by Jon Jacks
Chapter 23
The classroom’s neon lights instantly died.
Everyone in the class moaned and groaned.
There were complaints that a ‘computer was bust, Miss,’ that ‘there’s no connection.’ ‘The power’s gone,’ others wailed, along with, ‘the electricity’s been cut off!’
Within a minute, everyone but the teacher was whooping, cheering and laughing excitedly.
Many nosily drummed their desks. Similar noises were coming from the classes next door, which everyone took as a definite sign that the whole school had been affected.
‘Does this mean school’s over Miss?’
‘There’s no point in staying here now is there?’
‘Might as well all go home! Yeah!’
The teacher, Miss Doughburne, vainly tried to regain order.
‘Now now! Let’s have some quiet, shall we? It’s probably only a power cut, that’s all!’
‘Then how come our mobiles aren’t working Miss?
A number of girls towards the back of the glass were irately holding up their mobile phones. They blankly glared at Miss Doughburne like she might be the one responsible.
‘We tried to ring our mates, but there ain’t no network!’
‘My iPod’s not working neither,’ another grumbled miserably, shaking it as if the battery just needed jolting back into position.
‘Well I’m sure that–’
With the intention of calling reception to see if anyone knew what was happening, Miss Doughburne had reached for her own desk phone. But it was completely dead. All she heard was the dull whistle of a broken connection.
Beth eyed Kate warily, looking for the secret, gleeful smile that would indicate she had somehow caused all this with her recently acquired powers.
But Kate appeared to be as bemused as anyone else in the class.
‘Well that is odd.’ Miss Doughburne turned back to the class. ‘But I’m sure there’s some simple explanation for everything that’s happening. So there’s no need for us all to go acting silly now, is there?’
Her face filled with relief as one of the other teachers stepped into the classroom. They talked quietly for a moment, taking turns to frown or raise their eyebrows in puzzlement.
When the other teacher finally left, Miss Doughburne had to shout above the noise of the increasingly rowdy class.
‘Listen carefully, please! Listen carefully! Now, if you normally catch a school bus, or are usually picked up to go home, you need to make your way to the school hall. Once the phones are working again, we can make arrangements for you. As for the rest of you – you can all go home! The school has been closed for the day!’
The whooping, laughing, cheering and crashing of desktops reached a crescendo. Even Beth leapt up excitedly from her seat, throwing her schoolbooks into her bag.
She cast a wary eye Kate’s way once again, realising she would have to take care to avoid crossing her path once they were all outside.
But Kate, who was sitting by the long row of windows looking out on to the street, was too busy breathlessly babbling with some of her new followers to pay Beth any attention.
Besides, Beth had just caught sight of something that was far worse than Kate, Claris and Donna combined.
Foley.
Out on the street, Foley was casually leaning against a lamppost.
He turned, as if he had sensed that Beth was watching him.
He smiled.
He waved cheerily, mockingly.
*
Chapter 24
Outside in the schoolyard, it was more chaotic than it had been in the classroom.
It seemed that no one had bothered making their way to the school hall, as they had been ordered to do if they had no way of getting home.
Everyone was eager to just get free of the school buildings, leaving worrying about making their way home for later.
Beth breathed a sigh of relief. She could use the densely packed crowd slowly pushing its way through the gates as cover to get past Foley.
What chance did he have of spotting her amongst all these excited school kids?
Just to be sure, she wormed her way towards the very centre. She bent her legs slightly too, trying to completely disappear amongst them.
She was no longer concerned about Donna and her friends; they would merely taunt her, torment her. But Foley – he would come pretty well close to killing her for losing Foal.
Through the mass of bobbing heads that lay between them, Beth caught glimpses of the patiently waiting Foley.
He had moved away from the lamppost. He was now hanging around the edges of the languidly moving throng of children, where it began to fan out and disperse once clear of the gates.
It wasn’t just Foley’s tall, lanky frame that made him standout so much.
His dyed blue-black hair, his pinched, ghostly-white face, made him a comic-book artist’s dream.
If a movie director ever came into town seeking an extra for a vampire movie, Foley was your man.
He even had the right kind of red-ringed, endlessly searching eyes too.
Ones that looked like they could peer through wood to find you.
And yep, the more Beth thought about it, Foley’s mouth always hung partially open, like long fangs were getting in the way. (But really, of course, because an over reliance on drugs had sapped his face muscles.)
He didn’t seem unduly concerned that Beth could be hiding amongst the frantically buzzing swarm slowly making its way past him.
He nonchalantly scanned the crowd, looking this way then that over their heads.
Then, suddenly, his gaze alighted on Beth.
Damn!
How did he do that?
It was like he knew I was here!
He did, idiot!
*
Beth ignored the voice.
She told herself it was just her conscience screaming at her to start doing the sensible rather than the idiot thing.
She ducked and moved farther into the surrounding crowd.
Farther away from Foley.
He didn’t seem to be following her from what she could see.
He didn’t seem to care that she was slipping farther away from him.
Perhaps, she hoped, he could no longer see her.
She still had all those excited, swarming children between her and Foley. And, with every passing second, she was putting even more distance between them.
Sure, she was rapidly coming to the point where the crowd was fanning out and dispersing. Which would mean she would be more or less in the open and would have to make a run for it.
But to get to her, Foley would either have to push his way past the other children or head around the crowd’s front.
Either way, it would delay him enough for her to get a head start on him.
Just to increase that start as much as possible, she broke into a run before she was even completely out in the open.
Tucking the shoulder bag holding her books hard against her waist to stop it flapping painfully against her hips, she weaved between the other children.
She brusquely pushed aside anyone who was careless enough to get in her way
‘Sorry, sorry, but my life depends on this, honest!’
*
As soon as she could, Beth ducked down one of the long, winding gaps that ran between the houses.
It would take her on a detour, but by the time Foley had fought his way through the crowd he
would find himself looking down a street full of uniformed children. There would be enough of them who looked like her from a distance to confuse him, extending her lead by a few more minutes.
By the time he had worked out which path she had taken, she would have made so many quick directional changes down the warren of lanes and ginnels that he wouldn’t have any idea where she was headed.
Unless – had she ever let Foley, or anyone else amongst the crusties, know where her mum lived?
She didn’t think so.
Then again, she had never let anyone know which school she had attended.
Yet he had still found her.
How had he done that?
Why had he done that?
Surely he wasn’t that angry about losing Foal?
She smelt it before she saw it – the reek of burning wood, like someone had lit a huge bonfire amongst the maze of houses.
Wisps of smoke were curling their way down towards her.
Looking up, she saw thicker, darker plumes scudding across the rooftops.
It was blowing her way from the direction of her mum’s house.
But surely…
She broke into a sprint.
She was worrying needlessly, she knew that. It would just be a bonfire, lit in the garden of one of mum’s neighbours and now just a little bit out of control.
She turned the corner into her mum’s street.
Her mum’s house was fiercely ablaze.
*
Chapter 25
‘Mum, mum!’
Beth charged down the street.
The fire brigade were already there. The fire engine was parked up as close as it could to the blazing house. By the garden wall, crouching firemen were tightly gripping a bucking hose.
The house was being sprayed with plumes of water that, reflecting the flames, glowed as fiercely red as the fire itself. Horrified neighbours milled in the street, kept at a safe distance by a handful of firemen who were stretching out a rickety fence of tape.
People screamed, or cried, or hid their faces in their hands.
Urgently and carelessly, Beth pushed through the watching people, ignoring their concerned cries.
‘Beth, it’s Beth! Her daughter.’
‘Don’t go on in Beth love! It’s too late!’
‘You can’t do anything!’
‘It’s too dangerous Beth!’
She ducked beneath the long lines of yellow tape.
She caught a glimpse of a boy she recognised amongst the watching crowd.
Galilee Green!
It was Galilee Green, the boy who had rescued her from Donna and her friends yesterday.
He gawped at her, like he was more shocked to see her here than she was surprised to see him.
As she rose up on the other side of the tape, one of the firemen suddenly reached out to grab her.
But she swerved, wriggled. She easily slipped out of the poor grip offered by his thick, unwieldy gloves.
He spun around as if to chase after her, but he had to turn back to contain the surging crowd. Many of them seemed ready to follow her through the tape.
Beth rushed towards the crouching firemen playing the hose’s spouting contents back and forth across the front of the house.
‘Mum! My mum’s in there! I’ve got to go in!’
Despite her anxiety, Beth almost froze in astonishment.
Was she going crazy?
Weren’t those flames shooting out from the hose’s end, not water?
From a distance, she had assumed it was simply the jets of water reflecting the blaze’s red glow.
But now she was up close, she was almost sure of it; the firemen were pouring streams of fire onto her mum’s house!
They were feeding the blaze, not dousing it!
‘What are you doing here?’
As if he had come out of nowhere, a fireman was standing in front of her, blocking her way. He had the air of authority about him, the slightly different uniform of an officer.
He had to shout over the incredible noise of the hose.
‘Get back behind the tape! It isn’t safe here!’
Beth shook her head. She must be panicked, confused.
Yes, it still looked like the firemen were shooting a fountain of flames towards her mother’s house. But that was crazy; why would they be doing that?
Her mum was in there, needing help.
And she was wasting time thinking crazy thoughts!
‘But my mum; my mum might still be in there!’ Beth wailed.
The officer’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement.
‘Your mum, you say? You say your mum’s in there?’
Didn’t they know? Hadn’t any of the neighbours told them?
‘Yes, yes! My mum! I need to get in there! Please!’
Beth could see very little of the commander’s face, yet she still recognised the horror rising in his eyes.
‘But we were told th– You’re her daughter? You’re Jerusalem Jones’ daughter?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m her daughter!’ What was wrong with him? ‘Please, please! I need to see if she’s okay!’
The officer tapped the shoulder of one of the crouching firemen. The fireman had to turn around to hear the command being yelled at him.
‘Let her in!’
The officer indicated Beth with a nod of his head. The crouching firemen momentarily appeared confused.
‘But – it’s too dangerous in there!’ he bellowed back at his officer.
‘Let her in!’ the officer insisted. ‘She’s her daughter!’
The crouching fireman’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
He spun back towards the rest of his team, giving instructions by tapping shoulders and pointing off to one side of the house.
They directed the hose towards that side, leaving the way up the garden path towards the door clear.
Suddenly, the officer’s hand was on the back of Beth’s shoulders, pushing her forward.
‘Go on then; run!’
Without stopping to think too deeply about how odd all this was – a gang of firemen allowing a young girl to go rushing into a blazing building – Beth dashed up the path towards what was left of the heavily burnt door.
But – it was all very odd, wasn’t it?
She slowed, began to turn, to look back.
It really was a jet of flame gushing from the hose, bathing the house in vast blooms of roaring fire.
The firemen were once again changing the direction of the surging fountain of flame.
They were swinging it back.
And pointing it directly at her.
*
Chapter 26
Instinctively – pathetically – Beth ducked.
Equally uselessly, she cradled her head in her arms.
The roaring flames should have engulfed her.
Instead, they either wrapped around her, or soared high over her head.
Beth felt the incredible heat of the passing flames. Yet, incredibly, she was still alive.
Cautiously, she raised her head.
She gawped in amazement.
It wasn’t just the flames that had curled about her.
Somehow, the ground itself had risen up around her, forming a barrier that was redirecting the blaze. The earth poured with water.
All she could think was that the incredible heat had burst an underground water main, the water fiercely gushing to the surface and bringing up all the soil with it.
It seemed unlikely – but wasn’t everything else that was happening to her today?
&n
bsp; Mum!
Beth abruptly remembered why she was here. Why she was trying to avoid being incinerated by a bunch of murderous firemen.
She was supposed to be rescuing her mum.
She spun around, wondering how far it was to the door. But it was completely hidden behind a flowing, roaring wall of flame.
There was no way she could make her way through that without being burnt to a crisp within a couple of seconds.
Before she could decide what to do, there was an ear-dulling whhoomph!
An incredibly strong blast almost blew her to the ground.
The gust whipped her hair and clothes as if she had been caught in a tornado. Vast sheets of flame erupted from the street, leaping high into the air.
Amongst the soaring flames there were also huge chunks of metal, pieces of ladder, numerous wheels and tyres, and curls of writhing hose.
The fire engine had exploded. And – confirming Beth’s belief that it had been filled with inflammable materials rather than water – the flames shot up higher than ever.
They also burned with ever-greater intensity around her.
‘Beth! Come with me!’
A man’s voice!
Foley’s voice!
It seemed to be coming from deep within the conflagration lying between her and where the fire engine had been.
‘Beth – trust me!’
And it sounded like he was drawing nearer.
*
Foley didn’t just step out of the flames – he seemed to be almost walking on them.
They allowed him to step over the wall protecting Beth. He dropped down to the floor alongside her.
He smiled crookedly, offering her his arm as if he were a Victorian gentleman asking a lady for the next dance.
‘Beth, this is no problem for us.’ He winked conspiratorially. ‘What are you messing about at, eh?’
‘Us? Messing about?’
‘Yes, us! I recognise who you really are now, Beth. No wonder I put up with you for so long! I must’ve sensed who you really were long ago!’
Beth couldn’t make any sense of what Foley was saying.
She was so bewildered by it all that, as if she were in some perplexing dream, she allowed Foley to put his arm around her. He calmly walked her through the flames towards the door.
The flames weren’t touching either of them. They were walking inside a swirling, whirling ball of fire.
The door burst into fragments before the spinning ball of fire. They stepped into the house.
It was a chaos of burning, falling timbers. Flames devoured curtains, carpets and the remnants of furniture.
The unwashed bed sheets left on the kitchen top by Beth’s mum were also alight, making their own small, individual bonfire.
‘Mum! Mum! Where are you?’
Beth anxiously peered up through the massive holes in the layers of floors and ceilings, hoping for at least get a glimpse or her mum. Perhaps she might even hear her shouting back.
‘She’s dead, Beth,’ Foley coolly stated. ‘You must know that. That’s why they’re here – to kill. Although it was you they were meant to kill.’