Afterwalkers

by Tom Becker

  He hurried inside the house, kicking off his trainers and leaving them in a pile in the hallway. Liam was lying beneath a blanket on the sofa in the front room, his hair damp from the shower. He didn’t acknowledge Jamie as he burst in.

  “Liam?”

  His brother grunted.

  “Liam!”

  “Not now, eh? I’m watching the snooker.”

  “But it’s important!”

  His brother reluctantly looked up from the screen. “This had better be good,” he warned.

  “It’s Mathers. He’s here.”

  “Here?” Liam sat up. “In Alderston?”

  Jamie nodded.

  “Are you sure? I mean, absolutely positive?”

  “Yes!”

  “’Cause I know sometimes you space out and go into your own little world. That’s all right, but this is too important to—”

  “I wasn’t spacing out!” interrupted Jamie, exasperated. “I saw the green 4×4, and I saw Mathers! He was in the car park talking to Don from the taxi firm. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they looked pretty friendly.”

  Liam’s face darkened, and he switched off the TV.

  “What’s he doing here, Liam?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam admitted. “But I doubt it’s to bring us chocolates and flowers. I’ll talk to Sarge when he gets back. Don’t worry about it, OK? I’ll take care of it. I’m not scared of bloody Mathers.”

  Jamie was relieved to hear his brother sound so confident. But although Liam turned the TV on again, his eyes kept flicking away from the snooker to the front window, and later that afternoon Jamie heard the handle of the kitchen door rattle as his brother checked it was locked. Maybe Liam wasn’t scared of Mathers, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  They waited all evening for Sarge to come home, but the curtains had long been drawn by the time Jamie went to bed and still his dad hadn’t returned. A part of Jamie was secretly pleased – it had been a long day, and the last thing he wanted was another angry interrogation from Sarge, as though spotting Mathers was somehow his fault. Huddled beneath an extra duvet, Jamie tumbled into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

  The snow kept falling.

  When he woke up the next morning and climbed out of bed, his bare feet wincing at the cold floor, Jamie pulled back the curtains to find the world buried beneath a thick layer of crisp snow. The headstones in the churchyard had acquired white fringes, while a deep drift had formed around the base of the watch house. Shivering, Jamie gathered up some clothes and went into the bathroom, where he showered, dressed and brushed his teeth. Downstairs, he found a note in his brother’s handwriting waiting for him on the kitchen table. It read simply: Outside. Now.

  Jamie’s shoulders sank. He knew it. Either Sarge hadn’t believed his story, or he was blaming him for it. Glumly he retrieved his shoes from the hallway and struggled into his coat, trudging back to the kitchen like a condemned prisoner on his way to the firing squad. When he opened the back door, the dazzling white sheen covering the outside world made him blink. The snow lay in a perfect carpet around him. Jamie stepped out into the garden, his feet sinking in the snow with a satisfying crunch.

  There was no one there.

  “Liam?”

  A snowball whizzed through the air, smacking Jamie in the temple. He stumbled backwards, brushing the icy powder from his face. From somewhere in the bushes came the sound of mocking laughter.

  “Hey!” cried Jamie. “No fair! I wasn’t ready!”

  He ducked, too late to prevent a second snowball clipping the top of his head. Liam’s voice rang out around the garden.

  “Take cover, little brother!” he called out. “I’m coming for you!”

  There was a flash of movement behind one of the bushes, and this time Jamie was able to dodge the snowball that flew past his ear and smacked into the wall behind him. This meant war. Dropping to his knees, Jamie began scooping up snow and fashioning his own ammunition. He came under fire at once, white missiles raining down around him. Liam could hurl his snowballs faster and more accurately, so Jamie had to pick his moments to go on the attack, taking shelter behind bushes and trees before leaping out to take aim himself. When one glorious shot caught his brother squarely in the face, Jamie punched the air in triumph as Liam spluttered and wiped the snow from his eyes. Without any gloves to protect them Jamie’s fingers were soon stinging with the cold, but he forced himself to carry on scraping up snow, refusing to be the one who stopped first.

  Finally, when they had both run out of breath and their fingers were red and burning, Liam charged towards Jamie, roaring at the top of his voice, and rugby tackled him to the soft ground. Jamie was pinned to the floor, although not before he had the satisfaction of shoving a handful of cold snow down the back of his brother’s coat.

  “Give in?” Liam demanded, breathing heavily.

  Jamie nodded.

  “I’m the best and you’re a little squirt?”

  Jamie nodded again.

  Liam grinned and hauled him to his feet. “Not a bad shot earlier,” he said admiringly. “You still throw like a girl, mind, but that’s not your fault – seeing as you are a girl.”

  Jamie tried to shove him away but Liam wrapped an arm around him, drawing him into a half-headlock, half-hug.

  “It’ll just be me and you for today,” he told Jamie. “Sarge is in town checking the grapevine to see if there’s any word about our friend being in town.”

  “Oh.”

  For a few fleeting moments, it had just been Jamie and his brother messing about and everything had been all right. But now the real world had returned, with its mortsafes, thieves and dead dogs, and the snow didn’t seem quite as dazzling as it had before. Jamie glanced up to find Liam looking at him thoughtfully.

  “There should have been a bit more of this, eh lad?”

  “A bit more of what?”

  “Snowball fights. Kickabouts. You know … fun.”

  “Oh.” Jamie shrugged. “I guess. Not much you can do when you’re in a van all day.”

  “It was easier for me, see – being a bit older and that. I can remember when Mam was still around, before she got sick. Things were different then, normal. We lived in a house, for starters; it wasn’t big or anything, but it was better than the van.”

  “I’d like a house like this one,” Jamie said eagerly. “We could all live there and not have to move all the time. And I could go to school and—”

  “You want to go to school?” Liam’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “You really are a weirdo, Jamie, you know that?”

  In the kitchen they peeled off their wet coats and left their shoes to dry out on the doormat. Jamie’s fingers stung as the circulation returned to his veins. As the afternoon went on the snow returned – harder this time, until the flakes fell in a continuous white curtain. Around four Jamie heard a key turning in the front door. He and Liam hurried out into the hallway to find Sarge stamping the snow from his feet, his hands full of shopping bags from the local supermarket.

  “I brought supplies,” he explained. “Not sure how long this weather’s going to last.”

  “Any news?” Liam asked quickly.

  Sarge shook his head. “Nothing – so far as I can tell. If he is about, I don’t want him knowing that I’ve been asking for him.”

  No one seemed to want to mention Mathers’s name out loud, but Jamie knew what they were talking about. He wasn’t stupid.

  “What about the boiler?” asked Liam. “Any luck finding someone who can fix it?”

  “I found someone,” Sarge replied. “Only problem is, they’re in Caxton.”

  “Why’s that a problem?” asked Jamie. “It’s only a few miles away. Liam was there yesterday.”

  Liam let out a groan. “The road across the Moss is snowed under, isn’t it?”

/>   “Completely impassable,” Sarge told him. “No one can get in. And no one can get out.”

  “Great,” said Liam. “We’d be bloody warmer in the van. Why didn’t we get it fixed before it started snowing?”

  “Don’t start, son,” Sarge replied ominously. “Not today.”

  Biting back a retort, Liam took the shopping bags through to the kitchen and began to unpack them. They heated up ready meals in the microwave for dinner and ate them camped around a heater in the living room, toasting their hands and feet in the warm draught. That night, when Jamie went upstairs he piled another couple of blankets on to the bed, but no matter tightly he curled up into a ball he couldn’t escape the chill. It sank into his bones and seeped into his mind, plaguing him with bad dreams. As he slept, Jamie watched through someone else’s eyes as he prowled a landscape black as midnight, the slim shadow of trees all around him. It felt as though a great furnace had been lit in his chest, fuelled by rage and a deep, unspeakable envy. He could hear the ragged, animal breaths coming from his mouth, could feel the rippling strength in his muscles. Hunger so strong it felt like an ancient need. His thoughts were consumed by the urge to rip, and to crush … and to kill.

  Jamie woke with a start. His skin was clammy with sweat and his muscles ached from the constant huddle for warmth. Cold air gnawed at the tips of his ears. Dawn was painting the bedroom in a watery grey colour. All Jamie wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep but he needed the toilet. Reluctantly he climbed out of bed and padded across the landing to the bathroom. The Lodge was encased in frozen silence. As he washed his hands, Jamie found himself staring at the curtain across the bathroom window. Wondering if it was still snowing, he opened the bathroom curtains, wiping away streams of condensation from the glass with his pyjama sleeve, and peered outside. The blizzard had finally stopped, but not before submerging Alderston in a thick white blanket. In the garden below, all traces of Jamie’s battle with Liam the previous day had been wiped clean. The snow was pristine once more.

  Almost.

  A single set of tracks made a dark line across the garden, snaking from the back fence to beneath the bathroom window, where they came to a sudden halt. Not animal tracks – human footprints. Goosebumps broke out across Jamie’s skin. Someone had walked all the way across the fields and climbed over the fence just to stand beneath the window. As Jamie looked down the sky seemed to darken and return to night, and he could see a shadowy figure in the garden below, its breath forming frosty clouds as it stared up at the bathroom.

  Yanking the curtains closed, Jamie ran back to his room and dived under the bedcovers, shivering uncontrollably.

  It was the grating in the bedroom sideboard that woke Jamie up again, voices carrying up from the kitchen through its small, wrought-iron mouth.

  “Jesus!” he heard Liam say. “Have you seen outside, Sarge?”

  “Aye,” Sarge replied. “Looks like Mathers paid us a visit in the night. I guess he’s searching for his beloved pooch.”

  “He’ll have a job finding him. Smiler’s six feet under all that snow.”

  “Maybe so, but he’s closer than he’s any right to be,” Sarge said darkly. “He shouldn’t even know what postcode his dog’s buried in. You think it’s a coincidence that Mathers is creeping round our garden? Someone must have pointed a finger in our direction.”

  “Don,” spat Liam. “That little—”

  “My thoughts exactly,” interrupted Sarge. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of our good friend from the taxi firm. But first of all we deal with Mathers.”

  “How?”

  “How do you think? It shouldn’t be that hard to find him. As long as the snow holds he can’t go anywhere. Even that 4×4 couldn’t manage the roads as they are at the moment.”

  “So why hasn’t anyone seen him?”

  “Maybe he’s not staying in town. Did you see where the footprints were coming from?”

  “Straight from the wood on the Moss. You think he’s hiding out there?”

  “It’s a possibility. Mathers is as tough as old boots – a bit of winter camping isn’t going to bother him. And if he is trying to stay out of sight it’s the perfect hiding place. All you have to do is mention those woods and people round here get the jitters. They aren’t going to poke their nose in.”

  “What are you going to tell Jamie?”

  “Nothing yet. The less he knows the better. Lord knows I want to be able to trust the lad – he’s my son, just like you are – but we all know what he can be like. Did you see the way he was acting at Greg’s funeral? Speaking of which, better go out now and brush those tracks away before—”

  Sarge was interrupted by an unexpected jangle of the doorbell. The grating fell pointedly silent.

  “You expecting visitors, son?” Sarge asked carefully.

  “Nope,” Liam replied.

  “Me neither. Come on.”

  Jamie rolled out of bed and quickly pulled a jumper and a pair of jeans over his pyjamas before leaving his bedroom. From the landing he heard the murmur of voices from the front door. He peered down the stairs and saw Liam looking back at him, a broad grin upon his face.

  “You’ve got a visitor, Jamie lad,” he said.

  Liam stepped to one side to reveal Keeley standing on the doorstep. She was immersed in a thick duffel coat, with a black woollen hat and matching gloves. Her arms were folded, her bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Um, hi,” replied Jamie.

  “Come on in, love,” Liam said easily. “You’ll catch your death out there.”

  She stepped uncertainly into the hallway as Jamie walked down the stairs, aware of Sarge standing in the kitchen doorway, his face schooled into a polite smile.

  “Hope I’m not disturbing you,” said Keeley.

  “Not at all,” Sarge replied. “My boy’s told me a lot about you. Always nice to put a name to the face. We’ll leave you two youngsters to it.”

  He pushed Liam towards the living room; Jamie flinched as his brother ruffled his hair on the way past. He took Keeley through into the kitchen and closed the door behind them.

  “Sorry about them,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Keeley replied. “You should see what my mum’s like. One foot through the door and she’d be stuffing food down your throat and asking you a million questions. It’s awful.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” said Jamie. “You not at school?”

  “It’s closed. Half the teachers can’t get in. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s been a bit of snow round here lately.”

  “Of course, yeah.”

  “Shouldn’t stop you, though,” Keeley said slyly. “You being ‘homeschooled’ and all.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Look, about the other night…” said Jamie. “I’m sorry things got so weird.”

  “Yeah.” Keeley looked back towards the kitchen door, drumming her fingers on her bag strap. When she started speaking again, the words came tumbling quickly out of her mouth, hot with embarrassment. “When I got home from the churchyard I didn’t want to see you again, ever, but then I thought about it and you seemed as freaked out as I did, and even if it was your family who … you know … it didn’t mean it was your fault…” She took a deep breath. “I just wanted to check that you were all right.”

  “I’m fine,” said Jamie. “Thanks. And it wasn’t anything to do with Sarge and Liam, I swear. Did you see the graveyard the next day? It was like nothing had ever happened.”

  Keeley nodded. “That’s Alderston for you. I tried telling my mum about it but she was too busy stressing about not being able to get to the hospital for work. As if it doesn’t matter that someone’s going around digging up dead bodies.” She sighed. “So what are you doing today? Do you want to hang out?”


  Did you see where those footprints were coming from? Sarge had asked Liam. The less he knows the better…

  “I’m going for a walk,” said Jamie. “To the wood on the Moss.”

  Keeley arched a single eyebrow. “And why would you want to go there?”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s nothing there!”

  “Fine! Don’t come with me!”

  Keeley glared at him for what felt like an age. Then she strode over to the back door and opened it.

  “Are you coming then, or what?” she demanded.

  Jamie smiled. “Give me five minutes to get ready,” he told her.

  They left the Lodge together, following the road as it wound up the hill and around the church before leading out of Alderston towards the Moss. Behind them, on a hill on the other side of the town, there were dark spots of movement as children built snowmen and bombed down the slope on sledges. Jamie and Keeley kept going in the other direction, past hedgerows crowned with white powder. They didn’t talk much, concentrating on keeping their footing in the treacherous drifts. The wood lay up ahead, a dark shadow on a brilliant white canvas. Something about the slender congregation of trees made Jamie feel uneasy. When all was said and done, Mathers was a criminal, and if he was hiding out in the woods there was no telling what he might do if he caught them.

  Jamie wondered whether he should have told Keeley about Mathers before setting out. Then again, it wasn’t as though she had been that keen on coming to the wood in the first place, and Jamie was glad of her company. It wasn’t just that, though. Keeley might know about the failed robbery of the mortsafes, but Jamie didn’t want to have to explain about the scrapyard dealer and his dead dog buried deep beneath the cold earth. That was his family’s secret, no one else’s. All Jamie needed was a glimpse of Mathers and they’d leave the wood immediately. Then he could go back to the Lodge and tell Sarge and Liam that he had found their man – maybe then they’d stop treating him like a little kid and trying to hide everything from him.

  The drifts deepened as they neared the wood, until Jamie saw that even Mathers’s 4×4 wouldn’t be able to force its way through. Alderston was going to be cut off for a while. When they reached the edge of the trees, Keeley stopped.