The Tale of Sawney Bean (Complete Novella) by Kevin J. Kennedy

deteriorated. It left me
wondering what parts of a person that we fall in love with. Sarah
had lost the power of speech quickly and over the years had went
through fazes of being withdrawn and others of being more outgoing
within our family. I was never able to work out what was going on
in her head or what set her off after all those years but I knew I
had never stopped loving her. I would kill every man in town to
protect her if that is what it took.
     
    We rounded the
corner to where the sand started and in our path stepped 6 young
men. They were probably aged between thirteen to about seventeen as
I could best tell and each carried a weapon. All nine of us stopped
dead. I knew the young lads had been searching about the caves
after hearing all the talk in town but I’m not sure that they
actually expected to find us there or that we even existed in the
first place. Looking at us however, there was no mistaking who we
were, even the boys and me were milk white from very rarely going
outside, our bodies were hardened from the life we lead and we were
dirtier than your average person with old worn clothes. I think if
it hadn’t been for the fact that people were looking for a wild
family I would have been able to talk our way out of it but
standing here with my two boys who couldn’t talk facing six fiery
but scared young lads I knew where this was going.
     
    My boys stood
on either side of me, tensed like two pieces of granite, not moving
a muscle because I was their leader and they would await my orders.
I couldn’t bring myself to have them attack these young lads. They
were just boys and on top of that one of my boys could be injured
badly or killed. Without saying a word one of the bigger boys
lunged at Wolf and thrust his spear straight at his chest. Wolf
merely turned his body, leaning back and let the spear pass by him,
grabbing hold of it and pulling hard, the boy came flying towards
him. Wolf snapped the boy’s neck with ease and dropped him at his
feet. That set the group off and they all attacked at once. As they
came towards us I saw a blur out of the side of my eyes as Wolf and
Hawk leapt further than any man should be able to, landing behind
the attackers they grabbed one each and done something that shocked
me to my core. They both sunk their teeth into the boys necks and
ripped out a massive chunk which they chewed on as they quickly
dispatched the other three. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the
carnage in front of me that had lasted a few seconds at most and
then at my blood covered boys who stood there finishing the raw
meat that they were chewing on.
     
    It took us a
long time to get the boys buried and cover our tracks. I had no
doubt they would be found but what could we do? Six boys going
missing wasn’t going to go unnoticed. We kept two of the bodies and
I thought it would be hard bringing them so far into the caves as
it wasn’t the easiest going route but the boys just flung a body
each over their shoulders and marched on as if it was a piece of
cloth they were carrying. By the time we got back and got everyone
fed I had never felt so exhausted. I tried to think back to how
high and far Wolf and Hawk had jumped and the image of them biting
into the boys necks but I was asleep before I knew it.
     
    The next day I
went up to the cave mouth myself. There were footsteps. That was a
really bad sign considering we had used branches to cover ours
behind us so someone had made these in the very short period of
time before the tide came in the night before or had been here
earlier this morning. Either way it was bad. I went straight back
into the caves and checked on our stock. We were pretty well set up
to be here for a long time without any risk of starving. We had
fresh water available to us in the cave and there wasn’t much else
we needed so I tried my best to let the boys know going outside was
off limits and they seemed to understand.

Chapter
24
     
    A few months
have passed since I last