8. Türchen

[servena]

Titel: The Longest Night
Challenge: Die längste Nacht
Fandom: Being Human Apocalypse AU
Wörter: ~3.000
Charaktere: Christa Stammers, her grandmother
Sprache: Englisch
Kommentar: Es tut mir echt Leid, dass ich so spät dran bin, ich hatte gestern schon angefangen, aber es wollte und wollte nicht enden! Es ist auch leider nicht so weihnachtlich wie erhofft, aber die Idee hat mich nicht in Ruhe gelassen.

That year, the longest night was the 22th to 23th December. That night, you had a long time to stare out into the dark. And that was what I was doing.

The Longest Night

Long before Christianity was born, the predecessor of Christmas was a festival of lights, meant to bring hope and warmth in a dark and cold time. The longest night was over, even if winter had just begun, and life had prevailed.
Of course the 24th of December wasn’t really the date of the longest night, that was a few days earlier. And even that was only true in the northern hemisphere. But symbolism didn’t care much about these finer points.
That year, the longest night was the 22th to 23th December. That night, you had a long time to stare out into the dark. And that was what I was doing.
I had pulled my legs onto the bench in the kitchen. Out of the window I could see the driveway and a part of the street where it was visible between the hedges. All the lights outside were out, even the street lights had shut down after midnight as they always did in places as far out as this one. But I’d switched off all the lights in the kitchen as well, even the Christmas decorations, and my eyes had gotten used to the darkness.
The back rest of the bench was digging into my side just below my arm, which had fallen asleep ages ago. My feet had grown cold since the oven had flickered out, only a few gleaming embers remaining. I couldn’t remember when I had last moved, my body didn’t feel like a part of me. I was all eyes, trying to catch the slightest glimpse of something changing outside. But all I was rewarded with were some stray birds awake long past their bedtime, and the shadow of the neighbor’s cat moving through the garden.
Bronca, my grandmother’s German Shepherd dog, was similarly motionless. She’d followed me into the kitchen while Rex had stayed behind with my grandmother, and laid down on the tiles in front of the oven. At first her eyes had been on me, but by now they had closed. It almost looked like she had fallen asleep, except her eyes were twitching at the slightest sound.
In the city, there would have been more to hear, sirens in the streets and fighter jets overhead. The television had shown me enough to imagine the rest. But out here, all was quiet. Normal. Except from the growing pressure in my chest that made it hard to breathe, and the slight tremble of my legs I always get when I’m really freaking out. All that adrenaline in the body with nowhere to go.
I hadn’t cried, not once. Somehow it felt just right that after my own world, the world of everyone else would also inevitably change. I just wondered why it had taken it so long.
I couldn’t hear my grandmother’s knitting needles clicking anymore from the living room across the hall. Maybe she’d fallen asleep on the couch. If she had, I wouldn’t wake her. But maybe she also just couldn’t stop staring out of the window.
My mother would have tried to get me to return to the living room. I was grateful that my grandmother could just let me be.
In the end, I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, there was an old kilt covering me. It smelled like the dogs, but it was warm. I had woken just in time to watch the sunrise, the light creeping over the edge of the field across the street, making every stalk stand out sharply against the brightening sky.
In the movies, there would be a car now appearing over the hill, and it would be the right car, the red paint gleaming, with my father at the wheel and my mother and brother in the other seats, just like he had promised on the phone just before the lines went down for good.
But we weren’t in that kind of movie, I was certain now. And promises like these were hard to keep.
I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to do now, in fact I hadn’t thought much at all these past hours, I had just been and watched. But now my body moved of its own volition, stretching out the kinks and waking sore muscles before sliding to the floor. Bronca lifted her head immediately, and when I slipped out of the kitchen she followed me up the stairs, her claws clicking on the wood with every step. She wasn’t allowed there, it was one of the rules my grandfather had enforced before he died, but she felt keenly that today everything was different.
The room I was staying in had been my father’s when he grew up here. Nowadays it was a guest room without any personality, and with not much furniture except a bed, a nightstand and a wardrobe, all made of heavy dark wood and all much older than me. My backpack still sat in a corner, I hadn’t even bothered unpacking much except my daily medication. I didn’t go through it, I knew exactly what it contained. Instead I opened the wardrobe, and found what I was looking for.
The dark green jacket had once belonged to my father, back when he was still much younger and slimmer. The fabric was rough and thick outside, and lined against the cold inside, and only when I pulled it off the hanger did I remember how heavy it was. I hadn’t put it on since I was a child, when I had worn a lot of my parents’ old clothing for made-up fashion shows, and it was startling to realize that while it was too wide in the shoulders, it did fit me now. It felt like a protective shell around me, like somehow, you could survive a world war in it without getting as much as a scratch.
The pocketknife was also where I remembered, in the second drawer of the nightstand. I had never told either of my grandparents that I had found it, certain that they would then hide it somewhere else. Instead I had only taken it out when I was alone, pretending to be an explorer in a foreign jungle or a pirate stranded on a remote island. The blade was still sharp and free of rust. When I snapped it together, it fit somewhat comfortably in one of my heavy boots.
Inside one of the wardrobe doors there was a mirror. The face staring back at me was pale, with dark rings underneath a pair of wide eyes. It didn’t feel like me. Most of all, my hair bothered me – I’d started to grow it out again, mostly because my mother kept asking me to, but I hadn’t gotten a decent haircut in months and it looked shaggy and unkempt. I’d hoped it would make me look more feminine, somehow more like the little girl that loved getting her hair braided. Instead it looked like I was trying to be something I was not. It was all I’d been doing for the past two years. And there was no more time for that.
It was easier than expected. I just pulled them pack with one hand and the knife slid through them, strands of brown hair falling around me like snow. Now it looked somewhat like it had before, with my hair almost reaching my shoulders. Like it did on that day.
I pulled the left sleeve of my sweater back, my cold fingers slipping underneath the fabric until they could press against the scars, thick scratches on my upper and lower arm, the reason why I hadn’t worn tops in two years.
“No more hiding”, I whispered to myself.
I pulled my backpack over my right shoulder and tried to walk down the stairs without making the old wood creak. But right when I reached the bottom, Bronca so close to my heels she was almost bumping into me, there were sounds coming from below and I froze.
I rounded the stairs in three big steps and saw that the cellar door was wide open. My heart was already in my throat, but Bronca hadn’t made a sound, so it could only be one person.
In the same moment, my grandmother appeared at the bottom of the stairs with Rex in tow, carrying a big basket that contained what looked like half of her winter stash, jars over jars of preserved fruit and marmalade as well as smoked sausages and all kinds of tin cans. She didn’t seem surprised to see me at all. “Give me a hand, will you?”
What was I supposed to do? I put the backpack down and helped carry the basket upstairs into the hall, almost pulling my arm out of its socket in the process. There she gave me a long look. I expected her to fuss about the hair, or maybe fuss about the fact that I looked like I was leaving, but instead she just said: “I think this needs some adjustment.”
I hadn’t come up with something to say by the point she returned from the kitchen, scissors in hand. I hadn’t been talking much for a long time, but now I felt positively mute. She made me stand still so she could adjust the ends. Finally she said: “I think this will do”, and I dared to breathe deeply again.
I took a glance at the hallway mirror, and it indeed looked much better. My grandmother on the other hand looked as messy as I had ever seen her. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry and grey strands of hair had escaped the tight bun to surround her head.
“So”, she said after looking at the scissors for a moment and then putting them into the basket, “I think we can do this in about an hour. Here is your part of the list.”
She handed me a piece of paper. The penciled writing was small and cramped and ran all the way down to the end of the page. It began with: “Matches. Candles. Scissors. Bandages. Alcohol for disinfection. Painkillers.” Now I knew what she’d been doing last night, and suddenly I felt ashamed at my lousy preparations.
She interpreted my look of surprise correctly. “You didn’t think we’d wait around forever, did you? My son thinks he has to take care of everything now that his father has died, but we don’t have time for this nonsense now. He had time until sunrise. Now we’re going to look for them.”
I didn’t recognize this woman standing before me, but I already liked her.
It took more than an hour. Grandma’s list was long and the old Land Rover with a dull green color spotted with rust, had a lot of space to be filled. I clearly remembered all the discussions with my father, who insisted she needed a newer car with the latest safety measures. “Nonsense”, she had declared, “this car is as secure as a tank.” It certainly looked like one.
We filled the trunk with food and water bottles and put bags with spare clothing and all sorts of useful knick-knacks on top. Grandma found the spare car battery my grandfather kept in the shed, and we opened the doors to the garage and let the engine idle to load it up. Then we checked the pressure in the tires. There were even gas canisters for emergencies hidden in a corner.
“I always laughed because your grandfather was such a paranoid man”, grandma said as we filled up the tank as far as it would go. “I assume somewhere he’s laughing about me now.”
While my grandmother went through the street maps to decide which ones we’d take with us, I hauled a whole bag full of dog food out of the house, with Bronca walking next to me so closely that I could feel the warmth of her body against my thigh.
Grandma had always spoiled the dogs, treating them more like children than pets. It was grandfather that had trained them, he had wanted them to protect the house and keep foxes away from the chickens. But now they were used to eating table scraps and getting what they wanted, so they could be a bit overbearing.
But not today. Once a car passed the house on the main street and the dogs responded with their usual barking, but today there was a new sharpness in it. Usually grandma would tell them to “shut the hell up”, but this time she didn’t. Afterwards, they listened to the slightest sound. I could barely make a trip to the garage without Bronca on my heels while Rex wasn’t leaving grandmother’s side if even for a moment, like they had split their duties like this. They didn’t understand all of it, but they knew, of that I was certain.
Finally grandma slammed the trunk shut with so much force that it shook the whole car, and declared: “Almost done. Just one more thing.”
One more thing turned out to be in the attic. We pulled down the wooden ladder and I waited below while she rummaged around. When she finally found what she was looking for and handed it down to me, I almost let it go. “What is that?”
“That”, grandma said as she moved down the ladder with a small box in one hand, “is an M1 Garand. It belonged to my father. He went through World War 2 with it.”
The metal of the muzzle seemed to burn itself into my skin. “Does it work?”
“I should hope so. Let’s find out.”
The yard behind the house was cold and full of leaves from the trees, but that was not the reason I was shivering. I watched with a mix of apprehension and curiosity while my grandmother loaded the gun. “You’ve got 8 shots in a clip. Hold your hand like this when you insert it so your thumb doesn’t get hit by the bolt. Safety is in front of the trigger. You push it back when you want to shoot and push it forward afterwards. When the clip is empty, it’s gonna be ejected automatically, and you’re gonna hear it. You hold it like this, with the butt set against your shoulder to absorb the recoil. You look through here. Breathe in, then breathe halfway out if you’re trying to shoot accurately. Otherwise, fire three times in quick succession.”
The shot rang out loud in the oppressing silence. Splinters of wood flew and a whole branch came down from the pine tree she had been aiming at. In the distance, a flock of birds rose up from a field to take to the sky. “Still works nicely. Now you try it.”
My fingers felt like they should be shaking, but when I looked at them, they appeared to be calm. The gun was heavy and it took a moment to find the right way to grip it. “Put your finger around the trigger, then pick your target. You have to squeeze firmly to fire, it’s not very sensitive.”
I breathed in, then breathed halfway out before holding my breath. Then I squeezed.
The butt hit my shoulder so hard it hurts and the resulting bang was so loud it left a ringing in my right ear. I watched my target for a moment, certain that I had missed, but then the rest of the rope holding the swing started to fray and finally ripped. Take that for symbolism, if you will.
“Now point the muzzle towards the ground. Never point it at something you don’t intend to shoot, accidents happen. Now put the safety in. Good girl.”
We didn’t talk on the way back to the car. There, Grandma opened up the back door first. “Get in”, is all she had to say, and Bronca and Rex jumped onto the back seats.
The gun fit behind the wind shield, on top of the small stack of maps. There were bags behind my seat, so I had pulled it up so far that my knees now pressed against the dashboard. I could feel Bronca’s hot breath against my left shoulder. If she could crawl upon my lap, she would.
Grandma turned the key in the ignition and the car sputtered to life with a low roar. We pulled out of the driveway slowly, gravel crunching beneath the tires. I turned around in my seat as far as I could and watched the house disappear behind us.
Then I turned back to her. She didn’t get much sleep either and the lines are deeply etched into her face. Somehow that didn’t make her look older, only harder.
Only now did I realize that she didn’t promise me anything. “You didn’t say that we’re going to find them.”
She turned her head to face me. There was no one on the roads, and she could probably drive them blind. “I assume you’re old enough to know that adults make these kinds of promises all the time, even when they can’t keep them.”
I thought about Dad on the phone. “Yeah.”
Her mouth pulled into a grin that showed her uneven teeth. “But I’ll be damned if we don’t give it a good try.”
Smiling felt strange on my face, but it was a nice feeling for a change.

Comments

[der_jemand]

Schäferhunde sind definitiv weihnachtlich. <3

I didn’t recognize this woman standing before me, but I already liked her.
Oh damn it, das ist so gut. Und, ja, ich mag sie auch. <3
Die komplette "Eine lange, endlose Nacht und danach reicht es."-Sache funktioniert wahnsinnig gut. *__*
Wenn nicht weihnachtlich, dann definitiv winterlich.

[servena]

Gut, dass ich den Satz nicht gestrichen habe, ich hatte drüber nachgedacht. XD

Und es freut mich so sehr, dass es funktioniert. Ursprünglich sollte das Ganze etwas mehr auf Christa konzentriert sein, aber ich konnte der Vorstellung einer coolen Oma einfach nicht widerstehen... Und den Schäferhunden.