Angels For a Reason

A Locket of Memories

“This should be a fun day”-
“And the wise one has spoken!” It was Dylan, my overly-ignorant brother, who interrupted me mid-sentence. As usual.
“Let me finish idiot!” I elbowed him in the arm and he leapt back yelling out in mock pain as Rosie giggled and Sue mumbled something about immaturity.
“So you were saying?” He asked.
“I was saying this should be a fun day when we haven’t got any water”
“Well go and get some then!” he said.
“No you! I went yesterday!”-
"Well your the oldest!"-
"You run more!"-
"Someone needs to get some!"-
"Why do I have to do everything?"-
"Cause you arranged this trip"-
"Well I wish you hadn't come you lazy, good-for-nothing, selfish little"-
"Ellie!" Sue stopped me before I coul finish and flashed a warning sign. My brother was after all 13 and I needed to be the mature one at 17.
"We'll all go and get the water together" Rosie proposed helpfully. I smiled thankfully at her and turned my back on Dylans' grin, he loved riling me up.

Ten minutes later we reached the top of the hill where the same new water pump I had used yesterday stood and placing our pan underneath I pulled the lever down. The pump itself worked perfectly but no water came gushing out; not even dripping out!
"It's not working" I called to the others. The wind was picking up quickly and playing havok with my loose brown hair as the sky began to darken with moody grey clouds. The setting was changing rapidly from a warm summer morning to a dismal, dark, soon to be rainy afternoon.

"Where are the other water pumps?" Sue asked me seriously. We'd need water for food and drink soon and nobody wanted to hike in the cold rain on their own so if we were leaving for another pump we'd need to leave soon. I checked the map and recognised the symbol in a matter of seconds.
"It's back through the way we came on the other side of our camping area. It'll take us 10 minutes to get back to camp and 15 to get to the other pump.

"Brilliant!" Dylan shouted sarcasticly over the wind and I felt a twinge of guilt for not looking after him like I should be, after all it was my idea to camp, I should have been trying to make it as comfortable for everyone as possible and not arguing constantly with my brother.

“Why isn’t it working?” I stood slowly, muttering under my breath, searching around the base of the pump.

“What are you doing?” Dylan asked in the most ridiculing tone of voice possible.

“As if it isn’t obvious.” Sue replied dryly. “She’s trying to find out WHY the pump isn’t working instead of just yelling at people.” I could have laughed at the look on my brothers’ face but decided against it. Glancing back at the pipe I saw something red shimmering in the sunlight. I gasped and stepped closer to it. A putrid smell of blood reached my nose, it invaded the strong smell of freshly cut grass that was surrounding us and drove it away with the bluntness of an axe. I squinted in disgust but the stench only grew stronger and when I forced my eyes open I saw more coming out!
I felt sickened inside; the thick liquid pouring out of the pipe gave me images of corpses and dismembered body parts ‘I’ve been watching way too many horror movies’ I thought to myself trying to push the images aside and think about something else but the rusty, rotting smell attacked my mind.

“Erm, guys? You might want to see this” I said, quickly drawing away as Dylan nearly head butted the pipe in his hurry to investigate and tried to slow my panicked heartbeat.
“Is it human blood?” Sue had come over to see what the interest was about and I felt her shaking with fear beside me.
“I don’t think so…” My voice trailed away as Dylan exclaimed loudly-

“What the hell….” But he didn’t have time to finish the sentence. Something was poking through the end of the tap. First was a pink nose, then a small brown head and following it came a brown body drenched in blood. Sue screamed and Dylan swore loudly as the rat slumped onto the floor at his feet, shuddering at first as though having a fit, then it lay, unmoving.

I walked up to Sue, and put my arm around her it seemed as though she had taken the appearance of the rat’s limp form the worse out of all of us. She was shaking three times as much as before and a tear was rolling down her cheek.

“Sue,” I tried to find the right words to say but couldn’t, instead I mumbled quietly, “it was just a rat; you didn’t know it and I suppose it’s a relief that it died outside that horrible, dark pipe.” I felt stupid as I heard the words myself but I was gobsmacked and slightly relieved it wasn't something worse.

“Its not that” She muttered, another tear coursing its way over her now sickly white skin.

“Sue?” I looked at her, growing more and more worried.

“Look. Look...”She couldn’t force the words out. Instead she pointed to the rats’ tail, half dismembered from its body. Rosie also saw it and we looked at each other, panic growing ever more evident through my bones. Tangled around the mangled tail was a small silver chain, holding a tiny locket. I stepped towards it and forced myself to remove the delicate piece of jewelry. Sue had recognized it and I knew she would never react like this without good reason, she knew something about this locket and I was just as curious as Rosie as finding what scared her so much. With a lot of effort I managed to get the bloodied locket loose and opened it. What I saw inside chilled my bones and made my blood run as cold as ice. As I glanced at Sue, her worst fears were confirmed. She collapsed on the ground before anyone caught her and Dylan looked at me curiously. Rosie stared at me with the same fear as Sue, this was something that turned our worlds upside down.





Angels For A Reason