The Watchers Read online

  THE

  WATCHERS

  THE

  WATCHERS

  A. M. SHINE

  An Aries book

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © A.M. Shine, 2021

  The moral right of A.M. Shine to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781801102124

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781801102131

  ISBN (E): 9781801102155

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  DECEMBER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  JANUARY

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  FEBRUARY

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  MARCH

  Chapter 28

  About the author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  THE

  WATCHERS

  Prologue

  John

  The forest was dark on the brightest day. It was as though its ancient trees hid some terrible secret from the sun, and so weaved their branches together, casting a black gauze over the sky. The light broke through here and there in thin, hazy pillars but these were too rare to ever bring warmth. Any light was better than no light. It told John all that he needed to know, that there was still hope. There was every reason to keep on running. It was an unnatural place where the shadows never lifted, like a bleak lens forced over the eyes. He yearned for colour and light to guide his way, but amidst the trees there were neither. Hours had passed in that never-ending limbo, where John’s every panicked breath was all that broke the silence. The end was still nowhere in sight. And those golden threads of light were beginning to fade.

  He had left the shelter at daybreak, under the first cracks in the black above. John had rested for two days and nights, healing his muscles and conserving whatever he had left in his body to save all that he had left in life. So many failed attempts lay behind him. But he knew in his heart that he had been close. Just a few more feet. The man had drawn a compass in the earth, gauging its north as best he could from those rare fissures of sky. He had tested every direction, treating it like a clock, completing its cycle, combing the forest for some way out. But he could only run so far in order to make it back before nightfall. And it was never far enough. John retraced the markers he had left behind him, finding his way back to his wife’s arms, sometimes with mere minutes of daylight to spare; always cutting it closer and closer.

  In the time before, he used to bring presents home to his wife. Ciara always had a soft spot for surprises, no matter how silly, cheap or childish they might have been. There were the stuffed toys he picked up by the petrol station checkout. They now lived on the bed in their spare room, all glassy eyes set towards the window as Ciara thought they’d enjoy the view. Chocolates, flowers, even a punnet of plump strawberries bought off the side of the road; if John thought it would make his wife smile, then it was hers. And now, he returned to her, weary and defeated, and always empty-handed. He couldn’t even give her false hope without the guilt of lying to her. They were never getting home. There was no way out. And he hadn’t the heart to tell her.

  John blamed himself. He never told Ciara this. He didn’t think he had to. It was certainly nobody else’s fault but his own, and he hardly had the strength to speak, never mind state the obvious. He had pushed the idea, even though he knew she would have preferred to stay home and laze about like she loved to on a Sunday, never stepping outside, as though for that one day in the week their new home was the whole world. She was like a child with her dream doll’s house, still disbelieving that it was really hers. There wasn’t a lone chair or lamp that she hadn’t doted on. It was all she ever wanted, and just another thing she had lost.

  Their last hot meal was an old-fashioned fry-up – John’s one and only speciality – with fat slices of sourdough that looked crooked no matter how he cut them. He remembered it all so clearly. He had botched up the egg yolks again, not surprisingly. Ciara’s fingers played a little drumroll on the table every time he stood up to the pan. The probability of good eggs hadn’t improved since they met, but it added some excitement to their Sundays. He should have savoured every mouthful, but instead he ate as though breakfast was a daily given, never to be lost, as common as sunlight, fresh air and all those things taken for granted. He had been standing by the window over the kitchen sink, rinsing a mug long after it was clean, listening to its squeak under the warm water. The distant fields’ long grasses were like eyelashes winking at him, shimmering under that summer blue.

  That’s when the notion of taking a Sunday drive seeded itself in his mind. John imagined it blooming into a perfect day; one that their shared memories would keep from ever wilting. If only he had known the horrors such seeds could grow.

  Ciara was sunken in the corner of the couch, with her toes curled under her in those fleecy socks that were a Sunday staple. She was smiling like she used to when he peered around the door, humming to herself, flicking through the channels, most likely looking for a movie that he would enjoy. It was never about her. She would cuddle in under his arm, and he wouldn’t know if her eyes were open or closed. That was their perfect Sunday, and for a long time it never changed. Not until John had to ruin everything.

  ‘Come on,’ he announced, slapping his hands, ‘let’s go on an adventure!’

  She looked to him, lips lolling open, sharing that beautifully bemused expression she always did when he surprised her. Ciara’s thumb ceased clicking. Her eyes glanced back at the television, almost sadly. She didn’t want this. John knew that. Their day had found its natural rhythm like all those Sundays gone before it, and Ciara had mapped out the coming hours like a captain sailing a familiar sea. But she chose to play along, content to do whatever he wanted so long as they were together.

  ‘Where will we go?’ she asked, sitting forward, feigning the excitement that John eagerly lapped up like the real deal.

  ‘Connemara,’ he replied. ‘It’s so close to us, and we’ve only skirted around the main roads since we moved out here. Let’s go deeper and see what we can find. Blue skies and hills, and sheep!’

  ‘Sheep?’

  ‘They’re everywhere.’ He laughed, casting his arms around him. ‘There’s nothing for miles but sheep.’

  ‘Okay, handsome,’ she said
, peeling herself off the couch and plodding stiff-legged into his arms, ‘I’ll go wherever you want—’ she stood up on her toes to kiss him ‘—and you had me at sheep.’

  ‘There’s nothing else out there,’ he replied with a smile before planting a kiss on her forehead. ‘You can pick out your favourite one and we’ll bundle it in the back of the car.’

  There, holding his wife in a home, not a prison of concrete and glass; that’s the moment he could have saved them. John wished he had just held Ciara a little longer. If only he had asked her what she really wanted to do, not that he didn’t already know. She had probably already picked out half a dozen movies for him. Ciara would read the blurbs aloud in her deepest theatrical voice and he would decide the winner. Maybe a better husband wouldn’t have been so selfish. A day on the couch sure sounded good to him now.

  John had to stop. He palmed the sweat from his face, gulping for air that seeped like mould into his lungs. The seasons held no sway over the woodland. An eternal coldness was trapped there, rising as mist by the deeper pits. It was a cemetery of trees whose black earth sank soft without need for rain, and the feeling of death and rot haunted it like the residue of some horrible dream. The stillness there was unnerving. John’s clumsy steps were imitated from every angle, their dizzying echoes leading his senses astray. He had to keep his course. Ciara’s life depended on him not losing his way.

  But the forest’s murky depths were wild and misleading. Like a maze of mirrors, it teased the eyes, goading John into doubting himself. Too many times he had stopped, comparing the path just travelled to what lay ahead, and marking no difference. He imagined a crow circling above the forest – if ever an animal was brave enough – watching John orbit the same claustrophobic tract of hell, lost like a rat in a maze.

  He couldn’t recall from what direction the car had come to stop at the forest’s edge. Those serpentine roads had twisted and turned so often, moulting his bearings with every mile. If only he had followed the map like Ciara had wanted to. If only he had done a lot of things differently.

  ‘It won’t be an adventure if we know where we’re going,’ he had said, turning his head subtly to wink at her as she rooted through the glove compartment.

  ‘Okay.’ She’d giggled, sitting back like a child on a school bus, nervously excited about her first day. ‘No maps! You had better make sure you remember how to get us home, okay?’

  ‘Don’t you worry, I promise to get you home in one piece.’

  John had never broken a promise to his wife before. And at that moment in time, he thought he never would. They talked and laughed the entire way, admiring the sun-soaked world around them, following any road that took their fancy, opting in every case for the one less travelled, where the car bobbed side to side as though it sailed through a storm. Stone hills were marbled in light, and even the drabbest of meadow waved primaries like coloured ribbon. Soon there were no houses, no other cars, and not another sheep to be seen for miles. Eventually, even the birds grew scarcer. Wherever their adventure was taking them, it was a dead place that even the animals knew to avoid.

  ‘Should we turn back?’ Ciara had asked him, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Let’s just go on a little further,’ he had replied, squeezing her thigh. ‘There has to be something at the finish line.’

  John had so many opportunities to prevent what was coming. But how could he have known? He had played out the memories of that drive so many times, like a movie reel on a loop. John pictured himself in the back seat, roaring at himself to stop, to turn around, to keep his wife safe from whatever the hell was in that woodland. But his past self couldn’t hear him. The ignorant bastard just kept on driving.

  After the car broke down, Ciara had wanted to wait it out. Somebody was bound to come that way eventually. But they had no phone battery and no clue as to where John had brought them. He had fidgeted with the engine, eyeing it up like a mechanic who genuinely knew what he was doing. But the truth was that he hadn’t a clue. It was strange – even his wristwatch had stopped. Miles of lifeless road lay behind them, and without enough food or water, how long would they last? The nights were as dark as they were cold, and Ciara – despite her youth – was in no shape to make such a journey. John saw only one option, and she trusted him enough not to argue against it. They entered the woodland where the road faded to black earth and stone, and shadows sealed the way behind them like a trapdoor vanishing, never to be found again.

  He had watched Ciara weaken over the months. Her tired eyes never opened for long, as though the air itself was an opiate, dulling and draining them. There was never enough food to feed all four mouths. Their appetites had swallowed themselves whole. Even the sensation of a blackberry slipping down the throat was nauseating. Water was divvied between them, leaving no thirst quenched. Ciara’s skin, once so soft like white silk, became dry to the touch, and mottled with stains that she couldn’t wipe clean. The toils of survival were ageing them with a cruel, unstoppable urgency.

  A wiser man might have waited for the winter to pass. Its days were too short, and its dark nights too long. But the cold December had proven itself lethal. Sickness and injury were inevitable. Theirs was a slow death, and it broke his heart to watch his wife languish before his very eyes, wilting like a rose denied the sun.

  He dreaded the thought of leaving Ciara alone with that woman. But she knew how to survive. She had long discarded the baggage of kindness and optimism, leaving only the essentials. These traits were Ciara’s standards, and John sensed that the woman considered them a weakness. Somehow, his wife still smiled. Her green eyes still sparkled, with or without tears. At night, they would sit together. She would burrow into him and he would hold her close, caressing her hair until her breathing slowed to a restless sleep, just like they used to every Sunday; all those days cherished like a past never to be repeated.

  The woodland was darkening, and still John forced his body through its snarled tangles of leaf and vine. His skin was torn. His palms bronzed from blood. There had to be a break soon. Those trees seemed to stretch around the world, growing faster than he could ever hope to outrun. Ciara would never have made it this far, John knew. He would happily trade his life for hers, if only fate would give him the option and stand true to its word. He kept on going. He wouldn’t stop until those things found him, and of that there was no uncertain doubt. Deadwood cracked beneath his feet like brittle bones as he searched for any way out of that accursed place.

  John had yet to see them. Even the woman who had been in the shelter when they happened upon it spun only vague riddles as to their appearance. She knew nothing, but her ignorance didn’t disturb her like it did John. The woman was content to survive, to live a life with no future unlike the present, divested of the simplest joy and comfort.

  She saw them all as burdens, the boy especially. John’s gambit to find help was dismissed by her as suicide. Their pits are everywhere, she had said. Hidden across the forest floor and stretching far beyond it. And come nightfall, the door to their shelter was staying shut. They were the rules. That was how she had survived.

  John fell to his knees; sapped of air and strength, head spinning, coloured freckles dancing across his vision, all the brighter in the last light of day as shadows flooded the forest, concealing the myriad roots that lined the earth like booby traps. His arms were crossed tight over his ribcage, trying to contain the pain that eviscerated every nervous fibre and tortured organ inside him. There was no end in sight. The darkness made quite sure of that. Any minute now, John imagined them swarming around their pits, waiting for the sun’s fatal, final sliver to slip over the unseen horizon. What his mind conceived was influenced only by the sounds behind the mirror, where they watched them night after night for reasons unknown, as a child stares into a fishbowl, tapping its glass.

  Suddenly, their shrieks filled the night. He was out of time. John had never heard them out in the open, far from the shelter whose concrete shell had kept them safe for all
those months. He clawed his way forward, though now the darkness hid the way. Their voices were so close, so ear-splittingly loud that John expected them to fall upon him at any second. But how could that be? The shelter was a day’s trek behind him. Had he become lost? Without daylight and a compass to hold his line, there was no knowing what wayward course had led him there, where the leaves now shivered from the thunder of their bodies, tracking his scent and all those footprints sunken into the black mud.

  Those last nights, when John held his wife in his arms, he had dreamt of surprising her, not with more teddy bears. The spare bed was already teeming with them. He imagined Christmas together in their perfect home. If he could just find a way out, they could be back for her favourite time of year, and that heart-melting look of unbridled bemusement would return, and she would laugh and smile again, and stand on her toes to kiss him. And everything would be like it once was.

  These were John’s last thoughts as the watchers gathered around him.

  DECEMBER

  1

  Mina

  The dashboard darkened just before the engine died. Its red dials had been the only colour since nightfall. All else was black or white, or something in between; the ashen hue of moonlight. The headlamps didn’t fade or flicker. The night swallowed the road ahead in one impatient gulp and the car sailed to a stop, its tyres scrunching over frosted stone. Then there was only that lightless silence and Mina straining to make sense of it.

  ‘This is your fault,’ she whispered to the parrot on the back seat; its cage was propped up between two coats. But Mina knew that the bird wasn’t to blame.

  ‘Just follow one of those country roads,’ Peter had said in that husky smoker’s voice that always made Mina consider quitting. ‘They all lead the same way, and it won’t take you more than a few hours, and the bird will give you no trouble. Tim told me that he only acts up when he’s hungry.’