Sanctuary

The barn was Wilbur Wilson’s only sanctuary. Its musk of hay and long-gone animals comforted him more than any hug. Watching spiders twist their webs in the corners made him feel like an audience of one for a performance most would never see.

When his father came home late, he’d hide in the straw like his mother told him. He’d snuggle in among the stenches and bugs, listening to the yelling from the house.

Wilbur found no refuge with the spiders and straw today. His heart beat at his ribs, but his body stayed paralysed.

Today, his father would find him.

For weeks, Wilbur had stayed away from the house, sneaking in to steal food when his father was at work. Even then, he crept with fatalistic terror pounding in his ears.

Especially today. Today, he’d stolen something more than food.

Lying in the straw, he clutched his father’s shotgun to his chest.

He’d last seen the man about a month ago.

Awakened by shrieking from downstairs, Wilbur had rushed to the edge of the staircase. Before he could run down, the screaming had cut off, his father’s agonal panting filling the silence.

Wilbur had clutched to the banister as his father shambled into the hallway, red spattered over his shirt and face. Wilbur knew what it was because his father worked at the slaughterhouse. He’d insisted on showing Wilbur around the place, laughing when Wilbur cried and vomited and begged to go home.

“You better toughen up soon, boy.”

He always said that.

Wilbur had peered down at his father from the banister, shrinking back towards his room, more afraid of the man than ever. But his father hadn’t looked up.

“Got what she deserved,” he kept muttering.

Wilbur had heard him rummaging around in the kitchen. He’d tried to sneak to his bedroom, planning to climb out the window and flee to the barn. Instead, he’d froze, as his father had stalked out of the kitchen with a cleaver in one crimson hand.

“Just like any other pig,” he’d muttered. “Just going to work again.”

Wilbur had held his breath until his chest ached. A year before, he’d woken up to find Rusty, the family’s dog, missing from the foot of his bed. When he’d asked his father, the man had laughed.

“Didn’t I warn you about what would happen if he kept barking?”

Indeed, Wilbur had worn bruises to remind him of his father’s warning. The memory of crying and hugging Rusty as his father had pointed his shotgun at them both had been clear as water.

When he’d gone to his mother, she’d given him the advice to hide in the barn in case his father came home angry again. Except, that one night, he hadn’t gone to the barn. So, as he’d cowered by the stairs, he’d blamed himself for not doing as his mother told him.

For hours Wilbur had clung to the banister, until he’d heard the sputter of his father’s car, the crunch of gravel under its wheels as it rolled away. Still, it’d taken him another hour to trust his ears and detach from his hiding place.

When he’d snuck downstairs, he’d found himself in the slaughterhouse. Sobbing, he’d fled to the barn, blaming himself.

“Wilbur!”

The roar brought Wilbur to the present. He began to breathe fast, hands slick with sweat around the shotgun.

“I know where you’re hiding, boy!”

Footsteps stomped closer.

Wilbur squeezed his eyes shut. He raised the shotgun, wrapping one hand around the trigger as his father had shown him.

“Come out here, Wilbur! NOW!”

Wilbur kicked himself up with numb legs. He took a few shaky steps away from the straw, aiming the shotgun towards the crack in the door.

“An animal deserves no mercy, boy,” his father had said, sneering at his tears as they toured the slaughterhouse. “If it was a choice between your life or an animal’s, you wouldn’t cry then, would you?”

And, no, Wilbur realised, he felt nothing at all.

“Boy!”

The door flew open. His father’s silhouette swelled in its place, casting a long shadow over him.

Without mercy, Wilbur squeezed the trigger.