The Chalk Man

by C. J. Tudor

“I wrote it down—she didn’t really want me to, but I had to, in case she filed a complaint or something.”

  “I don’t suppose you still have the bit of paper? I mean, I know it’s asking a lot. But…it’s really important.”

  “Well, I always like to help a customer.” He frowns, tugs at his beard and looks me up and down. “You are a customer, aren’t you? Only I don’t see a bag…”

  Of course. Nothing comes for free. I sigh, walk back and pick up the nearest black sweatshirt decorated with leering skulls. I hold it out to Pierced Girl.

  “I’ll take this.”

  She smiles, opens a drawer and pulls out a crumpled slip of paper. She hands it over to me. I can just make out the spidery scrawl:

  “Nicola Martin.”

  Nicky.

  1986

  “You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?”

  Oddly, I always think of that song when I think of the day we found her. I know a lot of songs from old musicals, perhaps because that was what they always seemed to be playing in the care home when we visited Dad. This was after Mum had eventually admitted defeat in looking after him at home.

  I’ve seen a lot of horror, but it is still my dad’s terrifying decline with Alzheimer’s, before he could even collect his pension, that haunts my days and wakes me in a cold sweat. There is violent, sudden and bloody death, and there is something far worse. I know, if I had to, which I would choose.

  I was twenty-seven when I watched my dad die. I was twelve years, eleven months and eight days old when I saw my first dead body.

  In a strange way, I had been expecting it. Ever since the attack on Reverend Martin. Perhaps ever since Sean Cooper’s accident and the very first chalk man.

  And also, because I had had a dream.

  I was in the woods. Deep in the woods. Trees rose up like gnarly old giants, stretching creaking limbs toward the sky. A pale moon peeked blearily between their bent and twisted fingers.

  I stood in a small clearing, surrounded by piles of rotting brown leaves. The damp night air settled on my skin and sank deep into my bones. I was wearing only my pajamas, trainers and a hoodie. I shivered and zipped the hoodie right up. The metal of the zipper rested, icy cold, against my chin.

  Real. Too real.

  There was something else. A smell. Sickly sweet, yet sour. It invaded my nostrils and clogged up my throat. One time we had stumbled over this dead badger in the woods. It had gone all rotten and was heaving with maggots. This was the same smell.

  I knew right away. It had been almost three months since the accident. A long time underground. A long time to lie in a hard, shiny coffin while wriggly brown worms slid over your softening flesh and started to burrow their way inside.

  I turned. Sean Cooper, or what was left of him, smiled at me, his lips cracked and flaking around long white stalks of teeth protruding from black rotting gums.

  “Hey, Shitface.”

  Where his eyes used to be there were now just dark, empty caverns. Except, they weren’t quite empty. Inside, I could see things moving. Shiny black things, busily skittering around inside the soft flesh of his sockets.

  “What am I doing here?”

  “You tell me, Shitface.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why you’re here.”

  “That’s easy, Shitface. I’m Death—your first, up-close experience. Seems like I’m on your mind a lot.”

  “I don’t want to think about you. I want you to go away.”

  “Tough shit. But don’t worry—you’ll have other crap to have nightmares about soon.”

  “What?”

  “What do you think?”

  I looked around. The trunks of the trees were covered in drawings. White chalk men. They were moving. They shifted and shimmied over the bark, like they were dancing some weird, horrible jig. Their stick limbs flailed and waved. They had no faces but, somehow, I knew they were grinning. And not in a good way.

  My skin shriveled on my bones. “Who drew them?”

  “Who do you think, Shitface?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Oh, you know, Shitface. You just don’t know yet.”

  He winked, somehow managing this without eyes or lids, and then he was gone. Not in a cloud of dust this time but a sudden fall of leaves that drifted to the ground and immediately began to curl and die.

  I looked back up. The chalk men had gone. The woods had gone. I was in my bedroom, my body trembling with fear and cold, my hands tingling and numb. I shoved them deep into my pockets. And that was when I realized.

  My pockets were full of chalk.

  —

  Our gang hadn’t all got together since the fight. Nicky had left, obviously, and Mickey had his new mates now. If he saw Fat Gav, Hoppo and me, he would usually just ignore us. Sometimes we would hear his gang snigger as we walked past and someone murmur, “Faggots” or “Benders” or something else insulting.

  That morning, as I walked into the playground, I barely even recognized him. His hair had grown and lightened. He was starting, spookily, to look a lot like his brother. I was pretty sure he was even wearing some of Sean’s clothes.

  In fact, for one horrible moment, I thought it was his brother, sitting on the roundabout, waiting for me.

  Hey, Shitface. Wanna suck my cock?

  And this time I was certain—well, almost certain—that this was not a dream. It was daylight, for a start. Ghosts didn’t exist in daylight, or zombies. They only existed in that sleepy hollow between midnight and dawn, crumbling to dust at the sun’s first rays. Or so, at the age of twelve, I still believed.

  Then Mickey smiled, and it was just him. He slid off the roundabout where he had been perched, chewing gum, and sauntered over.

  “Hey, Eddie Munster. So you got the message?”

  I had. Drawn in blue on the driveway when I came downstairs. The symbol we used when we wanted to meet in the playground, and three exclamation marks. One meant it was pretty urgent. Two meant you had to get there right away. Three meant that it was a matter of life or death.

  “What did you want to meet for? What’s so urgent?”

  He frowned. “Me? I didn’t leave the message.”

  “You left me a message. In blue.”

  He shook his head. “No. I got a message from Hoppo. Green.”

  We stared at each other.

  “Whoah. The prodigal son returns!” Fat Gav strode into the playground. “What gives?”

  “Did someone leave you a message to come here?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. You did, Penis-breath.”

  We were partway through explaining when Hoppo arrived. “So who told you to come?” Fat Gav asked.

  Hoppo looked at him oddly. “You. What’s going on?”

  “Someone wanted to get us all here together,” I said.

  “Why?”

  You know, Shitface. You just don’t know it yet.

  “I think someone is going to be hurt, or they have been already.”

  “Fuck off,” Metal Mickey snorted.

  I looked around. Another message. There would be one, I was sure. I started to circle the playground. The rest of them watched me like I was mad. And then I pointed. Beneath the baby swings. A drawing, in white chalk. But this one was different. This figure had long hair and wore a dress. Not a chalk man, a girl, and drawn next to her several white chalk trees.

  I still remember that moment clearly. The crispness of the white chalk on the black tarmac. The faint squeak of the rusty old baby swing and the biting chill of the early-morning air.

  “What’s that shit?” Metal Mickey asked, walking over. Hoppo and Fat Gav followed. They all peered down at the drawing.

  “We need to go to the woods,” I said.

  “You cannot be serious!” Fat Gav exclaimed, but it came out a bit halfheartedly.

  “I’m not going to the woods,” Metal Mickey said. “It’ll take ages, and f
or what?”

  “I’ll go,” Hoppo said and, even though I knew he was probably only saying it to piss Mickey off, I felt glad of his support.

  Fat Gav rolled his eyes, then shrugged. “Okay. I’m in.”

  Metal Mickey stood mutinously to one side, hands jammed in his pockets.

  I looked at the other two. “C’mon.”

  We walked back across the playground and picked up our bikes.

  “Wait.” Metal Mickey strolled over. He glared at us. “This had better not be a fucking joke.”

  “No joke,” I said, and he nodded.

  We wheeled our bikes out of the playground. I glanced back at the swings. I’m not sure if any of the others had noticed, but there was something different about the chalk figure of the girl. She was broken. The lines of her body weren’t constant. Arms. Legs. Head. They weren’t joined.

  —

  In a strange way—the way that, when something awful happens, you have this overwhelming desire to just laugh until you can’t stop—the ride to the woods that morning was the most exhilarating, the most enjoyable, it had ever been.

  We didn’t go to the woods much in winter, except for Hoppo, who cycled out sometimes to collect wood. Today, the sun was shining and the icy wind snapped at our faces and tugged at our hair. My skin felt fresh and tingly. My limbs felt like they could cycle faster than ever. Nothing could stop us. I wanted that cycle ride to go on and on but, of course, it couldn’t. Far too quickly, the dark mass of the woods drew into view.

  “Now what?” Metal Mickey asked, slightly breathless.

  We climbed off our bikes. I stared around. And then I spotted it. Drawn on the wooden fence near the stile. A single white chalk arm with a finger pointing straight ahead.

  “Onward and over, then,” Fat Gav said, hefting his bike over the stile.

  He had a look in his eyes that reflected how I felt. A heightened awareness, a kind of almost hysterical excitement. I’m not sure if any of them knew exactly what they were looking for. Or perhaps they did and just didn’t want to say it out loud.

  Every kid wants to find a dead body. About the only thing a twelve-year-old boy wants to find more is a spaceship, buried treasure or a porn mag. We wanted to find something bad that day. And we did. I’m just not sure anyone realized how bad it would be.

  Fat Gav led the way, which I remember feeling miffed about. This was supposed to be my adventure. My thing. But Fat Gav had always been our leader so, in another way, it felt right. The gang was back together again. Almost.

  We seemed to go a long way into the woods before we saw it. Another stick hand on the trunk of a tree.

  “This way,” Fat Gav said, panting a bit.

  “Yeah, we can see that,” Metal Mickey said.

  Hoppo and I just looked at each other and grinned. It felt more like it used to be. The stupid squabbling. Metal Mickey making snide comments.

  We plowed on, off the rough pathway and farther into the heart of the woods. Occasionally, there would be a sudden rush of noise and a group of starlings or crows would take flight from the trees. Once or twice I thought I saw rustling in the undergrowth. Maybe a rabbit, or sometimes you saw foxes here.

  “Stop,” Fat Gav ordered, and we all ground to a halt.

  He pointed at another tree, directly in front of us. On the tree trunk not a stick arm this time but another stick girl. Beneath it was a massive pile of leaves. We all looked at each other. And then back down at the pile of leaves. Something was sticking out of the top.

  “Holy fuck!” Fat Gav said.

  Fingers.

  —

  Her nails were short and clean and painted a pretty pastel pink. Not chipped or broken or anything. The police would say that she hadn’t struggled. Or perhaps she had had no chance. Her skin was paler than I remembered, the summer tan faded to a more wintry hue. She wore a small silver ring with a green stone in the center on her middle finger. I knew, the first moment I saw it, that the arm belonged to Waltzer Girl.

  Hoppo bent down first. He was always the least squeamish. I had once seen him put an injured bird out of its misery with a rock. He brushed away more leaves.

  “Oh, shit,” Metal Mickey whispered.

  The jagged end of bone was very white. I noticed it more than the blood. That had dried to a dull, rusty tone, almost blending in with the leaves that still partially covered the arm. Just the arm. Severed at the shoulder.

  Fat Gav sat down suddenly and heavily on the ground. “It’s an arm,” he muttered. “It’s a fucking arm.”

  “Well spotted, Sherlock,” Metal Mickey said, but even his practiced sneer sounded a little shaky.

  Fat Gav looked at me hopefully. “Maybe it’s a joke? Maybe it’s not real?”

  “It’s real,” I said.

  “What do we do?”

  “We call the police,” Hoppo said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Fat Gav muttered. “I mean, maybe she’s still alive—”

  “She’s not alive, you fat moron,” Metal Mickey said. “She’s dead, just like Sean.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We do,” I said, and pointed to another tree, with another chalk finger drawn on it. “There are more directions…to the rest of her.”

  “We need to get the police,” Hoppo said again.

  “He’s right,” Metal Mickey said. “C’mon. We should go.”

  Nods of agreement. We all started to move. Then Fat Gav said, “Shouldn’t someone stay…in case…”

  “What? In case the arm gets up and runs away?” Metal Mickey said.

  “No. I don’t know. Just to make sure something doesn’t happen to it.”

  We all looked at each other. He was right. Someone should stay guard. But no one wanted to. No one wanted to stay in the quiet hollow of the woods with a dismembered arm, listening to the rustling of the undergrowth, jumping at every flight of birds, wondering…

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  After the others left I sat beside her. Tentatively, I reached out and touched her fingers. Because that’s what she looked like she was doing. Reaching out her hand, pleading for someone to hold it. I expected her hand to be stiff and cold. But actually, it still felt soft and almost warm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  I’m not quite sure how long I remained in the woods. Probably no longer than half an hour. When the gang eventually returned, with two local policemen to start with, my legs had gone completely numb and I think I must have fallen into some strange half-trance.

  But I was still able to assure the police that no one had disturbed the arm. That it was exactly as we found it. And that was almost true.

  The only difference was a slightly paler circle around her middle finger where a ring had been.

  —

  They found the rest of her under separate piles of leaves around the woods. Well, almost all of her. I guess that’s why it took them a while to work out who she was. Of course, I already knew. But no one ever asked. They asked lots of other questions. What were we doing in the woods? How did we find the body? When we told them about the chalk drawings on the trees, they were pretty interested in that, but when I tried to tell them about the other chalk figures, the messages, I’m not sure they quite got it.

  That’s the thing with adults. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say; they only hear what they want to hear.

  As far as the police were concerned, we were just kids playing in the woods who followed the chalk directions and stumbled over a body. It wasn’t quite how it had happened, but I guess it was close enough. I suppose that’s how myths and stuff grow. The past is told and retold, and things get a bit twisted and smudged and, eventually, the new story becomes fact.

  Everyone at school wanted to talk to us, naturally. It was a bit like after the fair, except this time people were even more interested, because she was dead. And in bits.

  We had an assembly and a policeman came to tell us how we must be extra careful and
not talk to any strangers. Of course, now there were lots of strangers around the town. People with cameras and microphones standing talking in the street or by the woods. We weren’t allowed to go back there. Tape had been strung up all around the trees and policemen stood guard.

  Fat Gav and Metal Mickey took great delight in filling in the gory details and making even more up. Hoppo and I let them do most of the talking. I mean, it was exciting and everything. But I felt a bit guilty, too. It didn’t seem right, taking so much pleasure from a dead girl. And it seemed really unfair that Waltzer Girl should survive the day at the fair and have her leg saved, only for it to be cut off again. That really was a pile of stinking Buckaroo.

  I felt bad for Mr. Halloran, too. He had seemed so sad the last time I saw him, and that was when Waltzer Girl was alive and they were going away to live together. Now she was dead and wouldn’t be going anywhere, except the same, dark, cold place as Sean Cooper.

  I tried to say this to Mum and Dad over dinner one night.

  “I feel bad for Mr. Halloran.”

  “Mr. Halloran? Why?” Dad asked.

  “Because he saved her, and now she’s dead, and it was all for nothing.”

  Mum sighed. “You and Mr. Halloran still did a brave thing that day. It wasn’t for nothing. You must never think that, whatever people say.”

  “What are people saying?”

  Mum and dad exchanged “adult” looks, the sort that adults seem to think, because you’re a kid, somehow, magically, you can’t see.

  “Eddie,” Mum said. “We know you’re fond of Mr. Halloran. But sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think we do. In fact, Mr. Halloran hasn’t been here long. None of us really knows him at all.”

  I stared at them. “Do people think he killed her?”

  “We didn’t say that, Eddie.”

  They didn’t have to. I was twelve, not stupid.

  I felt my throat tighten. “He wouldn’t have killed her. He loved her. They were going to go away together. He said.”

  Mum frowned. “When did he say that, Eddie?”

  I had talked myself into a corner. “When I went to see him.”

  “You went to see him? When was this?”

  I shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago.”