LEFT, A thriller in parts. Part 6. Written by a human.
Michael Gray Griffith
LEFT, A thriller in parts.
With Ai writing novels now, and thanks to my political stance, the chance of getting picked up by a publisher is nil, so I’m just posting work here, and we’ll leave it in the hands of the universe.
Why not start at the start
Left Part 6
“I am not a monster. Life has shown me that. I am just a man who did something cruel and discovered that this universe can’t tell the difference because it doesn’t care. If we die out here tomorrow the universe won’t skip a single beat. Life isn’t a gift, it’s a defiance. It’s something stolen. We are thieves, and the only way to truly live, to succeed is to keep stealing. So let’s do it, let’s live, and by living, I mean fighting. I will fight to save your life, with all my power, but our only hope is if you desperately start fighting to save mine. Forgive me Jarrod. Forgive me for being me. Because I can be no one else.”
Sonya is under the water. The end of the rope she tied around his neck is now tied around hers, and the weight of him and the anchor is pulling her down. But it is not a fast descent. It is smooth and gentle and inescapable, and the water is soothing like a cool blanket, repairing all the damage caused by the heat. It feels like the correct answer, one no one can argue with, for there are no arguments, not anymore, and knowing this deep down to her bones is why there is no fear. Down she goes, backward into the all-consuming mystery, her eyes vaguely watching something splashing through the leaving surface. And then there are more. Whatever they are, they are heading towards her, following her until she is like an adult watching a distant and silent firework show. But here, these rockets are growing in number and yet to explode; they are searing towards her in lines of contrails, each one dragging a sword of light all the way down to her.
When they reach her limbs, they dig in their claws. She can feel her descent ease as together they flap their wings, fighting against the weight that wants to pull her down. Others, not flying in the water, are pecking at and ripping open her skin. One by one, she watches them fasten their beaks onto and drag out the end of her feathers. Then they reach her face, where once skewered, her eyes are torn free, above her breasts that simultaneously are being torn open. Others are tearing at her legs and clawing off her toes.
The weight below fights. It drags down on the rope, but she doesn’t choke. Instead, she opens her mouth and uses the full force of its anger to pop out her teeth until, in a screaming squawk, her beak shoves its way forward. And then, fresh wings open, she flips over under the water to find her Martin pulling down on the rope with everything that he had and lost. Naked, he has the rope wrapped around his wrists, and his hands are bloody from the rope’s strain.
But in reply, she caws, and looking up, she relearns how to fly as in her shadow her raven saviors are heading down to him, as silently he roars, unseen by her as with her wings open and wide she heads towards the light. The light that’s calling.
~
Next to Steve, Sonya, on the other edge of death, is silent and still, and the light that Jarrod took into the night has long gone out. Steve dips the cup into the bucket and drinks the golden liquid. Each drop is precious. He wants another but doesn’t take it. He wants to drink the whole bucket. Then, when he looks up to check on the ravens, only the darkness and the stars are there.
“Why?” the darkness asks.
Steve turns to try to see his brother, but Jarrod is too far outside of this fire’s light. He can’t even see a silhouette. “I told you why. What other answer do you need? Something that might make sense? Welcome to life.”
There are footsteps in the dark; they are crushing everything that was burnt. Jarrod, behind him, is pacing. “Why?” he asks again.
“Ok, well try this,” says Steve. “This is as deep as I’ve looked. There’s something in me, something that can’t stand losing. Especially to you. Think back, when we were kids, you had it all. I was on every team you were ever on, but so what? I never had your talents or your looks. And I used to follow you around not like a brother but like a fan or worse, a shadow. That’s what I thought people thought about me. That I was your shadow... But from the first moment I saw Margaret...
“Don’t say her name. Don’t you ever say her name.”
“Ok. Well, like I said, from the first moment I saw her, I wanted her. It was at that game we played in Coburg. But then she saw you, and that was it. Secretly, for about a year, I tried everything I could think of to win her away, but then one night I caught you two fucking. You were in your room and I was outside the window. She was riding you, and loving it, and her skin was so white and so pure and her hair was so black. Blacker than those ravens. She was so beautiful it made me cry. It did. I had tears in my eyes because I knew I would never get to taste that. Her. Because I knew that she would never want to fuck me like she was fucking you.
“I loved her so much I even used to hurt myself because I hated myself for not being enough... But, because of this fucked-up part in me, this part that has to win, I still tried to steal her away. You see, that’s the fighter in me. The killer instinct. But every time I got close to her, if I did cross that invisible border, she had this way of dismissing me, diminishing me. As if I was nothing. And to her, I was. She wasn’t even nasty with it. She just used to destroy me with this casual look, you know the one? No, who am I talking to. You would have never seen it. But each time she did it to me, I hated myself even more. I was a shit. I was less than a shit. And then you won that game. We needed two goals, two goals we should never have gotten, for overall they were the better team; they deserved to win. But somehow, and I still don’t know how you did it, you found a way to get to the ball and the crowd went mad. I can still hear and see them cheering for you, and then once we were off the field, there she was, waiting for you. Her winner, the best man. And I knew then that in her eyes, and in so many eyes, that with you around, I would always be invisible. It was the same with mum and dad.
“No, it was not,” the darkness scoffed.
“Yes, it fucking was,” says Steve. “You brother, were my cell. A cell I couldn’t escape from because I loved you. And that’s how I felt when you asked me to drive us home that night. Like your chauffeur. You two in the back, asleep in each other’s arms and so fucking happily wrapped up in yourselves it made me sick. You were so happy you didn’t even know how close to death you were. You had no idea. None. And do you know why? Because you couldn’t see me either. As far as you were concerned, I was your shadow. And so right there and then I decided enough was enough. It was time to escape. And to make sure that everyone we knew would finally see me, I decided to take you two with me.”
The fire dances and deeply holds Steve’s eyes, but it cannot light the bottom.
“I thought I’d be punished,” says Steve. “I thought I’d lose everything, even though I didn’t feel I had much to lose. I even wondered, as the police drove me back, whether I’d end up rotting away in jail. But I didn’t. Instead of penalizing me, life rewarded me. All I had to do to win the keys to the city was stick to the script. Was to play the victim.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I must have just fallen asleep without even knowing.
“They’re called Microsleeps, son.” That’s what they used to tell me, to help me with my guilt.
“But the thing that saved me was that I never touched the brakes.
“That’s enough!” I don’t care about you and all your fucked-up shit,” says Jarrod, and he’s closer now. “I want to know how you could sustain it. You had already dragged me out; why couldn’t you have saved her?
“Because she knew. Just before I was about to hit the tree, to kill us all, she asked me what I was doing. She’d woken up. It gave me such a shock I inadvertently swerved. Right then, at the very last minute, it was too late to stop, and that’s how I survived. Trouble was, now I had another problem. A witness.
Steve stands now as he hears Jarrod coming out of the dark, and then he is here, the thick stick in his hand like a club.
“Why did you make me work for you?”
“Evidence.”
“Evidence, what evidence?”
“Of how it works. You were the proof of how evil I could be. I destroyed your life. I took away everything, even your will to fight, and you were a winner; you were born to win. And what’s more, I destroyed it maliciously. I cheated. And what did life do? It made me rich, it gave me children, who I love and I do love them. And then it absolved me through all these people telling me how lovely I was, such a great brother, because I was always looking after you.
“A trophy. You kept me as a trophy.
“Look at me. I am not a monster. Life has shown me that. I am just a man who did something cruel and discovered that this universe can’t tell the difference because it doesn’t care. If we die out here tomorrow, the universe won’t skip a single beat. Life isn’t a gift; it’s a defiance. It’s something stolen. We are thieves, and the only way to truly live, to succeed, is to keep stealing. So let’s do it, let’s live, and by living, I mean fighting. I will fight to save your life, with all my power, but our only hope is if you desperately start fighting to save mine. Forgive me, Jarrod. Forgive me for being me. Because I can be no one else.
“How?... How?
“Through love.
Jarrod scoffs.
“I’m serious. That is your strength. That is why she loved you and not me. That is why mum loves you more than me. And always will. You are not evil; I can be, and so can Sonya, or she could, but you are a lost tourist and you know it. So fight it, fight it by not becoming us, but by fighting to be you. The real you. Then once you are, to give yourself the purpose you need to live, save me. Save me for my kids. Please.”
~
When Jarrod’s eyes open, the dawn is rising to reveal his final landscape that is decorated with ravens. Exhausted, he must have finally fallen asleep next to the fire that is now out, and in front of him, the view is black with a thin blue roof.
“Morning,” says Sonya.
“What the...?” Jarrod bounds up and is stunned.
Sonya is standing near the hole. Half her face and half her side have been blackened by the burnt pillow and mattress of the earth.
“I need you to make me a sling.”
“Ok,” says Jarrod as he backs up while running a baffled hand through his hair. Steve is still asleep, curled around the other edge of the dead fire.
Jarrod now comes to her. “How do you feel?” he asks, gently and gingerly touching her arm and then her face as if to make sure she’s real.
“Stop that,” she says, shoving his hand away. “How I feel doesn’t matter. We don’t have time for feelings. The sling?”
“Oh, sure, well I could make one out of rope, if you like.”
As he gets to work, she turns and studies the truck. “No one is coming,” she says.
“Well, they might,” says Jarrod as he starts cutting up some rope. “Later today.”
“No one is coming,” she says. “Now wake him up. We’ve got work to do.”
Jarrod goes over and kicks Steve’s foot. Steve bursts awake with a gasp and then grimaces as he is forced to accept the reality that what is still here is still here. Then he turns and finds Sonya.
“What the fuck. You’re alive?” says Steve. “How? I saw you last night. You were dying. You were more than dying.”
“Why are you so convinced that no one is coming?” Jarrod asks Sonya as he fashions her sling.
“Because that’s how we have to think,” says Sonya. “This is it. Today is either our first day or our last, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to die out here. So, if the only way out is to drive out, then how do we get the truck out of this hole?”
Steve looks at Jarrod, then both men look back at Sonya.
“Oh come on,” says Sonya. “There must be a way.”
“I agree,” says Steve. “But back to my question. How is it that you’re still alive? In fact, you look... better.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” says Sonya. “But how doesn’t matter if we can’t get out, does it?”
“No, look at you,” says Steve. “I mean it, look at her,” he tells Jarrod, who is finishing constructing the sling out of the short piece of nylon, orange rope. “She has color in her face and she can hold her head up. How is that possible? Huh? How is that possible?”
Jarrod helps her on with the sling. “How’s that feel?”
“It’s good,” says Sonya. “Thank you.”
“How did you do it?” Jarrod asks.
“Do what?” says Sonya.
“What do you think?” says Steve. “Not die.”
“What are you talking about? You were there,” says Sonya. “You saw. What could I have done? I fell asleep. I woke up. That’s it. Now can we please get back to the real problem? How do we get out of here?”
For a while, they all fall silent, then Jarrod says, “I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”
“Me neither,” says Steve, looking at her as if she were a statue that had just started to speak.
Sonya nods gravely to this, then she walks off towards the dead trees, ruminating. The ravens watch her, as the dawn behind her makes her edges light.
“What the fuck is that?” Steve whispers as he watches her go. “That is not possible. She was dead.”
“Maybe sleep was all she needed,” says Jarrod.
“No, no, no,” says Steve. “That kind of sleep she was in, you don’t wake up from. Not unless you’re on life support.”
“Yes, well, like she said, if we can’t think of a way to get out, what does it matter?”
“Oh, it matters,” says Steve, and he takes in the ravens. “It matters.”
“What does that mean?” asks Jarrod.
“It means we have to be really fucking careful,” Steve whispers, then grabs Jarrod’s arm, “because whatever happened to her isn’t happening to us.”
“Get your hand off me,” says Jarrod. Steve lets go, then after glaring at him, Jarrod heads off after Sonya.
“Shit,” says Steve. “And why are you still here?” he yells at the birds. “Go on, fuck off. You hear me? Fuck off!”
The birds don’t move, and behind them, in every direction, fallen trees that are now blackened logs are smoldering.
“Could we build some form of frame above the hole, then winch the truck straight up?” asks Sonya.
“No,” says Jarrod.
“Why not?” says Steve. “She’s right. You are. That might work. That might just fucking work.”
“Where would we get the frame from?” says Jarrod. “None of these trees are strong enough.”
“Bullshit,” says Steve. “And if they’re not, we could use some of those trees near the base of the hill.”
“It’s worth a try,” says Sonya.
“I agree,” says Steve. “And once we get them back here, we could use the pickaxe I found to clean them up.”
“It won’t work,” says Jarrod.
“Why won’t it work?” asks Sonya.
“Because we’d need three solid trees at least.”
“So,” says Steve. “We find three trees.”
“And if we did,” says Jarrod. “And even if we did somehow manage to winch a two and a half-tonne truck straight up, we’d still have to find a way to get it to fall forward, otherwise it would just fall back down the hole.”
“We’ll deal with that later,” says Steve.
“He’s right,” says Sonya.
“No, he’s wrong,” says Jarrod. “You both are. Time is all we have, and we don’t have much of it, so if this doesn’t work, there won’t be any later.”
“Well, do you have a better idea?” asks Sonya.
“Well,” says Steve.
“It won’t work,” says Jarrod.
“Ok, let’s do it,” says Sonya.
“Let’s drink first,” says Steve as he heads back to the bucket.
“Thanks for the sling,” Sonya tells Jarrod. “It’s good.”
Jarrod nods but says nothing.
“What the...?” Steve calls back as he looks down at the bucket. “Who’s been drinking all the fucking water?”
“What?” says Jarrod, then he walks over and looks into the bucket. A quarter of their water is gone.
Both men look at each other, then they look at Sonya.
“You shouldn’t ration it,” she says. “The experts recommend that in situations like this, you should drink your fill.”
“What experts?” growls Steve.
“The ones I studied when I was planning to kill you.”
“You bitch,” Steve goes and storms towards her. “You fucking bitch.”
“Steve,” snaps Jarrod as he grabs hold of Steve’s arm, but Steve breaks free and storms towards her. “I’ll give you something to drink.”
The ravens arc up. All of them, and all at once. It’s so loud that Jarrod and Steve end up having to cover their ears, but Sonya doesn’t, neither does she move. She just stands there watching the cowering men.
When Steve backs up towards the hole, the ravens calm.
“Can you control them?” asks Steve.
Sonya thinks about this, then she looks up at the birds. “I don’t know,” she says, and she sounds a little frightened. “I don’t think so.”
“Try?” says Jarrod. “Tell them to fly away.”
“How?” says Sonya.
“Think it,” says Steve.
Sonya looks up at the birds.
“Are you doing it?” asks Steve.
“Shut up,” says Sonya.
The men wait. Sonya glares at the closest tree of ravens. Her eyebrows furrow. When this doesn’t work, she closes her eyes.
The birds don’t move.
“Try harder,” says Steve.
“Shut up,” says Sonya.
Sonya opens her eyes and relaxes. “Get out of here!” she yells at the birds. “Go on. Go! Now!”
They don’t.
Sonya turns to the men. “No,” she says. “I can’t control them.”
“Are they real?” asks Jarrod. “You said before that they weren’t.”
“I don’t know, but they don’t matter,” says Sonya, then she points to the rising sun. “Only that matters, and that is real. So let’s get back to what we were doing. The frame.”
“Fine,” says Steve, “but either you or the water is coming with us.”
“Then let’s go,” says Sonya, and she leads the way.
“Sonya,” calls Jarrod.
Sonya turns back to Jarrod. “Yes?” And when he doesn’t answer, when he just stands there looking at her, she asks, “What?”
“How are you getting better?”
~
The burnt earth crackles beneath their shoes. Neither of them is close, and the sun is already cooking away the dawn and has clear intentions of roasting them.
Steve turns and looks at him. His expression is a question mark.
To escape answering, Jarrod looks back to where they have just left. The skeletal trees are loaded with ravens. They are all looking this way, but none of them are following.
“Why not?” he asks himself.
He turns back to Sonya and asks in his mind for her to look back at him. “Look back at me. Look back at me.”
She does.
He smiles. She smiles briefly, one of her secret smiles, one he doesn’t recognize, then she turns back to the hunt with more energy, it appears, than both of them.
~
The tree has fallen over. Its trunk, at its snapped base, is as wide as Jarrod’s thigh.
“This will do fine,” says Steve. “We can clean it up at the shaft.”
Together, he and Jarrod start dragging it back.
“What do you think is happening?” Steve whispers as they do. “I saw her last night,” says Steve. “So did you. She was dying. You could feel it.”
“Well, she’s not now,” says Jarrod.
“I know. But why...? Why?”
“You keep asking me like I fucking know,” says Jarrod. “I don’t, ok. I don’t.”
Jarrod, using his good hand, just concentrates on dragging the log. They proceed in silence.
“Look at those fucking birds,” says Steve. “This isn’t normal. And you know it.”
After throwing the log down, they catch their breath, then head back to Sonya.
“Did you think about what I said?” asks Steve. “Because you and I have to stick together. I mean, surely that’s clear.”
“Stick together?” says Jarrod. “The only thing I keep thinking is I wish I’d finished you off. And if you’d told me before what you told me last night... I fucken would have... I so would have.”
“Then do it,” says Steve.
Jarrod stops and glares at Steve.
“You still have the knife, right?” says Steve. “Use it.”
For a moment, Jarrod is confused. It’s as if he’s a chess player, and his opponent has just made a bizarre move. “Fuck you,” says Jarrod, then heads back to Sonya.
“You can’t, can you?” says Steve. “You know you can’t.”
“Listen,” says Jarrod, turning around and coming back to confront his brother. “If you two want to do this, then you need my help. But the price of my help is that you shut the fuck up.” He pushes Steve back, then storms off.
“But that won’t work,” says Steve. “We tried silence, for years.”
Jarrod turns again and glares at him.
“We did,” says Steve. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here. And it won’t save us. Not silence. It can’t.”
Baffled, Jarrod storms off.
“This is the only way,” calls Steve, then he turns and looks back at the birds that are watching him. “This is the only way.”
~
“This one,” says Sonya.
This tree has also fallen over. It’s longer than the other one but thinner. Its branches still have leaves, even though they are all burnt.
“Will it be strong enough?” she asks.
Jarrod looks at it, he looks at it for a long time, then he looks up at her.
“What?” she asks.
~
The men drop off the second log and look up at the birds who are watching them.
“I fucking hate them,” says Steve.
Steve and Jarrod drink.
“I estimate there’s around three liters left,” says Jarrod. “That’s not going to be enough.”
“I forgive you,” says Steve. “Completely.”
With a scoff, Jarrod walks away, heading back to Sonya.
“I do,” calls Steve. “So come on, why not grow a pair and meet me halfway?”
In front of the fuming Jarrod, Sonya is waving.
~
Steve appraises the new log. “Cool, let’s go,” he says. “Jarrod?”
Jarrod is looking down at the log.
“Jarrod,” says Steve. “The log.”
“This won’t work,” says Jarrod. “The tripod. It just won’t work.”
Sonya and Steve look at Jarrod, but then a moment later, Steve drops the log as he and Sonya look past him.
“What?” says Jarrod, then he turns.
The ravens are starting to rise. It’s like their leader gave the word, and now they’re heading up.
“Someone’s spooked them,” says Jarrod. “I told you that there was someone else here.”
“No one spooked them,” says Sonya. “Jarrod, wait.”
But it’s too late. Jarrod is already striding that way, searching the burnt trees for anyone as the ravens, like locusts, rise.
“Hello?” Jarrod calls. “Hello? Please show yourself... Please.” Jarrod stops.
Before him, the ravens are organizing their fragmented flights into a single murder that has flows and currents. It’s like a raven ballet, but then together their dance thickens and slows as they head south, only to commence a high fanning slow curve that speeds up as they come together on the turn and start heading this way.
Steve turns to Sonya.
“Run,” she says.
As Jarrod watches the birds descend, Steve runs past him.
“Come on!” yells Steve. He is running for the shaft.
But Sonya is standing where Jarrod left her. She isn’t running. Why not? She looks scared. She looks sad.
The birds split into two separate murders. Simultaneously, they crash into both men. Arms up over their faces, the brothers are knocked down and instinctively lay on their faces, hands protecting the back of their heads. Their backs are scraped. The rear of their hands, scratched. Steve roars into the ground, then, as the first wave passes, he emerges, rolls over, and punches at the air.
Sonya is still standing where they had been. She is looking at him.
“That’s it,” says Steve. “Fuck them, fuck them.” He runs towards the hill.
“Steve!” Jarrod calls. “Steve!”
As Steve leaves, Jarrod finds Sonya watching, then he turns to look for the ravens. They are regrouping and circling again like a black wave fanning around the other side of the mine shaft.
Jarrod looks around and picks up a branch, holding it like a club. Steve is still running into the distance towards the hill.
The ravens are coming back. Jarrod runs to Sonya, but she shakes her head.
“Go hide in the truck,” she says. “Go!”
Jarrod does not leave. Stick in hand, he waits like a baseball player. The birds are silent as they move to complete their last curve.
Once again they descend, but then a gunshot sees the birds pull out of their attack. A moment later, a second shot sees them veer off and separate.
Jarrod lowers the club. Sonya is standing where she has always been. Steve, rifle in hand, is running over to him.
Jarrod looks for the birds. His hands are trembling, and the back of his hands and arms have scratches. The birds are fanning into another sharp curve. They are reuniting.
Jarrod looks back at the mine shaft. He can make it. He looks back at Sonya. Why aren’t they attacking her? He looks at Steve. Steve won’t have time to reach the shaft. As he watches, Steve stops and turns to face the oncoming wave. This time they are all coming for him. Rifle raised, he fires. Then he fires again. The birds crash into him, and Steve is gone. It’s like a boil in the black burnt ground has burst into a puss of feathers. A boil of feathers. As Jarrod watches, he can no longer hear Steve. No longer see him. They are all cawing.
Sonya is just watching.
Branch as a club, Jarrod is running at them as fast as he can with his leg that years ago his brother broke. He screams as he runs, stick above his head like a kendo warrior stripped of his armor.
This time Jarrod collects one. It squawks as it’s knocked aside, then on the return swing, he smashes another. The birds explode to freedom, and Steve rolls over, raging, pointing the rifle at his brother’s face. For the longest moment, Jarrod is glaring down the barrel. Then Steve blinks and aims away at the birds that are leaving. He doesn’t fire.
“Holy shit,” says Steve. Beyond the dispersed murder that is already reforming, in the air is another larger shadow. And it is approaching.
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