A sudden movement from outside, followed by spilling bricks and then a frustrated moan, caused Dramble to act quickly and cover Elly’s mouth with his hand, silencing her unguarded shocked response before she gave away their hiding place.
“This looks like a good place; let’s put it down here and get out of this graveyard!” a gravelly voice rasped, whispering to his companion.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 8
Dramble listened carefully to the sounds of the strange night, holding his breath as the tinkling of bricks clinking against one another died away into the distance while the morbid silence descended over them once again. Whoever their visitors were, they didn’t have any qualms about disturbing the quiet and weren’t intent on staying around either, relieving the need for Elly and Dramble to escape their shelter in a desperate and awkward bid for freedom. At least if anyone tried to approach their hiding place in the depths of quiet that surrounded them, they couldn’t do it stealthily, without the clinking rubble announcing their arrival.
Convinced the threat had dissipated for the moment, Dramble removed his hand from Elly’s mouth and apologised for his actions then climbing to his feet, he stole over to the window frame and peered out at the wall of darkness, hoping to gauge what their visitors had been up to.
The sky was almost totally black with an lone red blinking star, winking as if it was intensely irritated, frantically trying to recover from a mortal wound and making it almost impossible to survey the landscape.
He felt Elly’s presence disturb the still air beside him and her dark outline silhouetted against the crumbling window frame by the struggling light of the single star. Dramble gazed at Elly’s darkened features, watching the light of the star reflected in her wide and staring eyes, stunned into horror at the unexpected night sky.
“It’s so dark. Where’s the moon?” she whispered quietly, as if she was staring into the face of death itself.
“I don’t know, Elly.”
The defeated tone in Dramble’s whispered voice surprised her; somehow he knew more about what was going on than she did, and she wanted answers. A new chill shuddered through her body, causing her to shiver loudly while her teeth chattered together.
“C’mon, let’s try and get some sleep again,” Dramble offered, knowing he could at least protect her from the cold.
“Only if you tell me what’s going on,” Elly shivered, stubbornly turning to face the place where Dramble’s small frame stood.
Dramble pulled in a breath and let it out again quietly, but in the total absence of noise it sounded like he had shouted it. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I can, but some things I’m not permitted to disclose,” he whispered harshly.
Elly’s curiosity was piqued and about to explode; she played his words over and over in her mind, wondering who the authority was that had set the gate over Dramble’s willingness to talk.
It didn’t take long before Elly had settled back into her previous posture, settling her head onto Dramble’s leg and instantaneously the warmth returned, as if he had covered her with a thick comforter. Almost immediately, she felt at peace and had to fight hard to keep her eyes open and not drift back off to sleep.
Elly yawned, covering her mouth with her hand and pulled in a deep breath, but once she had recovered she sleepily announced, “Okay, Mr Dramble, tell me what I should know.”
Dramble fidgeted nervously, disturbing Elly’s pillow. She lifted her head momentarily, allowing him to settle comfortably before replacing her head back on his leg. He cleared his throat and searched for the place to begin his fantastic tale without betraying the rules that had been so meticulously drummed into him. The silence extended as if he was doing a mental stocktake, dismissing some information and trying to put words to others.
Finally, Dramble’s unsteady voice broke the silence and if Elly hadn’t seen the small boy’s image, she would guess the voice belonged to a mature man.
“Where we are now and how we got here, I can’t tell you.” Dramble could almost hear Elly’s complaint growing in the silence. “Not because I won’t. I just don’t know, Elly,” Dramble cut off her objection before she could voice it. “I do know that the accident had something to do with it.”
“Then you were there at the accident?”
“Yes,” Dramble whispered.
“Were you a witness, standing watching from a distance?” Elly could feel Dramble’s reluctance to talk and her frustration was growing.
“Yes, in a way I was a witness,” Dramble steeled himself, waiting for the questions he was sure would come. The silence between the two people seemed to separate them like a stony wall, until Elly filled the uncomfortable standoff.
“You said you have known me since I was a little girl. How could that be and how did you know about my dream and the green-eyed man?!”
Dramble swallowed hard, knowing he couldn’t answer her truthfully without divulging the secret life he was expected to protect at all cost. He sighed heavily, divided between loyalty and the love he felt for the blonde girl. “I... I can’t answer you, Elly, and I don’t want to cover over my mistakes by misleading you!” Dramble’s desperate plea echoed around the ruins.
Elly caught the sincerity in Dramble’s emotional voice and her tone softened, knowing this small boy had no intentions of wilfully harming her and had protected her since the moment they’d met.
The tense atmosphere stretched for what seemed like hours, until Dramble startled Elly’s focused thoughts by his whispered speech. “I long to tell you about things too wonderful for you to understand now, Elly, but I just can’t. I love you too much to hurt you and one day you will understand,” Dramble stopped abruptly as if he was considering a thought. “I can’t tell you how I know about your dream man or my knowledge of your life as a little girl, but I have a riddle that I am allowed to share with you and at the appropriate time, the meaning will be disclosed. If you remember it and explore it, everything will eventually make sense.”
Elly lifted her head from Dramble’s lap and stared at his outline with enquiring eyes. The depth of his feelings confused her more but strangely, she wasn’t afraid of his confession and somehow that love she sensed keenly, deep within her. “What’s your riddle?” she whispered softly.
Dramble shifted in his position, pondering whether the intelligent blonde young woman would guess the answer and expose his true identity before their appointed time. He had committed to telling her his riddle and if she guessed his true character, he wondered what ramifications it would have for both of them. He cleared his throat and searched for the words locked in a private compartment of his mind especially for this day. Then with a low rumble, the words escaped him, given the freedom they had longed for.
“Out of your heart the tears I keep and when I am no longer, your knowledge is complete.”
Elly’s head settled back down onto Dramble’s leg again, puzzled but strangely warmed by his words and turning his poetic riddle over in her mind in wonderment. She felt his hand gently stroking her head, while the nagging questions seemed to fade and soon her eyes became too heavy to hold open, drifting into a tender, peaceful sleep.
*~*~*~*
The first red rays of morning stretched its chilly shadows over the ruins as the massive red sun peered painfully across the landscape, desperately trying to rise into the early morning sky but seemingly exhausted at the effort. The oppressive silence, however, remained, intensely dumb and formidable to their straining ears.
Elly’s night had passed in blissful sleep, but Dramble’s had been plagued by haunting, unanswered questions and the reason for the strange scenery they both had been cast into. Puncher’s words kept repeating in his mind. May the Son forgive us for what we have done. Dramble, in his exuberance, had manipulated his world and reached down into Elly’s to try and stop a less than pleasant experience for her, but somehow, their worlds had collided head on and welded themselves together in a maze of uncertainty.
Elly stirred, raising her head stiffly from Dramble’s lap and stretched, finishing her wakening gymnastics with a breathy yawn. Dramble drew his knee up to his chest, pumping his limb a few times to get the blood flowing again after all night in one position.
“Did you sleep well, Elly?” Dramble quizzed.
“Mmm, but you must have been awfully uncomfortable with me leaning on your leg all night.”
“Labour of love; it was no imposition,” Dramble smiled, but his stiff movements as he raised himself from the rubble and concrete spoke of a different scenario. He hobbled around the small, devastated room for a few moments until the stiffness left and then he cautiously settled in the crumbling window ledge, peering out at the ruins.
A strange sight a few hundred metres away caught his eye and he stared at it for many moments, trying to identify the image, obviously the subject of last night’s visitors.
Elly realised Dramble had locked his attention onto something outside of their protected sanctuary and positioned herself alongside him and tried to find what he was so interested in. “What is it?” she whispered.
“It appears to be a small table of some kind and it looks like plastic tubes on top of it; maybe it’s food,” Dramble whispered back.
“Food! Oh, that would be nice; I haven’t eaten in days,” Elly bubbled. “But who would bring food out here and from where?” Her inquisitive mind was putting words to Dramble’s thoughts.
“I don’t know; it all seems a bit too convenient to me,” Dramble ruminated. “Stay out of sight, Elly, and I’ll take a closer look.”
Dramble picked his way through the rubble, stealing closer to the unsteady table and peering around at the same time to see if he was being watched. He glanced back at Elly’s face, partly hidden by the ruins but clearly stressed and concerned for his welfare. The position of the table was exposed, while anyone with binoculars could be watching from any direction, but Dramble knew Elly had to eat to remain alive and this single fact pushed him on to the goal of his mission.
Camouflaged by piles of charred bricks, Dramble blended into the scenery and cautiously peered around and then turned his attention to the table again.
Feeling the anxiety prickling at his feet, he charged at the tubes with a swift movement, almost tripping on scattered bricks in his haste. Then with an arcing movement of his arm, he swiped at the table top, knocking the items to the ground and diving for a clearing in the rubble at the same time, executing a perfect commando-type operation without damaging himself seriously.
Laying where he had fallen, breathing heavily and with his heart pounding in his chest, Dramble took stock and listened, straining to identify the sounds he had been detected.
The agitated clinking of bricks close by caught his attention. Someone had seen him and they were rapidly closing in on his location. Dramble held his breath, wondering who or what was tracking him and how he could possibly defend himself.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 9
Disorientated, Dramble swiftly pulled his aching body into a crouching position and tried to hide behind a charred pile of rubble, leaving the contents of the tabletop strewn all around the ground near him. In a desperate attempt to avert the situation developing into a one-sided battle, he selected a comfortable hand-sized brick, weighed it in his grasp and waited for his assailant to approach, hoping to use surprise as a game changer.
He was only small, but he could pack a punch when needed.
The sounds of clinking bricks seemed to be exaggerated and the hunter was making no attempts at hiding his approach. Stumbling feet coming closer, set his adrenaline pumping as he grasped the brick in his hand tightly, intent on making a one-off impression that would stop his attacker dead in his footsteps. Holding his breath and listening attentively, the adrenaline surged unrestricted through his veins, winding his muscles into a tightly wound spring and worked his mind into a frenzy of attack.
Then suddenly, a long red shadow appeared over the top of his hiding place. Dramble drew in a sharp breath, shrieked like a banshee and pounced, lunging at his opponent with all the strength he could muster.
A shrill scream confused Dramble’s assault and he only just managed to divert the missile before he struck Elly with a force that would have seriously wounded her.
“Elly...! Oh my goodness, I nearly killed you! What were you thinking, girl?”
Elly dropped to her knees and hung her head, shaking with abject fear, realising she had only just managed to escape a serious blow at the hands of her only ally.
Dramble discarded the projectile with a flick of his hand, clinking loudly against other charred bricks as it found a new home among its comrades. He quickly bent to Elly’s shaking figure and pulled her into his embrace, comforting the quivering young woman. Then he placed a trembling finger under her chin and lifted her shocked, tear stained face to meet his eyes. She was still shaking as he spoke.
“Why did you leave the protection of the shelter?!”
Wiping at her eyes with a vacillating hand, it took a few moments for Elly to regain her composure enough to speak. “I... I saw you disappear from my view really suddenly and I thought something had happened to you. I panicked and came looking for you.”
It hadn’t occurred to Elly until she saw Dramble disappear how much she was relying on him to guide and protect her in this unfamiliar and desperate new place she found herself in and when he’d suddenly disappeared, the gravity of her situation was driven home.
She’d be alone... again!
The same hollow and panicked feelings cornered her. Recalling the chilling despair and intense fear of the big empty house at night and her father’s note, intending to leave her vulnerable and unprotected, closed in on her once again.
Dramble pulled in a huge breath, reading her emotions exactly as if she had explained in minute detail. “Well, you’re not alone, Elly, and as long as I am here, we will walk this strange place together.”
Elly stared at the grey-eyed boy in surprise; once again he had startled her with another astounding revelation of her inmost thoughts and tangled emotions without her voicing a single word. “How did you know that, Dramble?!” she quivered, holding his gaze with piercing, watery blue eyes, almost demanding an explanation.
“Lots of practice, Elly. Now, let’s collect these tubes and take them back to the shelter before we really are discovered.”
Elly continued to hold his gaze with a tense expression.
Dramble sighed loudly, frustrated with the laws that held his tongue dumb to her questions; he wanted to explain, but the rules just simply wouldn’t allow it. “The riddle, Elly; if you can decipher the riddle, then it will all make sense,” Dramble’s intense eyes were begging her to drop her line of interrogation.
Elly read the frustration in his demeanour and realised he wouldn’t–or couldn’t–open up and betray the source of his intimate knowledge of her. She turned the riddle over in her mind again, but nothing made sense. She sighed loudly, frustrated with the impossible rhyme. “Can’t you give me a clue, Dramble?!”
His answer was a deliberate dimply smile and a shake of his head. Elly felt a great empathy for this small boy struggling with her demands and for some reason, she accepted his terms for now and then as if to deter her even more, he quickly gathered the strange items strewn on the ground around them.
Once there was a substantial pile, Elly stacked the tubes high above his line of sight and into his outstretched arms, using them as a carry basket. Soon after Dramble’s arms were fully loaded, Elly took his arm and using her unhindered view, guided him through the rubble; in turn she limped alongside him, leaning on his strength and enabling her to painfully hobble back to the shelter.
“Are we there yet?!” Dramble quizzed, walking almost blind.
“Maybe!” she teased.
Dramble shot her a sideways glance around the load, wondering what she meant, then realised she was giving him a taste of the frustration he had lef
t her with. Using his foot to feel around in front of him, remembering there was a step up into the ruined building, he stopped and his affronted soft grey eyes slowly and dejectedly searched hers, like a trusting Labrador puppy.
Elly experienced a powerful grief tussling at her heartstrings and her resolve melted. She felt drawn and intensely emotional, wanting to draw the forlorn figure into her embrace and shower him with her protective love and beg for his forgiveness. The crushing sentiments were confusing her and enticed her to relent on her tough stance towards Dramble, but at the same time, trying to make sense of her strange, intense feelings.
“O...kay! Just two more steps and then step up,” she said, averting his eyes and regaining control of her compassion.
Dramble smiled and his happy eyes assured her the puppy was safe; then he stepped up and using his periphery vision, could see the crumbling walls of the shelter engulf them while the crunching of crushed brick rubble under his feet alerted him to the safety of their refuge. The weight of his load began to lighten as Elly carefully unloaded his arms one tube at a time and then stacked them neatly against the wall. Finally, Dramble was free of his burden and he shook out his arms to relieve the pain and get the blood flowing again.
Giving Dramble a perplexing glare, Elly slid her back down the wall, relieved to be off her injured foot once again, at the same time grasping one of the tubes and turning it over with an enquiring expression on her face before shaking the contents. “This is strange looking food,” she said, listening to the contents rattle like a salt shaker. “You don’t suppose it’s a trap? After all, the only reason we suspect it is food is because of the label on the side that says so; and what of those creepy people we heard last night? It just doesn’t make sense,” Elly puzzled out loud.
“Well, I guess the only way we will know for sure is to open one and find out,” Dramble stated the obvious. “I’ll be the guinea pig and if I’m still kicking after a few hours, then it should be safe for you to eat.” Dramble took the long pill-shaped tube from Elly’s hands and examined the contour, searching for an entry point to the contents inside. Turning it over, he ran his hands up and down the vessel, pulling and twisting the container until it clicked under his hand and an end unfolded, like a door opening under the guidance of a spring and exposing a grey, sandy compound. Dramble stared at the grainy material with disdain.