“How…?” Matt said. “When…?” He was wide eyed, his mouth hung open. It was wonderful. He couldn’t have looked more surprised. That’s the great thing about Matt: he thinks he’s super cool, but to me he’s an open book. So I knew what he was about to ask and answered it just as he opened his mouth.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been in here before.” I was tempted to add “loads of times,” but I couldn’t have carried it off. And anyway, I didn’t want to lie to Matt. It was bad enough I hadn’t told him about the Brewers, but so far, I hadn’t lied to him.
Should I tell him now? I chewed my lip. Maybe all four of them were on their way right now. That was one good reason not to hang around on the path, in full view. On the other hand, there were four very good reasons to get as far away from the quarry as possible. What should I do? Did I really want to impress Matt that much? Was it worth it?
“We don’t have to go in,” I said. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”
“What?” Matt said. “After all that with the keeping it to yourself and the open sesame?”
“Well…” I started.
“The hell with that,” Matt said. And he ducked down and started scrambling through the hole.
“Matt,” I hissed. “Wait for me.” But it was too late. I was talking to his wriggling feet. “Oh hell,” I muttered. I had no choice now. I got down on my hands and knees, ready to crawl into the hole.
And that’s when I heard Matt’s shout: “Aaagh!”
I hesitated. “What?” I called. “What’s the matter?”
There was a horrible silence. And then Matt’s face appeared at the hole. “I cracked my knee on a rock or something.” He grinned. “Come on then,” he said. “What’re you waiting for?” And he ducked back out of sight.
I shook my head then followed him through the hole. Matt was waiting for me.
“This is cool,” he said.
I stood up and brushed the dirt off my hands. “Yeah,” I said. “But listen—keep it down, OK?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Matt said, already walking away.
“Wait!” I said. Matt stopped and turned to look at me.
I grabbed the edge of the iron sheet. “I’ve got to put this back first,” I said.
Matt nodded, but he didn’t help. I dragged the metal sheet into place, checked it was in the right place. “Does that look how we found it?” I asked. No reply. I wheeled around. Where the hell had he gone? “Matt?” I called.
“Woohoo, take a look at that.” I raced toward the sound of his voice. He wasn’t far away—just out of sight behind a hawthorn bush on the edge of the quarry floor.
I grabbed his sleeve. “What the hell are you doing?” I said. “I told you to keep it down. I told you.”
Matt looked down to where I was holding his sleeve. He looked distinctly troubled. “Why?” he said. “What’s the big deal?”
I let go of his sleeve. I didn’t know what to say.
“Look,” he went on, “this was your idea in the first place.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just…”
“Are you scared?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Listen. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute, but not here. Someone might hear us. The last time I came out of here, there was this old guy walking his dog, and he had a right go at me. You know what I mean.”
Matt nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Our next-door neighbour complains if she thinks your shirt’s too loud.” We both smiled at that.
“Anyway,” I said. “What are you woohooing about?”
“You must know,” he said. “That.” And he pointed across the quarry floor.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “The car—it’s an MG.” I hadn’t approached the car from this end of the quarry before. You could see the MG clearly.
“I can see that,” Matt said. “Let’s go and have a look.”
“OK,” I said. We set off along the path—the Brewers’ path. Matt was humming a tune to himself. I kept looking back over my shoulder.
“Oh my days,” Matt said. He leaned against the wing of the wrecked MG. “What a mess.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Shall we sell it on eBay? Nearly new– needs some attention.”
“Yeah, only one careful owner—the others were all real nutters.” We laughed.
Matt reached into his pocket. “Smoke?” he said.
“Here?” I blurted out. Even I could hear the horror in my voice.
Matt stopped smiling. “What now?” he moaned.
I should tell him about the Brewers, I thought. I really should.
Matt offered me the cigarette packet. “Come on,” he said. “Stop being such a wuss.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I…just…”
Matt smirked. “Awww—are you scared of the little ghosties and the ghoulies?”
I shouldn’t have risen to it. But I couldn’t hang around that car. I just had to shut him up and get him moving. “If you must know,” I said. “I lost my phone in here somewhere, and I did think you might help me look for it. So come on.” I started walking away from the car, but Matt didn’t follow me.
“What, your new one?” he said. “Bloody hell. What did your dad say?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He doesn’t even know. He won’t have to know if we find it.”
Matt looked around, taking in the size of the quarry floor. “It’s not going to be easy,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s probably a waste of time.” I sighed.
But Matt shook his head. He stood up and reached into his jacket pocket. “No,” he said. “It’s obvious. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Matt had his phone in his hand. He was going to ring my phone. A good idea—unless you were meant to be keeping quiet.
My phone’s ringtone made a shrill dent in the silence. Matt smiled. “Hey,” he said. “It still works—it hasn’t got wet.” He set off toward the sound. He called back over his shoulder: “Come on– before it goes to voicemail.”
“Matt,” I said. “It’s too –”
But Matt cut me off. “Watch out,” he said. “There might be goblins.”
“Oh god,” I muttered. I should never have brought him. Matt was making enough noise to wake the dead. But how could I stop him? I jogged after him. The sooner we found my phone, the sooner we could stop that damned ringtone.
Fat chance. We left the path and waded on and on through the bracken, stopping to listen, redialling when the ringtone stopped. In the open space of the quarry the sound echoed and rolled.
“It’s this way,” Matt said. “I’m positive.”
“No,” I said. “It’s behind us…isn’t it?”
“Nah,” Matt said. He cocked his head. “Or maybe you’re right.”
The ringtone cut off. “I’ll try again,” he said.
It was an agony. Matt had to ring my number another five times before we even got close. By then, we were beside the rock face, near to the place where I’d climbed up the steps.
“It’s no good, Matt,” I said. “We’ll never find it.”
“Rubbish,” Matt said. “We’re right on top of it.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “That’s what you said last time.”
Matt just smiled and said, “And the time before that.” He smiled and picked up a stick, started poking among the bracken.
I’ve had enough of this, I thought. It’s no good—I’ll have to tell him about the Brewers. “Matt,” I started, “there’s something I –”
“Shh!” Suddenly, Matt crouched down.
I flung myself down into a crouch. “What?” I whispered. “What did you hear?”
But Matt didn’t answer. He had his back to me, and he was reaching into the bracken. “Aha,” he said. “I’ve got you, my little beauty.” He pulled his arm from the bracken and turned to me, pride in his eyes. “There you go,” he announced, “one state-of-the-art mobile phone.” And in his hand, wonderfully, almost unbelievably, was my phone. It was still ringing.
“No, don’t thank me,” he said. “Just hand over the reward.” He held the phone out toward me.
I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Matt,” I said. As I took the phone from his hand, the ringtone abruptly cut off, the screen went blank.
Matt raised an eyebrow. “Flat battery?”
I nodded.
“Hey,” Matt was even more pleased with himself now, “I was just in time. Another minute longer, and there’d have been no hope.”
“Yeah,” I said. “No hope at all.”
CHAPTER 46
1939
IN SOME WAYS, Vincent preferred to work alone. But after yesterday—finding Bob like that—it didn’t feel right. I just can’t concentrate, he thought. Usually, all he needed was a decent piece of stone, his own tools and his bare hands. His skill, his work, it meant something, he meant something. He wasn’t a labourer, not like poor old Bob. Vincent straightened his back and looked around at his workmates. They crushed, pulverised, blundered away at the rock. Everything they did reduced the stone, weakened it, broke it down. Eventually, when they’d finished, a lot of the stone would be no more than gravel and dust. They don’t see its strength, he thought. They don’t know what it’s like to restore a church or a grand house, to replace something made hundreds of years ago by a mason just like me. He sighed. How many folk could afford his craftsmanship in these sorry times? These days even the upper classes were tightening their belts. He had a couple of orders coming up, but then what?
Vincent closed his eyes and rubbed them with his dusty hands. One day there would be no more orders. Would he be laid off? He was too old to find another decent job now. One thing was for sure: he couldn’t risk getting into any trouble. But here it came. The foreman, Mr Burrows, was strutting toward him.
“What’s this, Corbett—taking a break?”
Vincent shook his head. “Morning, Mr Burrows,” he said.
“Huh,” Burrows grunted. “It would be a damn sight better morning if your work-shy friend had turned up to work this morning.”
“Yes, well, it’s like I said—it’s the heat. We were working, and he had a funny turn.”
“Is that so?” Burrows sneered. “I think there must be more to it than that, don’t you?”
Vincent gulped. “Like what?” he said. Burrows couldn’t know they’d been up on the ledge, could he? He’d had hell of a job leading Bob down the steps and through the bushes, but he didn’t think they’d been spotted until they were back on the quarry floor.
“Like maybe our friend, Bob, had a few too many pints the night before perhaps.”
Vincent smiled. So that was his game. He was looking for a reason to give Bob the sack. But Vincent wouldn’t play along. “Oh no, Mr Burrows—it was just the heat.” Vincent wasn’t used to lying, and he wasn’t much good at it. He kept his expression as blank as possible.
Burrows studied Vincent, thought of challenging him, calling him a liar. But Vincent was a big man, and he always looked the foreman in the eye. Burrows looked away; he couldn’t go through with it. Even so, Burrows thought, I’ll do something to bring him down a peg or two. He reached into his pocket and produced his little black notepad. This will show Corbett who’s in charge, he thought.
Vincent set his mouth into a firm line. They all knew how the foreman loved his notebook. The lads often had a good laugh about it.
Burrows scribbled away in his little book, occasionally stopping and looking thoughtfully at Vincent as though thinking up a particularly nasty comment.
“So,” he said. “Did you put him in the tool shed like I said?”
Vincent nodded. “Yes, Mr Burrows—to cool off—you know I did.”
“Then what?” Burrows asked.
“Then I went back to work.”
“Yes,” snapped Burrows. “But where did your friend Bob disappear off to?”
“When?”
Burrows stared at Vincent. “Are you mocking me, Corbett?” he said.
“No, Mr Burrows.”
“Then tell me where he went after you put him in the tool shed.”
“He just went out the gate,” Vincent said. “I was across the way, but I saw him go.”
“And didn’t he say anything? Anything at all?”
“No,” Vincent said. “He still looked a bit shaky.”
“Aha,” Burrows said and scribbled in his notepad. “I’ll have to dock his wages for that. And if he doesn’t turn up tomorrow, I’ll give him his cards.”
Vincent didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell Burrows that Bob had waved goodbye. There’d been something final about it. He didn’t think he’d be seeing Bob again.
“Right, get back to work, Corbett,” Burrows crowed. He looked up to the sky. “I don’t like the look of those clouds. Feels like we’re in for a downpour.” He looked at Vincent and smirked. “Someone’s going to get wet,” he said. Then, satisfied, he turned on his heel and marched off, looking for signs of shirking.
Vincent ran a hand over his face. Had he done the right thing covering for Bob? Yes. That was the way things were done: never tell tales on a mate, keep your worries to yourself, put a brave face on and above all stay proud. Vincent sighed. Had it always been like this? Or was it just the hard times that made everyone so determined, so tough?
He shook his head. He really couldn’t afford to lose this job. But all through a sleepless night and all through the morning, he’d thought about nothing but the slab of dark stone Bob had found. What was it doing there? Why was no one allowed in that part of the quarry? And what the hell had happened to Bob?
It was no use waiting for Bob to turn up—he wouldn’t be showing his face today. Bob might never come back to the quarry, and Vincent could not wait. There was only one way to find out. Was it worth it? It would mean risking everything: his job, his livelihood, his future. Vincent picked up his tools and tried to concentrate on his work. But in the back of his mind, he was already making plans. He would have to go and see for himself. He would have to climb up to the ledge.
CHAPTER 47
1939
WARMTH. BURLIC FELT IT SOAKING INTO HIS BACK. The unmistakable heat of a summer’s day. But my face, he thought, my face is so cold—why? He was lying face down, lying on something hard and ice cold. He tried to open his eyes, but it was too bright. He groaned. Every bone ached, every muscle burned. I must’ve fallen, he thought, fallen a long way…and landed on a rock…a flat rock. His memory stirred. Yes, that was it: the dark stone and Waeccan and the ledge and…Burlic opened his eyes, gulped a breath. And falling, he thought, falling into the darkness, falling into the emptiness, pulled by the Shades, dragged into their world.
But if this was the Shade World…why was it so bright? Burlic squinted into the light, but his eyes were streaming and everything was blurred. He grunted, used his arms to push himself up. As he strained to raise his body from the stone, sharp tingling pains raked across his skin. He flexed his stiff back and grimaced as the bones crackled and crunched. He knelt and rubbed his eyes. The stone was cold and hard against his knees. He looked down. This stone looked like Waeccan’s dark stone. It was the same size and shape, and it was just as flat, just as unnatural. But this stone was grimed with dirt. Waeccan’s stone was clean, sparkling. Burlic ran a hand over the dusty surface. Could this really be the same stone, or had someone moved him here while he slept?
Burlic shaded his eyes with his hand and tried to make sense of his surroundings. It looked like Waeccan’s ledge, but something was wrong, something had changed. Or did it just look different in the bright sunlight? Burlic shook his head. If this was the same ledge, then where was Waeccan? Burlic stretched his arms wide and flexed his fingers to put some life back into them. Just you wait, Waeccan, he thought. Just you wait until I get hold of you. And that’s when he heard it.
A low, murmuring whimpering. And very near. Burlic sprang up into a crouching position, balancing on the balls of his feet and his fingertips. He flexed his legs, ready to leap forw
ard, ready to fight. He faced toward the sound, the threat. He narrowed his eyes against the sunlight, bared his teeth. Yes, it was near—very near. Burlic’s skin crawled. The wavering, babbling drone grew louder. It was like the wailing of a frightened child, but deeper, stronger. There, a movement—a huddled shape in the shade of a tree. Even in this glaring sunlight Burlic knew it was a man, cowering in the shadows. Silently, Burlic drew his knife. He tensed his muscles, pulled his body back, tested the grip of his feet on the stone. He was ready.
“Show yourself,” he growled.
The shadowed figure flinched. His strange wailing faltered into hoarse gasps.
“Now!” Burlic bellowed.
And at that moment, the hiding man made a stupid mistake. He jumped to his feet and tried to run, tried to get past Burlic. Burlic roared and leapt, arms stretched out toward the intruder. The stranger shrieked and stumbled. He fell flat on the ground and huddled himself into a ball, raised his arms to protect his face.
But the attack never came. The stranger opened his eyes. Above him, Burlic hung in mid-air as though suspended, his body stretched out, his feet still on the dark stone, his mouth open in a silent roar.
Burlic could not breathe, could not swallow. He could not even blink. He could only stare, unfocused, at the strange figure that lay below him. The stranger trembled, his mouth hung open, his eyes rolled madly. Whoever it was, he was equally helpless, overwhelmed with blind terror.
Then it began once more. At first, Burlic felt it in his feet—an agony of coldness where they were still in contact with the stone. It leached the heat from him, grabbed him, mauled him, shuddered through his legs, his hips, his waist. It rippled across his back, along his arms. It circled his throat, his head. The ice grip engulfed him, smothered him and then, silently, swiftly, it took him.
Trespass: A Tale of Mystery and Suspense Across Time (The Darkeningstone Book 1) Page 14