The Harvest

I ran through the park with my earphones in, pumping my arms and looking spot on the horizon. It was in my exact sightline, and people usually saw me coming, and moved. But alas, no. I ran straight into someone who in turn called me a fucking jock and started to bitch about me to some other kid who was showing her a book. I stopped, hooking the wire of my earphones around each index finger and pulling, so that instead of a harmonious voice filling my ears, it was an angry, swearing teenager.
She had long, almost black hair, in choppy layers, with a yellow-blonde streak on the left side. With a relatively long and pointed face, slim nose and bright blue eyes, I decided immediately that she was very pretty. However, the hateful words coming from her mouth were not.
“Allow me to apologize,” I said, feeling the sweat that had been covering my body and keeping me slightly warm grow cold. She looked at me with narrowed eyes.
“That’s a bloody lot of good, you stupid jock.” I looked at her closely, trying to see if I’d ever met her before. I wasn’t a ‘jock’ in the slightest, if what I had gathered from American books and films was correct. This girl wasn’t American, I could tell, but she looked like the type who would purposely leave out the ‘u’ in ‘colourful’ just to seem cultured.
“I’ve already said I’m sorry,” I added, not wanting to have made a bad impression on her. She blinked at me with her huge eyes and pursed her lips.
“I know,” she hissed. She looked me up and down with a strange smile on her face. I looked over to the boy, who was sketching in his book. She caught me looking. “I didn’t ask him to do it, if that’s what you think.” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow?” She shook her head, still looking cross. It struck me as odd that she was being quite so rude. I hadn’t met her before in my life, and she was acting as if I’d been causing her trouble for years.
“His picture?” she scowled. I frowned, still not quite understanding what she was trying to say. “He drew a picture of me, idiot. And I didn’t ask him to, so don’t think I’m some kind of slut.” Her accent was different, something that immediately indicated to me that she wasn’t from around here. I smiled, almost laughing out loud. What a fool. However, it didn’t make sense that I would think she was a ‘slut’ because he’d drawn a picture of her.
“May I see the picture?” I asked the boy, who turned his notepad towards me and showed an explicit drawing, with the girl’s face for the face of the body. I turned to the girl, and grinned. “I see.” She screwed her nose up and stuck her pointy tongue out at me.
“I thought that was why you ran into me,” she said, hands on hips. “But now I see it was just downright disregard for other people.” I gave her a look that I hoped said ‘what are you talking about?’ Why would I run into her on purpose, anyway? She pouted, then looked at me with a strange expression on her face.
“It really was an accident,” I said quickly, and I knew this made me appear intimidated by her, even though I was far from it. If anything I was humouring the girl, letting her think that I was quite an easy target. And then I could let her know about the Over Thirties.
Her face softened a little.
“Are you new around here?” I asked, although I knew the answer already. She had a very different accent to the locals.
“Yeah,” she said, putting a hand on her hip and pushing her chest out in the boy’s direction. He seemed transfixed by her, which was quite amusing. “Moved here last week.” I raised an eyebrow.
“Smart,” I commented sarcastically, and the corners of her mouth turned down slightly as she caught hold of my form of humour.
“The murders?” she asked. My blood ran cold. How did she know about the murders? I swallowed, my mind going blank. She shouldn’t know, especially not so early on in living in the town. It sort of gave me no purpose. I was the unappointed bad news breaker. I hated it, but no-one else would inform the newcomers.
“How do you know about those?” I almost hissed. Her mouth twitched into a half smile that was quite inappropriate.
“I know about the whole thing,” she said, almost coolly, as if it wasn’t a big issue. Well, she was completely wrong. “About how it’s the over thirties that die, and how no-one can leave. My grandpa told me.”
“Then, why did you come here?” I asked. She shrugged, a smug smile on her face, shifting her weight onto the other leg.
“I want to stop them,” she said, and continued to speak. Only, I didn’t hear what she had to say, because I had spluttered:
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
She shot me an evil look. I had spoken out of turn, but it was one of the most stupid idea’s I had heard in a long time.
“What’s so ridiculous about it?” the boy spoke for the first time. He had a husky voice. I shook my head and folded my arms.
“Everything,” I returned. “How on Earth are you supposed to stop murders?”
“And why couldn’t I?” the girl asked, folding her own arms and up her chin. I caught sight of offense in her face, and the boy’s. If they were going to go after the murderers, they would die. Unfortunately, it was my duty to warn them about that, because no-one else would. It had made me seems crazy before, and people in town, no matter how well they knew me, stayed wary. Including River Valducci, which hurt.
River was born in Breheny, like me, and his whole family had come from here. He’d lost his father already, and his mother was approaching her thirtieth birthday. He and I had caught wind of what was happening in town already, so when he acted as if he didn’t know me, and thought I was lying, it was a kick in the chest. Because he knew alright. He just was too coward to admit it.
“Plenty of reasons,” I responded. “For a start, they’re much stronger than you are.” The boy snapped his head up to look at me. I saw his face full on for the first time; slightly ethnic, yet looking quite British at the same time. Thick dark hair, dark brown eyes, and he was quite good-looking. He was very thin, shrunken inside his clothes, his face gaunt.
“They?” he expressed the word. “They? There’s more than one person committing the murders?” I frowned, and then lied.
“Just what I heard.” The girl gave me a steely look.
“Are you saying I’m weak?” I shook my head, almost amused by her comical stance; her breasts pushed forward, her hand on her hip, her behind thrust out, one knee bent and the other locked, and the other hand in mid air, flopping.
“No,” I said. “But whoever it is, he or she is probably stronger than you. And I’m sure they won’t take kindly to those who interfere.” The boy tore out his drawing, screwing it up and dropping it beside him. I swooped in and picked it up, pushing it into my pocket.
“Littering is the sort of thing you’ll die for,” I said, hoping that the fact I’d just picked up a drawing of a naked girl wasn’t too obvious. The girl raised an eyebrow.
“Do you know about this stuff?” she asked, and I could tell that they were both suspicious. I shook my head, then turned to walk away. I’d given away far too much of my sacred knowledge anyway. I heard footsteps behind me, and the girl suddenly appeared in front of me. She locked her sparkling blue eyes on my face.
“Hey, you owe me a trip to the stationer,” she said. “You trashed my notebook.” She held up a slightly muddy book, covered in a thin white material that was now ruined.
“Okay, fine.” I said, trying to side step her, only she followed my steps, like a reflection.
“I’m Alexis,” she added, smiling. I gave her a half smile of my own, and then tried to walk away. “You aren’t going to tell me yours?” she asked, a look of mock disappointment on her face. I pushed past an arm that she’d held out to stop me, and then broke into a jog again.
“Scott,” I yelled, my feet pounding against the tarmac. “Scott McQuade.” I put my earphones back in, letting the tones of Marcus Mumford fill my ears and take my thoughts elsewhere.

At home, the empty house seemed to loosen, and it felt as if it were growing bigger around me. This wasn’t uncommon; living in a house meant for a young family was like that sometimes. I tried my best to make it feel more welcoming to myself, by putting up pictures, buying furniture that filled the room, even hanging a calendar and purchasing myself a corkboard. It didn’t really work, though. The pictures made me depressed, as I thought back to days when I was happier; the furniture was hard to move around; the calendar hung empty and unfilled; the corkboard looked strange against the modern interior.
I often found myself debating whether to take them down, but always found a reason not to. I usually decided it was because they had become too familiar. Most of the house was very familiar anyway; I’d grown up in it with my parents and my sister, and now I was the only one left, now living in it by myself.
I opened the fridge, taking out a leftover slice of pizza and gorging myself on it, completely ruining the point of the whole three miles of running I had just exhausted myself on. I got myself a glass, filled it with tap water, and sat down on the deep sofa that took up a whole corner of the room. I chewed slowly on the thick food in my mouth, unable to go any faster.
I swallowed some of my mouthful, and debated on what I would do for the following day. Go running again, probably, but on the beach, so that I wouldn’t run the risk of bumping into Alexis or that other boy. And then I would go to the shops, or even find River. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while; he was too busy trying to protect his mother from whatever was going to happen to her. It would be good to talk to him.
I thought about the scene in the park, of Alexis and that other boy. They were both very exotic characters, to say the least. The loud, flirtatious, temperamental girl and the artistic, quiet and strange boy. Alexis was very likely to go after the murders, I decided. Very likely. The annoying thing was that I couldn’t tell her not to without having to explain what I knew about them. And that would secure me death.
I finished my food and went upstairs, to go to sleep. I did little with my day, as there was hardly anything to fill it. I had few friends, no family, and nowhere in town particularly interested me. Eating, running, walking and sleeping were my main activities. I went to Sixth Form too, but in the holidays my days were empty, where I hardly did anything and spoke to no-one.