starvation and fatigue got Mother and then depression did for Father, did for him in our old barn, swinging from the rafters. I cried my heart out but Jo didn’t shed a tear. She was as devastated as I was but she would never let it show. Steely, was our Josephine, and smart as a whip. Of course, there wasn’t much food around that first winter after they left us; there wasn’t much food anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world from what the rickety old radio in the kitchen told us. The seas were rising and the crops were failing, ours being no exception, and for once I was glad that our farm was so isolated. People did terrible things when they went hungry and we were just a pair of young girls with no means to defend ourselves.
We got by on turnips and bone broth and never saw another living soul. I think the people of the nearest village had forgotten we were even out here or maybe assumed we had died off without our parents to care for us, but they were wrong. Jo took care of me and between us we kept the farm running to the best of our abilities. We milked the one cow we could resist slaughtering for its meat right up until it collapsed from hunger and then Jo took a knife and slit its throat. I was too disgusted to do it myself and hid behind her skirts until she took the blade from me and, sighing, drew it across the cow’s jugular herself.
‘You’ll have to learn sooner or later, Beth. You’re ten years old now and you’re not a baby anymore. I’ll get us through this, you know I will, but I need you to help me.’
I nodded, sniffing and furiously rubbing my eyes so she wouldn’t notice I was crying. Her hands were bloody as she drew me into an embrace and I gratefully collapsed into her arms, not minding at all the dark red stains that she left on my clothes.
We made it through the harshest winter and as summer approached we both felt the life returning to our weary bones like a sunrise peeking over the horizon. The weather had grown strange over the last few years and that spring it was scorching hot, far hotter than even the summer had been when I was a baby.
We were happy, believe it or not, two sisters in our own little world. We had little food but enough to nourish our bodies. I played outside in the dust with only the mayflies for company but I didn’t mind, as honestly I had grown fearful of the outside world. I never saw anybody, ever. That seemed a little odd to me as I could remember back when my parents were alive and there were always seasonal workers at the farm, visitors of all sorts. Now there were none.
Still, a lot had changed since those days and it wasn’t just that our parents now lay in the hard ground behind the house. There was the hazy mist in the sky which never seemed to lift and the extreme heat which saturated our clothes with sweat before we had even had breakfast. The lush countryside had turned dry and sparse like a desert, devoid of life, and I took to thinking that perhaps there were no other people out there at all.
No, that wasn’t right – I knew there must be some life still as Jo, on extremely rare occasions, would suddenly announce she was going into the nearest village to barter some of our vegetables or the eggs from our chickens for meat. I would always scream and cry when she said this as I never wanted her to leave my sight but she would settle me down, take my face in her cool hands and promise to be home before it got dark. I would barricade the door to our shared bedroom and hide underneath the creaky bed until I heard her soft tread on the front step. Shaking with fear in the shadows, I could scarcely breathe as I waited. But I never doubted that she would come home to me.
When she had unloaded her bags of food into the pantry she would come upstairs, find me and soothe me. We would sit on the floor, her smoothing my hair to calm me and calling me her little darling, and she would tell me stories of the world outside. The detail she gave me was sparing and I understand now that she was tactfully leaving out some of the darkest sights she had witnessed; still, I was enrapt. She had seen animals running wild – perhaps we would be able to go out and hunt them when I got big and strong – dogs and cats roaming the broken empty streets. This sounded like paradise to an animal lover like me and I fantasised about finding a puppy to call my own.
She had seen people still alive, kind people she said, who had given her bread and cheese to take back to me. There were cars abandoned for miles along the main road that cut through the valley and she said the air was hard to breathe. Every time I expressed a desire to see these things for myself, however, Jo would become stern and tell me that it was too dangerous. Looking back on these conversations I know she was terrified in a way I that couldn’t have understood, a teenager suddenly finding herself forced into the role of caring Mother and fierce Father with no training for either part.
How could she defend me against whatever was out there, in that desolate world that was once ours?
So I never did leave the farm. But I still learned about what the world out there had become, and I learned it in the worst possible way. It was a dark night and the air was still, the yellowing leaves on the trees echoing the sickly colour of the sunset, but it was as hot as day. Jo and I both knew we would be going hungry in a few days time, with our stores depleting, and I knew she was contemplating a journey in search of food. She was quiet and I noticed her biting her lips as we cleared away our bowls, having enjoyed yet another meal that was essentially re-boiled bone fragments from last week. I was impervious to her worries and was happily chatting on about something or other when there came a sudden loud bang! from the front of the house. Jo froze and we stared at each other, our eyes wide, hers so dark with alarm that they looked like black voids in her pale face. When no other sound came after a few moments she began to move on swift silent feet, putting a finger to her lips as a warning and pushing me down beneath the dining table. I did what I was told but had to work hard to get my muscles to function, I was so scared.
She slipped out of the kitchen without a backwards glance and left me alone. I whimpered then and stuffed a fist into my mouth. What was happening?
I stayed hidden there for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes. My ears strained to hear any hint of what was going on outside the kitchen. To my joy I heard steps outside the door that lead to the hall and when it creaked open I leapt out from my hiding place, sure that Jo would be there to reassure me that it was just the wind making noises and to calm me as she always did. But it wasn’t Jo who had just walked into the room. It was a stranger.
The man was tall, and lanky rather than slim, as if the weight had just dropped off him due to hunger rather than diligent exercise. He was smiling but I didn’t trust him; the smile didn’t reach his eyes. They were cold and pale like milky water. He was dressed better than we were, his clothes looking as if they hadn’t been taken in and stitched together as many times as our own, but they were odd and mismatched. I had a sudden thought that they weren’t his clothes at all and wondered who he could have stolen them from.
As I stood watching him he moved further into the room and stretched out one hand to me, keeping the other buried in his dusty jacket. I saw that despite his lean appearance his arms were well-muscled and powerful.
‘Hello sweetheart’, he said in a lilting accent which I didn’t recognise. He sounded a little like the people I used to hear on the television sometimes, when televisions still worked and weren’t just blank boxes to use as a table. I shrank back from him.
‘Are you from the town?’ I asked him, so innocent that I break my heart to think of it. He laughed.
‘No, lass, I’m not from these parts at all. I’m just passing through and find myself a little, aha… short of supplies. So I’m just calling upon you to extend the hand of generosity, like, to me in my time of need.’ I blinked but remained silent.
‘What I’m saying is,’ he continued, seeming to see that I didn’t understand and he had to move it down a notch, ‘that I want food. And clothing, and bedding if you have it, but mostly food.’
‘We don’t have any!’
‘What is it that I see upon the table then, if not dishes and plates! Don’t you lie to me girl, if you do – ‘ his tone became menacing and he took another step towards me. ‘If you do it shall go hard with you.’
‘That was just broth, honest Sir!’ I was sobbing now, wanting this stranger gone, wanting my sister, wanting my Jo. ‘We have barely anything, save for the chickens and the clothes on our backs…’
‘Chickens, eh? Better than nothing, I suppose. Right then lass. Is there anybody else here with you?’
I shook my head, not daring to take my eyes from his. I had seen, in the shadows of the doorway, a figure creeping up behind him. Jo. My answer seemed to please him and he rubbed his free hand across his face, relaxing and looking suddenly very tired. When he spoke it was low and almost to himself.
‘Good. Thank Christ. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep moving on…’
His words were interrupted by a great shout of rage. Jo had leapt through the doorway onto his back, taking him by surprise and uttering the loudest cry I had ever heard from her. It was a lioness’s roar, a battle cry.
The stranger flailed around madly, trying and failing to throw her off. I was so happy and no longer felt afraid – I was saved like I knew I would be. My joy turned to horror again quickly however as the stranger yanked his hand out of his jacket and revealed what he had been hiding. It was a pistol.
I ran to my sister’s side and tried to help her, clawing wildly at the man, his eyes, his flesh, even attempting to bite his outstretched arm in my desperation. It was all in vain, however, as he managed to push Jo from his back and send her sprawling to the floor.
As soon as he trained the gun on her I knew it was over. I would never keep fighting him if it would endanger her, anymore than she would put me in harm’s way.
‘You little witches!’ he spat and it was bloody. ‘You lying little snake. I should teach you a lesson, shoot your tricky friend here right in front of your eyes!’
‘No, please, no!’ I screamed, at the same moment Jo was pleading:
‘Anything, do anything you want to me, just leave her out of it, leave my sister alone!’
The man laughed.
‘Well, it all depends on how you two behave yourselves, doesn’t it? If you-‘, he gestured to me with his head, ‘keep a civil tongue, and you-‘ he waved the gun at Jo, ‘don’t try anything stupid, then I won’t have to hurt anybody. But if either of you don’t do what I tell you,’ he smiled evilly, ‘I will shoot the other one. How’s that sound?’
I wept silently, nodding my head and not daring to look at my sister. I heard her whisper under her breath, a quiet little ‘yes’ which filled my heart with relief. If both of us just went along with what this scavenger wanted then maybe he would allow us to live.
‘Good. Now, I want food and if all you’ve got is chickens then I’m taking those with me. But I think I’ll stay a while. I like it here and God knows this is better than being on the road. It’s Hell out there…’ he trailed off and again, I saw a deep exhaustion in his face. Then he flashed me a grin and my stomach turned. ‘Besides, I do like the ladies.’
The next few hours dragged like an age. To my young mind it felt like forever so I can’t imagine how agonising it must have been for my older sister, who was aware on a more adult and more horrified level what dangers this stranger could pose to us. What he could do to us.
He sat at our kitchen table, his boots kicked off and legs thrown over it as if he were a reclining prince, and made us bring him what little food we had in our stores. Some of it he tore into greedily on the spot, his dirt-blackened hands grasping it and gobbling it down whilst we stood and watched. Jo held my hand tightly and didn’t let go all evening, even as we moved silently and fearfully around the room to do his bidding.
We didn’t dare speak to each other and only talked when the stranger barked questions at us with his mouth full, which he did frequently. I tried not to look at him and kept my gaze low to the ground; Jo’s eyes never left the gun now tucked into his belt. He was obviously at ease but still looked abominably tired. It was with drooping eyes and slightly slurred speech that he asked me:
‘So why are you girls all on your own out here anyway? Where are your parents?’
‘Dead’, Jo interjected in a small voice.
‘That’s a shame. I truly am sorry. I lost my family too, a long time ago. My wife Jeanie, my kids. But Hell, I suppose everyone’s lost someone now, everyone is alone in this new world.’ He trailed off. I looked up, frowning.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. Jo hissed at me under her breath, warning me to stay quiet, but I ignored her. The stranger looked perplexed.
‘Lass, it can’t have escaped your notice what’s going on out there. The whole world has turned to shi- I mean, has gone to Hell in a handcart, as my old mum used to say.’ He watched my still confused expression and slowly understanding dawned in his face. ‘You mean you don’t know what’s been happening?’
‘Shut up!’
I turned on Jo, shocked at her frantic outburst, to see her glaring dagger-eyed at the man. I was scared for a moment that he would turn violent but instead he gave her a sad look, almost pitying.
‘If you want to spare your sister the grisly details, lass, then I’d understand. But she’ll have to learn one day. She’ll have to leave her childhood behind, its gone – gone like the city, gone up in a mushroom cloud, ha!’ Then he looked me very seriously in the eye.
‘Scarcely anybody is left alive in this area except for yourself, your sainted sister here, and me. It’s cleared out. The villages are burned and the nearest town, well…’ He made a slicing gesture across his throat with one filthy hand.
‘It’s terrible out there. It really is. Bodies in the streets, packs of wild dogs gnawing at their insides… Only just yesterday I came upon a house full of the dead, an old couple and their son, and it looked like something – or someone - had been at ‘em.’
‘At… them?’ I repeated dumbly.
‘Yeah, at ‘em, stripped them bare - with a knife I’d wager. Right down to the bone. It’s an awful world out there now. So!’ He brightened, giving me a wink. ‘Think how lucky I am to have stumbled on you two lovely, obliging girls.’
He leaned forwards suddenly and drew a wiry arm around my waist, pulling me with brute strength towards him. I squealed in horror and he chuckled, his eyes travelling up and down my body in a way which made my cheeks burn with shame.
Jo jumped forwards and made to strike the stranger but stopped short when his free hand shot, quick as a flash, to his pistol. He released his grip on me but kept his steely glare on my sister’s face.
‘Heed my words girl. If you try that again it’ll be her blood that splatters the floor, and you’ll watch. Don’t go thinking that just because I’m being such a polite gentleman that I’m not a dangerous man. Because you don’t know the half of it.’
He seemed to consider things for a moment then leaned close into Jo’s pale face, smirking as if something funny had just occurred to him. ‘Do you remember when I said that I lost my wife? Well, I’ll tell you something about that and maybe you’ll understand why I’m not a safe man to cross. I killed her. I killed her and I’d do it again tomorrow in a heartbeat.’
My horrified expression must have amused him because he was laughing as he rose from his seat. He staggered a little and grabbed out at the chair to regain his balance. I hated him. How I hated him, rolling around our kitchen, after gorging himself stupid with our food.
His face was flushed when he looked up at Jo and demanded a place to sleep for the night, with a warning that we not try ‘any funny business’. With him standing I was starkly reminded of his height, his weight and our defencelessness, not to mention the gun which was still slung in his belt.
Jo nodded and stiffly guided him out of the room; when he was gone I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Perhaps when he had slept he would leave us, rob us blind but let us live unharmed. I had no intention of even closing my eyes that night.
Looking around the room I saw that the knife we had used for slaughter was neatly folded in its bloody wrapper on the windowsill. Slowly, wary of my agonisingly loud footfalls, I moved over to it and slipped the weapon into the pocket of my apron.
Jo returned a moment later and told me in a hushed voice that our menacing guest had locked himself in the parlour, warning that we had better keep out or he would shoot us.
‘I could sneak up on him!’ I whispered excitedly, ‘sneak up with a knife or something and-‘
‘And what then? Listen to yourself. You’re a child, you couldn’t even slaughter a cow. I’m afraid, Beth, and I just want to do whatever we must to get through this.’
‘You told me that I had to grow up and leave my childhood behind!’ I turned on her angrily. What did she want to do, allow this disgusting man to just waltz off and take everything we had? Jo just pursed her lips, her face the colour of sour milk.
‘Be careful what you wish for, my darling’, she murmured, and then she was folding me into her embrace and I was sobbing against her shoulder.
We stood like that for minutes, until my cries dried to sniffs and my sister held me out at arms-length.
‘Beth, I need you to be strong for me, can you do that? I need you to go upstairs and hide underneath the bed and not come out. No matter what you might hear or think is happening, I need you to stay out of sight. Promise me!’
‘I… Alright. But, Jo, what are you going to do?’
She gave me no answer and just sent me running up the stairs with a push, running like the stranger was right on my heels. I threw myself into the dark and dusty space beneath my bed, fingering the knife which was still in my pocket.
I must have slept in those dark hours because I was suddenly jolted awake to the sound of a scream. The dawn light was illuminating the bedroom with an eerie glow and for a moment I was confused, not remembering why I was underneath the bed rather than on it.
Then the scream came again and I was out from my hiding place in a shot, my muscles screaming from the hours of restriction but I barely noticed. I tore down the stairs two at a time, halting as the kitchen doorway came into view and I could see the figure of our dangerous stranger stood blocking the way.
He didn’t see me in the shadows; his eyes were locked on the small frail shape of my sister, who I could see over his shoulder was cowering up against the wall. His eyes were blazing with fire and his pistol was out, trained on her heart.
‘Wh-what did you-you – do to me?’
His words were so slurred that he sounded drunk and I thought for one mad moment that he had got hold of Father’s old whisky store. I noticed as I moved slowly closer that he was stooping, staggering as if his legs weren’t working properly, and he was bracing his hand against the doorframe in order to stay standing.
‘You witch! You-you’ve poisoned me! I woke up and I saw terrible, terrible things. Nightmares, living nightmares! I saw her, my Jeanie, leaning over me and she was wearing the sheet I buried her in and she said to me… She asked where the children were and I told her and she cursed me… But what else were we to do? I had to keep her safe, I couldn’t lose her, so what else was I supposed to do? And then I saw them too, our little boys, and they were crying out to me but I couldn’t stop – oh, oh God, but it wasn’t real! It was you and your poison, you evil little witch, you-‘
There was the deafening, booming crack! of a gunshot and suddenly the ceiling was falling in, dust and spiders and wooden boards raining down. My sister shrieked and the man yelled, throwing himself towards her, waving the gun like a bludgeon. Jo tried to fight him off but he was too strong, too big. As his fingers wrapped around her neck he screamed out a slur of words that didn’t make any sense to me.
‘I told you last time, Jeanie, I had to do it! I had no choice, it was either all of us or just them, and I chose them, I admit it, but I couldn’t lose you! They were never going to survive, not weak as they were, so young and helpless… But we could have lived! You could have lived Jeanie, oh Jeanie, why did you try to stop me…’
‘Get away from her!’ I screamed.
The stranger blinked. His leery eyes were red as he turned towards me, releasing Jo from his grip. He looked woozily down at his clothes, covered in blood, and then at the handle of the knife which was sticking out of his side. His last wheezing breaths told me that it was his lung I had punctured, the blade slicing true and clean.
I backed away from his body as it fell to the floorboards with a final thud. I was only dimly aware of Jo coming to my side, smoothing my shocked tears away with her gentle hands and leading me from the room. I caught some odd scraps of what she was saying to me as she did so:
‘You should have stayed upstairs, Beth, you didn’t need to do that – but I’m so proud of you, so proud all the same… Go to bed, don’t think on this anymore, and I’ll have him all sorted out before you come back down…’
‘All… sorted out?’ I echoed, confused and distant. The last thing I remember her saying to me as I fell into the grateful arms of sleep was:
‘Of course! Honestly, my darling, how did you think we’ve been eating this past year?’
*
My sister Jo and I didn’t always live alone. But, as I reflected the day after the stranger came, I wouldn’t change things for the world. Standing outside the house, I looked out across our farm and sighed contentedly. This was our home and our world. I was happy with Jo. She would take care of me and I would always take care of her.
‘Are you coming inside, Beth darling? Dinner is ready!’
‘Coming!’ I called back excitedly and turned to climb up the steps to the kitchen. Inside my sister was waiting for me, a smile on her pretty face and a steaming joint on the table before her.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day’, she sighed. With a little laugh, Jo began to carve the meat.