Defiance in the Light

Dylan was surprised when he woke early that morning, in time to watch the sky as it slowly turned from black, to dark blue and eventually rounded off with a pinkish-orange colour as the sun became visible over Defiance; he had barely been able to sleep the entire night worrying about Hayley, the look he had seen in her eyes had only shown itself once before, during a dark time they both very much wished to forget.

  Six years previous, Dylan’s mother and Hayley’s Father had run away together and abandoned them both, they sent cards every year for birthdays and Christmas but neither of them wanted any contact and had ignored them; in most cases such an event would have left them both with a bitter resentment, but instead they only grew closer as they helped the other deal.

A few years after leaving, Hayley’s father had attempted rekindle his relationship with his daughter, but she made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with him and he hadn’t shown his face ever since.

Hayley was deadly serious, that much he knew, but what she had told him was completely mental!

But what had she told him? That she thought there were too many deaths, the majority of which were being labelled as suicides? He could tell she was just as lost as he was with this, but where did she drag up all the stuff about death from?

He had spent several hours thinking about this on his bed in the dark before he finally drifted off at about 3am, although his sleep was not entirely dreamless; Dylan recalled that the dream itself, though strange, was fairly simple:

           He was in a body not entirely his own dressed in dark robes, the hem of which stopped an inch before the floor. He stood on a hill overlooking the town with at least four others, all dressed in flowing robes the same as his, he tried to make out their faces but they were hidden beneath their hoods; they all seemed to be very busy, rushing about from pillar to post (an old expression Dylan’s father had taught him) but none of them actually seemed to do anything because whenever they stopped they just seemed to crouch down and fiddle with the grass beneath them; they continued this cycle for a few minutes, Dylan rushing about much the same in an attempt to copy their movements, before they ceased and assembled at the edge of the hillside and once again Dylan found himself staring out at the town. All went quiet but for a low chanting from beneath the earth which seemed to grow in volume, Dylan tried to make out the words but as he did so the world began to disappear into darkness as he stirred from his slumber.

 He wrote down the dream before it began to fade in the hope that it would take his mind off things or at least offer him some clarity over what to do- it did not. He wasn’t even sure if he should do anything, after all it wasn’t as if there was some major conspiracy; but even so, Hayley was a born journalist and once she smelled something interesting it would be tough to make her let it go without definitively proving there was nothing to be found.

       Thinking back, Dylan regretted his attitude towards Hayley when she told him about the deaths as he realized it would make her reluctant to talk to him about them again,

‘Or anyone else for that matter’ he reasoned, and resolved to be more sensitive if he wanted to help her one way or another.

          Dylan’s father had never fully recovered after his mother had left so before heading downstairs he poked his head through the doors to see if he had managed to drag himself out of bed yet, seeing the empty room brought little solace, over the

years he had made slow but steady progress but he rarely left the house unless necessary.

       Passing through the living room Dylan realised that his father had never made it to bed last night and had instead crashed out on the living room floor, he felt a blush of embarrassment as he realised Hayley was likely to have seen him on her way out; pulling his phone from his trouser pocket he tried to call her but it kept on going to voicemail, eventually after four tries to no avail he  left her a message and settled on going to see her in person , the idea of which he did not relish as Hayley’s mother had been close to Dylan’s and had been left unrelentingly bitter towards his family after her husband had left her.

       Deciding he had no other choice, Dylan went out to the shed behind his house and rescued his bike from the spider infested abyss were sports equipment went to die; now rusty in places from negligence he was surprised when it worked perfectly, a few creaks from the chain but nothing some oil and exercise wouldn’t fix.

Normally he would have brought it through the house but due to his father lying unconscious on the living room carpet, cheek resting in a puddle of his own saliva, he was unable to so instead had to cart it through his neighbours garden and through the entry-way at the side of their house, something he tried to avoid since his neighbour- Mr Apprih- was the silent type and had a tendency to just stare which Dylan found royally creepy.

 An hour later he finally had the bike in decent condition, he had decided that it would be better to sort it out before setting out than have the bike collapse in the middle of the road, and was riding through the vibrant streets of Defiance; much of it was old but there was barely a single street from the same time setting, for example Dylan’s street had been built in the 1800’s whereas Hayley’s was designed in the late 1600’s, obviously they had been updated so they could still stand and several had been abandoned completely as they were too dangerous to live or work in, but too old to tear down and had become listed historical goldmine; as historians put it, Defiance was a historical goldmine.

    The oldest building in Defiance was undoubtedly the schoolhouse, originally a 13th century monastery it had been converted in the 1800’s when it was decided all children should receive an education, situated on a large grassy hill overlooking the entire town there was not a single soul in Defiance that did not hate the 2 ½ mile trek to and from the schoolhouse; naturally over time it had been added to and was now used as a gym, fully refurbished in the inside but the exterior remained ancient and imposing.

Turning onto Hayley’s street, he had to think hard as to which house was hers as he had not been here in a long time; awkwardly dismounting the size-to-small bike he pulled it alongside him in search of something to remind him which house she lived in, he only found out when a door across the street flew open and out ran Hayley’s mother clearly very distressed.

Following her in a slight jog were two policemen, he knew they were police by the car parked outside, what he didn’t realize however was that it was him the dishevelled Mrs Tomkins was gunning for, he soon found out when she ignored the car rolling down the road and pounced upon him, screaming into his face; he knew she didn’t like him but he didn’t think she hated him this badly.

“Where is she?! What have you done with her?! Where’s my Hayley?!” she screamed unintelligibly at him while he struggled to make out a single word except ‘Hayley’.

Even in the struggle Dylan could see how terrible she looked, Mrs Tomkins was a very proper lady and even during the mess with their parents Hayley’s mother had remained composed; so it was more of a shock than imaginable to see her this way, her make-up had run down her face and her hair was all over the place, a far cry from the Chanel worshipper he knew.

He was scared she would attack him with if he didn’t say something soon but before he could formulate a response she was pulled away from him by one of the policemen and was led back into the house whilst the other checked on Dylan.

 “You okay son?” asked the man, looking up, he took time to examine the man stood before him, he had dark skin and a comically bald head which was reflecting the sun, although was the green-blue trench coat that brought Dylan to the conclusion that he was more likely a DI than a constable.

“Yeah I’m fine I think” he replied, rubbing his neck more out of habit than pain.

“Who exactly are you? I mean that’s quite a welcome you got from Mrs Tomkins”

“Yeah, I’m not exactly her favourite person in the world but I didn’t think it was that bad” he exclaimed, waiting for adrenaline to wear off.

“Judging by her reaction I’m assuming you’re familiar with her daughter, Hayley?”

“Uh, yeah, she’s been like my best-friend for six years, ever since my mum and her dad skipped town together” he responded, the worry growing clear in his voice.

Taking a moment to write in his notebook, he looked Dylan up and down, probably trying to detect if he was lying, before asking

“And the last time you saw her was?”

“Last night” he responded immediately

“She was at my house but had to go home when her mom called her”

He looked genuinely surprised at that and looked as if he was going to question him further when his partner signalled him from inside the house.

 At first he walked over to the constable waiting in the doorway but changed direction when he pointed towards the squad car, Dylan watched as he pulled the radio receiver from the dashboard and communicated with his colleagues on the other end, but he knew it was bad news from the look on the DI’s face as he replaced the receiver and went back inside the house. He stayed on that spot for nearly five minutes, at one point leaning against the fence as his impatience grew, before there was any movement from inside the house; both officers accompanied by distraught looking Mrs Tomkins got into the car and drove away, the DI he had spoken to sparing him a sad glance as he passed him, and left him alone on the quite street as the sun blared down over Defiance.