The Red Road

by Stephen Sweeney

  Whenever I chose to run from them, it was always atypical of a dream. Either I would never be able to run fast enough, my legs moving as if through treacle, or I would fly like the wind. When I was able to run properly, I would thunder the opposite way down the corridor to the door at the other end, smashing it open and rushing out into the clear light of day. I would always emerge somewhere on the school grounds, though the exact location varied every time. The grounds were always deserted and deathly quiet, as if I were the last person left alive in the world. I would sprint past the houses, the classrooms, the main school, sometimes even the church, and down towards the sports fields. The goblins would always be just behind me, never willing to give up. Even when I was able to outstrip them, they would magically appear somewhere in front of me, teeth gnashing and steel flashing.

  And no matter what I did, the dream would always end the same way – with my death.

  The first time I experienced the nightmare, I woke to find myself standing in the darkness of one of the lavatories of the main school. One of the other boys was standing by the door, holding it open and speaking very calmly.

  “Joe?” he said.

  “Hmm?” I replied.

  “You’ve had a bad dream.”

  “Huh?”

  Despite everything, he didn’t turn on the lights; perhaps he was concerned about how I might react. I was standing directly in front of the long trough of the urinal. Thankfully, it didn’t appear as though I had actually wet myself.

  “Come on,” the boy said. “It’s okay. Come with me and go back to bed.”

  He stretched out a hand towards me, and I went with him, leaving the lavatory and returning to my bed. That was all I remembered about the incident. The next day, however, my bed was surrounded by every other boy in the dormitory, no less than fourteen faces staring into mine, all firing questions at me and wanting to know if I was okay.

  “Do you remember what happened last night?”

  “What were you shouting about?”

  “Did you shit yourself?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “You did shit yourself, didn’t you?”

  Apparently, I had been screaming the place down, wailing about how Freddy Krueger was going to get me, or something like that. Though I had never seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, I’m not sure whether I would have really preferred Kruger to the goblins in all honesty. A number of the other boys had seen the films and told me about the vengeful spirit’s murderous transcendence of the dream world and the real one. At least my tormentors were confined to my sleeping hours.

  Though Butcher House provided a bedroom for the housemaster or duty master, neither had heard me, as none had been sleeping in the house that night. In the main, the duty of ensuring a tightly run ship fell to the head of house, the house prefects, and my own dormitory prefect (a boy by the name of Julian Patrick, who left St Christopher’s after completing his GCSEs). It was the first time he had been in charge of a dormitory, as well as my own first month in the senior school itself. Wonderful introductions, both of them.

  I felt like death that morning and was advised by Patrick to stay in bed until the school nurse became available. I did so, and after all the other boys had showered, dressed and made their way down to the refectory for breakfast, I slouched on down to the clinic, still in my PJs, dressing gown and slippers.

  With my head spinning and my bowels threatening to fill my pyjama bottoms with gallons of diarrhoea, I was admitted to the infirmary immediately, where I stayed for seven days while I sweated out a terrible fever. Only a handful of the boys came to see me, mostly to bring me work I had missed, as well as letters from home and penpals. Even so, they would stay as long as they could to keep me company. They became my best friends from then on – Samuel Gilmore, David Nurse, Robert Walker, and Barry Green. It was Sam that had come to walk me from the lavatories back to my bed the night of my sleepwalking episode.

  The doctor came by twice during my weeklong stay in the infirmary and discharged me on his second visit. At the time, I thought the goblins were simply connected to the fever. Sadly, they reappeared only a few weeks later. Quite what they stood for I had no idea; maybe at some point in the future I would find out.

  Chapter Three

  The parents began to arrive at the school a little over an hour after the assembly had finished. They came as a trickle to begin with, some of the more local families putting in an appearance with such speed as to make me think they did nothing except wait by the phone all day, in case their little darlings were to fall down and graze their knee and be in need of some TLC from Mummy.

  By around six that evening, the school grounds had been transformed into a scene that lent itself more to the last day of term than a normal weekday. The roads outside the houses and the main school were populated by all manner of four-by-four vehicles; it looked like many of the parents had been practical and just jumped into the family car, so as to arrive as promptly as possible.

  Others had to be different.

  I had no idea whether they had been told the true nature of events (I very much doubted it), but even if they had, it clearly would have done nothing to dissuade some from turning up at the school in sports cars. Some families at St Christopher’s would leap at the chance to rub their wealth in the faces of others, seeming to trade their cars in regularly for a more up-to-date model in a bid to one-up one another.

  I actually hoped that none of the parents knew what had happened here today, and that it had simply been reported as ‘an incident’. If not, I couldn’t believe that someone could be as callous as to still feel the need to show off at such a time as this.

  “Oh look, there’s Timpson’s mum,” Baz said, as we stood together outside the entrance to Butcher House. “Never wastes an opportunity to show off.”

  We watched as the Ferrari drew gracefully to a halt outside, looking as though it had just received a thorough wash before leaving home; I couldn’t see a spot of dirt or grime anywhere on its perfect red paintwork.

  “I swear that’s a different car to the one she arrived in at the start of term,” Baz muttered.

  Baz (or Barry, to give him his proper name) was one of the few boys in the school I really saw eye to eye with. He had only been at the school for two years, much shorter than my own tenure of six, but I already got the impression that he didn’t intend on staying much longer. He had his head screwed on right, though he was picked on by many of the other boys for no reason other than his cockney accent. The Clique loved to rip into him for that, repeating everything he said with emphasis on the missing letters in his pronunciation.

  Mrs Timpson stepped out of the car, power dressed in a figure-hugging suit that I was fairly certain had never seen the inside of an office, even on a visit to see her husband. From what I understood, work was a four-letter word to the woman. She was a lady of leisure, one that had found herself a rich, older man; a successful but lonely man, of course, to live an easy life. Now out of the car, she closed the door behind her and then remained not three feet from the vehicle, clutching an expensive-looking purse as she waited for her son to turn up.

  “Why is she wearing sunglasses?” I asked incredulously. “It’s cloudy.”

  “Stuck up bitch,” Baz said.

  The entrance to Butcher House was a good place for people watching. Standing just outside the entrance with the main door open, we could see most of what was going on in the parking area, as well as into the downstairs hall and who was coming down the flight of stairs.

  We watched as other boys came down from the dormitories and rooms above, some giving us a nod and a wave (the younger ones), others sticking a finger up (the sixth formers). They all carried an overnight bag filled with personal possessions that they didn’t want to leave on the school grounds in their absence. Ordinarily, when leaving at the end of term, we would have our suitcases fetched and fill those with all our clothes, picking up duvets, pillows, and all kind of other miscella
neous bits and pieces along the way. The nature of the afternoon and the urgency to clear the school completely within the next twenty-four hours meant there was no time for any such thing.

  “Look at her, standing around so everyone can see that it’s her bloody car,” Baz continued, glaring at the woman. “I’d not be surprised if she starts draping herself across the bonnet in a minute.”

  “She used to be an actress, didn’t she?” I asked.

  “Failed actress,” Baz smirked.

  “When are your parents getting here?”

  “Not until seven. My dad’s coming straight after work, and my mum’s in hospital.”

  “Really? Is she okay?”

  “It’s just an x-ray,” Baz said dismissively. “She’s just getting a fracture looked at.”

  “Are you going to stay for dinner, then? They’re doing it half an hour early tonight.”

  “Nah. I’ll probably go to McDonald’s on the way back,” he said with a grin I knew was meant to annoy me.

  Lucky git. “Wish they’d take us to McDonald’s,” I said.

  After vomiting up my lunch on the Road earlier, and unable to get anything else down at teatime as I was still recovering from the shock, I was starving. I wondered if the school were going to open the tuck shop at all, so I could at least grab a packet of crisps or a bar of chocolate, in case I didn’t fancy the evening meal.

  A Lion Bar would really hit the spot right about now, I thought. “They could at least have ordered pizza for the ones that are staying tonight,” I said.

  “You’re definitely staying?”

  “My mum and dad aren’t back until tomorrow morning now, so yeah.”

  “What happened to Sam?”

  “He’s gone to Dave’s house, in London.”

  “Doesn’t Rob live in Baconsdale? You should have gone home with him.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t find out my mum and dad weren’t coming back until just a while ago, and Rob had already left.”

  “Oh, that was unlucky. How many others are here?”

  “No idea,” I said. “I think my entire dorm is leaving tonight. All first years, so not unexpected.”

  Mrs Timpson turned her head, looking about her surroundings, seemingly unimpressed by the other parents’ chosen methods of transport. She gave the passing cars little more than a cursory glance before she looked back to where Baz and I were leaning up against the stone doorway. Presently, a somewhat diminutive second-year boy came struggling down the stairs with an oversized and overstuffed bag. He paid us no attention whatsoever as he walked past, waddling his way through the front doors and towards the red sports car.

  “Funny how little Eddy went from the B stream up to the A stream at the start of the year,” Baz said.

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” I said. “It came right after the school received that generous, anonymous donation towards the music department, too. What’s the bet he’ll become head of house?” I added as Mrs Timpson strutted around the front of the car, opened the boot and helped her son lift the bag in.

  “Not high at this point,” Baz said. “But a few new textbooks and a computer for the library would probably see to that.”

  “A prefect at the very least,” I said as the boy skipped gleefully around to the passenger side of the car and hopped in.

  “Spoilt bastard,” Baz muttered as the car sped off.

  “Think he left the laptop? He has some cool stuff on there.”

  “Doubt it,” Baz snorted, pushing off the wall, now clearly bored of people watching. “I think he threw that one away, anyway. He’s got a new one that’s in colour. Not even my dad has one of those at work.”

  “Colour?” I said. “He’s got a colour laptop?” It shouldn’t have surprised me to be honest.

  “Yep. I actually think it’s been nicked about a million times already. He’s the only one in the school with one, apart from AJ Long, and he just gets all that stuff dirt cheap from Hong Kong when he goes home, anyway.”

  “No one’s going to be stupid enough to go nicking anything off him,” I said. “Size of him, he could probably kill you with a head butt.”

  “He still does judo, too. What do you want to do now?” Baz asked, as we wandered back into Butcher House. “Want to play the game?” He nodded to the switched-off arcade machine that sat in the corner.

  “Nah, it’s crap,” I said. “They’re all crap this term. Let’s go to your dorm and listen to some music, until your dad gets here.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Baz’s father arrived a little after seven, just as we were wandering down to the refectory to get dinner. We had steadily made our way through Baz’s CD collection, as well as raiding some of the other boys’ while we waited for his dad to turn up. But as dinnertime approached, it appeared that the man was going to be late.

  Still looking forward to his McDonald’s, Baz had decided to go down to the refectory and grab a little snack, as I ate whatever was being served up. We decided to walk the long way, rather than go straight into the main school through the west wing where Butcher was situated. The trip took us out the side entrance, walking the road down to the huge front doors of the main building as we effectively circumnavigated it. We sighted Baz’s father’s car about halfway around, and so we doubled back to Butcher, Baz striding a great deal faster than me.

  Mr Green stepped out of the car, wearing what I guessed was his work suit; he must have driven straight from the office. As expected, Baz’s mother wasn’t with him. Baz headed up to his dormitory to grab his bag, leaving me to engage in small talk with his father.

  “Evening, Joe,” Mr Green said, shaking my hand. “I’d have thought you’d be gone by now.” Unlike Baz, the man’s accent wasn’t in the slightest bit cockney.

  “No, not yet,” I said. “My parents aren’t going to be here till sometime tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh dear,” he said with genuine concern. “Are you staying at the school overnight?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “Are you going to be okay here all by yourself?”

  “There are some other boys staying here tonight, too,” I explained. “So I’ll be okay.”

  “Hmm,” was all he answered. The school might not have told the parents all the details, but it seemed as though some had figured out the story for themselves.

  I had only met Mr Green once, and I didn’t know a great deal about him. I had never really paid that much attention to what the other boys’ parents did for a living, most of them simply working in an office somewhere. Baz’s dad worked somewhere in London, in the City, but that was about as much as I knew.

  “It’s awful what has happened here,” the man said, scratching at the stubble on his face and looking around the grounds.

  “What have they told you?” I wanted to know.

  “That the body of a boy who disappeared last night was found on a road not far from the school grounds. No details other than that. Do they know who it was?”

  “I can’t remember his name, but it was one of the younger boys from the junior school,” I said. “He wasn’t actually wearing any clothes when I saw him.”

  “Oh!” the man’s eyes widened in surprise. “You saw him?”

  I only nodded.

  “Where they found him?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Oh, that must have been a terrible thing to see.”

  “It was. I threw up everywhere when I saw him,” I admitted. “I didn’t think I’d be able to eat for the rest of the day, but I’m hungry now.”

  I wasn’t sure why I told him that; he probably didn’t need or want to know. Perhaps I wasn’t actually as all right as I thought. Perhaps the shock would hit me a lot later on in the coming weeks.

  Baz returned then, carrying his bag with him. His father opened one of the rear passenger doors, and Baz threw the bag in the back rather unceremoniously. He looked keen to escape the school as quickly as possible. I envied him there.

  “See you later, Joe,” he said, g
etting into the front like a bolt of lightning and pulling on his seatbelt.

  Mr Green seemed to take note of his eagerness, but paused for a moment, thumbing his car keys. “Barry, Joe tells me he has to stay at the school tonight.”

  Uh oh. I knew what was coming.

  “Would you prefer to come home with us tonight instead, Joe? Your parents could pick you up from our place in the morning,” Mr Green went on to offer.

  I caught Baz’s eye for a brief instant, able to recognise the signs of trepidation within. The vast majority of the pupils at St Christopher’s saw their home as a sanctuary away from the school, and the idea of another boy violating that sanctuary was never high on anyone’s list. Unless they were very nearly blood brothers, there was always a certain degree of reluctance to take anyone home with you. There was a sense of pride in that no one ever wanted someone else to see how they really lived, in case their house was small and poky, or that outside of brief encounters such as these, their family were an embarrassment to them. Being as close as we were, Sam had stayed with me on a number of Exit Weekends, not having any family in England. My parents reluctantly permitted this; Sam was always grateful for the invitations, and he was polite and easygoing whenever he stayed. Though Baz and I were close and spent a lot of time together, there was an unwritten rule that this didn’t permit home visits.

  Mr Green added, “Your parents live in Richmond, don’t they?”

  Saved. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Baconsdale, near Guildford, so quite a bit further.” I caught Baz’s eye again. He seemed to have relaxed.

  “Not all that far,” Mr Green said.

  “I’ll be okay here,” I reassured him (and Baz). “It’s just for one night, after all. I might have some duties to do, too. I’m a dorm prefect this term, so Mr Somers might want me to look after some of the younger boys who are staying.”

  Mr Green nodded. “Well, if you’re sure?”

  “I’ll be okay,” I repeated. “I’ll call you next week,” I added to Baz.