Three Strikes

by Lucy Christopher

  The theme song from Ghostbusters blared through the earbuds, startling Bo so badly she yelped.

  Very funny. Still, she didn’t kill the music, only turned the volume down a little. Bo made her way rather unhurriedly to the cemetery gate, stepping through it just as the clock chimes ended. Then she stopped.

  Trees lined the road from the cemetery into town. It wound uphill like a silver-scaled snake, lit only by stars. Yet Bo could clearly make out the shapes of four shambling figures making their way down the hill toward her. None of the four carried a light of any kind, and their meandering steps made them look as though they were drunk, or sleepwalking.

  Bo sighed. If the zombie apocalypse was starting now, after she’d finished all her maths homework, she was going to be thoroughly annoyed.

  Keeping to the treeline so she could observe without being seen herself, Bo made her way up the road toward the figures. As she neared them, the starlight filled in their features enough for her to see who they were: Randy, Felix, Jordy, and Colby Swiveller. The sight of the brothers was enough to make Bo want to turn and walk in the opposite direction. The elder two – Randy and Felix, though Bo could never remember which one was the eldest – were also in Bo’s year at school. They were the sort of boys who liked to burn ants under a magnifying glass, and would purposely swerve toward a cat crossing the road in front of their car. But as much as Bo couldn’t stand the Swivellers, she was also not inclined to walk the longer way back to her house. So she waited, hidden in the dark cover of the trees, for them to pass.

  Not one of the boys glanced her way as they shuffled by. They didn’t even look at one another. Their dark eyes stared glassily into the distance, and none of them spoke. What were they doing out here on this road in the middle of the night? Where were they going? Had they been huffing aerosols or something? This was strange behaviour, even for the Swivellers.

  Bo watched the brothers continue their silent, shambling journey along the road. They didn’t stop at the cemetery gates, but continued until she lost sight of them among the shadows and trees.

  Weirdos, Bo thought, and resumed her uphill trudge toward home.

  The seat next to Bo in registration was empty. It had been empty since the start of the new term ten days earlier. Everybody seemed to feel the vacuum of Sky’s absence, and their eyes were drawn to that empty chair. Bo caught Felix Swiveller eyeing the seat, his rubbery lips tilted up at the corners.

  ‘You can sod right off if you think you’re sitting there,’ Bo said, not quietly enough to avoid Mr Hiatt’s notice, though he said nothing.

  Felix turned to his brother next to him rather than answering Bo directly. ‘Do you think there’s still tiny little bits of her on that chair? Bits of skin and hair and that?’

  Randy’s eyes gleamed. ‘I bet there is.’

  Bo sighed aggressively at them. ‘Speaking of being absolute creeps, why were you lurking about near the cemetery last night?’ It might have been a little hypocritical, she conceded, to accuse the brothers of lurking when she herself had been hanging around the cemetery, but she saw no reason to tell them that. The two stared at her blankly. ‘I saw you, so don’t even bother to deny it.’

  ‘What’s she on about, Ran?’ Felix asked his brother. Randy shrugged.

  ‘Maybe she’s been dreaming about us.’ He leered at Felix. ‘Sex dreams.’

  ‘Ha,’ Bo intoned flatly. ‘You’re hilarious.’

  Cam leant over to tug at her sleeve. ‘Ignore them,’ she whispered. ‘They’re fungus.’

  Bo threw a final vicious glance in the boys’ direction. ‘They are fungus.’

  The brothers had turned back around in their seats, heads together as they no doubt shared more unsavoury speculations about the state of the furniture. Bo couldn’t hear them, but she also couldn’t shake the needling feeling settling over her. It itched at her skin like a hair jumper.

  Why had the Swivellers behaved like they had no idea what she was talking about? They had definitely been outside the cemetery last night; Bo had no doubt about that. But Randy and Felix were acting like she was speaking another language.

  Bo shook it off. It was probably just Swiveller weirdness, or one of those odd things that happened in Blackfin from time to time. No rhyme, no reason. And Bo had better things to do than wonder about the Swivellers’ night-time habits. Like hurrying to maths before she got another detention.

  Chapter Two

  Had Mrs Brady’s snoring gotten any louder, Bo would quite happily have taken a pillow to her face. It wasn’t a nice thought, but a fairly reasonable one, Bo decided, as the elderly babysitter’s snoring was loud enough for Bo to hear it all the way upstairs.

  Mrs Brady babysat the twins whenever Bo’s mother was at work. Mai Peeps worked three nights a week in a nightclub over an hour’s drive away, and with Bo’s father currently serving time at Her Majesty’s leisure, that left looking after the howlers – as Bo’s twin six-year-old brothers were affectionately known – either to Bo, or Mrs Brady from next door. And lately, since Sky’s death … well, Mai hadn’t wanted to add to her daughter’s stresses.

  So Mrs Brady generously stepped in, at least insofar as she came over to eat all the custard creams and fall asleep in front of the Peeps family TV. This would, in theory, allow Bo to do her homework and whatever else she liked in peace. In reality, Bo had spent the earlier part of the evening adjudicating an hour-long water fight between Levi and Scout in the family bathroom, and had then been called upon to tell them four (the bartered number) bedtime stories. Each story was an original work, all about the family of bogeys attached to the underside of Scout’s bedframe.

  Once the twins were asleep, along with Mrs Brady, Bo lay on her bed and tried to read the new graphic novel she’d picked up from the library. Mrs Brady’s clogged sinuses were making it seriously hard to focus, though.

  Bo turned up the volume on Sky’s iPod, hoping to find a balance between drowning out the snoring and permanently damaging her eardrums. It didn’t work. So she put on the pair of noise-cancelling ear defenders she usually reserved for when the howlers were at their most vocal. That helped, but she could still hear a faint rumbling gurgle underpinning the song she was listening to. At a loss for what else to do, she grabbed her dad’s old fleece-lined deerstalker cap from the bedside table and shoved that on over the whole lot. That was better, admittedly, even if she was certain she must look like a right tool lying in bed wearing multiple layers of headgear.

  Why didn’t Mrs Brady just go home? Both the howlers had been in bed for hours, and Bo certainly didn’t need babysitting herself. She flung back the bedcovers and stomped downstairs.

  Bo found the old woman exactly as she had expected to find her: lying at full tilt on the recliner in front of the TV. Here the snoring was so loud, she could barely hear the music blasting directly into her ears.

  Bo shook Mrs Brady gently. Despite any earlier smothering-related thoughts she might have had, Bo didn’t actually want to give the woman a coronary by startling her. That wouldn’t be very neighbourly, after all.

  Mrs Brady didn’t stir. Bo shook her again, just a tad more firmly. But the woman kept right on snoring like a clapped-out diesel engine.

  Could she have had a stroke or something? Did people still snore if they’d had a stroke? Bo had no idea, but was debating the merits of calling an ambulance when she caught a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision.

  Levi and Scout stood at the top of the staircase, wearing matching Minions onesies. Bo made a shooing gesture, hoping they would flee back to bed before noticing the unwakeable babysitter in the living room. No such luck.

  The twins trailed downstairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey…’ Bo went to pull out her earbuds, forgetting for a moment they were nestled beneath the ear defenders and hat, and almost snapped the cord.

  FFS.

  Giving up on her tangle of head accessories, Bo strode to the kitchen doorway with every inte
ntion of chasing the little buggers out of the biscuit tin, or wherever their sticky little fingers had taken them. But the howlers were nowhere to be seen. The back door stood wide open, though. Pausing only to slip on her trainers, Bo hurried out after them.

  The garden was small but well-tended, and the starlight was enough to show that Bo’s brothers weren’t hiding among the rosebushes. Where had they gone? There wasn’t a shed, or any other likely spot for two six-year-olds to conceal themselves. Bo ran along the path to the gate leading onto the road. It was open.

  Levi and Scout knew they weren’t allowed out at night, and never onto the street without an adult. What on earth were they playing at?

  Bo shivered at the gate, wishing she’d grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door. It was only September, but winter liked Blackfin, and had a habit of calling early.

  She hadn’t gone more than a few steps when she caught sight of them on the road ahead of her. Bo jogged to catch up, expecting her brothers to turn at the sound of her footsteps, yet they kept walking without a glance in her direction.

  What the hell is going on here?

  Bo rounded in front of them, blocking the way. Still, the twins stared straight ahead. The only sign they gave that they’d noticed her at all was the slight swerve as they walked around her.

  ‘Hey! Levi, Scout – wait!’

  Bo fumbled with her iPod, trying to switch it off so she could give her brothers the thorough bollocking they deserved. But as she glanced up, she froze. There were other figures meandering along the street up ahead. At least a dozen of them, some small like the twins, and some as tall as Bo. Beyond them all a strange van idled at the side of the road.

  Her fingers found the pause button on the iPod. The music ended abruptly, and Bo yanked off her hat and ear defenders in one go.

  ‘Levi! Scout! Come back…’

  Someone was speaking. Another voice. It was so faint, she almost missed it at first.

  ‘…find me…’ the voice said. Bo couldn’t see who had spoken, or even tell where the voice had come from.

  ‘What…?’ Bo began, but forgot what she had been about to ask. Her head was so woozy. What had she come outside for again? ‘I…’ Her voice trailed off. The bundle of hat and ear defenders fell from her hand. She blinked slowly: once, twice.

  And then everything simply … stopped.

  Bo, never much of a morning person, was nevertheless awake before sunrise. She’d woken up wrapped in her duvet, with no memory of how she had come to be there, just some vague after-images of a dream about a girl with raven-dark hair, running through a forest … all very strange and unsettling, Bo thought. The kind of thing it was best not to dwell on in this town.

  She might have thought that chasing her brothers across town had been just another part of the dream, except for the fact that when she threw back her covers, she was still wearing her grubby trainers.

  Bo clearly remembered running after the howlers in her pyjamas, then turning off Sky’s iPod to yell at them, and then … nothing. Everything after that moment was a blank.

  Oh God … the howlers!

  Bo raced to Levi and Scout’s room, flung open the door, and stopped short. Both boys were tucked safely in their beds, snoring softly. Bo took a deep breath, slumping against the doorframe as she let it out. The twins were fine — they were safe. That settled, Bo stomped across the room and shook them both roughly awake.

  ‘Oi! Don’t come that with me,’ Bo snapped as both twins immediately played dead. ‘Where did you two wander off to last night?’

  On cue, each twin peeled open his left eye just enough to squint at her. ‘What?’ they said at the same time. Bo rolled her eyes; she hated it when they pulled this twin stuff.

  ‘I saw you sneak out after Mrs Brady went to sleep,’ Bo insisted, hands on her hips in a no-messing stance. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘We didn’t go nowhere,’ Scout said. ‘Did we, Leev?’

  ‘No,’ the other confirmed, solemnly shaking his head.

  Bo’s little brothers could occasionally muster a convincing lie, but under the pressure of silent scrutiny, one or the other would inevitably spill the beans. She glared at them and waited. And waited.

  ‘We isn’t lying,’ Scout said at last. ‘Did you have a bad dream, Bobo?’

  His worried tone chipped away at Bo’s certainty. Was it possible she had simply dreamed the whole thing after all? Maybe she was the one who had sleepwalked downstairs, put on her trainers, and then wandered back to her bed in some peculiar trance state. That could happen, right? Sneaking out at night to visit Sky’s grave had become a habit. Maybe her feet hadn’t got the message that she was staying home last night.

  ‘Maybe,’ Bo murmured, then felt the twins staring at her. ‘And stop calling me Bobo, you little rats. I’m not a bloody clown.’

  ‘Bobo!’ They both shouted in unison. ‘Bobo! Bobo!’

  ‘Right!’

  Levi and Scout scattered like ants as Bo chased them around the room, walloping them with pillows while they squealed. At least, until their mother appeared in the doorway, looking distinctly unamused. The three siblings quietly slunk down to breakfast, pillow wars and night-time wanderings forgotten for the moment.

  Bo tried speaking to her mother about the previous night’s events over breakfast. But her mother was so exhausted after her late shift that she barely listened to what Bo was saying.

  ‘You’re not allowed out after nine on a school night,’ her mother mumbled around a piece of toast.

  ‘I’m not asking if I can go out. I was talking about the howlers…’

  ‘Margaret Peeps. Don’t make me ground you. And stop calling your little brothers that.’

  Bo stewed all through her morning lessons. So much so that she hardly did more than grunt when her physics teacher praised Bo’s assignment, and she didn’t even notice when the lunch bell rang until Cam appeared in the classroom doorway looking baffled, her tangled halo of curls only adding to the effect.

  ‘Did you get a detention or something?’ Cam asked.

  Bo shook her head. ‘I was just thinking.’

  Cam’s naturally cheery expression dimmed a little, and she came to sit next to Bo. ‘About Sky?’

  ‘No,’ Bo said, a little too sharply. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap.’ Cam had lost her best friend, too. ‘No, it’s … something else.’

  Cam reached out and took Bo’s hand, threading their fingers together. If it had been anybody else, Bo would have shrugged them off; she categorically was not a hand-holder. But neither was Cam, and that made it okay, somehow.

  ‘Anything I can help with?’ Cam said.

  Bo considered that. Maybe if she told Cam what she had seen, Cam would be able to make sense of it all – point out some glaringly obvious explanation that Bo had missed. But as she searched for the right words to sum up her encounter with the Swivellers outside the cemetery, and her twin brothers’ zombie-like expedition, and the black spot where her memory shorted out, Bo realised the whole thing sounded laughable. If their roles were reversed, and Cam told Bo she’d seen people wandering around town late at night in some kind of trance, Bo would think Cam had popped something a little stronger than her usual headache pills before going to bed. So instead she went for a soft approach.

  ‘Cam, have you noticed kids wandering around town late at night?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You didn’t see or hear anything weird outside last night, or the night before?’

  ‘Nope. I was spark out by ten both nights after taking my meds. God, I can’t wait to get rid of these braces.’ Cam’s braces were the bane of her existence, and the cause of her frequent headaches. ‘Do you want me to ask Sean? I’ve heard him leaving Aunt Holly’s pretty late some nights recently. I think he goes out walking. You know, to clear his head and stuff.’

  Sean was Cam’s older brother. There were barely eleven months between them though, which meant he, Cam, Bo, and Sky were all in the same school
year. Had been in the same school year, Bo corrected herself, then felt irrationally guilty for it.

  Sean had taken Sky’s death particularly hard. Bo found it difficult to know what to say to him at school these days, even though she was probably the one person who truly understood how he felt. Bo stubbed that thought out, and shook her head.

  ‘Or I can ask Aunt Holly?’ Cam offered.

  Cam’s aunt was a police officer. In fact, she was the only police officer who lived in Blackfin, and as such was someone Bo tried to avoid as much as possible.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to Sean.’

  While Sean had never been the prickling energy storm that Cam was, talking to him now was like trying to engage a door jamb. Bo spotted him as he sloped out of the school gates, not even bothering to swerve beyond the reach of the Penny Well, which everyone knew would take the coins from your pockets if you passed too close … yet another Blackfin phenomenon which nobody seemed overly inclined to question. Bo herself always swerved vigorously away from it; not only because she resented the theft of her loose change, but because she held a deep-rooted suspicion that the Penny Well might – due to some change of the wind, or simply a shift in its mood – start plucking entire people from the vicinity and spiriting them down into its dark interior.

  Bo shuddered at that thought. She was not overly fond of narrow spaces, wet or otherwise. That un-fondness had increased to near phobic levels since the day Sky had been buried; imagining her stuck down there in a wooden box made Bo’s chest tighten in quiet panic.