The Bad Game

by Adam Millard

  Scottie thought for a moment. “That thing is going to come through that door any minute,” he said. “Now, we can either stand here, waiting for it to happen, or…” He trailed off, turning his attention to the workmen on the other side of the room. “You two. Take off your socks.”

  “Erm,” Hard-Hat said. “Excuse me?”

  “He wants us to take off our socks,” Bandanna repeated, nonchalantly.

  “Yeah, I heard what he said,” Hard-Hat snapped. “I’m just not sure why he said it.”

  “Just do it,” Scottie said. “Do you want to die in here, or do you want to go home?”

  Jamie already knew what Scottie had in mind. That was one of the things he liked about the man; they were on the same wavelength the majority of the time. While Hard-Hat and Bandanna reluctantly removed their boots, and then their socks, Jamie ran across to the pool table. “Shit!” he said, spying the only ball on the table: the unpotted white. “Scottie, we’re gonna need more balls. Does anyone have a fifty-pence-piece?”

  “Too noisy,” Scottie said. “Ted, you got some replacements?”

  The landlord made his way behind the bar. He sounded like he might die at any moment, wheezing as he went. He disappeared below the counter for a second, slowly came back up clutching another white ball, and two blacks. “These do you?”

  Scottie nodded. “Okay, we’ve got four balls,” he said. “Give me those.” He took the socks from the workmen, grimacing as his fingers made contact. Jamie guessed they were sweaty, damp, and rather fucking nasty to the touch. No wonder Scottie looked as if he might throw up.

  He placed a ball in each sock and lined them up on the counter. Without thinking, Jamie picked one of the socks up, gave it an experimental swing.

  “No, Jamie,” Scottie said, reaching for the rudimentary weapon in Jamie’s hand. Jamie pulled it away just in time, and Scottie sighed. “You really ready to kill someone?”

  “If I don’t have a choice,” Jamie said. “Look, we’re all in this together, right? I’m not going to stand here like some pussy while you do all the work.” He was proud of himself for that. Liza smiled at him, which made him feel even better.

  Then the girl picked up one of the socks, and Scottie did manage to snatch this one away. “Noooooo,” he said.

  “Erm, excuse me, but I can make up my own mind, thank you very much,” Liza said, snatching the sock back and cracking it down on the counter.

  “Please don’t do that,” Deirdre said. “We’ve only just had it varnished.”

  Liza winked at Jamie, whose eyes were more than accustomed to the gloom of the pub now. It had been pitch black when they’d entered not too long ago, but now he could see everyone, their faces, their expressions; he could even make out the dimples on the pretty barmaid’s face as she smiled at his and Liza’s little exchange.

  “Okay,” Scottie said. “One of you boys take this.” He held out the final sock, left it dangling there from his hand like an old man’s scrotum.

  Neither of the workmen were forthcoming. In fact, Bandanna took a step back, shaking his head.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Ted wheezed. “Couple of well-built buggers like you, scared of a kid.”

  “Demonic kid,” Bandanna corrected.

  “I don’t care whether it’s a kid possessed by the ghost of Chuck fucking Norris,” Ted said, his voice deep and croaky. Jamie considered telling him that Chuck Norris was still very much alive and kicking, but decided against it. “This young lady here picked up one of the socks without prompting.” He motioned to Liza, who seemed to brighten at the acknowledgement.

  “Yeah, funny that,” Hard-Hat said. “What’s also funny is why these two haven’t changed into little Damiens yet. If whatever’s happening out there… is happening to all the kids, why not these two?”

  “We don’t have time for this shit,” Angela said, grabbing the fourth and final sock from Scottie. “You two just make sure nothing gets through that door.” She pointed at the barricaded entrance.

  A crash and a howl from deep within the building silenced the survivors. Jamie had never been so terrified in his life; yesterday’s escape from Calum and Lee was nothing compared to this.

  “Ready?” Scottie said. He wasn’t talking to any of them in particular, rather addressing them as a team.

  It was a team Jamie was proud to be a part of, and yet it was also a team he wasn’t sure would make it through the night.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As Scottie led his band of misfits toward the back door of the pub, he wondered how things had gone so terribly wrong so terribly fast. That day had started off like every other, and yet now they were living some kind of horrific nightmare. Less than three hours ago he had been shutting down the arcade—a normal day—and at some time between then and now, Hemsby had become a haven for malevolent juveniles. They were tearing the town apart out there. Scottie could hear distant howls and screams for help; cars screeching, burning rubber as drivers tried to escape the madness. There were still no sirens. And as if to remind them that there was a God, the church-bells from The Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin rang out three streets away.

  Scottie arrived at the back door and signalled his three followers to stop. Shattered glass was spread across the floor. What remained of the window in the frame was jagged and blood-spattered. A small piece of flesh had been stripped from the intruder and sat atop a sharp sliver of frosted glass, a gory stalagmite.

  “No wonder it’s howling,” Angela said, indicating the hunk of flesh.

  Scottie was more concerned with the size of the smashed window. It didn’t look big enough for a person to fit through, child or otherwise. They were dealing with a really young kid here, and the thought of that discomfited Scottie.

  Someone’s son or daughter, he thought, just like Jake had been mine. Jake’s death had been accidental—if Jake’s mother was to be believed—but what they were about to do was beat the fuck out of some poor little child with pool-balls in socks. Maybe even murder it. Scottie suddenly felt very ill, his stomach somersaulting, sweat dripping down his back.

  “You okay?” Jamie said.

  Scottie nodded, though he really wasn’t. “Believe it or not, I’ve had better days.” He kept his voice low; they still didn’t know where their intruder had gone, or how near they were to it. “Let’s keep moving.” He stepped around Angela and Liza, once again led them through the gloom. Jamie stuck close to him, and even though the kid wasn’t much of a fighter—unless it was some pre-1995 beat-‘em-up—he was grateful for it.

  At the end of the hallway was a set of stairs leading down to Lord knows where. Scottie turned to Angela. “Please tell me you know where that leads.”

  “I should bloody do,” Angela said. “I spend most of my day down there changing the barrels.”

  The cellar.

  “Do you think it’s down there?” Liza asked. Surprisingly, there was no fear in her voice. Just anticipation, an eagerness to get this over with as quickly as possible. Scottie liked her, and he could see why Jamie did, too.

  As if to answer the girl’s question, a guttural moan swept up the steps. It had definitely come from down there—The Lacon Arms’ cellar, now with one hundred percent more demonic adolescent.

  Scottie turned to his companions. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he told them. “It’s not going to be nice, and—”

  “Just shut up and lead the way,” Angela said.

  “Yeah, we’re not letting you go down there by yourself,” Jamie added. “Four balls are better than one, and all that.” He swung his manmade weapon through the air as if to punctuate the threat.

  Scottie would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t glad for their resolve. The thought of heading into the cellar alone wasn’t one which filled him with delight. “Okay,” he said. “But if this gets messy, I want you to get the hell out of there.”

  “We’re all getting out of there,” Angela said.

  All except for that posse
ssed kid, Scottie thought but didn’t say.

  Instead, he began to descend the stone steps in absolute silence. The further they went, the colder it got. A house spider scuttled across the concrete to their right, disappeared behind the splintered bannister running along the wall. Scottie wasn’t too keen on spiders, though he was less keen on murderous children so he managed to keep his fear under control. At the bottom of the stairs, a door lay wide open, the penetrating chill emanating from within.

  Scottie wished they had a little light, a torch, anything to give them an advantage over that thing. Was it there, just waiting for them in the shadows? Did these things retain intelligence, or were they simply dumb shells? Were they so single-minded and intent on killing that reasoning with them would be a waste of time?

  They stepped into the cellar as one, and as one they reacted as the child rushed at them from the darkness, howling, teeth drawn back over blackened gums.

  Winding up to smash the thing to kingdom come, Scottie put himself between the creature and his fellow survivors. When the child was less than three feet away, Scottie brought the sock around in a wide arc. There was a crunch as it slammed into the child’s face, and the child skittered away into the dark on all fours, every bit as feral as its howls suggested.

  Across the cellar, glass shattered. A second later, a stream of crimson spilled across the concrete. A fruity stench suddenly permeated the cold air.

  “Fuck!” Angela said. “That’s not coming out of my wages, I can tell you that for nothing.”

  The wine continued to spread across the ground. It was intoxicating. How many bottles had been destroyed? Scottie didn’t really care; he never touched the stuff himself. Wine was for middle-aged women and hipsters, as far as he was concerned, and they were welcome to it.

  “Where’d it go?” Jamie said, scanning the darkness for any sign of the child.

  Scottie held a hand aloft, signalling to the others not to move. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast,” he whispered. It had been like shit off a shovel, one minute there, the next gone. No child could move like that, and on all fours to boot, like some kind of human-wolf hybrid.

  Scottie took a few steps forward. Avoiding the spilled wine was impossible. He could feel it soaking through to his socks, a reminder that he needed to invest in a new pair of shoes should he survive the night.

  That flashlight doesn’t seem so stupid now, he thought. It was so dark down here that Scottie could only just make out the shapes of the barrels lining the far wall. There must have been around a dozen of them, all with lines leading in and out. Various gas bottles were scattered around the place, though if the things hadn’t been chrome he doubted he would have noticed them at all.

  Suddenly, over to their left, there was an almighty crash followed by a pained wail. The girl, Liza, gasped, for the next moment a sixteen-inch quarter barrel was hurtling toward them in the dark. Scottie didn’t see it until the last moment, but that was good enough. He dodged the keg, which brushed past his shoulder and landed with a metallic thud on the cellar floor. Beer began to spray from the top of the barrel; a foamy shower rained down on them.

  “Over there!” Angela said. “Far wall!” Just in case the others needed more explicit directions.

  Scottie saw it. He saw it running, saw it leap up and onto the wall, saw it shuffle along like the spider they had passed on the way down the steps.

  “That’s not possible!” Jamie said, watching the child crawl horizontally across the cellar brickwork. “What the hell are those things?”

  *

  It was up near the ceiling now, and when its head snapped around, snarling and drooling, Jamie saw its face clearly for the first time. Even in the dark, he knew who he was looking at. He’d only met the kid earlier that day at the arcade. The boy had been queuing up for that new game, had introduced himself as Douglas something-or-other. Jamie remembered the crazy way in which the kid spoke, as if he had been programmed rather than taught. The thick-framed spectacles were missing, but there was no mistaking the boy.

  The thing that was Douglas licked its lips, regarded each of the survivors individually. Jamie shivered. He had never been so scared of an eight-year-old in his life, but then again, most eight-year-olds didn’t climb walls like a demonic Spiderman.

  “It’s got nowhere to go,” Scottie said, calmly given the circumstances. “Don’t let it out of your sight.” He began to approach the boy, slowly, carefully. Jamie took the other side of the cellar. Flanking the thing on both sides seemed like a good idea. Behind, Liza and Angela followed gingerly. Jamie thought they were as shell-shocked as he was, that they were all of a sudden wishing they’d heeded Scottie’s warning and remained at the top of the stairs.

  The Douglas-thing scrambled across the wall, panting now like a wild dog. It was looking for a way out, a means of avoiding these maniacs with their dangerous sock-weapons.

  “Be careful, Scottie!” Angela yelled.

  Jamie looked across, saw that Scottie was almost at the wall. His expression was one of utmost confusion. He, too, was finding this all a little hard to believe. Yesterday—or even an hour ago—the notion of spider-children with eyes blacker than night would have been absurd.

  “Don’t get any clos—” Jamie’s words turned into a grunt as the Douglas-thing leapt from the wall. It moved with such speed that there was no time to react; the thing slammed into Scottie’s chest with a meaty thud. Both Scottie and the Douglas-thing went back. Red wine splashed up into the air, commingling with black drool from the creature’s wide-open maw.

  With Scottie momentarily subdued and on his back, the Douglas-thing bounced up, momentum carrying it through the dark cellar toward the door.

  Then there was a sickening dull thump, and the Douglas-thing staggered to the side like a boxer trying to fight on jellied legs. It was only then that Jamie saw the sock rolling away across the cellar floor and realised what had happened.

  The creature went down face-first, skinning its nose on the concrete below and displacing several teeth, which may or may not have been the Douglas-thing’s adult ones yet. Jamie rushed across the room, almost slipping in the wine, to where Liza and Angela were dragging Scottie back to his feet. Past he went, wind-milling his weapon around. The Douglas-thing was still trying to get up when Jamie clouted it hard across the back of its head—the coup de grace. It whined like an animal caught in a trap, and then collapsed back down, twitching as if in the throes of some grand-mal seizure.

  “And stay down,” Jamie said, because you were only cool if you used a one-liner after despatching a bad guy, and he wanted to look cool in front of Liza, even though she had done the majority of the work by launching her sock at the back of the bastard’s head.

  “Nice, Super-Jamie,” Liza said, surveying the body lying motionless at their feet, half-drowning in Merlot.

  Jamie shrugged. Hey, hasta-la-vista, baby, he thought, and immediately he was glad he’d kept that one to himself.

  *

  “They’ve been gone a long time,” Deirdre said. She had poured herself a large cognac, her poison of choice, and had settled into a booth as far away from any windows and doors as possible. “What if that thing got them? How long are we supposed to sit here in the dark like this?”

  “That thing couldn’t be any older than ten,” Ted said. “Not if it came in through the window. I’m pretty sure they could take care of a kid that old between four of them.”

  “You’re forgetting that we’re not talking about any human kid here,” Hard-Hat said. He lit a roll-yer-own and handed a pouch of tobacco to his buddy, who proceed to build a cigarette of his own. The sweet smell of Virginian Blended permeated the room. “They’re strong, and fast, too. The ones we had to deal with earlier, well, I hate to admit it but they had the drop on us for a while. I didn’t think the fucker was ever gonna go down.”

  Bandanna handed the tobacco pouch back to Hard-Hat and accepted a light. “The skinny one shouldn’t have been able to take
a pool-cue to the side of the head, but he took it like it was nothing. I don’t think they feel pain, not anymore, not like we do.”

  “I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Ted grunted. “But you’re scaring my wife, and that’s not okay with me.”

  Over in her booth, Deirdre porter waved a hand dismissively through the air. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ve already come to terms with the fact we’re all going to die tonight. I ain’t going out sober, though, not if I can help it.” She necked her cognac before pouring herself another one from the bottle sitting on the table in front of her.

  “Do you think drinking’s a good idea?” Ted asked his wife. “We need to keep our heads clear.”

  “My head has never been clearer,” Deirdre argued. “I just never thought I’d see the day that Hemsby came under attack by fucking black-eye children.” She snorted, as if it was the funniest thing she’d ever said. The drink was clearly already affecting her, not that she had been much of a drinker to begin with. Unlike most public house proprietors, Deirdre Porter seldom took advantage of the booze. She’d never seen the point in it, never really liked the taste of spirits or ales. All that good work was out the window now, though. She was planning on getting—and staying—good and smashed until this was all over or she was dead, whichever came first.

  Hard-Hat made his way across to the window and stared silently out through it for a few seconds. “I don’t think there’s anything out there right now.”

  “Fancy popping out to test that theory?” Ted said.

  Hard-Hat moved away from the window. “All I’m saying is that I think the worst of it is over. The police probably have it all under control.”

  Then the door leading out back flew open, and the four survivors came ploughing through it. And Hard-Hat saw what they were carrying and said, “Are you out of your fucking minds? Please tell me that thing’s dead.”