by Robin Jarvis
“The same man who was selling the Dancing Jacks at the boot fair,” Martin answered. “No wonder we thought those books were part of it. But all the time he was dealing this garbage, turning every kid here into a junkie.”
Barry’s rugby-beaten face set hard and grim. “I’ll have him,” he seethed. “This might be my last day here, but I’ll have that scumbag. Horsewhipping’s too good for the likes of that. He’d best hope the police find him before I do because I will personally kick seven shades out of him. If I had my way, sewage like him would be turned over to the families of his victims, and they’d be in a line – with cricket bats at the ready.”
“The law is on the criminal’s side nowadays,” Martin said bitterly. “If someone breaks into your home and you thump them, you’re the one that gets done. I could swing for the person who gave Paul that stuff.”
“What a bloody screwed-up society this is,” Barry uttered in disgust. “Total madness. First there was the oiling. Then the violence and the knife, then the Disaster – now this. What have we done to our kids? They don’t deserve any of it. You know, I was going to suggest turning a redundant corner of the playing field into a garden of remembrance for those we lost last Friday, with some sort of memorial stone with all their names on.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“You’ll have to suggest it to the new Head yourself. The governors won’t listen to any of my ideas any more. I was going to have the floral tributes turned into mulch for it. That’ll just end up fertilising the rose beds of a park somewhere now, I suppose.”
He picked up the phone and called the police.
Out in the playground, the few remaining unaffected children were looking at their former friends uneasily. What had got into everyone? They were so strange and unfamiliar. The huddled groups were larger now and the chanting had become a chorus of voices reciting the sacred words.
The outnumbered children felt excluded. They were frightened. Some of them, in their innocence, begged to be allowed to play this confusing new game with the rest. So they were drawn into the gatherings and the words of Austerly Fellows wrapped around them.
Several children, sensing the danger, ran to the teachers on break duty for protection. Mrs Early and Miss Smyth took no notice of their tearful pleading and looked away coldly when a mob dragged the hapless boys and girls from them.
Terrified shrieks cried out. A few kids were chased across the playing field or out of sight, behind the sports block. Hordes of the affected pursued them, bringing them down and forcing them to listen and be converted.
Mrs Early took a small jar from her pocket and applied the strangely coloured salve it contained to her lips. She smiled faintly across the playground at Miss Smyth who was doing the same.
When the bell rang for the next lesson, there wasn’t one child left in the school who didn’t consider the Ismus to be their Lord.
Before the police arrived, Barry gathered the staff for a hasty meeting and showed them the confiscated jars of minchet. He told them to collect as much of it from the students as they could. Many of the teachers were shocked at the revelation that the whole school was hooked on the foul substance, but several of them, the ones who had read Dancing Jacks, had to conceal their smiles because they knew how mistaken Barry and Martin were.
When the police arrived, Barry didn’t let the fact that it was two of the officers who had broken up the fight on the football field the previous Friday distract him. The judgemental female officer who had shown him the knife seven days ago listened to everything he had to say without comment, but he knew exactly what she was thinking. Perhaps she and the tabloids were right and he really was a disgrace to his profession. How else could these things have happened in his school?
The officers wrote pages of notes. Then Barry took them to speak to several children of different ages so they could see for themselves. When they were back in Barry’s office, they agreed that something was definitely not right about those kids, but they didn’t recognise the symptoms. If it was a drug-induced state then it was unlike anything they had come across before. But then new types were being introduced on the street all the time. Perhaps this was yet another new concoction. They would take the jars to be analysed. If it was proven to be an illegal substance then immediate action would be taken and every child would have to undergo a medical to assess what damage, if any, had been done and receive appropriate treatment.
“What a bloody mess,” Barry muttered.
“Isn’t it just, Sir,” the female officer said critically. “And this Mr Ismus is the one you think is doing the dealing?”
Barry nodded. “That’s what my head of maths believes,” he said. “Some hippy biker bloke, according to him. Operates from a beaten-up Volkswagen camper, so Mr Baxter tells me.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult to trace if he’s still round here,” the policewoman said. “We’ll be in touch as soon as there’s any news.”
“I won’t be here after today,” Barry told her. “I’m leaving the school. There’ll be a new Headteacher taking over next week.”
The woman stared at him, stony-faced. “Good thing too if you ask me,” she commented. “You’ve got a duty of care to these children and you’ve let them down abysmally. If I had kids, I wouldn’t send them to this place. You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr Milligan.”
Barry flinched. Her stinging words had hit home. “Is that all?” he asked.
The officers departed. Alone in his office, Barry began removing his photographs from the wall and emptying his desk.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Barry patrolled the corridors, like the captain of a ship inspecting the decks and gangways one final time before saying a final farewell to it. An eerie hush lay over the school. Even though the classrooms were full, the children were deathly quiet and absorbed in their work. The teachers who, like Martin, were still unaffected could not understand how any drug could produce this effect and they found the silence sinister and the pupils creepy.
During the final break, Barry sought out Martin and explained what the police had said.
“I’ve had the secretary type out a letter to the parents,” he added, “warning them about the situation and suggesting they search their kids’ rooms and take any of that muck off them. Every pupil will take the letter home tonight. But, just to make sure the parents get them, they’ll be posted as well.”
“Sensible precaution,” Martin agreed. “I’ll be turning Paul’s room upside down this evening if Carol hasn’t already.”
He looked at Barry closely. The once robust, no-nonsense man seemed a shadow of his former self.
“None of this is your fault, you know,” Martin told him.
“Isn’t it?” the Head replied. “That police bird was right. These kids were under my protection. I should have spotted what was going on a lot sooner and sorted it right at the beginning. I failed them, Martin, failed them big time.”
“Hey, we aren’t responsible for them once they’re outside those gates. You can’t beat yourself up over what they get up to out there.”
“Can’t I? Why not? No one else gives a monkey’s any more. The parents haven’t got a clue what they’re doing for the most part. We taught most of them when they were kids themselves, Martin, we know how useless they were back then. If my students can’t feel or be safe from the outside world in here then, yes, that’s totally my fault.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
The Head shrugged. “Look,” he said after a moment’s contemplation, “it’s my last day here. Nobody knows on the staff except you. What say you and me down a few bevvies later?”
Martin had to decline. “I can’t tonight,” he told him. “I have to get straight home to Carol and Paul. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about!” Barry said, hiding his disappointment behind a hasty smile. “Course you have to get back. We’ll do it another time.”
“Absolutely! And I’ll be bu
ying!”
“Hope Paul gets better soon,” Barry said. “See you soon, mate.” He turned and walked briskly down the corridor, back to his office.
Martin felt wretched and guilty. But Paul had to come first.
At the end of the school day he watched the children leave through the gates in orderly streams. He went to find Barry one last time and wish him well, but the Head was not in his office. Martin left the building knowing he had let his old friend down. He hoped the rugby team would win tomorrow. That would lift Barry’s spirits.
Half an hour later Martin opened his front door and steeled himself for the tough evening ahead. What state would Paul be in by now? The house was quiet, but there was a strong smell of fresh paint. What had Carol been doing? He removed his jacket and hung it in the hall.
“Hello?” he called. There was a movement in the living room.
“What?” Carol’s voice blurted.
He looked inside and found her on the sofa, rubbing her eyes. “You been asleep?” he asked. “Must have nodded off for a minute,” she said. “I hardly got any kip last night when I finished work. So glad you came back early.”
“I didn’t. It’s gone four!”
The woman glanced at the clock on the fireplace and swore under her breath. “I must have been out for hours!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “My God – Paul!”
She dashed past Martin and ran to the stairs. They hurried up to the boy’s bedroom, but it was empty.
“Damn!” Carol yelled. “Why couldn’t I stay awake? Of all the times… Where’s he gone? He could be anywhere by now!”
Martin didn’t answer. His gaze was drawn to a dribbled trail of blue paint on the landing carpet, leading from his precious sanctum.
“No, no, no…” he whispered.
With a sinking heart, he hurried into his special room, but nothing could prepare him for the horrible spectacle he found there.
His precious inner sanctum had been completely trashed. His expensive collection of fantasy merchandise – the models, the figurines, the replicas – were smashed. The wondrous items he had spent his entire adult life assembling were totally destroyed. Every spaceship had been torn down from the ceiling and stamped on. The life-size dalek had been kicked to pieces and the Star Fleet uniforms had been cut to shreds. The display cabinets were empty and the Lord of the Rings busts had been thrown against the wall and were in countless fragments. Hundreds of DVDs had been bent or scratched or snapped in two and, over everything, splattering the wreckage and dripping from every shelf and poster, was a thick and ruinous layer of blue gloss paint.
“Oh, Martin!” Carol cried in horror as she stumbled in behind him. “Your things. Your collection!”
The man was too stunned to say anything. He felt as if a huge part of him had just died.
“I’m so sorry,” Carol said, squeezing his arm. “I’m so sorry. I know how much this meant to you.”
“No, you didn’t,” Martin murmured. “Only Paul did.”
“I can’t believe he would do something like this. I really can’t.”
“There was no one else here,” he told her. “Paul did this.” He turned away from the horrendous destruction and looked at her in shock and confusion.
“How did you sleep through it?” he asked. “How?”
Carol shook her head. “I don’t know!” she replied. “I just don’t. I don’t understand any of it. What’s happening to us? None of it makes sense.”
She gazed at the fractured chaos and held her head in her hands. “Where did he even get the paint from?” she asked.
“It’s Venetian Crystal Blue,” Martin whispered. “We were going to paint our police box with it… when we got round to building one.” He cast around the devastated room and saw the splintered remains of the fresnel lens Paul had found on eBay. Martin bit the inside of his lip to keep from shouting – or crying. He wasn’t sure which.
Carol wanted to hold him, but she was afraid he might push her off. She took a few careful steps into the room to see if she could salvage something – anything. But it was no good. Then she noticed the blank area behind the open door. A message had been scrawled with the paint.
To Martin the Aberrant
I have taken your jools!
LMAO!!!!
J of D
“The Jack of Diamonds,” Martin interpreted.
“I can’t believe it,” Carol muttered. “I told you, that wasn’t my son today.”
“Don’t fool yourself!” Martin snapped. “He’s just another kid off his face. Well, he’s gone too far this time.”
He stormed from the room and thudded downstairs.
“What are you doing?” she called after him.
“Calling the police. What do you think?”
“I think I agree with you,” she said. “And while you do that…”
She ran to find her mobile and called Paul’s number. To her surprise, the boy answered.
“Paul?” she cried. “Where are you? What have you done?”
“Hahahahahahaha!” she heard him shouting. “I stole the jools – I stole the jools!” And then the phone went dead.
“Paul?” she yelled. “Paul!” She tried his number again, but it was unobtainable. He must have switched the phone off.
After Martin finished speaking to the police, he sat on the stairs in stricken silence, waiting for them to turn up. Carol was alone on her son’s bed. She didn’t know how to comfort Martin and she was beside herself with worry. Her entire world was in chaos.
After a while Martin appeared in the doorway.
“The stuff in there,” he said, nodding back at the sanctum. “That’s all it is, just stuff.”
“Your lovely things,” she began.
“That’s just it. They were things. But Paul isn’t a thing. He’s missing and in trouble. He needs us – more than he ever has.”
Carol began to cry and she threw her arms about him. “God! I love you, Martin!” she wept.
At that moment the doorbell rang. The police had arrived.
A short while later they left with a full statement, Paul Thornbury’s description and a couple of recent photographs. As only a few hours had passed since the boy had left the house, they were sceptical about the seriousness of the situation, even when shown the wreckage upstairs. Carol almost lost her temper with them, but they promised her they would do everything they could to find him and bring him back safely.
“They always say that though,” she said as the police car drove away. “What if they never find him? What if he’s gone for good?”
“Don’t think like that,” Martin told her. “You’ll drive yourself mad.”
Carol’s mobile rang. She rushed to it, but it wasn’t her son. It was Ian Meadows.
“Just thought I’d tell you the test results,” the doctor said brightly. “Hello… Carol?”
The woman had almost forgotten about that morning. “Sorry, yes, I’m here.”
“You all right? You sound terrible.”
“Paul’s gone missing, Ian.”
“What? Oh, Carol, I’m sorry. Have you called…?”
“Yes, they’ve just left.”
“If there’s anything I can do…”
“Err… thanks. No, I don’t think there’s anything.”
“Well, if it helps in any way, those results… it’s good news. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with him. We screened for all sorts.”
“Drugs?”
“Not a trace of them. Totally clean.”
“You sure?”
“Nothing gets past these analysers, I promise you. If there was something nasty in his system, the HPLC would find it.”
Carol rang off and looked at Martin. “You were wrong,” she said blankly. “It’s got nothing to do with that stuff in those jars. Martin – it really is the book. That’s what the kids are addicted to. Remember, Paul told us it was evil. He was right. It’s… devilish.”
“Do you realise how neurotic you s
ound? Carol, I’m the one who does fantasy here – not you.”
“They’ve done a High Pressure Liquid Chromatography spectroscopy on his samples,” she said. “There’s nothing there, no hallucinogens – nothing. What Paul told us about the book, what he tried to tell us… it’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense.”
Martin refused to discuss it. He opened his briefcase. There was a single jar of minchet left in there. “Take this to your friends at the hospital,” he told her. “Get them to analyse that. The police are already doing it, but we might get the results a bit quicker this way.”
“No, Martin,” she said. “It’s the book that’s dangerous, not this.”
“Just go,” he urged.
“But they don’t analyse this sort of thing in the hospital. They’ll need to send it to a university lab.”
“You’d better get a move on then. The sooner it goes off the better.”
“What if Paul comes back here?”
“Then I’ll call you. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything. Just hurry.”
And so Carol drove to the hospital and Martin waited.
At exactly the same time, Emma Taylor was applying some mascara in her bedroom and scrutinising herself in the mirror. It would do for a Friday night outside a bar. A message beeped into her mobile.
From: Conor
We need to talk. Meet me in an hour by the Landguard.
The girl cursed. The fort was the last place she wanted to be that night – or indeed any time ever. She sent a filthy refusal back to him and painted her lips her favourite poppy shade with a steady hand. She didn’t know what had come over those retarded saps at school, but she wasn’t going to have anything to do with them, especially at the weekend. As she pulled on her leopard-print jacket, his reply came in.
From: Conor
Meet me – or else
“Damn!” she snarled.