A noise coming from the other side of the thin glass window obscured by the drawn blind, froze him in terror. He held his breath, listening, trying to identify the sound. Beads of sweat ran from his body and soaked his mattress as fear whispered in his ears again. An unidentified something was on the other side of the blind, wanting to do him harm. He argued with himself: should he lift the corner of the blind and confront the threat lurking in the shadows or should he just lay there, ambiguous and protected by the blankets?
The sound of a steel outdoor chair toppling over and slamming heavily into the concrete pavement outside his window and then the heavy thudding of running feet, made him flinch and freeze in fear.
His heart raced and his breathing stopped. Jaimon’s terror rose rapidly off the scale and he thought he was going to pass out. He pulled the blankets over his head and shook violently, until his own body heat and expelled breaths left him gasping for fresh air. He had to allow his nose access to the breathable air outside his blankets and refill his tortured lungs before he succumbed, risking whatever was out there. He felt the need to scream and raise the alarm, surrounding himself in the presence and comfort of rational human beings assuring him he was safe, but waking the man would only bring ridicule and violent repercussions. He needed Caesar, but there weren’t any signs of his friend.
*~*~*~*
A sudden hollow pounding noise alarmed Jaimon. He glanced around the darkened room, disorientated and then the door burst open. With the open door, light flooded into his room and the disapproving glare of his mother peered across at him.
“Get out of bed, Jaimon! What do you think this is? You have school today and I have got to go out!”
His mother reached across his bed and rolled the blind up to its stops near the ceiling, unlocked the window and pushed it open, allowing warm outside air to enter his stuffy room. Jaimon peered out into the small suburban backyard vista, trying to validate the fears of the previous night with the calm, unobtrusive sunlit scene now before his eyes. The terrors of the night had disappeared and along with them his companion, fear, had also departed.
“Did you hear any strange noises last night, Mother?” Jaimon casually asked.
She stopped in midstride, heading for the door. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jaimon. That imagination of yours is probably working overtime under the duress of all these blankets you insist on having on your bed.”
Jaimon’s mother ranted on, but he tuned out her whining voice and stared into the backyard again. His ears picked up on one word of her rant and his fear began to rise again... Friday!
Today, at school, was physical education for the first two periods of the day. He wasn’t good at sport and his small size and awkward physique caused the other kids to bully him mercilessly. The worst torment was saved for last. Jaimon’s pre-adolescent body didn’t resemble anything like a developed teenager’s, but the staff required all students to strip naked and shower in the open showers before their peers. Jaimon came under strong ridicule from the other kids and last time they hid his clothes, causing him agonising moments of grief as the shower room emptied and staff wandered in to herd the stragglers into their next classes.
He also knew that Rositer was looking for him to settle the score for escaping his grasp in the library yesterday, a felony that would bring swift retribution.
“Mum, I don’t feel too well. Can I stay home today?” Jaimon moaned.
“I don’t have time to deal with your nonsense today, Jaimon. I have an important bridge game against Jocelyn Mercer’s team. I owe her and she is going to get it, too! I am leaving in fifteen minutes so you will have to get yourself off to school.” She threw her comments over her shoulder as she departed his room and prepared to leave for the day.
Jaimon considered staying home anyway, but then reconsidered. His mother would be livid if she found out he’d disobeyed a direct order and then his father would be pulled into the situation and things would get even uglier. He tussled with the predicament and wondered which would be the lesser of the two trials: facing the ridicule and persecution waiting for him at school, or face a violent beating at the hands of his animated father.
He raised himself from his bed, tired and sweaty from the haunting night, and peered out of his window to where the steel outdoor chairs were arranged on the patio. He froze, staring intently at a chair lying on its side against the concrete patio floor, only a few metres from his window.
*~*~*~*
The journey to school was a brisk thirty minute walk. It usually took Jaimon forty minutes but that was because he dawdled, hoping somehow the school would have disappeared. He walked through the ordered streets of the suburb then into a dense area of bushland before coming out onto a sandy hill that led onto the outer boundary of the extensive school property. Jaimon struggled under the size of his heavy ever-present school bag loaded with books that were required for his classes. The bag weighted him down and gave him the appearance of a tiny hunchback of Notre Dame. The only comfortable place to carry the bag was slung over his shoulders but this obliterated his peripheral view of the surroundings.
The walk was an even greater effort today, more so than usual. He was still tired from the night standing guard, and the sound of the chair striking the concrete outside his bedroom window puzzled and frightened him. He started to trek through the sandy hill leading down into the school grounds, his shoes sinking in the hungry-grey-lifeless sand, consuming more of his energy.
From out of nowhere, he was surrounded by a group of students he didn’t recognise. “Hey, freak, Rositer is looking for you and when he finds you... I wouldn’t want to be you, freak!” the group taunted, following him as their campaign intensified.
Jaimon stared at the ground, willing them to leave. He hitched his bag higher up over his shoulders and tried to outrun them, but the bag inhibited his escape and they continued taunting him until he reached the school buildings, breathless and exhausted from the chase. They soon melted into the gathering masses of disinterested and faceless humanity, sure that Jaimon would seek out the authority figures that sometimes lurked unseen among the pupils before classes.
Jaimon’s heart was still pounding when the siren sounded, summoning all students into their tutorial classes to have their names marked off a roll and then onto the first period of regimented and institutionalised learning.
*~*~*~*
Jaimon’s awkward walk drew ridicule and laughter from passersby. He had his bag over his shoulder as usual and joined the throng of ecstatic students leaving at the end of the day. His head down in embarrassment, he limped painfully to the outside boundary of the school ground and into the grey sand of the hill leading to home.
An opportune towel, wrapped into a whip and handled by an expert larger student skilled in towel snaps, had struck at his naked behind in the shower room after physical education. When the whip had struck, the intense pain had stolen the breath from his lungs and immediately left a large dark black welt across most of his backside. The change room had erupted into laughter and the towel snapper was treated like a hero.
Through the tears and as he tried to hide his injury, he watched the amused face of a P.E. teacher turn and walk away. Pretending nothing of consequence had just taken place.
The day had burgeoned into an agonizing trial after the event, and concentrating in classes from the pain was almost impossible. He had found the ire of his teachers at his constant fidgeting to get comfortable, disrupting the class and bringing sniggers from other students who knew the reason for his discomfort. The incident had circulated among the student body like a wildfire and drew rapturous hilarity wherever the news was received.
As Jaimon forced himself onward up the sandy hill, a large crowd of students gathered near the top. He stopped momentarily and peered up at the barricade inhibiting his route home, then he saw a tall, lanky figure dressed completely in black coming down to meet him.
A wicked smile stretched across his pimply features. “I
told you, freak, I would catch up with you.”
Jaimon froze on the spot and watched the crowd becoming increasingly animated, insistent on blood as they chanted, “Fight...fight...fight!” egging Rositer on and demanding Jaimon’s defeat.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 8
Jaimon limped up the driveway, dragging his school bag by a broken handle. He was even too numb to cry. His face and hair wore the shadows of grey, stained by the hungry sand of the hill backing onto the school property; he continually pulled the remains of his torn shirt across his tiny naked chest, hoping to conceal his embarrassment behind the threads of his tattered clothing. Silicone grains crunched under his molars and filled his ears and eyes, a direct result of Rositer burying Jaimon’s face deep in the hot sand.
The altercation was as unevenly matched as a train and a car, head on and at full speed. The crowd of bystanders cheered loudly as Rositer demolished what was left of Jaimon’s dignity and shredded his personal property. Other students taking the same route took a big arc around the scene, appalled at the violence, but not wanting to get involved.
They didn’t want to be Rositer’s next victims.
Rositer’s bullying ceased as Jaimon conceded defeat, repeating the demeaning words he was forced to loudly recite. As the crowd hissed with laughter and then dispersed, he gathered the remnants of his property and shook out as much of the sand as possible.
Taking stock of his personal attire, Jaimon knew his plight wasn’t over yet. He hoped his mother wasn’t home to see the ruins of his school uniform, the bruises on his face and the damage to his school bag. He had been warned over and over of the value and the consequences for damaging the school garb entrusted to him, and to respect the great sacrifices on the part of his father in providing for the family.
He usually wore his uniform for three consecutive days and changed into his spare for the remaining two days of the school week while the washing was done. Now his spare uniform was nothing but rags. He knew all too well what was coming, but if he could conceal the damaged schoolwear for a couple of days, that would give his backside a chance to heal before sustaining another blackening beating at the hands of his enraged father.
He opened the flywire screen and nervously reached for the handle of the front door to the house. It didn’t move under his attempts and was still locked, exactly the way he had left it earlier on that same morning. He sighed heavily, an anxious breath escaping his mouth as for the first time today, something seemed to be going his way.
A cheap, black aluminium pot stood on the front porch. A cactus, planted into the pot, threatened passersby with its gnarly long thorns, a reflection of the welcome offered by the family to unwitting visitors. Jaimon carefully tilted the pot with one hand and reached under to retrieve a hidden key, then fitted the key into the lock. The latch gave way under his guidance and he entered the deserted house.
Just to be sure, he called out, “Hello?!” but the stony silence answered his unspoken question.
Moving quickly, he headed for the shower and to clean up the remnants of his nightmare. He checked himself in the mirror, trying to disguise any hint of the day’s crisis. He had just finished checking the angry bruise on his backside and the deepening contusion around his eye, delicately dressing them with antiseptic and then carefully pulled on his casual clothes, just in time to hear the sound of his mother opening the front door.
She was in high spirits and called out, “Jaimon, are you home?!”
His voice cracked, but he quickly regained his composure, hoping not to give away any unwanted hint of the day’s drama. As he stealthily made his way into his bedroom and trying not to betray himself further, he called back over his shoulder.
“Yeah, Mum, I’m home!”
He quickly checked the image in the mirror again of the darkening ring around his eye before she fronted him.
Then, like a pirouetting rhinoceros, his mother waltzed happily into his room. “I won! I beat that busybody at her own game,” she bragged animatedly. “The girls are taking me out to celebrate tomorrow, Jaimon, so I need to get the washing done tonight. Get your uniform out in the wash now.” Then she danced out toward the laundry.
Jaimon’s horror rose as he tried to think how to sidetrack his mother away from the washing but somehow, he knew his future just got a little darker.
Jaimon painfully limped down the hallway toward the laundry, carrying the remains of his uniform and feeling an aggravated, nervous foreboding. The butterflies collided with his stomach walls and caused the nausea to rise into his throat.
His mother had her back to him, busily sorting whites from colours. “Just put it down on the floor,” she instructed, humming to herself.
Jaimon threw the torn garments to the floor at her feet and waited for her response.
The humming abruptly stopped as the evidence came into focus and her voice changed just as abruptly to an annoyed monotone. “Your father is not going to be happy with you,” her flat voice threatened and reverberated in the small room like a weatherman predicting the landfall path of a violent storm.
Jaimon swallowed hard at her announcement; the fear was so intense, his tears stayed hidden in safety behind his eyes. Somehow he knew trying to explain the circumstances was a waste of time and effort. He fell into a defeated, silent stance, his head slumped forward and his heart pounding in fear, like a prisoner on death row waiting for the executioner.
There was nowhere to hide and his fate was sealed.
*~*~*~*
Jaimon lay stiffly on his bed, a pillow supporting his back, trying to raise his painful buttocks off the sagging mattress and cooling the stinging still rippling through his tender injury. He listened to his mother frantically banging around in the kitchen just down the hall from his room. He could hear her muffled voice through the closed bedroom door as she barked crisp orders at his sister to get her chores done before the man came home. Jaimon’s mother was running late with the dinner and his father would be incensed at the delay.
He watched the red digital numbers of the bedside clock changing, counting down the moments until the expected confrontation while his heartbeat pounded in his chest and amplified like a drum in the quiet. His gaze intensified on the tiny numbers indicating close to the hour and then he swallowed heavily, anticipating the horrors of what was soon to come.
The sound of frantic activity in the kitchen suddenly stopped. Small feet hurriedly thudded up the passageway past his bedroom and the door to his sister’s room banged shut, rattling through the wall into Jaimon’s room. He strained his ears to hear the man’s voice and then with great trepidation, the muffled sound of his executioner and his mother talking together drifted into his room. Something slamming into the wall echoed throughout the house and then his mother’s voice rose as if she was calling after someone.
“I did tell him!”
Jaimon raised himself unsteadily from his bed to a standing position, listening to the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the passageway and coming ever closer.
He steeled himself as the footsteps stopped outside his room and then his door cannoned open and he came face to face with the angry, dark faced man. In his hands a thick, black leather belt hung, menacing and looking to avenge its presence on someone.
Jaimon’s knees buckled at the sight of the hulking man standing over him, holding the large leather strap. Fear rose to boiling point as the hard face and black, unmoving eyes bored into him. A sudden gush of warm water ran down the inside of Jaimon’s legs and trickled onto the floor, leaving a wet stain on the front of his pants and a puddle at his feet.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 9
Bjarni’s sleep deprived eyes felt like they had been clawed from under his lids and his head ached in sympathy with the early hour. The sun hadn’t long ago left the late summer sky, making it difficult to judge the effects of fatigue and keep his body clock in rhythm. He was out of his routine; his old body knew it and was co
mplaining bitterly.
Katu had only just gone to bed, leaving him alone with his thoughts. They had talked for hours, but Katu’s sudden reference to Dan Gurst earlier in the evening hadn’t left his mind, unsettling him and provoking a panicked impulse to run. Katu, the only human being he trusted, would not have deliberately set a snare for him to fall into. Bjarni was certain of that, so he forced himself to focus, calm the rising trepidation and stay where he was.
Outside Katu’s small living space, the dogs had been unsettled and whimpering all through the twilight night. Akiak’s pained whining-bark alerted Bjarni to her discomfort, as if she sensed his fear and wanted to protect him. He checked his watch: it was 4am. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t settle to sleep. Dan Gurst and the horrors associated with that name kept echoing around the long, silent corridors of his fading memory and caused the walls of his imagination to close in on him. Bjarni breathed in heavily, trying to stem the tide of rising panic.
Wide awake in the growing sunlight and tired of staring at the ceiling, he finally tried to rise from his mattress laid upon the floor for him by Katu and sit upright. He glanced around at the unfamiliar surrounds from his position and came to a sudden decision. There was no need to stay any longer: the sled was packed; the dogs were rested, fed and eager to run; and Katu was caught up on the events of the year just past.
He reached for the table leg, well within his grasp and began to pull himself up into a standing position. A burning pain, intense like molten steel hit him in the chest and he gasped as a river of molten lava ran down his left arm, his jaw feeling like it was about to erupt. He fell heavily back down onto the mattress and curled up into a foetal position, breathless and willing the suffering to leave.
In the presence of intense agony, he could still hear Akiak’s panicked yelps, the chain holding her tethered to her kennel whipping against the structure as she tried to break free of her bonds and find her troubled master. Akiak’s commotion upset the other dogs and they began to bark loudly too, waking Katu. Recognising Akiak’s yelping bark and not wanting to discipline Bjarni’s dogs, he rose from his bed and entered the dining room to find the cause of the disturbance.