Billy Christmas

by Mark A. Pritchard

  “Get him!”

  Prepared this time for the left stump, Billy ducked beneath it, and slammed his knuckled fist into the Gargoyle’s ribs. Its roar of pain poured sulphur over them both. Robert roared back, and suddenly realised he was free. He turned, planning to fight the beast with Billy.

  “Get back, get back!” Billy shouted. “Just run.”

  And now the Gargoyle advanced on Billy, eyeing the knuckles, but baying for blood. It meant to finish him. Stone claws sprang out of its right fist, and Billy felt his stomach sink. This wasn’t going to be pretty. With speed beyond belief, the Gargoyle was on him and struck, back-fisted, with its good arm. Again, Billy was knocked up out of the water, screaming in terror and pain. As he found his feet, he knew it would be only seconds before it was on him again. He heard the rush of forced water and looked up at the stone eyes intent on killing him. Suddenly, the Gargoyle stumbled, struggled for balance and then fell roaring at Billy’s side. He didn’t waste the advantage and brought a huge sweeping punch down on the beast’s head.

  Through the knuckles he felt a crack and a shudder. It had been a blinding punch; perhaps fatal? It raised its head again, looking confused. Billy yelled and swung his fist again. Again a fissure spoke through the knuckles: this stone would split. And now the Gargoyle roared, and tried to stand and walk away, instead stumbled again. Robert surfaced behind it, holding up the wires of the fence. He’d snagged the Gargoyle’s legs, and was using the strength of the metal to hold it at bay.

  “Kill it, Billy! Kill it!”

  And Billy was on the Gargoyle again. But it was still fast and it turned, grabbing him again by the neck with its right arm, and flipped him straight underwater. He saw Robert jump on its back, only to be shrugged off with almost no effort. Turning back to him, the Gargoyle began to crush his throat, and then pushed its huge head underwater to stare at him as it shook the air from his lungs. Terminal lights danced in front of his eyes; he was running out of air and energy fast. Robert jumped back on the Gargoyle, and the beast flinched for an instant. It was all Billy needed. Remembering the line of the fissure, he punched the flat blade of the knuckles into the beast, along the snout. This time he didn’t need to feel the crack open. He could see it.

  The Gargoyle pulled back, lifting Billy from the water and up into the air. It screamed in fear and pain, and it was finally the sound of the scream that split its head in two. One half peeled away, leaving the other twitching and flinching and trying to function. Billy felt the grip on his throat release and he fell back into the water, all energy spent. He heard the beast scamper around, lost and probably unsure whether it was dead or alive. And now Billy was moving, being dragged back through the water, towards the entrance to town. He looked back and saw that it was Robert who was pulling him away from the noise, and the pain and the remnants of the fight.

  * * *

  As Billy regained consciousness, he found that Robert had dragged them onto the bonnet of a silver Range Rover, allowing them to sit clear of the water. Above them the clouds continued to darken, and the breeze was picking up, shaking the branches in the park.

  Billy looked over at Robert, who was beginning to shiver. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

  “Thanks for killing it,” said Robert. “I can’t believe you were able to hit it so hard. I’m bloody glad we didn’t have that fight properly now.”

  Billy hated to think what would have happened if he had attacked him with the knuckles; he probably would have killed him. “Are you sure it’s dead?”

  “It looked like it was wandering off to die,” said Robert. “What was it anyway? It felt like stone, but stone can’t move like that.”

  How was he to explain this? “It’s a mythical creature, a gargoyle, but I don’t think you can tell anyone.”

  “Who the hell would believe me anyway?”

  They sat with their backs against the windscreen. Billy felt a surge of relief at the completion of the task, but even more at the prospect that he’d seen the last of the Gargoyle. Robert didn’t seem in the mood for asking any awkward questions, but now Billy had one of his own.

  “Why would you go into care if the police caught up with you?”

  Robert took a breath and frowned. “’Cause there’s no one at home to look after me. Both my parents disappeared six months before your dad did.”

  Despite his exhaustion, Billy felt his attention gripped. “But I never heard about that.”

  “Nobody cares,” said Robert, his voice even. “Not about another low-rent family which has fallen apart. Happens all the time, it isn’t news.”

  “But you must have let someone know. You tried to find out what happened?”

  “There’s two possibilities. Either they disappeared like your dad did, with no reason,” said Robert, looking sick to his stomach, “or my brother did them in.”

  Billy looked at him in disbelief. That couldn’t be.

  “He owed a lot of money to the wrong people. After my folks disappeared, those people stopped coming around. And Alex became…”

  “…Alex.”

  “Yeah. I know how it sounds, but I’ve gone over everything.”

  Billy didn’t know what to think. His own mind had imagined hundreds of scenarios to explain what had happened to his father, some of them a lot more outlandish than Robert’s bleak theory.

  “Stay right where you are!”

  They both looked over the road to the churchyard. A lone police officer was wading through the sunken graveyard across the road.

  “Were you two on the weir tonight?”

  Billy looked at Robert. He only had one more task to complete, he mustn’t be caught. And even if he did now trust Robert, how could he ever explain this in time?

  Robert looked over at him, seeming both weary and almost relieved. “I know something is going on,” he said. “I’ll take this one. Just wait a minute before you start to run.”

  Billy had no clue what he meant. Robert stood up and offered his finger and a grin to the police officer, whose face turned sour, then turned back to the car. Before Billy even had a chance to move, Robert raised his right foot and brought it down hard on the windscreen, cracking it from top to bottom.

  Billy rolled forward, shocked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  From across the road, the man in blue bellowed something pretty unpleasant. Without answering him, Robert simply lifted his foot and stove in the windscreen, completely covering the interior of the Range Rover with thick chunks of broken safety glass. He looked at Billy. “Let him come for me before you run.”

  With that he was off, running over the line of car roofs that led up to the High Street.

  Unsure who to chase, the police officer turned to Billy. “Stay right where you are. I’ve got your description, so you won’t get far.”

  With that, he continued to wade through the water after Robert, who had an amazing head start. As soon as the police officer had made it to the roundabout at the bottom of the High Street, Billy slid off the bonnet of the car into the water, and waded across the road. As he did, blue flashing lights arrived at the top of the High Street. Robert was silhouetted briefly on the roof of one of the cars. For a moment, Billy stopped, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. Then he remembered his tasks; he still had a chance to save his father. He turned and waded as quietly as he could up Station Road, the elation of the victory over the Gargoyle eclipsed by the wrench of leaving Robert to his fate.

  By the time he got to Glade Road he began to wonder if he was going to make it home at all. The wind had whipped up, and it had begun to rain. He had thought it was too cold to rain. Why wasn’t it snowing? He pushed his chin down into his bony chest and wrapped his arms tight about him. Growling through his big teeth, Billy focussed on the pavement, still looking over his shoulder for the dreaded blue lights. The water here was only knee-deep, and he thought the police might risk a patrol car to catch the boy who had flooded Marlow.

  As he
turned onto Little Marlow Road, he knew this was no ordinary storm. He could see the edges of the evergreen trees catch the rain and freeze instantly. Long windswept icicles were forming on lampposts, and the surface of the pavement had become treacherous. He’d left the lipped edge of the flooding behind and was now rattling with the cold. He shook his head, and ice particles fell out of his hair. A memory surfaced from a geography lesson where he’d learned about ice storms. If this was what they were like, Billy thought, the Canadians could keep them.

  Turning into Marlow Bottom provided relief because it meant that he was probably clear of the police. They would likely be dealing with the twin problems of flooding and severe storms. None of this mattered much to Billy now. His trousers, soaked from the task, were now crunching each time he moved. He’d already lost pain, or any other sensation from his legs, which made walking like trying to balance on low stilts. The scrap of comfort he took was that he was just one task from completion. Billy held onto that thought all the way back to his house.

  For the second time in as many days, Billy plunged into the bath fully clothed. His ice trousers briefly mitigated the hot water, but the inevitable pain followed almost at once. Too exhausted to fight it, he simply laid back, grimacing, and let the frozen muscles scream as they unwound in the steaming bathtub. As it became easier to move, he pulled the sodden clothes off, fumbling at the buttons with gnarled, tired fingers. Large welts rose from just above the knuckles on his right hand. Smashing solid brass into stone had taken its toll. He was sure that by tomorrow it would have seized up properly. For the first time since making it home, he began to wonder whether Robert had been given a chance to warm up yet.

  Another thought struck him. He hadn’t checked to see if the Tree had returned. Jumping up out of the bath, ignoring the howls from various muscle groups, he threw a towel around his waist and limped downstairs. The bucket was still there, but there was no sign of Teàrlag.

  “What are you doing? You’re dripping, Billy.”

  His mother stood in the hallway, concern breaking through her grey bubble.

  “Having a bath, Mum,” said Billy, sidling past her to the stairs and checking that his towel was safely arranged.

  “The Tree has gone.”

  Billy started up the stairs and away from the questions. “That’s right. Mr. Shaw has taken it back for repairs.”

  He knew his mother was looking after him, probably with disbelief, but he also knew that in all likelihood within another ten seconds or so, she would withdraw again, probably for the rest of the evening. He wished that Saul was still here to comfort her and bring her out of herself. He paused by a window at the top of the landing. Outside the wind howled, trees froze and icy rain mixed with clumps of snow.

  Christmas Eve

  THE MOBILE WOKE HIM AT the stroke of midnight. At once, he was aware of two things: he was warm again and in tremendous pain. The latter made itself known when he reached out to stop the whistle of the mobile alarm. The pain started in his right hand, which was predictable enough, but as he twisted, it followed through his back, hips and legs. He had been sleeping in full pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers in order to restore his core temperature. He loosened the belt of the dressing gown to let his back relax, allowing him to sit up. Even though Teàrlag’s absence had played heavily on his mind, sleep had found him with relative ease. Now, despite the stiffness and physical exertion, he felt mentally restored, and ready to take on the final task, whatever it proved to be.

  Standing in the living room, Billy poured his fresh mental energy into watching the clock as it ticked around to twelve minutes past twelve. The Tree had not returned, but as long as it was back before the usual time, then he could just accept the task, take it on and wait on the doorstep for his father on Christmas Day.

  The clock on the mantelpiece swung past twelve past twelve. Billy turned and observed the empty bucket. With his energy waning, he thought there was nothing else to do but turn and head back to bed. As he did, dark thoughts gnawed at him. What if Teàrlag was too ill to return to Marlow Bottom? Senga knew full well that he hadn’t kissed Katherine. Had she forbidden her from returning? What if Teàrlag had died? There was nothing to do but hope that tomorrow the Tree would return.

  * * *

  Billy chewed on cold toast. It had got cold because he’d kept nipping into the living room to make sure that the bucket was still empty. His mother had come down and felt his forehead. It was clear he wasn’t looking his best, and he’d not managed to find a decent excuse for his swollen, angry-looking right hand. It was for this reason he was having toast and not cereal, toast being relatively easy to eat ambidextrously. His mother came back down with the thermometer. He rolled his eyes, but accepted the glass tube. It felt like the old days, with the lines between them more clearly established. As he waited for the thermometer to register that he didn’t have a fever, his mother left the kitchen, before returning with an old white box. It was the box which held the Christmas glasses.

  “I’ve made a decision, Billy,” she said with her hands shaking. “For us. I think it’s time we both moved on. I know I’ve been very hard work this year.”

  Billy rolled the thermometer out of his mouth, not liking the tone of this one bit. “No Mum.”

  “I have, I know I have. But now we’re going to move on, because we can’t carry on for another year like this.”

  She lifted out one of the glasses and held it up to the light, watching the colours being split by the crystal, before raising it high above her head. Realising she was about to smash it into the sink, Billy dove forwards and caught her arm as it swung down. Pain flashed through his bruised hand but he held it there until she stopped pushing. He looked around, trying to catch her eye, but she just looked out to the hall, not wanting to connect.

  “Don’t, Mum. Please. Just give it till tomorrow. I think we ought to give him a year.”

  “Most of the set is broken, anyway. Billy, I have to stop pretending. I think we need to stop pretending.”

  “I haven’t been pretending,” he tried to shift so he could take the glass. “Not once, not yet. We have to give him a year.”

  His mother slowly relinquished her grip on the glass. “How did you get so strong?”

  Billy took the glass and placed it back in the box. He turned to find himself alone in the kitchen. If he managed to find a way to complete the final task, well, then there was a chance that he could relight those eyes the way Saul had briefly done. His father could manage that, and within a day there was still hope he could put them both together again. He put the box on top of the cupboard, out of easy reach of his mother, and continued to chomp through the toast.

  The missing bike was bothering him; they’d had anti-theft numbers etched into the frames. If the police found his mother’s bike, they’d be able to trace it back to their house in no time. If it happened to be the police officer who had tried to collar him with Robert, he’d be sunk. Though sunk probably best described the bike’s current condition. With no Tree, and no task, he thought he’d soak up some time seeing how the town was coping. It would also give him a chance to pass Robert’s house and see if he had made it home.

  It was snowing heavily when he walked out the front door. The light was bouncing off unfamiliar edges and angles, filling Billy’s eyes and making it hard for him not to smile at the difference made by the fresh covering. The first few steps confirmed that the ice storm had made the perfect bed for the snow. Billy locked his legs trying to control an unplanned skid, the snow collecting around his ankles finally stopping him.

  The first snowfall in the days leading up to the Tree’s arrival had seen a barrage of kids forming snow battle formations. Today, he had to negotiate several hotspots and demilitarised areas on his way into Marlow, which he managed with varying degrees of success. The instincts of a thirteen-year-old swam up within him. They felt odd; he hadn’t had much time to spend on being a kid of late. But given he was in no particular hurry, he sp
ent time helping a couple of kids who were pinned down by a larger gang. Billy took more than his fair share of hits to help the younger group on their way, getting booed by the larger gang when their prey was set free. Billy just smiled at them, and sent impressive volleys of snowballs back by way of reply. It was nice to have a practical use for his ridiculous limbs.

  Halfway to town he turned up Oak Tree Road, towards Robert’s house. He had never thought of him as quick thinking or courageous before, but last night had changed that completely. Understanding what had happened to Robert’s parents also put their history in perspective. He hoped the police hadn’t complicated things with his brother, but it was difficult to see how they wouldn’t have. As he approached the house, the lights were out, with curtains open. Several knocks at the door confirmed that no one was at home. Billy returned his hands to his pockets against the cold.

  “Hey Billy.”

  Robert had appeared from nowhere. He was leaning against a car just outside his driveway. Inside the car was a woman Billy didn’t recognise. Smiling, he ran up to the grinning Robert.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I got away! They were so slow it was easy.”

  “Really?”

  Robert shrugged and smiled. “Not my first time at avoiding arrest.”

  Billy felt a huge weight lift from him. “I’m so glad you’re not spending Christmas inside!”

  “I’m not spending it here either. Alex has disappeared, so Olly’s Mum is just bringing me around for fresh clothes. I’m staying over there until the New Year.”