A rap on wood. The door to a house. The chain comes down, muffled from the outside. A man stands, dark against the light from behind him. He looks down at two children, smiles momentarily and then his eyes avert from them.
He says “I can’t help you,” stammering slightly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a phone.”
The children look up at him, one slightly taller than the other, their hair thick and cut round their ears like a bowl.
“Where are your parents?” He continues, although the children haven’t uttered a word. “I think you should go home. I’m very busy, I’m sorry.” He shuts the door, a little harder and a little faster than seems polite.
***
I'm sitting in my car, pulled up onto the pavement, trying to get google maps to locate where I am. It starts to rain heavily and I roll the window up and turn on the windscreen wipers. They screech across the windscreen in quick succession, giving a glimpse out of the watery world in front. I look up and see two children. Another swipe of the wiper and they are gone.
A knock on the window. I wind it back down.
“Hello sir,” says the taller of the children, a boy.
Sir, it strikes me as strange. “Hi,” I answer. “Are you ok?”
“No, we need to get home.” He looks down at the smaller child, his sister I assume, although it might not be. Her hair is cut exactly the same and I figure it would be a strange coincidence if they weren’t related. I have a flashback to primary school. A family of thirteen kids, one in almost every year of school. When the inevitable yearly infestation of head lice spread around the school the family got a universal haircut. Shaved and smooth so as to not risk any place for the parasites to hide.
“Where do you live?” I ask.
“Morris Crescent,” says the boy. At least I think it was the boy. I blink hard and rub my eyes. I need a coffee. “Just off of Iffley road, sir.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know the area, I’m just here for the weekend.”
The boy wrinkles his brow at this. Then I notice. His eyes. They're lifeless. Black, totally black… no maybe blue, but dark, so dark that you become lost in their depths. I look away in shock. How had I not noticed this before? My heart begins to race for reasons beyond my comprehension. Then the children seem to change. I was not meant to have noticed this.
The girl’s lips curl up on one side and then who I suspect might be her brother screeches “Come on sir, just let us in the car!”. His voice no longer sounds like the voice of a boy. “We’re only children. We need help. We need to get to a home, that’s all.”
His last words hang in the air and something tells me there was something more going on here. It was not just some innocent ride home, what it was though I cannot guess. I look down at my phone. It had centred on my location and found the location of the B&B I was staying in. Ten minutes by car, located on Iffley road.
“I have to go.” I stammer.
The boy hisses and then begins to cough heavily, as if he has been smoking a pack a day for years.
I don't even bother to wind up the window as I put the car into first and pull out into the road, without even looking in my mirrors. Nothing hits me.
I look back to check if anyone is behind. There's nobody and I can see no sign of the two children.
***
I take my baggage up the steps of the B&B. The door pulls outwards like they do in Scandinavia, perhaps so as not to invite in the rain and cold.
“Hello,” says an old woman behind a dated veneered desk. “Is it Underdown?
“Yes, that’s me.” I reply. “Bit late I know. I got lost coming into Oxford off the motorway.”
“Oh yes, a lot of people do.” A drop of saliva dribbles from her mouth as she says this and she wipes it quickly with the back of her hand. “There’s a lot of lost souls on days like these.”
I tell her I’ll be up for breakfast tomorrow, between eight and eight thirty, and then out for the day to a conference. I retire to my bedroom after that, the day catching up with me. Kicking my shoes off and lying on the bed, I sink into an uneasy sleep.
I see the children outside the car, eyes dark this time, with long shadows stretching out behind them. The window is open, and the rain begins to blow in as the boy edges closer. He puts his face up to the point where the window would have been and then stops, as if it was up, and just stares in at me. The rain begins to pound at my face and drops run down my forehead.630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAmzY9f2ZqJ
Suddenly I am no longer in my car but in a house. I'm staring at the two children in the back garden through a window. They look in, faces gaunt and starved looking. I feel an anger burning inside me and I pick up a bat that has been lying on the table behind me. I go to the back door and unlatch a chain.
I wake up, hot and sweating in my clothes. It's still early, six o’clock only. The sun shines through the window, orange and warm and welcoming. The rain had stopped. I get up and go to look at the view from the window. I need to let some fresh air in, I think to myself.
“Come in,” I announce out loud to the world as I lift up the window.
Then I feel a rush of air and I shiver.
“Thanks sir.” Says a voice from behind me.
I turn around and see black eyes, empty and vast and echoing for eternity, and then I scream.
ns 18.68.41.141da2
