Dark Wave

Chapter 8

Mack slapped his hand against my mouth to stop me shouting DAD DAD WHERE ARE YOU DAD IF YOU CAN HEAR ME RUN.

Because of course, we didn't want to be ripped to shreds by some hungry-ass wolves.

But anyway, we skulked in the bushes and shadows and trees and half-ran in total ninja stealth mode for the best part of twenty minutes trying to decide what to do about the canine situation.

We didn't think of anything.

So, like all great pioneers of the west we winged it and took to flight cutting through the undergrowth and the overgrowth and I was so tired that I couldn't make the effort to hold back the branches or thorn bushes so they simply cut my skin and recoiled on poor Mack who strode behind me with great haste and I think I could hear him thinking that he wanted to be in front of me but I didn't much care as I was totally and utterly focused on finding dad (and of course before those hungry-ass wolves). In the grand scheme of things we were tiny little leprechauns running through a forest of giant trees. Tiny, little, green, ginger-haired leprechauns. Oh yes, Irish folklore to keep me happy through the silence.

A little black shadow lept across the dusty ground in front of me and I crapped myself for a moment because I thought I was about to be eaten alive by some rabies-infected wolf thing and then I found solitude in the knowledge that it was only a bird's shadow. Mack laughed at me but I didn't find it funny, so I hit him but that wasn't a very good thing to do because he cried out in pain and I knew I probably shouldn't have hit him so hard but all the same he shouldn't have been so loud.

But I heard the wolf howl again; it was louder and closer this time. And I realised that they weren't howling it was a sort of battle-cry and I knew they weren't coming for us because the tiny pit-pat pawsteps were getting dimmer and dimmer.

So we ran towards them, because I knew there and then that we'd lost the epic battle to find my dad before they did.

 A gunshot. And then another. And we rushed past a tree to find a wolf lunging itself at my dad's grief stricken body to be thrown aside at the two bullets lodged into its side. Yes I saw the two dead corpses of the wolves at his side and I shouted "DAD" because I was so happy to see him yet so scared. And my eyes shot to his leg and I saw the teeth marks and the blood and the bone, and then I saw him collapse into the ground with a grunt and I ran forward and told him "it's ok, it's gonna be ok. I promise." But I knew that it wasn't because I could see all the blood staining the grass.

Mack helped me move him and prop him up against a tree.

"Daddy.." I said quietly, touching his face.

"Lib, gah, I'm so sorry." He winced harshly, his face lined and creased.

"Dad, don't, don't tell me you're sorry. Tell me that when we're walking away okay?" I said franticly, holding his face the same way he did mine. "I hated you for so long and now I don't and I know it was wrong and I know it wasn't your fault. Don't say it was, don't tell yourself that..."

"I hated myself too, dear." He responded hoarsely, after a while, gasping. "I should have done something, made an effort. It's my fault that we're in this mess right now, Lib... I missed you."

"I missed you too dad, I love you!"

He tried to clear his throat and tilted his head back and gasped in pain at his leg. 

His screaming... Echoing..

He composed himself slightly, and smiled that 'I know it's not going to be okay but I'm trying so hard to pretend it is' face.

"You're gonna be okay." I said, pleading, forcing it upon him. 

He opened his mouth to speak and it came out in a half-whisper. 

"I'm sorry, love." He said slowly, and he began to close his eyes and drift off.

I shook my head so violently it might have dropped off. "No! Mack, help me, help me please! Don't just stand there!" I screamed, ripping off part of my shirt and pressing it down hard upon his almost severed leg. Mack dropped down next to me and tapped my dad's face, telling him to stay awake as I screamed and screamed until my voice hurt. The blood soaked through the cotton and stained my hands, getting under my nails. Tears streamed down my face so much that I thought I'd drown us all and I was screaming DAD, DAD PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN, DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE HERE, NOT AGAIN. I NEED YOU, PLEASE. EVERYONE ALWAYS LEAVES ME. I can't... I can't do this without you...

My voice broke and the tears kept falling and the blood kept flowing and Mack stood back in horror, and I touched his face so delicately and his skin was so cold. And he didn't answer me, didn't flutter open his eyes and smile; 'haha joking' like some twisted prank he just lay there in the dirt and blood and tears the way he had for quite some time now.

"I can't... I can't do this without you..."

And I knew that I was going to have to find some way of coping.

My dad died on the 22nd of August 2014.

Returning.

I couldn't go on. I went on.

It was dark and treacherous and leaving him was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Mack didn't say a word, which I guess was nice, but I didn't stop walking even through the night. Just straight ahead and I didn't even know where I was going. Didn't eat, or sleep, or stop to rest. Just rocketed through the blackness until morning where we did it all over again. I didn't dare look down at my hands for I knew what I'd see; so much blood and all the pain and all the loss. 

But we came to a river, a flowing, rushing, living entity of gold, and I took off my shirt, and my jeans and under the baking heat, we strode through, our feet catching on the rocks, and little tiny fish that Mack called rainbow trout rushed past in the current, sliding weightlessly around our legs.

The water was cool, and I could feel the heat leaving my body, radiating from my very core and into the air, and I shivered. 

Mack wades over, slowly, looking at me with some form of distant concern, but he didn't say anything and just hugged me, his bare chest pressing against my under-shirt, and he whispers 'I'm sorry.' 

And I say 'It's okay' because there's nothing either of us could have done. And I know that. And he knows that. And dad knows that, I hope. But I swore I won't stop until every single one of those corporal bastards is dead, because they did this to me, to us. They tore my family apart.

And he said that it's a big burden to put upon myself, and I am only young, and have been through so much, and I won't have even finished school yet but I said I don't care because this is my goal and this is what I need to do, to find peace.

This is my goal.