by Jackson Lear
Warrick fired it up again. The blanket was just a blanket and held no one within. There was no face, only shadows that encouraged his mind to play tricks on him. His heart thumped in his chest but even he wasn’t stupid enough to call out and see if anyone was there. Dead people wouldn’t talk back. And, if they did, he certainly wouldn’t want to hear what this one had to say.
There was a corner to his left. Warrick risked taking his eyes off the blanket. He turned the phone towards the larger room. The light reflected off a row of glass jars. To the right was a body. It was unmoving, but it was certainly a body, and it smelled like an overflowing toilet.
Warrick stared at the faint outline of the woman. His heart raced so quickly through his chest that his eye sight started to fade. Random colours blotched out his vision as his mind tried to fill in the blanks of what he saw. He couldn’t adapt to the darkness quick enough. He looked back to the blanket. There was still no face. He looked back to the thing that might have been a dead body.
He had to know if it was her.
He slid forward, trying to push the light as close to the woman as he could. He took another step forward, holding the light up, and Zofia’s faint red jumper came into view. He didn’t recognise it, since he had only seen her in a t-shirt and knickers. The dead woman was wearing jeans and her hands were clasped together. Like Ian had said, there were wings behind her. White sheets with stains across them had been ripped up and folded into a pattern. Zofia looked like a crying angel, hidden away in a tunnel, facing ...
Warrick glanced back to his feet. The jars were lined up against the wall, allowing Zofia to face them. Inside were parts of dead animals. Blood was in one. Something that must have been a small heart was in another. He found butchered squirrels, toads, and even a couple of cats stuffed inside those jars, cut open, eviscerated, and then closed up again. Zofia was watching over them as though she was a protector. Or, perhaps, they were there to watch over her.
He could hear a panting coming from all around. It was his own voice, his own erratic breathing that was calling attention to itself. Warrick made the final step, raising his phone to Zofia’s face, and he finally saw her. It ... looked like her ... but he wasn’t sure.
The tattoo, he thought. His senses nearly abandoned him completely as he risked touching a dead body.
The screaming panic in Warrick’s chest was forced away as he refused to leave without finding out if this was the same woman he met the other day.
He reached out and jerked back in an instant. Zofia’s head was hanging down. He was edging into her field of view. He could see her regaining consciousness and screaming at him. He could hear her hissing his name. All it would take was for one of his little fingers to poke her and she could jump back to life, close her wings around him and drive him through the ground and into the fires of Hell.
Warrick stared at her, terrified of everything he had seen in his life, yet Zofia remained still. He reached out again, felt his fingertip rest upon Zofia’s waistband, and he pulled it down an inch. Beneath her jeans was a familiar set of white knickers. Warrick was forced to reach in and pull those down as well. He made it just a finger’s length before gasping and pulling his hand away as quickly as he could. There was a tattoo there, all right. Two interlocking circles with an inverted cross below them. It was the same woman. She was now dead and Warrick had tried to pull her pants down.
A voice screamed at him. It was his father’s. What kind of sick fuck are you for trying to look at a dead woman’s vagina?
Warrick backed away as quickly as he could. He shone the light over to the blanket. It was still a blanket. He caught one last look at Zofia and was sure she was about to jump out at him. She remained locked and upright, her head hanging down, almost staring at the area Warrick and his friends had shamed.
He stumbled back towards the entrance, panicking now that Daniel and Ian were right and that he hadn’t believed them. They would know that he was there as well. He would have to tell them and they would give him dirty looks for not trusting them. They may not even talk to him again. He reached the entrance of the tunnel and felt a breeze against his face. For the first time in minutes he was free of the smell of a decomposing body. The sunlight blazed in his eyes, then as they adjusted he found himself staring off into the distance, realising what he had just seen and done.
There was a sharp grunt from above the cliff face. Warrick snapped his head up in an instant, almost giving himself whiplash. His whole world froze as he stared into the enraged eyes of the Beast. The Beast’s foot came down fast and hard to swing at Warrick’s head.
Warrick’s legs launched him out of the tunnel on their own accord. He stumbled and landed awkwardly on the short drop to the ground, rolled onto his front and scrambled back to his feet.
The Beast recovered from his failed kick, dropped one hand to the edge of the cliff and leaped off, landing in front of Warrick with both feet firmly planted.
Warrick heard himself emit a sound remarkably similar to an inhaled shriek. He scrambled to his feet and ran.
“I’m sorry!” Warrick cried. He heard no answer.
The Beast ran at him. He was a full foot taller than Warrick and bounded after him in strides far longer than Warrick could have managed.
“Please!” gasped Warrick, as he sprinted for his life. His legs had turned to molten lava and his chest burned with more fright and exhaustion than he ever thought was possible. There was a gentle slope downhill and Warrick heard a train passing in the distance. He wouldn’t make it to the train tracks before the Beast seized him but he was going to keep running until his last breath gave out.
The Beast would catch him. The Beast would slice him open and rip out his heart and stuff it into a jar. Then he would hoist Warrick up by his entrails and hang him facing Zofia until the Devil scratched out Warrick’s chest and dragged him into the fires of Hell. No one would ever find him in that tunnel. No one even knew he had been out in the valley that day.
The Beast swiped one hand at Warrick’s head and missed. As the ground fell away Warrick felt his legs fall numb and carry themselves without his control. He stumbled down the embankment, barely keeping himself upright, with no other sensation in his body except the need to keep going.
The ground beneath him broke and his foot slipped into a hole, tripping him up. Warrick fell flat on his stomach and jammed his chin into the hard ground. His body flipped over and rolled to the bottom of the hill. He hit his head and legs on several roots and rocks until a sickening smack cracked him across the side of his head.
He came to a rest but the sky continued to roll around him. Worse still was the sudden need to throw up.
The Beast stood at the top of the hill with one hand resting against a tree. He stared back at Warrick with death in his eyes, dropped his shoulders down like an animal on the hunt, and stumbled down the side of the hill after the boy.
Move it! Warrick shouted to himself. Then he felt a gag of vomit reach the back of his throat. An extreme case of vertigo came over him as he tried to get to his feet. It was like he could no longer tell when his feet were about to touch the ground. The sky was on a constant swirling angle and gravity pulled Warrick to his right.
A train rattled by in the distance. People were on board. They would help him. If any of the passengers saw him waving frantically they would come to his rescue. He just had to get there before the Beast caught him.
He couldn’t risk looking back, for every time he did gravity seemed to spin him around and force him to drop to his knees in disorientation.
He had just one goal – get to the train tracks.
The Beast followed.
51
Josh
It was four o’clock. Josh and Anthony had been at Claire’s for an hour, still trying to figure out how to talk to three thirteen year olds about filming adults while they were in the bathroom. Ian had a rock solid excuse for why he didn’t invite his friends to what was clearly a parental ambush.
Claire took his phone and called Daniel herself. She wanted Warrick to come as well. He was the weak link in the group. By four o’clock he still wasn’t answering his phone. It wouldn’t really matter. Daniel was the ring leader and the bad influence. As long as Josh and Anthony destroyed the boy’s confidence in Daniel then the group would sort itself out.
Claire made a song and dance about going off to the shops to excuse herself from the situation. It was the last thing she wanted to do but Josh had convinced her that Ian would never open up his darkest secrets if he risked his mum overhearing.
Anthony went up to Ian’s bedroom door and knocked. He half expected to see the boys scramble away from the computer screen, hiding whatever it was they shouldn’t be looking at, but instead they appeared to be reading comics. Anthony noticed that they were both on the first couple of pages, so it was clearly a decoy. “Okay guys, team meeting downstairs. Let’s go.”
Ian led the way and both he and Daniel were as quiet as ever. They all sat down, the two boys were putting on their best game faces, trying to act as blasé as possible.
“So that’s how we looked when we were twelve,” said Josh.
“I’m thirteen,” said Ian.
“Right. Are we expecting Warrick as well?”
“He should be here.”
“Should be but he’s not,” said Anthony.
“Do you guys want to call him?” asked Josh.
“He said he was at home all day,” said Daniel. “We invited him out but he’s busy.”
“Then we might as well get started without him,” said Josh. “You boys have been exploring a fair bit of Luxford, haven’t you?”
They were met by a couple of blank faces.
“We did the same, growing up,” said Anthony. “We climbed through drains, tunnels, and pipes ...”
“Headed along the train tracks and almost got hit a few times.”
“Walked halfway to London once because we got lost.”
“And climbed through enough people’s backyards to piss them off,” said Josh.
Ian and Daniel remained as impassive as they could, but both Josh and Anthony recognised that look of young minds working frantically to figure out what the adults were talking about.
“Does that ring any bells?” Anthony asked.
“No,” said Daniel.
Josh and Anthony had agreed upon a process for bonding with the boys. If they came straight out with ‘We think you’ve been filming people while they’re having a shower,’ then they would be met with nothing but a defensive wall and wouldn’t get anywhere. They had to broach the subject from a distance and build some trust.
“When we were around your age we found this empty house,” said Anthony. “One of the windows was open and we snuck inside. Made it our fort for a while. We thought it was a lot of fun, but of course that was the perspective of a teenager without really understanding how that impacts the people around them. And stupidly, we thought that no one would ever find out. Now that we’re a bit older it’s not as fun looking back at all the people we messed around. Climbing along people’s walls is one thing, but even that makes them all paranoid that someone is going to rob them or vandalise their house.
“And the idea of someone climbing into an empty house and making it their fort or club house is no longer cool. If I bought that house and found out that kids were screwing around in there then I wouldn’t have much sympathy for them. It is also very illegal to go into someone’s house uninvited, even if the house is empty and you think no one has lived in there for years. I guarantee you someone still owns that house, and when they find out what some teenagers got up to in there they’re not going to be happy at all.”
Ian and Daniel stared back and Josh and Anthony, not giving them a single reaction.
“We’ve probably explored just as much of Luxford as you have,” said Josh. “We know its secrets and we know the warning signs of when twelve and thirteen year olds are up to no good.”
“It’s a lot more dangerous now than when we were your age. There are a lot more cars on the road, there are a lot more wild dogs that will bite you and try to tear you limb from limb.”
“We also had a school girl go missing. Completely disappeared. She was smart, was by no means a push over, and one day she just met the wrong person. She might be buried in his garden for all we know. She was never found.”
“We don’t want that to happen to you guys,” said Anthony.
Daniel and Ian remained perfectly still, though Daniel’s eyes widened noticeably. “What was her name?”
“Catherine Shievers,” said Anthony. “I thought they would’ve told that story in school.”
Daniel shrugged. “I think there’s a picture of her in the corridor.”
“I thought she was dead,” said Ian, going pale.
“Well, she probably is,” said Josh. “She’s been gone twenty years so it’s not likely that she will just turn up alive one day.”
Anthony nodded and leaned in towards his nephew. “As nice as Luxford is, it obviously has its dangerous moments and you can’t always be in control of that. Catherine was in control of her life and someone else came along and took it from her. Maybe she wandered into an unsafe area, maybe she met someone she should’ve avoided completely. You can miss the horror by the merest of seconds, but someone targeting you might end up going after one of your friends because they’re easier to get to. Your parents are also better at using your phones and computers than you are. And sometimes they find something they wish they hadn’t found.”
Josh and Anthony both looked over to Daniel, who didn’t look remotely confused or baffled. Josh dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “These things are wonderful but they’re not invisible. Anyone from around the world can type in the details of your phone and the GPS feature will tell them exactly where you are, whose house you’re in at the time, and what part of the train tracks you’re playing along.”
“And hidden cameras are illegal,” said Anthony. He watched Daniel’s reaction carefully, while Josh kept his eyes on Ian. “You might think it’s funny or ingenious to hide a phone while it’s filming someone, but it is one of the most illegal things you can do.”
Josh kept his attention on Ian and started to see him break.
“The law is pretty black and white on this one,” said Anthony. “If you film someone, perhaps they’re in the bathroom or in their bedroom, and if you get caught, there’s no escaping that. I know you’re focussing on the word ‘if’ right now. If you get caught. There’s a chance you won’t. So here’s what happens if you do. The police are called, they talk to you. They confiscate anything electronic you have, so they’ll take your phone and your computer. They’ll tell your parents, both of them, that they are taking your phone and computer and they’ll tell them why. They won’t lie about it, either. They’ll tell them straight away. The police will go through your entire search history on the Internet and they’ll go through your GPS history on your phones.”
Daniel finally shifted and looked to the ground.
“If they find that you’ve been filming someone without their consent they will likely inform the person you filmed. They’ll tell everyone you filmed. And this now breaks off into two areas. Let’s say you filmed someone who is an adult. What you did was illegal. Let’s say you filmed someone who is younger than an adult. One of your sisters, a cousin, a girl from school. Holy shit is that illegal. And if you gave that video to anyone else you will be responsible for distributing it as well. They’ll put you in juvenile detention for that and they’ll put you on a list. Every time you move house you’ll have to register with the local police that you are a sex offender. You actually have to go to the police and tell them what you did every time you move, no matter how long ago it was. If you’re a hundred years old you’ll still have to tell them. If you guys get married and your wife wants to move somewhere, you have to tell the police. If you want to adopt kids, t
hey won’t let you because you’re on this list. If you want to travel to another country, they won’t let you in because you’re on this list. If you want a job that pays more than minimum wage, you won’t get it because your employer will look into your history and do a police check on you and they’ll find out you’re on this list.” Anthony stared at the boys and saw them both start to squirm. They had the fear of the law burning inside them.
Josh leaned forward to Daniel. “What’s your phone number?”
Daniel gave it to him.
“Not your home phone number, your mobile.”
Daniel shifted and wished he could keep his heart rate down. He gave it to Josh.
Josh punched in the numbers into his own phone and called Daniel’s mobile. It rang from Daniel’s pocket, but Daniel didn’t answer it. “If we were to ask to have a look at your phone, at all the Internet search history, all of the GPS details, and all of the pictures and videos that you guys have been taking on there, how bad would it be?”
Daniel remained silent and stared at the floor.
“That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” said Josh. “I’m really asking you: how bad would it be?”
Daniel still didn’t answer the question.
“Pretty bad, then,” said Josh, as he leaned back into the sofa.
Anthony looked over to Ian and knew he had to even it out. “The same question to you.”
Ian, like Daniel, dove into a Cone of Silence.
“Right,” said Anthony. He sighed and shook his head. “So look, neither of us are the police. I’m your uncle,” he said, pointing at Ian, “and we’re not here to ruin your lives. You’re at a point now where things can go well or they can go badly. If you know it’s illegal you can’t do it anymore. It has to stop. That includes alcohol missing from the cupboard and coming home smelling like cigarettes. So, the four of us are going to talk it out, and Josh and I will not tell anyone about what you say to us, okay?”