LEFT, part 8, A human written thriller in parts.
Michael Gray Griffith
LEFT Part 8, 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.
The murder is almost here. Sonya is not conscious. Jarrod is at a loss. Steve is too far away. "Fuck," he says, then he falls onto his back and pulls Sonya’s face down on top of him. The birds go cawing over. They are so thick everything darkens. He is clutching Sonya to him; the birds are clawing and scratching the back of his hands. He clutches her tighter. Bursting out of the island of untouched bush, Steve comes roaring towards them. "Come on!" he yells, then lifts the iron sheet like a shield. "Come on!" The second murder, he wasn’t watching, floors him. They came from the side, and as the iron is ripped from his hands, they are now dragging him along. He doesn’t even have the air in his lungs to swear or roar or scream.
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The murder is almost here. Sonya is not conscious. Jarrod is at a loss. Steve is too far away. "Fuck," he says, then he falls onto his back and pulls Sonya’s face down on top of him. The birds go cawing over. They are so thick everything darkens. He is clutching Sonya to him; the birds are clawing and scratching the back of his hands. He clutches her tighter. Bursting out of the island of untouched bush, Steve comes roaring towards them. "Come on!" he yells, then lifts the iron sheet like a shield. "Come on!" The second murder, he wasn’t watching, floors him. They came from the side, and as the iron is ripped from his hands, they are now dragging him along. He doesn’t even have the air in his lungs to swear or roar or scream.
Part 8
Together, Steve and Jarrod pull the tyres up through the truck and then leave them on the burnt earth outside the hole. Back in the truck, wearing their safety lines, they begin unbolting the back seat. It takes time, but finally it turns sideways and falls against the rear doors. Then, with manipulation from kicking, it goes crashing down into the dark. The tow bar’s bolts are too big for their tools, so they leave it and move up to the passenger seat and start unbolting that. It, too, falls backward and crashes down into the dark, bouncing off the walls like a doomed pinball.
The bonnet is awkward. They can’t lift it all the way up. Steve has to slide in over the engine, face down, and use the appropriate socket wrench at an awkward angle, as Jarrod and Sonya, standing either side of the front, hold the bonnet up in case it falls on Steve once unbolted. The left side is freed first, then the right. "Done," says Steve, and together they haul the bonnet out and leave it on the earth next to the tyres. "Fuck you," Steve tells the birds while flipping them the bird, and then Jarrod joins him.
The bucket of water, what is left of it, is up here too, next to the tyres. "Will this work?" asks Sonya. "Of course it’ll work," says Steve. "Will it work?" she asks Jarrod. "Yes." "How do you know?" "I just do. I can see it." "Uh huh? And can you see my suit of foil working?" she asks. "Yes," says Jarrod. "But if it doesn’t, there’s no water to put me out. I’ll just burn." "If it doesn’t work," says Steve, "that won’t matter because we’ll all be finished anyway." "Well, it matters to me," says Sonya. "If it doesn’t bother you, why don’t you drive?" "You’re the lightest," says Jarrod. "And if the truck does get up, then having the strongest pulling it forward will be critical." Sonya falls quiet. "We also need to think of a way to seal the gap between the tyres, otherwise the power of the explosion will be lost out the gap underneath," says Jarrod. "Seal it how?" says Steve. "I don’t know yet," says Jarrod. "How long until we’re ready?" asks Sonya. "Two to three hours," says Jarrod. "What? But once we drink this, there’ll be no more water!" says Sonya. "How thirsty are you?" asks Steve. "If we drink that now, that’s it, there will be nothing left," says Sonya. "And the hottest part of the day is still ahead of us." "I know," says Jarrod. "I suggest we leave that water for later, or at least until we’ve gone and got that iron."
The parcel of bush that the fire left untouched is about two hundred and fifty metres away. The sheets of corrugated iron are lying there. "I reckon we use fire," says Steve. "If they come near us, we’ll just burn them." "We don’t have any wood to make fire from," says Jarrod. "And we don’t have the time to go looking," says Sonya. "So just stay with me." "What does that mean?" asks Steve. "It means stay close," says Sonya. They head off in a small triangle, with Sonya out front. The ravens do nothing but watch them leave, then once they are halfway there, the ravens perched furthest away take to the air. "Shit," says Steve. "Here they come." "Should we run?" asks Jarrod. "No," says Sonya. "Just stay close." "How many do you think there are now?" asks Steve. "Hundreds," says Jarrod. The ravens, fresh on the wing, are flying higher than before. "What are they doing?" asks Steve. "Keep going," says Jarrod. The birds are flying higher still when those that had been perched nearest the hole join the others on the wing. "Fuck. Ok, that’s it," says Steve. "Time to run." "No, you’ll never make it. Just stay with me," says Sonya. The birds that flew highest have reached a peak and are now circling. The ones that have just taken to the wing are flying out into a long curve far around the other side of the island of bush. "Do we really need those sheets?" asks Sonya. "Yes," says Jarrod. They are walking fast. They are almost there. "They are not going to let us have it," says Steve. "Ok, let’s run," says Jarrod. "No," says Sonya. "I told you! Stay with me." Eyes on the birds, Sonya lifts her pace to a fast stride, but then the high circling birds begin to fall. They are heading straight down and aiming for the centre of the parcel of bush. "Here they come," says Jarrod. "Keep going," says Sonya. The birds on the other side of the island are cawing. The ones heading straight down are silent. "Ravens don’t fly like that," says Jarrod. "What do we do?" says Steve. "What do we do?" The falling birds near the ground then level out and head straight at them. "Quick," says Sonya as she opens her arms. "Get under my arms." "What?" says Steve. "Now!" says Sonya. "But your arm?" says Jarrod. "Do it!" says Sonya. The men crouch under her rising arms. "Hold me," she says as the birds approach. "No, not gently. Grab me like I’m a tree." Confused and awkward, the brothers grab either side of her waist. Their encircling arms enwrap each other as Sonya raises her hands like a crucifix. "This is fucking crazy," says Steve. "Shut up," says Sonya. "And close your eyes." The birds tear towards them. To Sonya, all she can see is an approaching black mass of beaks and wings. It’s as if she’s about to be swallowed by a black, feathered portal. A portal that starts cawing. Both men reluctantly open their eyes to look, then shut them again and clutch Sonya like she is a life preserver; a parachute they’d had yet to deploy despite the fact they were falling. The current of birds passes, and not one feather has touched Sonya, but the men have felt the tips of their wings, and each touch sees them grab and hold her harder. And then the murder is past.
"Run," says Sonya, and she sounds weak. The men do. Before them and on the other side of the island of untouched bush, the other murder is preparing to rush in. Sonya remains where she is. The men power onto the island and reach the corrugated iron and attempt to rip it up, but it won’t budge. "What the fuck," says Steve. "Pull!" yells Jarrod. "Pull!!" The second murder is racing towards them as the men rip up the first sheet of iron and instinctively crouch behind it. The ravens squawk and many of them crash into it. It feels like the iron is being kicked by horses, then the rest of the murder veer up and fly higher. "Sonya," says Jarrod. Where they left her, Sonya has collapsed. As they drop the iron sheet, they find three of the birds dazed or broken on the ground. "Come here," growls Steve as he grabs the first one and rips its head off as the other two squawk in defiance. "Hey, Steve calls out to the leaving murder while holding the decapitated raven in the air. "Where are you going? Look, there’s something wrong with your mate." Jarrod reaches Sonya. She is unconscious. He lifts her head up and rests it in his lap. "Wake up," he says. "Wake up." The second bird Steve crushes with the heel of his boot while glaring up at the third bird that is trying to bounce away, but then it stops to watch the grinning Steve approaching. Standing where it is, it caws and caws and caws. "Nice try," says Steve, looking around for a perfect stick. Finding one, he approaches the bird as it continues to caw, but then, as Steve raises the club, it stops and looks at him but this time it does not caw. Steve looks around. The larger murder is coming back but not for him. "Jarrod!" he cries. "Jarrod!" Jarrod turns and finds the murder, hundreds of birds deep and low to the ground. They are heading towards him and Sonya. Steve turns back to the last bird. "Sorry, have to go," he says, then kills it in one thump of the stick. He drops the stick and runs to the iron sheets. Picking up the one they’d hidden behind, he races towards Jarrod and Sonya, dragging it behind him as he does. "Sonya, wake up," says Jarrod. "You have to wake up. Sonya! Sonya!!!" The water lets Sonya’s body expand, and soon her feathers can’t tell the difference between air and water. The birds are all fly-swimming around her. She looks down. Below her, Martin is nowhere to be seen. The surface is waiting above her as if the sky is smiling through nothing but light. She flies up to the freedom and crashes into it. Rebounding, she shakes her head and, flying underneath the surface, she looks for a way through, but the surface of the water appears to be capped by something like glass. Flipping upside down, she scratches this surface with her claws, but sharp as her fresh claws are, they can’t leave a mark on whatever this transparent barrier is. Turning back, she flies down to the waiting dark, then turns, with her murder wrapping around her, and flies back as fast as she can for the surface, but the covering film holds. Dazed, she ricochets into the darkness and here she swims, her feathered arms like the ruminating wings of a melancholic manta ray. She needs more speed, a longer run-up. She turns and flies deeper into the dark, so dark her murder refuse to follow.
The murder is almost here. Sonya is not conscious. Jarrod is at a loss. Steve is too far away. "Fuck," he says, then he falls onto his back and pulls Sonya’s face down on top of him. The birds go cawing over. They are so thick everything darkens. He is clutching Sonya to him; the birds are clawing and scratching the back of his hands. He clutches her tighter. Bursting out of the island of untouched bush, Steve comes roaring towards them. "Come on!" he yells, then lifts the iron sheet like a shield. "Come on!" The second murder, he wasn’t watching, floors him. They came from the side, and as the iron is ripped from his hands, they are now dragging him along. He doesn’t even have the air in his lungs to swear or roar or scream.
Sonya is so deep she can’t see her feathers. She can only see their silhouette against the light so dim and far above it is like the dream of a dream. But it is not. Opening her wings wide, she pounds the water and heads up. Martin grabs her now. She can’t see him but she can feel him. He is naked, overweight, and squeezing her tight as he growls into her face, "Where are you going, you fucking bitch?" He wraps his legs around hers, and the rope that is still tied around his neck, still leads to the anchor that she tied there. The anchor that will now become her navigator. Involuntarily turning upside down, it pulls her, with her ex-husband wrapped around her, down, away from the light and into the last and forever dark.
Murder past, Jarrod rolls the limp Sonya over to find his brother missing and yet screaming under the smaller murder. There is nothing to see but ravens, but instead of flying on, they are now attacking and feasting. The larger murder is flying forward and already curving as it prepares to come back. On the floor before Jarrod lies the corrugated iron that Steve dropped. Pulling it up, Jarrod charges into the murder attacking his brother, scattering them to reveal Steve, who, face down, is covered in blood and trying to rise. "Stay under here," Jarrod says and covers his brother with the rusted corrugated iron sheet. To his left, the larger murder has finished their curve. Behind him, the smaller murder is regrouping and preparing to return, but in front of him is an immense third black and approaching stain large enough to consume anything good that is left in this world. A murder of thousands of ravens that are heading his way. They look like a black tsunami. There is no stick big enough. No rifle magazine that holds enough bullets. No sheet of iron thick enough. Instead, he moves to Sonya, whose closed-eyed face is being burnt in the sun, and he kneels next to her and shades her face with his. "Soul mates," he smiles as he whispers, "dark ones," and then he bends to her dry lips and with his, he kisses her as the three cawing waves of destruction and death descend upon them all.
The corrugated iron is upside down and covered in small insects, many of which have never seen the light of day. Now they are frantically crawling over the undulations to drop through the small rusted holes in order to hide once again in the roasting shade underneath. Some of them land upon the prone Steve and crawl into his clothes looking for a place to hide, but then this home too gets ripped away. "Steve," says Jarrod as he rips off the iron sheet and turns his brother over. "Oh God." Steve’s bottom lip is ripped, and his face is scratched like someone has taken a grater to it, but trumping all this is his left eye, which has been torn out and is now gone. "Steve, can you hear me?" "We’re, we’re alive?" Steve stutters, and he sounds truly astonished as his remaining eye blinks open and squints at the light that is being dappled by all the birds that are still circling overhead in their umbrella of certain death. "Can you stand?" Jarrod asks softly. "Here, let me help." "Why are we alive?" asks Steve. "I don’t know," whispers Jarrod. "Here, take my hand." Steve, unsteady on his feet, brings up one hand to cover his eye as he grabs Jarrod’s hand with the other and allows his brother to help lift him to his feet, where they stand together in a burnt landscape where no human should be. "They took my eye." "I know." "It doesn’t hurt," says Steve. "Why doesn’t it hurt?" "I don’t know," says Jarrod, "maybe they tore all the nerves. Here, can you hold this?" It’s the two pieces of corrugated iron. Jarrod has sandwiched them together. "What happened?" says Steve. "I’ll tell you later," says Jarrod. "Now come on, we need to get these iron sheets to the pit before they decide to attack again." "What for?" says Steve, squinting up with his one eye at all the slow, circling birds. "We’re finished." "Not yet, we’re not," says Jarrod. "Now come on." "Where’s Sonya?" "She’s back at the pit?" "Is she ok?" "She’s ok." "How is she ok?" "I don’t know. Now come on, we have to go." There is no pain as Steve squints; the ransacked side of his face feels numb. But when he looks around at the blackened trees, they are all now overloaded with raven fruit, and those birds that can’t find a perch are overhead in a slow and wide winding circumference. Steve starts to laugh at the hopelessness of it all as the heat dries the blood from his missing eye to his face. "Let’s go," Jarrod urges. Then Steve finds his brother’s face and says, "This is hell. That’s what it is. This is hell." "The iron, Steve. The iron." Steve nods then grabs his edge before together, despite all their black spectators, they drag the corrugated iron back to the edge of the mineshaft. The birds don’t stop them, and despite all their impossible numbers, not one of them caws. When they are near the shaft, Steve sees Sonya and lets go. The iron drops, and he sits on the ground next to it, exhausted. "Why is she ok?" "I told you, I don’t know." "She was gone. I saw it. You saw it." "I think she must have just fainted," says Jarrod. "When I got her back to the shaft, she came round and now she’s fine." "Fine," says Steve. "Fine. Oh fuck this," he goes and brings both hands up to cover his missing eye. "Nothing is fine. Look at me," he laughs. "We are fucked. We are so fucking fucked." "No, we’re not," says Jarrod, and crouched on one knee, he comes to his brother. "How the fuck did we survive?" asks Steve. "I don’t know," says Jarrod. "They just stopped attacking." "But why?" "I’m not sure. Here," Jarrod says, and he peels Steve’s hands away and grimaces as he studies the torn fleshly canyon. Steve starts shaking. "It’s ok," says Jarrod. "It’s ok." "No," says Steve. "It’s not. Nothing is ok." "Are you crying?" asks Jarrod with a smile. "Oh come on. You can’t cry without an eye." "Don’t trust us." "It’s ok. I don’t," says Jarrod. "Now there is nothing we can do for your face right now but keep it covered, somehow." "Don’t," says Steve. "What do you mean?" asks Jarrod. "Trust us," says Steve. Just inside the shaft, sitting on the side of the windscreen, is Sonya. Only her head and shoulders are visible above the ground. Jarrod dragged her to here, the same way that a few days ago he’d dragged his brother, but whereas then he’d been dragging Steve to his end, here he had dragged Sonya to this hole, their last fort of life, but before he reached it she burst back to life. Surfaced in his grip as though she’d been drowning. "What happened?" he’d asked. But all she’d done was hold him desperately and shiver as she did so. "What’s he talking about now?" Jarrod asks Sonya. The even quieter Sonya shrugs. "This," says Steve, and he points to his ripped apart face. "This is me. Can you see it? This is me."
Using a piece of his shirt that he had ripped off as a patch for his eye, Steve, hanging by his safety harness, is using the pick head he’d found to dig the first of several support grooves for the logs in the wall below the truck. Fierce tears only on one side of his face, Steve is pounding and pounding the wall. On the surface, as Sonya stands guard, Jarrod stabs the long sheets of corrugated iron with a heavy Philips head screwdriver, then he unites these holes with the tomahawk. The sun is beating his back, and the flies have returned. Before they started on this part of the job, they shared out and drank every drop of what was left of the water. "This is it," Sonya said as she and Steve watched Jarrod drink the last drop. "If this doesn’t work." "It’ll work," said Jarrod.
One foundation hole complete, Steve moves to the next. Clods of earth are raining into the hole. Every now and then he looks up to see and/or hear what Sonya is doing, but he can’t see or hear her. He goes back to work. "Stand here," says Jarrod. Sonya stands on the corrugated iron as he pushes it up. She shoves her feet to aid the iron sheet to bend, then he tells her to get off and they turn it over and repeat the exercise. "Come on," he tells the iron as he fans it back and forth. Then he stops for a while and stabs it again with the screwdriver and then the tomahawk to kill any part of the iron that is refusing to snap. Then back he goes to bending it as she stands on the crease. Finally, with a few more stabs, the first iron sheet gives. "Yes," he goes. Jarrod, she says and touches his arm from behind. When he turns, she’s waiting for him. "What was he talking about?" asks Jarrod. "I don’t know." The ravens fly overhead, the other perched birds watch. Sonya gently rests a hand on the damaged side of Jarrod’s face. "Are you kidding me," goes Steve, looking over the edge of the hole. "Are you seriously fucking kidding me? Tell him, go on. Tell him or I will." Sonya says nothing. "Fine," says Steve. "Then I will."
"What do you think?" Steve asks Jarrod. "Do we have time for this?" "No, Jarrod, we don’t," says Sonya. "I not only knew she was seeing you," says Steve, "but I told her to do it. It was at my birthday, right? When I was manning the barbecue." In shock, Jarrod steps back. "So Sonya," says Steve, "do we have the time?" Jarrod glares at Sonya. "Let’s make time," he says. "Let’s make time." "I’m sorry, brother, but do you really think she loves you?" asks Steve. "Or even cares." Jarrod does not reply. Steve smiles. "She’s a vault. Nothing gets in and nothing gets out, not unless a little honesty will acquire her wants," says Steve. "And that’s ok. That is what attracted me to you," he tells Sonya. "I was intrigued by that part of you even before I met you, when the only place I saw you was on the nightly news following the mysterious death of poor Martin Wheeler. Is she a cold-blooded murderer or a victim? I know, why don’t we let the birds decide." Steve looks around at the birds, then he lifts his hands like a man surrendering. "I’m going to approach her, ok? Not to hurt, not to threaten, just to approach." The birds watch as Steve moves closer. Then a few caw. "Fine," Steve calls out and backs off. "Fine... Wow, that is so weird," he tells her. "If I was you, I’d be terrified." If Sonya is trying to hide this fear, she is failing. "Wait," says Jarrod, "back up. So he actually encouraged you to have an affair with me. Why?... Why?" "Tell him," says Steve. "Tell him." Sonya doesn’t. "Isn’t she a peach?" says Steve. "Any colder and she’d make ice shiver. Ok then, I’ll tell you." "Don’t," says Sonya. "There’s no point." "Tell me," says Jarrod. "Tell me." "I’ll start with a trade secret," says Steve. "One thing that all successful killers have is too much time alone. Even when you are surrounded by people who love you or even hate you, you are always completely and utterly alone. That’s why I approached her. You just thought I was dumb, didn’t you?" Steve tells Sonya. "Another rich, lovesick, ignorant cock just waiting to be plucked. But I wasn’t. I had you checked out before I’d even approached you. I was even contacted by one of the homicide detectives who investigated Martin’s case and he told me how dangerous you were. In fact, he kept contacting me, urging me not to, but I still asked you to marry me." "Why would you do that?" asks Jarrod. "Sonya is a vault." "But the hardest part," Steve tells Sonya, "was figuring out how to reach you. So when I got her away from everyone and everything," he tells Jarrod, "when she thought I was going to propose, which I did, I didn’t just ask her to marry me, that came after. What I wanted more was something deeper. Something that would help. So I took a risk and told her about us." "Us, what do you mean us?" says Jarrod. "Do you mean Margaret? You told her about Margaret?" "The truth, yeah," says Steve. "First time I’ve ever told anyone." When Jarrod approaches her, a raven caws. As Jarrod stops, Steve thrusts his hands into the air. "It’s ok," he says. "Calm down." "So when I told you my suspicions about what happened," Jarrod asks Sonya, "and when you looked shocked. You already knew the real story. That was an act? That was all an act?" Sonya is a vault. "Yes," says Steve. "She knew even before she started flirting with you, at my birthday party, because that’s where it happened, right? The secret looks that started the affair." "Is that true?" Jarrod asks Sonya. "Why? Why?" "All of this was planned," says Steve. "Even before she met you." "Me?" "Yes, you see, the truth is," says Steve, "you were the one who was supposed to be left out here, not me." After a moment to absorb this, Jarrod just looks at Sonya. "It was part of our pact," says Steve. "It was meant to be a win for everyone, even you." "Me?" says Jarrod. "Me? What the fuck would be in it for me?" "An end to your misery," says Sonya. "And an end to our loneliness," says Steve. "One act to set you free and one act to bind us closer than any Christian ceremony ever could. That was the plan. Ours would have been a marriage consummated by a perfect murder. We were going to be twin souls... Dark ones." Jarrod looks at Sonya and Sonya mirrors his look. "And to prove to her that I was in, all I had to do was what her first husband refused to, remove the death clause from our prenup. Of course," Steve says and laughs, "now that’s what you call a big mistake. One big fucking mistake." Stunned, Jarrod walks away, his eyes filling with waiting ravens. "She doesn’t love you, Jarrod. No matter what she says, or how tenderly she touches your face, and it’s not even her fault. She can’t, because she can’t love anyone." "Can you?" Jarrod asks Steve. "Can you?" "The mine is full of gold," says Sonya. "What?" asks Jarrod. "She’s right," says Steve. "What?" asks Jarrod. Sonya takes out the bag and tosses it to Jarrod. He catches it. Opens it. The nuggets fall into his hand. "You can’t trust us," says Steve. Jarrod nods as he looks at the gold but it feels like he’s spinning. "And yes, I can love. I love my kids," says Steve. "And since yesterday I remembered that I love you," he tells Jarrod. Sonya scoffs. Jarrod scoffs, the gold still perched in his hand. "I do," says Steve. "What are you talking about?" says Sonya. "We came here to kill him. It was your idea." "Yes," says Steve. "It was, but who knew that the only way to rediscover what we had lost as boys, as brothers was to dig each other’s grave." Jarrod starts to laugh, but it is a gentle, worn-out, ironic laugh. "And you, Jarrod tells Sonya. If I had killed him, then you would have killed me too." "No," says Sonya... "No." "Yes you would, you would have had to. You wouldn’t have had a choice. Neither of you would, because you’re wolves, both of you, and me," he smiles, "I’m just a sheep, a sheep that for a little while before a wolf attacked, was a prized ram. This is so fucked," Jarrod goes and dropping the gold he starts to spin. "You hear me," he tells the sky, "this is so faaarked," he calls out and he sounds like a crow. "Faaark," he goes and as he spins, with his arms out, so too the birds take to wing in the direction of his spin, and as they all lift and turn those birds already flying join in, and as if they are of one mind they start encircling the trio and the mine shaft and spiralling up they form in their circle, a narrowing dark cawing tunnel moving up to challenge the sky. "Fuck," goes Steve as he runs back to the shaft. Sonya joins him. She takes his hand as Steve helps her down, but Jarrod is still spinning. Lolling his head back and looking up at what he can see of the sky with closed eyes, he appears to the others to be the conductor of the birds as they narrow their circle until the sky becomes a distant blue hole. A true sense of falling. "Jarrod," Steve calls. "Jarrod, please!" Higher the birds travel and closer together until the gaps between them grow smaller. "Jarrod!" calls Steve. Then Jarrod stops. He can feel her. She’s here? Where? Somewhere. He is now in the back seat of the car and she has fallen asleep in his arms as the last daylight streams slowly behind them. Her dark hair has its own currents that always and effortlessly sweep him deeper and when she opens her eyes he knows that there is a God and that God is good. He had asked her to marry him and she had said yes. And he knew she would say yes and now in the back seat of his car, as his brother drives, he can feel himself being taught the secrets of this kind of love. They are the new centre. The grind of the tyres on the road, the future they are being driven into, the past they are leaving and all the lives they will and will never touch, are now rotating around the back seat of this car, this ride is the birth of the ‘universe of them’. And then broken and lost and hooked up by tubes to beeping machines he is waking up in a hospital. And then she is here. Jarrod stops spinning and turns to where he can feel her approaching as naked she walks through the feathered floor of this rising funnel then, when she knows he can see her, Margaret smiles and falls back into the ravens’ catch and now the rising wall is swimming her around and up as Jarrod turns to follow her and she looks at him as though they were never lost. "Margaret!" he calls before running to try and reach her. "Margaret," he cries as he races to keep up with her rising spin. Steve is here. He grabs Jarrod around the neck and the chest and as Jarrod fights to break free Steve holds on and so in the struggle they both fall to the ground. "Let me go," Jarrod yells as he watches her rise. Her, the only inconsistency within all this churning darkness, and still she rises. "Let me go!" But Steve is strong and he holds on as Jarrod cries out for Margaret until she is almost gone. "No," Jarrod calls, "No" as she sinks back forever into the black. Jarrod manages to turn in his brother’s arms and as he wraps his hands, despite his injury, around Steve’s neck, Jarrod roars like he should have roared when he was laying unconscious next to the burning car. "Go the opposite way," Steve says as he clutches Jarrod’s wrists. "Please hear me, you must go the opposite way." Sonya is here. She is picking up the dropped gold, then she stands like the funnel’s axis and looks down at them. "He’s right," she tells Jarrod. "Please brother, please fight," says Steve. After closing his eyes for a moment, where he catches a glimpse of himself in rehab trying to learn how to walk again, he then also sees Margaret’s eyes and her smile and then he rides the currents of her hair back to the red choking face of Steve with his ripped face and grotesque torn-out eye. "Look at us," says Steve. "Your face. My face. But we are still brothers. We are still brothers." Jarrod lets Steve’s neck go, and instead grabs both sides of his face in a hand vice. "I know you. Once we get the truck out you will probably try to leave me out here," says Jarrod. "Maybe both of us. And I know you found more water down there, but that is you. That is a part of who you are... And that’s ok. Why should you be the brother I need? But it is not me. I am better than that. So yes, you’re right, this ends here. It ends now. Out of all the options open to me, I choose to love you. And there is nothing you can do that will change that. Do you hear me? Nothing." Then Jarrod looks up at Sonya and says, "And that is the same for you." That said, Jarrod gets up and walks back to the shaft. Behind him, Steve glances up at Sonya as she looks at him, and behind her the birds are starting to separate and allow the day back in. "Look," says Sonya. "At what?" says Steve, who after wiping his eye dry, rubs his neck. "At Jarrod," she says. "His limp, it’s gone." The Sun has taken over. Its light is so intensely bright it steals the land of its rich colours. Greens are washed out and dried and the browns are weary. Only black withstands the theft, absorbing all the light it can until it glows. Eyes bright, the ravens watch the hole.
I am looking forward to reading this👋
I should be doing so many other things & I am totally absorbed in this tangle! In suspenders for the next part......:)