I’ve made a mess of everything.
“Aaron?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry if you felt I was running out on you. The truth is that you’re the most important thing in the world to me, and I shouldn’t have given you shit about growing up. We’re different, and that’s okay. I would rather you keep being you than be anything like me. You’re a man. A good one.”
Aaron looked away, cleared his throat, then said, “You and Sophie are going to have a great life. I’m sorry I’ve been so stroppy about it all.”
“Forgive and forget, man. By the time this shit is over, I imagine we’ll be sick to death of each other. I have a feeling it’s going to be a while before we get to go back to our normal lives.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I need to get out more. If this weekend has taught me anything, it’s that life is too short to slob around indoors all the time.”
Ryan smiled. “There’s a bright future ahead of you, little brother. I’m glad you finally see that.”
“I just wish the past weren’t so dark.”
“Yeah.”
They walked in silence for another thirty minutes, and when Ryan next checked his watch it was almost ten, which was good and bad. Good, because they wouldn’t have to reveal their far-fetched nightmare to a bunch of incredulous spectators, but bad because it meant that people would no doubt be dragged from their beds to come and take statements long into the night. Ryan was exhausted, but it would be a while before he saw a bed.
“I think that’s the village up ahead,” said Aaron, pointing, and when they spotted a ‘Welcome’ sign, it became certain.
Ryan sighed a breath of relief. “Thank God. Any more walking and my leg’s gonna fall off.”
The first building they encountered was a bowls club. It had a white-painted woodcutting of a man rolling a ball affixed to the grey stone walls. There was a small, glass-sided tea room adjoining the main building, but the entire place was dark and uninhabited.
“Where do we go?” asked Aaron. “I doubt there’s a police station here.”
“We’ll try the pub in the middle of the village where we parked up. Last orders wouldn’t have been very long ago. Any luck and there’ll be someone about. We’ll head there and call the police.”
“Do you think we’ll get in trouble for what happened? We should never have messed with that weird corkscrew. We were stupid.”
Ryan huffed. “That’s an understatement, but it wasn’t a crime. How could we have known any of what happened?”
“I suppose you’re right. We’re never going to get over this, are we? It’s not like we’ll ever be able to forget or laugh about it.”
Ryan stopped walking and stood with his bicycle. He looked at his brother. “Hey, listen to me, okay? Whatever comes next isn’t going to be nice or easy, but no matter what, we’ll have each other. You and me are alive, and that’s all that matters. We’re not going to waste a single day looking back and being afraid. I got you, little brother. Everything will sort itself out, okay?”
“Okay.”
They left the bowls club behind them and headed for the next set of buildings. A church sat on a low rise to the right, surrounded by a stone wall, and rows upon rows of gravestones. If memory served Ryan correctly, there should be a post office and a row of cottages just beyond. The pub was still a ways off, but no more than a few hundred metres.
The silent walk reminded Ryan of his nights on the town with the lads. Too broke to hire a taxi, they would walk home drunkenly, two or three miles at a time. They would laugh and holler while the rest of the world slept and the highways lay empty. It would have been a happy memory, but things were different now. After the events of the last two days, Ryan looked back now and saw only emptiness and loneliness. The past was gone, curled inwards like paper over a flame. The only way to keep from being consumed by the past was to run towards the future, arms wide open.
I’m ready to run. I’m ready to leave the past behind.
“It’s dark,” said Aaron, looking around as they walked slowly down the centre of the road. “Quiet.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
Aaron shook his head. “No, I mean all of the lamp posts are switched off. None of the houses have their lights on. You’d think at least one would have left on a landing light, or a bathroom. There’re no lights anywhere. Look around.”
Ryan squinted, staring down the cobbled road toward the village’s various buildings. Rows of cottages lined both sides of the road, featureless grey shapes in the moonlight. There was something else too. Something…
“Something’s wrong.”
Aaron nodded. “I know. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
The shadows moved.
Aaron edged closer to Ryan, and Ryan instinctively put an arm around his younger brother. “Don’t move. Stay here, right next to me.”
Aaron let out a weary sigh, like a part of his soul was leaking out. “I’m so tired, Ryan. I just want to go home.”
“Me too.” Ryan glanced around, alert, worried. Afraid.
Stomach acids rose into his throat. His guts were trying to tell him something. They were trying to tell him that the weekend wasn’t over – and that home was still far away.
“Ryan!” someone shouted. Not Aaron. “My word, I can’t believe it!”
Ryan looked towards the church on the right side of the road and spotted a group of people standing inside a porch with glowing candles in their hands. While it was too dark to make out their faces, the person who had shouted was unmistakably familiar – the posh accent especially so. “Tom? Is-Is that you?”
“Yes! Now get inside quickly – and for heaven’s sake,
