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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
disclaimer and notes in part 1.
‘Boy, I’m gonna put some sense into that head of yours if it’ll be the death of me.’
I can see him unbuckle his belt, the leather one that makes the sharp sound when it hits bare flesh, my flesh. His eyes burn of anger, they shimmer with hate; I have made him this way.
‘That was a year’s worth of corn that you destroyed, and for what? A stupid schoolyard prank. That corn put food on your table boy, what are we going to do without it now? We can’t make any money from it, and it’s too late to start on a late crop. We’re gonna starve boy, and it’s all your fault. You hear? It’s your fault!’
It’s my fault, it’s my fault, everything is always my fault. I watch his hand grip tightly at the makeshift whip; he looks back at me, and I comply with his inner thoughts and pull down my pants, turning my backside towards him. I know the drill. I’ve been down this road before. Best to get it over and done with.
‘I don’t care what your mother says, I’ll teach you some discipline yet, get it through your head about taking the tractor without consent. You gotta be smarter than that boy, if your gonna survive out there in the world.’
The leather eats into my flesh. Again and again. My eyes sting with unshed tears, knowing that if they fall the punishment will be worse. I tense my body before each lashing, scream when an impact is made, relax to take a breath and then tense all over again. Sometimes I tense too early, sometimes too late; my nerves tighten as though the belt imbued life into them, subordinate to a higher authority.
‘What’re gonna make of yourself, huh? You’re nothing; ain’t worth a damn nickel that’s spent on you. Boy, there’s no heroes like in the comics out there in the world who are gonna save you. Nobody’s gonna save you.’
I smirk. He’s wrong, because there are people who will rescue me. People like Jarod. He stands before me, holding out his hand, a warm smile on his face. There is goodness in him, and I take his hand, knowing everything will be all right as he takes me away from this prison of nightmares.
x
Lyle shot up, arms flailing against the blankets, sweating, a dead scream snagged within his throat. He caught the attention of the bustling day nurse who had come in to open the curtains and cheerfully announce the dawn of day.
‘Good to see you awake foreigner! Lying in bed all day will do little for you. Come, look at the fresh fall of snow before it is trampled into murk,’ she chirped, it being quite obvious she was in an awfully good mood. But Lyle could not look outside the window at the weather, the pain shooting through his upper torso too much to handle as he collapsed back onto the bed.
On her way out, the nurse poked Kristín in the shoulder, bringing her out of peaceful slumber with a sudden jolt. As soon as her vision cleared and eyes focused upon the man, she leaped out of her chair and rushed to his bedside.
‘Hć, hvernig hefur ?ú ?a??’ she asked hurriedly, forgetting he could not understand her. Only when he frowned in confusion did she realize her mistake. ‘Sorry. I speak Trade for you. How do you feel this morning?’
‘Awful. I feel like I’ve been in a train wreck,’ he groaned.
‘We have no train here, but you were in plane crash. Hurt badly. Manst ?ú eftir? Do you remember?’
‘A little.’ Lyle studied the young girl before him, and then glanced round the unfamiliar room. ‘Who are you and where am I?’ he asked cautiously.
Kristín smiled at the man. ‘I am Kristín, your Carer, and you are in Isachsen, small town fifty kilometres from Sey?isfjör?ur. Is that where you going? All the tourist like to go there.’
‘No, we were headed to Egilssta?ir. Looking for a man there.’ Pausing, Lyle took the opportunity to gather some of his strength back. Even talking was becoming difficult for him, the tight bandages surrounding his chest not helping the situation much. ‘This is a hospital, right? How did I get here?’
‘Men from our town, they bring you here after the storm calm down. They rescue you from bad weather, and doctor say you is lucky because you could have died like other one.’
‘Parker? Are you telling me she’s dead?’ he responded quickly, his voice hitting a slightly hysterical tone. Kristín shook her head firmly.
‘Nei, the one you call Parker, a woman, yes? She is somewhere in the hospital, making trouble for the doctor. He say stay in bed, but she say no, yell at him like a man and want to walk around. She is very difficult.’
Lyle smiled, the first in a long while. ‘Yes, yes she is.’
.
They walked upon fresh fallen snow, each step making a soft squishing sound. It was still the new hours of the morning, and the path was unmarked aside from the footprints of Ívar, who had gone home earlier to collect the food to feed the two strangers, his cousin and himself. Now he walked back towards the hospital, this time accompanied by his elder brother Baddi at his mother’s request.
Word had spread quickly in their small community about the strangers. Everybody wanted to know more, the children fathered whatever information they could extract from those who had come into contact with them. Ívar was clearly the favorite, the children almost leaping upon him as he entered the house, thirsty for more news. He told them what he could: blue eyes, dark hair, both very tall, and the woman had a terrible temper, dominant as any man.
‘Like a man! Like a man!’ went the whisper from each child to the next, eyes gleaming with delight. His mother needed only clap her hands once, and the children dispersed, allowing Ívar to move into the kitchen to collect the bundle of warm food.
‘Be careful,’ warned his mother as she wrapped a scarf round his neck. ‘We do not know why they are here, or what they want from us. It is unheard of for someone to brave the oncoming winter like that. Treat them kindly, but be on your guard.’ She placed a kiss on his forehead.
‘I will, mother,’ he replied, then left with his brother to make the journey back to his patients.
Baddi was much older than his sixteen years – he was twenty and seven to be exact – the son from his father’s first marriage and the one every young woman fought for his attention. ‘Why don’t you find a nice girl and settle down,’ mother always asked him, and he’d always answer with, ‘I could never love any girl as much as you mother,’ and leave it at that. So, he remained a bachelor and helped out with the family, occasionally traveling outside the region to Akureyri or Reykjavík, Evrópa, and once even to the Americas for “business” only he knew. Nobody questioned it; he brought home money and needed supplies, and that was enough for them. Ívar wished his brother would sometimes take him along too, but could never muster the courage to ask. He wore only a long dark cloak over his clothing, a thick crop of light curls hidden beneath the hood. Pulled behind him was a small sled, on which lay the bundle of food.
They walked in silence, enjoying the peace of the morning before the town grew noisy with activity. Before long, they had reached the steps outside hospital, one of the largest buildings in the town apart from the church. Ívar gathered the bundle and began to enter the hospital when his brother’s hand lightly touched his arm.
‘I would like to know more about her. You will tell me about the foreigner when you come home, no?’
‘Of course.’
‘Look after them for me, Carer.’
He nodded his head solemnly. ‘I will,’ he said, a hint of a smile on his lips, and then entered the building.
.
‘So, what’s on the menu for breakfast? I’m starving.’ Lyle gently patted his stomach.
‘My cousin has gone home this morning to bring food his mother prepared. As your Carers, it is our family’s responsibility to feed you.’ Kristín soaked a cloth in a bowl of water, then proceeded to wipe Lyle’s forehead to try and bring his temperature down further, a task she had become familiar with in the past few days.
At first shrinking away from her touch, Lyle allowed her to tend to him, cringing as she cleaned around his new forming scabs and changed his bandages. The skin round his left shoulder and part of his ribcage was tainted with several shades of purple, a couple lacerations here and there to add to the effect. His entire upper body was stiff and sore, making movement quite painful.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room, leaving Lyle starting at the ceiling and Kristín still standing by the bed, constantly shifting from one foot to another.
‘Will your family be worry about you? I do not think you will be going anywhere for good long while if your injuries are to heal well,’ she began, hoping to start any sort of conversation between the man and herself.
‘Sydney and Mr Broots will certainly become suspicious after a period of time, but I don’t think our father will miss us all that much ..’ he trailed off, lost in deep thought.
‘Our?’
Lyle looked back at the girl. ‘Yes, our father. Parker is my sister.’
‘Oh,’ was all she could say, a light blush of embarrassment rising to her cheeks, but inside, her heart was wildly fluttering.
‘Do you have a name other than ‘Carer’?’
‘I am known as Kristín.’
‘Well Kristín, I am Mr Lyle.’ He managed a weak smile, showing her his perfect white teeth. She smiled back, gazing into his clear blue eyes that were like windows into his soul. And what a beautiful soul he must have , she thought, content to just watch him all day if not for the arrival of her cousin and the doctor with a slumped figure in his arms.
Kristín rushed over to take the food from his arms as Ívar assisted the doctor in placing Miss Parker back into bed. She unpacked the food and set it onto three separate trays, putting away the remaining share. As she spoon fed him the oatmeal, Lyle watched as Ívar sat down in the chair at the foot of his sister’s bed, ate a little of his food, then picked up a book and began to read.
‘Aren’t you going to wake up Sleeping Beauty and feed her?’
‘I let her sleeping some more,’ he replied, not once looking up from his book. ‘Miss Parker was awake very late last night, and early this morning also. I think she tired herself out, and now rest her sharp tongue for more battles later today. Gerum bara gott úr ?essu, hún er a? gera mig brjála?an.’
Kristín giggled, and Lyle looked to her for an explanation. ‘They give her something to make her sleep, because she cause much trouble this morning.’
‘You drugged her!’ Lyle laughed as much he could without having a coughing fit. ‘You’d better be careful, because if she finds out you’ll be feeling more than just her anger.’
After breakfast, as Kristín cleared away the trays, Lyle asked about ways for he and his sister to get home. However, his line of questioning was met with the same answer: not possible.
‘What do you mean ‘not possible’? There’s got to be a way out of here!’
Repositioning the chair so it was beside his bed, Kristín sat down, a map held in between her hands. She pointed to a place on the chart. ‘We are here, Isachsen, and here is the closest town.’ Point A was surrounded by what seemed to be large mountain ranges, the only thing separating it from point B. ‘The storm you come here in, ever year it comes and snows us in. When spring is here, the snow melt and you can go, but now, nei. Very dangerous to climb through mountains now.’
‘You’re trapped here, foreigner,’ said Ívar, his tone a mixture of disdain and amusement. ‘There is no way in, and no way out.’
.
Turning the keys in the ignition, Jarod brought the engine to life and drove out of the car rental’s parking lot. He drove slowly through the capital, headed north-west in his attempt to get to Miss Parker and Mr Lyle. From what little information he could gather, the two had also rented a car and driven their way to Egilssta?ir via the south-bound route.
However, weather forecasts convinced Jarod not to take that road, as several lives had already been lost on the roads due to the seasonal onslaught of blizzards. As said by the woman behind the counter at the agency, it would be a wiser decision to take longer, but safer course, which meant driving around more than half the country to get to a town he wasn’t even sure if his hunters were in.
‘Maybe I’ll stop by Baddi’s town. He’ll know how to track them down in this territory.’ And with his plan formulated in his head, Jarod continued to drive off into the rural landmass that was Iceland.
TBC
‘Boy, I’m gonna put some sense into that head of yours if it’ll be the death of me.’
I can see him unbuckle his belt, the leather one that makes the sharp sound when it hits bare flesh, my flesh. His eyes burn of anger, they shimmer with hate; I have made him this way.
‘That was a year’s worth of corn that you destroyed, and for what? A stupid schoolyard prank. That corn put food on your table boy, what are we going to do without it now? We can’t make any money from it, and it’s too late to start on a late crop. We’re gonna starve boy, and it’s all your fault. You hear? It’s your fault!’
It’s my fault, it’s my fault, everything is always my fault. I watch his hand grip tightly at the makeshift whip; he looks back at me, and I comply with his inner thoughts and pull down my pants, turning my backside towards him. I know the drill. I’ve been down this road before. Best to get it over and done with.
‘I don’t care what your mother says, I’ll teach you some discipline yet, get it through your head about taking the tractor without consent. You gotta be smarter than that boy, if your gonna survive out there in the world.’
The leather eats into my flesh. Again and again. My eyes sting with unshed tears, knowing that if they fall the punishment will be worse. I tense my body before each lashing, scream when an impact is made, relax to take a breath and then tense all over again. Sometimes I tense too early, sometimes too late; my nerves tighten as though the belt imbued life into them, subordinate to a higher authority.
‘What’re gonna make of yourself, huh? You’re nothing; ain’t worth a damn nickel that’s spent on you. Boy, there’s no heroes like in the comics out there in the world who are gonna save you. Nobody’s gonna save you.’
I smirk. He’s wrong, because there are people who will rescue me. People like Jarod. He stands before me, holding out his hand, a warm smile on his face. There is goodness in him, and I take his hand, knowing everything will be all right as he takes me away from this prison of nightmares.
x
Lyle shot up, arms flailing against the blankets, sweating, a dead scream snagged within his throat. He caught the attention of the bustling day nurse who had come in to open the curtains and cheerfully announce the dawn of day.
‘Good to see you awake foreigner! Lying in bed all day will do little for you. Come, look at the fresh fall of snow before it is trampled into murk,’ she chirped, it being quite obvious she was in an awfully good mood. But Lyle could not look outside the window at the weather, the pain shooting through his upper torso too much to handle as he collapsed back onto the bed.
On her way out, the nurse poked Kristín in the shoulder, bringing her out of peaceful slumber with a sudden jolt. As soon as her vision cleared and eyes focused upon the man, she leaped out of her chair and rushed to his bedside.
‘Hć, hvernig hefur ?ú ?a??’ she asked hurriedly, forgetting he could not understand her. Only when he frowned in confusion did she realize her mistake. ‘Sorry. I speak Trade for you. How do you feel this morning?’
‘Awful. I feel like I’ve been in a train wreck,’ he groaned.
‘We have no train here, but you were in plane crash. Hurt badly. Manst ?ú eftir? Do you remember?’
‘A little.’ Lyle studied the young girl before him, and then glanced round the unfamiliar room. ‘Who are you and where am I?’ he asked cautiously.
Kristín smiled at the man. ‘I am Kristín, your Carer, and you are in Isachsen, small town fifty kilometres from Sey?isfjör?ur. Is that where you going? All the tourist like to go there.’
‘No, we were headed to Egilssta?ir. Looking for a man there.’ Pausing, Lyle took the opportunity to gather some of his strength back. Even talking was becoming difficult for him, the tight bandages surrounding his chest not helping the situation much. ‘This is a hospital, right? How did I get here?’
‘Men from our town, they bring you here after the storm calm down. They rescue you from bad weather, and doctor say you is lucky because you could have died like other one.’
‘Parker? Are you telling me she’s dead?’ he responded quickly, his voice hitting a slightly hysterical tone. Kristín shook her head firmly.
‘Nei, the one you call Parker, a woman, yes? She is somewhere in the hospital, making trouble for the doctor. He say stay in bed, but she say no, yell at him like a man and want to walk around. She is very difficult.’
Lyle smiled, the first in a long while. ‘Yes, yes she is.’
.
They walked upon fresh fallen snow, each step making a soft squishing sound. It was still the new hours of the morning, and the path was unmarked aside from the footprints of Ívar, who had gone home earlier to collect the food to feed the two strangers, his cousin and himself. Now he walked back towards the hospital, this time accompanied by his elder brother Baddi at his mother’s request.
Word had spread quickly in their small community about the strangers. Everybody wanted to know more, the children fathered whatever information they could extract from those who had come into contact with them. Ívar was clearly the favorite, the children almost leaping upon him as he entered the house, thirsty for more news. He told them what he could: blue eyes, dark hair, both very tall, and the woman had a terrible temper, dominant as any man.
‘Like a man! Like a man!’ went the whisper from each child to the next, eyes gleaming with delight. His mother needed only clap her hands once, and the children dispersed, allowing Ívar to move into the kitchen to collect the bundle of warm food.
‘Be careful,’ warned his mother as she wrapped a scarf round his neck. ‘We do not know why they are here, or what they want from us. It is unheard of for someone to brave the oncoming winter like that. Treat them kindly, but be on your guard.’ She placed a kiss on his forehead.
‘I will, mother,’ he replied, then left with his brother to make the journey back to his patients.
Baddi was much older than his sixteen years – he was twenty and seven to be exact – the son from his father’s first marriage and the one every young woman fought for his attention. ‘Why don’t you find a nice girl and settle down,’ mother always asked him, and he’d always answer with, ‘I could never love any girl as much as you mother,’ and leave it at that. So, he remained a bachelor and helped out with the family, occasionally traveling outside the region to Akureyri or Reykjavík, Evrópa, and once even to the Americas for “business” only he knew. Nobody questioned it; he brought home money and needed supplies, and that was enough for them. Ívar wished his brother would sometimes take him along too, but could never muster the courage to ask. He wore only a long dark cloak over his clothing, a thick crop of light curls hidden beneath the hood. Pulled behind him was a small sled, on which lay the bundle of food.
They walked in silence, enjoying the peace of the morning before the town grew noisy with activity. Before long, they had reached the steps outside hospital, one of the largest buildings in the town apart from the church. Ívar gathered the bundle and began to enter the hospital when his brother’s hand lightly touched his arm.
‘I would like to know more about her. You will tell me about the foreigner when you come home, no?’
‘Of course.’
‘Look after them for me, Carer.’
He nodded his head solemnly. ‘I will,’ he said, a hint of a smile on his lips, and then entered the building.
.
‘So, what’s on the menu for breakfast? I’m starving.’ Lyle gently patted his stomach.
‘My cousin has gone home this morning to bring food his mother prepared. As your Carers, it is our family’s responsibility to feed you.’ Kristín soaked a cloth in a bowl of water, then proceeded to wipe Lyle’s forehead to try and bring his temperature down further, a task she had become familiar with in the past few days.
At first shrinking away from her touch, Lyle allowed her to tend to him, cringing as she cleaned around his new forming scabs and changed his bandages. The skin round his left shoulder and part of his ribcage was tainted with several shades of purple, a couple lacerations here and there to add to the effect. His entire upper body was stiff and sore, making movement quite painful.
An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room, leaving Lyle starting at the ceiling and Kristín still standing by the bed, constantly shifting from one foot to another.
‘Will your family be worry about you? I do not think you will be going anywhere for good long while if your injuries are to heal well,’ she began, hoping to start any sort of conversation between the man and herself.
‘Sydney and Mr Broots will certainly become suspicious after a period of time, but I don’t think our father will miss us all that much ..’ he trailed off, lost in deep thought.
‘Our?’
Lyle looked back at the girl. ‘Yes, our father. Parker is my sister.’
‘Oh,’ was all she could say, a light blush of embarrassment rising to her cheeks, but inside, her heart was wildly fluttering.
‘Do you have a name other than ‘Carer’?’
‘I am known as Kristín.’
‘Well Kristín, I am Mr Lyle.’ He managed a weak smile, showing her his perfect white teeth. She smiled back, gazing into his clear blue eyes that were like windows into his soul. And what a beautiful soul he must have , she thought, content to just watch him all day if not for the arrival of her cousin and the doctor with a slumped figure in his arms.
Kristín rushed over to take the food from his arms as Ívar assisted the doctor in placing Miss Parker back into bed. She unpacked the food and set it onto three separate trays, putting away the remaining share. As she spoon fed him the oatmeal, Lyle watched as Ívar sat down in the chair at the foot of his sister’s bed, ate a little of his food, then picked up a book and began to read.
‘Aren’t you going to wake up Sleeping Beauty and feed her?’
‘I let her sleeping some more,’ he replied, not once looking up from his book. ‘Miss Parker was awake very late last night, and early this morning also. I think she tired herself out, and now rest her sharp tongue for more battles later today. Gerum bara gott úr ?essu, hún er a? gera mig brjála?an.’
Kristín giggled, and Lyle looked to her for an explanation. ‘They give her something to make her sleep, because she cause much trouble this morning.’
‘You drugged her!’ Lyle laughed as much he could without having a coughing fit. ‘You’d better be careful, because if she finds out you’ll be feeling more than just her anger.’
After breakfast, as Kristín cleared away the trays, Lyle asked about ways for he and his sister to get home. However, his line of questioning was met with the same answer: not possible.
‘What do you mean ‘not possible’? There’s got to be a way out of here!’
Repositioning the chair so it was beside his bed, Kristín sat down, a map held in between her hands. She pointed to a place on the chart. ‘We are here, Isachsen, and here is the closest town.’ Point A was surrounded by what seemed to be large mountain ranges, the only thing separating it from point B. ‘The storm you come here in, ever year it comes and snows us in. When spring is here, the snow melt and you can go, but now, nei. Very dangerous to climb through mountains now.’
‘You’re trapped here, foreigner,’ said Ívar, his tone a mixture of disdain and amusement. ‘There is no way in, and no way out.’
.
Turning the keys in the ignition, Jarod brought the engine to life and drove out of the car rental’s parking lot. He drove slowly through the capital, headed north-west in his attempt to get to Miss Parker and Mr Lyle. From what little information he could gather, the two had also rented a car and driven their way to Egilssta?ir via the south-bound route.
However, weather forecasts convinced Jarod not to take that road, as several lives had already been lost on the roads due to the seasonal onslaught of blizzards. As said by the woman behind the counter at the agency, it would be a wiser decision to take longer, but safer course, which meant driving around more than half the country to get to a town he wasn’t even sure if his hunters were in.
‘Maybe I’ll stop by Baddi’s town. He’ll know how to track them down in this territory.’ And with his plan formulated in his head, Jarod continued to drive off into the rural landmass that was Iceland.
TBC
