The Fear

by Charlie Higson

  ‘Stuff … stuff … stuff …’

  DogNut stared at him and his mind was filled with one stupid thought, the one that Courtney had planted in his brain. This man could overwhelm them.

  ‘Upstairs!’ he yelled. ‘Now.’

  He charged at the waddling hulk, hoping to hold him back long enough for his friends to reach the stairs. He hacked uselessly with his sword; there wasn’t enough space for a full swing. And having seen what happened when Felix and Courtney attacked him, DogNut was scared to jab him with the point in case he lost his weapon. As it was, his blade did little against the sicko except split his skin. The fat that swelled out of the superficial wound was bright pink against his dark skin.

  DogNut turned and joined his friends, who were scrambling up the stairs. The last to make it was Olivia, and even then DogNut had to grab her by the arm and jerk her away from the approaching sicko.

  They clattered upwards, hoping to find a room they could get in and barricade. Behind them they could hear the sicko place his fat foot on the first step with an almighty thud.

  ‘More stuff …’

  The rooms on the next floor were too crammed with junk to even get in. Electrical appliances, mostly, and computer hardware, monitors, keyboards, hard drives and miles and miles of cable. DogNut swore and ordered the gang up to the next floor. It was a similar story here, except that most of the junk consisted of toys of some sort, many still in their packaging. They were mixed up with other bits and pieces, sporting equipment, expensive luggage, clothing and more books.

  ‘Maybe we could get on to the roof, or something,’ said Courtney. ‘Let’s try the top floor. We can always come back down again.’

  ‘I don’t want to go up!’ Olivia screamed. ‘I want to get out of here. We’ll be trapped.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ said DogNut. ‘We’ll get out. Don’t worry.’ He grabbed her arm again and roughly pulled her up the stairs. They could hear the steady clump, clump of the man coming after them.

  They thundered up to the next level. It immediately looked more hopeful. It was still full of rubbish – carrier bags, cardboard boxes, more toys, empty bottles and cans – but there was a lot more room to move around. Obviously, being so heavy, and not too keen on climbing stairs, the huge sicko was filling the house from the bottom up.

  The room at the back had a small balcony overlooking the garden. Felix and Marco stayed to secure the door to the stairs while the rest of them went over to the sliding glass balcony windows and figured out how to open them.

  Felix found a key in the bedroom door just as Courtney opened the latch that released the sliding windows, and they both yelled in triumph at the same time. There was a rush of clean fresh air and the kids were reminded just how badly the house stank. Finn, Olivia, Courtney and DogNut hustled out on to the balcony and looked down. They were five floors up.

  ‘Can we climb it?’ Courtney asked.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Finn bluntly, and he shook his head. ‘I’ll stay here and try to hold him off, if you lot want to try and climb down.’

  DogNut was looking at the long drop.

  ‘We don’t need no heroic sacrifices, Finn. What we need’s a bloody ladder.’

  ‘I can’t do it either,’ said Olivia. ‘I can’t climb. I can’t do it. I’m scared of heights. I can’t. I won’t.’

  ‘It’s way too dangerous for any of us to try it,’ said DogNut. ‘So don’t worry about it.’

  ‘What about up?’ said Felix, who had come out on to the balcony to see what was happening. ‘Is there a way up on to the roof maybe?’

  But that looked hopeless as well.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ said Felix, looking accusingly at DogNut. ‘You got us up here.’

  ‘Shut up and let me think,’ said DogNut, and Felix muttered something under his breath.

  ‘What did you say?’ DogNut glared at Felix, who rubbed his face nervously.

  ‘I said thinking’s not your strong point,’ said Felix. ‘I should have stayed at the palace. At least David knew what he was doing.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Courtney, putting a hand on DogNut’s back. ‘He’s just scared like the rest of us.’

  Olivia was ignoring the argument. She had sat down with her back to the balcony wall. She was ignoring everything. Hoping it would all go away. She closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands. She wasn’t here. She was back at home in her room, before any of this had happened, with Paul and her dad and his new girlfriend. And her new stepsister. Kira. She always forgot about Kira. She hadn’t been around that long. She was all right, but not like a proper sister.

  That was better. Take yourself back. She could picture her old room. She imagined she was sitting on her bed and slowly her things came into place around her. Her pink CD machine that also played tapes and woke her up in the mornings with the radio. Her posters. Her old dressing-up box. Her clothes all neat in the cupboard that Dad had built for her. And Dad was there too, reading her a bedtime story. That was nice. He didn’t do it much, but she loved it when he did. She could see him there now. His hair all messy as usual. The smell of him. A warm smell. She tried to listen to the words. Her favourite Cathy Cassidy book. Dizzy. She smiled. She was sure she could hear his voice in her head. So familiar. She was hardly aware of footsteps around her, hardly felt it as someone jostled her, and she went deeper into her memories, humming quietly to block out the sounds.

  So she didn’t hear Felix yelling that the sicko had arrived at the top of the stairs. Didn’t see the others run back into the bedroom. Didn’t see the door bulging as the man leant his enormous weight against it.

  Didn’t hear the panic in their voices.

  ‘He’s gonna get in.’

  ‘We’re trapped here now.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘All right.’ DogNut got their attention by clapping his hands. He had put his sword back in its scabbard. It would only get in the way. He was grinning.

  ‘It’s like this, OK? Listen to me. It’s easy. We fox him like we did downstairs. We let him come in, yeah? Right into the room. Make sure he gets away from the door.’

  ‘I get you!’ said Marco. ‘We can do it. We just have to get past him and we’ll be down the stairs before he can even squeeze his great fat arse back out through the door.’

  ‘OK,’ said Courtney, who was grinning too. ‘OK.’

  She had found a golf club among the rubbish in the room, and felt more confident with a weapon back in her hands.

  The door stopped bulging for a moment, there was a moment’s silence followed by an almighty thump as the sicko threw himself against the woodwork with more speed. The frame cracked. The panels split.

  ‘Wait for it,’ said DogNut. ‘Wait for it.’

  ‘I’m gonna whack his lardy butt,’ said Felix.

  ‘Like that’ll make any difference, you nunce,’ Marco scoffed. ‘He don’t feel nothing.’

  ‘I’m gonna whack him anyway, show him who’s the big man.’

  ‘Oh, he’s the big man, all right, Felix,’ said Marco, and the two of them giggled nervously.

  ‘Don’t bother trying to fight him,’ said DogNut angrily. ‘Just don’t waste your time. All we got to do is get round him, that’s it.’

  Before he could say anything else the door gave way and burst inwards as if there had been an explosion outside. And there was the sicko, forcing himself into the opening.

  ‘Stuff …’ he said. ‘More stuff …’

  He could hardly fit through the door. He had to stretch his arms out in front of him and roll his shoulders. Finally, with a wriggle and a shrug, he was in the room.

  True to his word Felix lunged at him with his sword, but the point just sank into the side of his belly and lodged there so deeply that Felix couldn’t pull it out. As he tugged at it, the man moved towards him with sudden speed, almost dancing on his toes, and one meaty hand reached out for Felix. He got him by the wrist and Felix screamed.

  Cou
rtney brought her golf club down with all her might on the sicko’s wrist. There was a hefty slap and the man must have relaxed his grip a little because the next moment Felix was free. He saw that Courtney, Finn and DogNut were already out of the room and he threw himself into the narrowing gap between the man and the wall, swearing with the effort. He felt the heat coming off the solid bulk of flesh, and an unholy stink of mould and sweat and shit. If the man’s body hadn’t been slicked with grease, Felix doubted he would have been able to get past. As it was, he was nearly trapped as the man tried to squash him against the wall with his belly, but Marco took hold of his friend and pulled him clear.

  ‘Don’t try and give the man a hug, you stupid pumplex! I know you want to kiss him all over, but you gonna catch something.’

  ‘Shut up, Marco!’

  The next moment the two of them tumbled out on to the landing, crashing into the banisters. They could hear the others clattering down the stairs below.

  Felix sometimes had dreams where he was running down an endless twisting staircase as someone chased him. In his dreams he’d learnt to swing on the banisters at the corners like a monkey so that he would sort of fly from one handhold to another as he whizzed down. If he remembered to do it, the nightmare was turned into something fun and exhilarating. He tried to do the same now, but it was hard in the darkness and he kept falling and rolling down the steps. He was too pumped up to feel anything, though, and was laughing all the way, so relieved was he to have got away from the sicko. He fell past Courtney, caught up with Finn, overtook him, overtook DogNut, and now he was in the lead.

  He was first to the front door, half running, half stumbling along the hallway. He kicked the bust of Shakespeare out of the way and wrenched the door open, not caring what might be waiting for them outside.

  Mercifully, the street was clear. Felix staggered into the middle of the road and fell to the ground, laughing and sobbing with relief. One by one the others emerged. Courtney was last out and she stopped just long enough to pull down some of the stacks of newspapers and magazines so that they blocked the doorway.

  ‘That’ll hold the fat bastard up!’ she yelled triumphantly as she ran out and they all hugged each other and exchanged high-fives. It quickly hit them, though, that they weren’t out of danger yet. All their noise had attracted a band of sickos who were approaching along the road.

  ‘Looks like we gotta keep on running,’ said DogNut, and they sprinted away in the opposite direction. It was only when they turned the corner at the end of the street that DogNut stopped and swore. Thrashing his sides with his balled fists.

  ‘What is it?’ said Courtney, looking around for a fresh threat.

  ‘Olivia,’ said DogNut bitterly. ‘Where’s Olivia?’

  20

  Olivia was on the balcony. Tears running down her face. They’d left her. She couldn’t believe they’d done it. They’d all run off without her. And now he was coming. The man. She’d slid the glass door shut and was standing watching as he trundled across the room towards the balcony.

  She was shaking her head from side to side, unable to take her eyes off the huge wobbling bulk of the man.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no …’

  He reached the glass of the door and started to press his body against it, flattening his mass of fat so that he grew wider and wider. And now he pressed his face as well, squashing his nose and lips and smearing pus and snot and saliva over the window. And still he kept pressing, flattening, widening.

  At last Olivia could stand it no more. She turned away and looked over the edge of the balcony. It was such a long way down. Immediately she felt dizzy and sick. The ground appeared to come nearer in a rush then speed away again, as if she was bouncing on a bungee cord.

  There was a crack. She spun round. The glass had broken – jagged lines ran across it – and still the man pushed and pushed. He seemed to cover the entire window. His face expressionless. Squashed out of shape. One eye right against the glass. Staring at her. He was something disgusting and slimy in a tank at an aquarium.

  The glass cracked again.

  Olivia climbed up onto the brick wall that ran along the edge of the balcony. She stood there swaying, her head fizzing, tears hanging from her chin and then dropping away, down, down into the darkness. Falling had always been her biggest fear. She hated going on aeroplanes, she hated cliff tops and tower blocks and bridges.

  She couldn’t believe they had just left her. Run off like that. It was so unfair. She couldn’t do anything by herself. She couldn’t fight. They knew that. She drew in a series of racking sobs that jerked her small body as if someone was kicking her chest.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no …’

  Another crack. Then another. The whole window was bowing out. Any moment now it would give way and he would be there, outside, with her. Just the two of them. And he would do to her what he had done to those other children downstairs. The ones in the kitchen she had thought were waving at her. How long had they taken to die? Surely falling would be quicker? But it would still be long. The garden was so far away. And all the way down she would be alive, and waiting for the thud as she hit the ground.

  Would it hurt? Or would she be unconscious before …

  She mustn’t think about that. She closed her eyes. Tried to put herself back home. Yes. It was bedtime. She was going to kiss her dad goodnight and go upstairs. She would be brave and go up by herself tonight. Listen to a story tape. The tapes were very old and worn. Most of them had belonged to her cousin who was much older than her. Paul had had them first. She’d listened to them through the thin wall and couldn’t wait for them to be hers.

  She loved those stories.

  Dad was watching television with his new girlfriend.

  No!

  It was before then. Mum was still there. Even though Olivia couldn’t really remember her. But she was still there. Yes, that was better. Mum and Dad together on the sofa watching TV. They were so close. On the other side of the door. All she had to do was open the door and there they’d be. She turned the handle. Kept her eyes tight shut. Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.

  The door was open. She sucked in a deep breath and then took a small step …

  She wasn’t falling – she was floating – and there were Dad and Mum. They were reaching out their hands to her and everything was all right.

  They would catch her. They would make sure she was all right. That’s what grown-ups did.

  They looked after you.

  They –

  21

  ‘I promised her. I said I wouldn’t leave her. She was counting on me.’

  ‘She was counting on all of us, DogNut,’ said Courtney. ‘It’s not your fault. We all forgot about her. It was crazy up there.’

  ‘I can’t just leave her.’ DogNut started to walk off.

  Felix looked alarmed. ‘You’re not going back, DogNut!’ he shouted, running after him. ‘You can’t go in there again. He’d kill you.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ DogNut angrily shrugged Felix’s hand off his shoulder. ‘The point is I promised I wouldn’t let her down and now –’

  ‘And now she’s dead,’ said Felix bluntly. ‘Face it. So what would be the point in going back?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Marco, coming over to the two of them. ‘We can’t change what happened. We’re lucky any of us got out, and it was thanks to you that we did.’

  ‘I was supposed to look after her. I can’t let it end like this.’

  ‘It ain’t over, dude,’ said Marco. ‘It ain’t over by a long way yet. It’s dark and we’re still on the streets. What we got to do now is make sure that the rest of us don’t wind up –’

  ‘Dead!’ shouted DogNut. ‘She’s dead and it’s my fault.’

  ‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ said Marco. ‘We’re lucky any of us are still alive. We’ve been through it and then some. The boat sank, the gym bunnies nearly got us, David tried to trap us in the palace, and then a humongous sicko nearly
added us to his collection of dead bodies. But the thing is, DogNut, we’re still here, us five. Out of the eight of us that set off this morning we’ve only lost one.’

  DogNut laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, so that makes it all right, does it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Finn quietly. ‘It does.’

  He turned and started walking on. When Finn made up his mind to do something, there was no arguing. The others looked at him, and then followed, all except DogNut who stubbornly stayed behind.

  ‘Come on,’ said Courtney, returning to where he stood in the middle of the road. ‘You got to try and forget, Doggo.’ She gently took his arm. ‘Move on. And I don’t mean in a huggy-kissy, teen-advice-column way. I mean we really do have to literally move on, because it ain’t safe to stay here.’

  It was no good, though. DogNut wrenched his arm away and stomped off a few paces in the opposite direction. He was crying.

  ‘DogNut!’ Courtney yelled at him. ‘You’re putting the rest of us in danger now!’

  ‘Then leave me alone. I’ll go by myself.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ Finn had come back to see what was happening. He spun DogNut round and looked into his face.

  ‘What’s done is done,’ he said. ‘You’re not going back in there.’

  ‘I’ll do what I bloody like,’ said DogNut, his voice rising in pitch as he became more and more hysterical. ‘That poor little girl is all alone in that house with a monster. And I can’t leave her. I can’t. I’ve got to go back and I’ve got to see for myself. Perhaps she ain’t dead, perhaps I can help her, perhaps I could save her, rescue her, perhaps …’

  Finn slapped DogNut hard in the face, stunning him into silence. Then, before he could do anything, Finn scooped him up with his good arm and put him over his shoulder as easily as if he’d been a bag of rubbish that Finn was taking out to the bins.

  Finn walked on. DogNut’s skinny body bouncing up and down. He struggled for a few paces before the fight went out of him. Despite everything that had happened, Courtney smiled, almost laughed. She had always known that Finn was strong, but to do what he’d done, with one arm, was beyond awesome.