The Tale of Sawney Bean (Complete Novella) (4 page)

Every time I
started to get really worried about Sarah she would seem to snap
back to her old self again as if she knew how much I needed to see
her. I still loved her on the bad days but it just didn’t feel like
she was there sometimes and it could get lonely. It was almost like
her spirit had left the shell of her body behind some days.

I left one
morning heading to a nearby town having decided that I would mix up
my routine to lessen the chance of being caught. I hadn’t realised
how long it would take me to get to there and get back. When I did
everything would be changed forever.

Chapter
12

I don’t know
why but as I crawled into the cave mouth I had a feeling that
something was wrong. I could hear Sarah’s singing coming down from
the cavern, soft and sweet which was a good sign as she had been so
withdrawn over the last few days but I just had a feeling in my
stomach something was different.

I made my way
up into the cavern, my mouth starting to water as my nostrils
filled with the smell of whatever meat she was cooking us over the
fire. I could see the light in the cavern flickering from the
candles and the fire as I approached. I wondered to myself why I
had this feeling of worry and then I heard it, a noise that could
only have been one thing.

I rushed the
rest of the distance into the cavern and came around the wall to
see her sitting there. Sarah was sitting cross legged with a little
baby in front of her. She had something cooking over the fire in
the frying pan as she looked up at me with the biggest smile I’ve
seen since I met her.

“I saved her.”
She said smiling.

“Who’s baby is
this?” was the only thing I could think to ask.

She nodded
towards a body lying just into the shadows. I couldn’t make much
out but he looked like he was lying at an awkward angle and I
didn’t think he was likely to be getting up again. I could feel my
heart starting to race as a million questions ran through my mind.
Who was this guy? Why was he here and why did you have a baby? What
had I missed in my few extra hours away after months without
incident?

The next thirty
minutes were spent with Sarah telling me how she had seen the man
on the beach below and how he was hurting the baby and she just
couldn’t watch any longer and how she had went to confront him and
he attacked her. The story was obviously bullshit but I had no way
of finding out what had actually happened or how she had managed to
get a body probably more than twice her weight up the cliff side.
All she would talk about though is how we would have to look after
the baby because it would need us to survive. I never believed a
word of her story but found it pointless to argue with her. I had
no idea where the man and child had came from but had assumed they
must have wandered onto the secluded beach and been seen by you. I
was surprised you would have been close enough to the cave entrance
to have seen them but she wasn’t going to give me answers and I had
no way of finding out.

I had known you
had wanted a baby so much but I had no idea you would have killed
for it. I don’t know why I was surprised as you had killed your
aunt and uncle but that had been in self defence. Had this man
tried to harm her or had he been murdered for his baby? Had he
maybe just scared her by being there and her mind being so fragile
that she had felt she was protecting herself and now being left
with a baby was just a happy or unhappy coincidence depending on
how you look at it.

I had a lot to
think about but after a long day an unwelcome surprise I could
think about nothing else apart from food and sleep. I ate some of
the meat you had cooked and fell asleep watching you rocking back
and forward whispering to the baby.

It wasn’t until
the next morning that I thought about where she had go the meat we
had ate for dinner the night before. It took me a while to get her
to tell me but when she did I couldn’t have been more shocked. It
was him, the body, the guy she killed. She had cooked part of him.
Even when I heard the words I still couldn’t register what she was
saying to me. It was only after I checked the body and seen where
she had cut away the meat that I knew she was telling me the truth.
I couldn’t believe what she had done. When did it become okay to
eat people? I can’t say that I vomited on the spot or my stomach
was churning. It just felt wrong. I don’t think I could have eaten
it if I had knew what it was but I had enjoyed it at the time and a
whole night later it just didn’t make me feel sick. I just couldn’t
believe she had done it.

Sarah was quiet
most of the day but that evening when the baby had fell asleep she
came to me and apologised for what she had done but explained that
she couldn’t see why it was so wrong.

“He’s already
dead and we haven’t had any meat for so long.” she said.

“What even made
you think to cook him though?”

A shrug of the
shoulders was all I got. Sarah could be like that often and that
would be the end of the conversation. There would be no reasoning
with her. She would just stop answering. I got rid of the body the
next morning. I dropped it down the massive pit further into the
caves knowing that way it would never be found without someone
passing by us first and even then who would ever go down so
far?

Over the next
few weeks I split my time going out and stealing some things we
would need to care for a baby and sitting watching her with the
child when I was home. If anyone seen Sarah with the kid they would
have thought it was hers, she couldn’t even have been two yet and
seemed to have taken to Sarah as if she was the child’s own mother.
Maybe the baby hadn’t had a mum. Maybe she had died during birth or
something and we didn’t even know for sure the man with the baby
was the father. Now he was gone too. The kid was better off with us
anyway. At least it had two parents who would love and protect it.
She would be better off here away from the evil of people.

Sarah who was a
natural mother, even on days where she wasn’t herself she would
just sit with the baby in her arms rocking back and forward and
humming to it softly. We had went back to speaking less again but
every night Sarah told me how much she loved our little family
before snuggling into me for warmth. I knew nothing would take away
my love for Sarah but I worried what would happen if she killed
again.

I had heard
people talking around town after her aunt and uncles death and the
speculation was that another tavern owner or inn keeper might have
murdered them in the hope that the closure would drum up more
business for their own establishment but as far as I could tell no
one had been arrested. I heard people make mention of the missing
girl and commenting that she would turn up dead which led me to
believe Sarah wasn’t a suspect.

The second time
Sarah had taken life I was more worried. I knew nothing about this
man and his child but it turned out neither did anyone else. He
must have just arrived in town as no one was talking about his
disappearance. I’m sure someone somewhere was missing him but no
one was talking about it in town. We seemed to have gotten away
with it.

Chapter
13

Our lives
started to settle down again and what had became our normality
returned. I again started thinking how our cave wasn’t so different
from a normal home and again began to believe we were just a
typical family. Sarah had called the baby Lily which I wasn’t keen
on at first but it had started to grow on me and strangely seemed
to suit her although I knew it wasn’t her real name. Someone had
given her a name at birth but that name was lost now.

Sarah never
stopped being an amazing mother and would put the child before
herself in any given situation but her mental health continued to
deteriorate. She spoke very rarely, even to Lily but she would
still often hum peaceful tunes or lullaby’s. I occasionally heard
her ranting to herself but when I tried to speak to her she would
fall silent again.

I still had to
make trips into town but I would try to keep them as short as
possible hating to leave Lily and Sarah alone. The longer we stayed
at the cave the easier I found it managing our lives there but I
wasn’t much of a hunter so it was rare we would have meat with our
dinner. The rare times we did always brought a smile to Sarah’s
face. I often wondered if it reminded her of the first time we met
and shared the rat or if she just really enjoyed and missed eating
meat. Never getting an answer in return to my questions meant I
would never know.

For all the
time Sarah and I had lived at the cave we had never once had sex.
Sarah had wanted a baby but we were both young and scared and had
no idea how we would survive in a cave then she had ended up with a
baby anyway. I think that distracted her for a while but I was
woken up one night with Sarah straddling me and thrusting up on
down on me. I was shocked to say the least but the sensation
quickly overtook any other feelings I was having and I just lay
there and let her ride me. I didn’t last long I have to admit but
it wasn’t a soft loving tender lovemaking session. Sarah had ridden
up and down on me but it was perfunctory and all she had wanted was
another baby. Not sex but none the less feeling myself slipping in
and out of her soft flesh was the most amazing sensation I had ever
experienced.

I’m not sure
how many times it had taken but I was awoken by Sarah each night
ridding me until she missed her next period and she knew she was
pregnant. She never approached me once for sex or anything close
while I was awake. To her it was how you got a baby but there was
nothing loving about it even though I knew she still cared for me
in her own way. We had a second child on the way and we hadn’t even
been living in the cave for a year. I wondered to myself sometimes
if I had made the right decision coming with Sarah but I never
truly thought about leaving. Just where my life might have led but
I doubted it would have been anywhere good.

Once Sarah was
pregnant the sex stopped and when I tried to approach her she would
just push me away and growl under her breath. I didn’t try for long
before giving up as I didn’t want to hinder the relationship we
had. I know you may be thinking we didn’t talk and we didn’t have
sex but it wasn’t that kind of relationship. Sarah had taken
herself away from a world she didn’t want to be a part of and to
her I was her comfort, her protection, her provider. She loved me
for that and I have never doubted that. She had dealt in her own
way and I had made sure that I was everything else she needed and
took care of the things she wasn’t capable of. All I ever wanted to
do was protect and love her and I couldn’t hold it against her that
she was fragile and the world had broken her so completely. I don’t
think killing her aunt and uncle brought her the closure she
needed. She was haunted by the memories of what had happened to
her.

Sarah had
always been a tiny girl ever since I met her and being pregnant
didn’t change that, she just ended up all belly and the rest of her
still tiny. We were already pretty well set up for a baby so it
wasn’t too much trouble preparing for another.

Chapter
14

The scariest
thing about the second baby was the fact that I had to deliver it.
In hindsight it wasn’t that difficult but it was terrifying at the
time. I spent a lot of time watching Sarah with the babies and that
was her happiness, her new life, they were all consuming for her.
She could sit for hours and hours just looking at the babies and
humming to them, sometimes just sitting quietly staring into space
but never more than an arms length from the babies.

I named our
second child and as Sarah hadn’t spoken in some time I named her
Isla which Sarah seemed to be happy with. Isla couldn’t have been
more than two months old when Sarah started having sex with me in
the night again. I really didn’t think another baby was going to
make our lives any easier but I could not bring myself to stop her
one time. Ever since the first time it happened I craved sex with
her. I wanted the closeness of it as well as the feeling. As I’ve
said it wasn’t gentle caring sex but you can not have sex with the
woman you love and not feel close to her no matter what and it’s
not like I had a long list of sexual encounters to compare it to.
Like the last time though as soon as she missed her period it
stopped. Just like that. She had again gotten what she needed from
me.

The next twelve
years passed by like this. It would take a lifetime to tell you
about my lifetime but the next twelve years, as abnormal as they
may seem to you passed by relatively trouble free. To anyone living
in a normal house, working a normal job and having a run of the mil
life it may seem like a hardship what I put myself through but I
have almost nothing but fond memories of the years.

We did run into
a few problems over the period but who doesn’t. The gent I found in
the cave when Sarah stole the baby wasn’t the last person she would
kill, we suffered some really bad winters which made leaving and
entering the cave almost impossible but after the first year I
planned better. Our baby count constantly going up again meant
there were many hardships along the way but from what I understand
that is the case for most families.

By the time
Sarah was twenty six and I was twenty four we had 9 children, 6 of
our own and three Sarah had acquired by means unknown to me. What
ever she had done we had never been caught or hunted but she still
never wanted to leave the cave so I was at a loss to how she
managed this.