Callous (Part 11)
Note - This is the continuation of a vanity project. A novel written in parts, with minimal editing or fuss. If I like the end result I may gather up all the parts and rewrite them into something better. This is a learning process.
You can find parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 here.
Jonathan sat back, resuming his reading, preparing for another night and hoping against hope that he’d get to enjoy a dreamless sleep.
____________________________________________________________________________
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler. - Nietzsche.
Jonathan woke after the dreamless sleep he’d been craving. He took the goats outside (bringing them in was now a nightly ritual) and checked on Lucy. He’d moved her closer to the cabin too. Jonathan then thought he’d go sort out the two dried-out goats he’d been avoiding even thinking about. He was exasperated to discover he simply couldn’t find them. The ropes he’d used to hang them up on the fence were still there, but they were simply gone. Looking carefully around Jon could see a trail where the two dried-up husks were dragged, and he didn’t even need to follow the trail to know it went to the hatch in the corner of the field. He looked though, just to see.
As suspected they’d been dragged to the somehow opened hatch, but what was shocking to discover was it had been left wide open! Jon quickly closed the hatch, then as he rubbed his eyes and tried to remove a rapidly growing headache he caught something on the ground besides the dragging trail, boot prints.
He lined himself up and stood next to the prints, they were his own. He had done this.
Jonathan now accepted something very strange was going on, he seemed to be doing various things in his sleep and waking with no memory of them.
He checked the supplies and found that everything was beginning to get low. Sure, he had weeks worth of food and water left, but it was going to end sooner or later. As before he simply put this off for now, he’d worry about it later.
Jonathan went back to his cabin and decided that tonight he’d try find a way of tying himself down or locking himself in the cabin. He found some heavy chains lying around the fields and wrapped them securely around the bed. He rigged a little system in which he’d have to be awake and alert in order to undo the knots and ties he’d put the ropes and chains in.
As Jonathan was returning to the cabin with some extra ropes he noticed the Landcruiser. He jumped in and noticed the key was there. He remembered everything he’d seen Fred doing with it, so decided to give it a go. Many horrific noises and squeals later, all Jon had managed to do was to make it grumble, shake, and growl. He simply couldn’t make it move. Eventually he worked out what a hand brake was, and managed to get the thing to crawl along slowly in jolts and spurts. It was something. He promised himself he’d practice every day until it made more sense.
As he jumped out the Landcruiser to get back to the cabin the sun hit him right in the eyes. It was yet another clear blue day. No wind, no clouds, it all gave Jon a surreal feeling of being caught in some sort of purgatory, some sort of place between worlds. As Jon was pondering this his internal monologue suddenly shifted, and it felt like a different voice took over..
”Something is coming, we need to prepare, they’re going to kill us all”
It felt like his own thoughts, it was surely his own thoughts, but he’d never heard the monologue in his head in anything but his voice. This was deeper, larger, bigger than a voice had any right to be. It was so real and resonant that Jon looked around him for a possible source, then as it continued he realized yes, it was his own thoughts somehow.
”Jon, help us, help us get ready!”
Jonathan freaked out and decided he needed a break from all this. He grabbed some water and simply walked, as far as he could. As he got out of sight of the farm a sharp ringing in his ears began, and increased, and increased. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Jon blocked his ears but the ringing seemed to be coming from within. He ran back towards the farm and only as it came into sight did the ringing seem to vanish. As Jonathan got back to the cabin the sun was setting again, he’d wasted a whole day doing very little, but he wanted to be ready for the night.
He went to bed early, spending a good hour making sure he was secure. It’d take him a good 10-15 minutes to get out of bed and out of the room, but he needed to be sure it was done. The chains and ropes wrapped around him and the bed weren’t comfortable, and due to the nerves and exhaustion, it took a few more hours than he would have liked to get to sleep. Eventually, he did.
Dreams of strange people with slanted eyes charging towards him, flashes of bloody goats, visions of the family pouring out of the holes. Too many of them to count, a literal tide of the pale mutants vomiting forth from every hatch. Jonathan woke in a sweat. He was relieved to discover he was still in the bed, but as he began to reach over to undo the chains and ropes he realized they were already undone. Everything was untied and simply placed back there.
Jonathan leapt out of bed, the sun just beginning to peak over the horizon. Jon ran to check the animals in the main room and Lucy just outside, they were all fine. Jon quickly checked the hatches and they were all still secure. Everything seemed as it was the day before.
As Jonathan entered the kitchen area to make some food, he noticed a piece of paper on the bench. It was a letter!
It was written in Jon’s hand-writing, though half-way through the style itself began to resemble something else. By the end of the letter it looked like a different style altogether, as if someone had become comfortable using Jon’s hand. Jonathan sat down to read:
Jonathan.
We’d like to thank you for your attempts to help us, but you’re not doing this right. We need you to feed us properly. Join us tonight in the tunnels.
We need you to come down here willingly.
Please join us, we think we have a lot to share.
Something is coming. We are going to have to work together.
Do not be afraid. This was always meant to be.
Signed.. The Family.