Rent-free. That was quite an offer. They could try it for a while to see how it went. If it didn’t work out, they could always move on.
‘I suppose we’d better take a look first,’ he said.
‘Of course.’
The cat was now sitting in Mavis’s lap. Obviously, it had overcome its shyness and was now purring with pleasure.
Following Mavis down the road, Chad saw the sun was low in the sky. It would be dark soon. They stopped at the front gate while Mavis searched her pockets for the keys. Chad glanced up at the building. It was really very dilapidated. A Victorian-style house, it had arched bay windows both upstairs and downstairs. To the left was a set of rickety timber stairs that led to a small columned porch. A curved transom was above the double front doors with an ornately decorated gable roof. The decorations were all in curved timber, once brightly painted, but now peeling like skin.
Chad could see why people had stayed away from it. Without even trying, the place looked scary.
The late afternoon sun cast a red sheen onto the building, bright spots of light reflecting off the glass. Peering at a window in the corner, he saw a dark gap between the curtains.
Something moved. A woman with black hair, her face unnaturally pale, glared down at him. Before Chad could make a sound, her face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Chapter Nine
‘Look!’ Chad yelled.
The others looked up to where he pointed at the window.
‘What?’ Dan asked.
‘I saw a person.’
Mavis smiled gently. ‘There’s no one up there,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s been in the building for years.’
‘But I saw...’ His voice trailed off. ‘I thought I saw someone.’
‘Just the light playing tricks on you, dear.’
Dan couldn’t help but smirk at Chad’s face as he stared up at the window. He didn’t hate Chad, but he wasn’t his favorite person either. The gate squealed loudly as they entered the front yard. The garden was overgrown, and the steps creaked underfoot as they climbed the steps to the porch. Mavis unlocked the front door, and they peered inside. The living room seemed to be in good order, other than some dust and furniture draped with sheets.
‘Take a look around,’ Mavis suggested. ‘Tell me what you think.’
‘The building’s safe?’ Ebony asked.
‘Absolutely.’
As well as the living room on the ground floor, there was also a combined kitchen dining room and library with books still on the shelves. Many of the volumes were old. The kitchen appliances, including the stove, looked like something that would have been quite fashionable in the nineteen fifties.
The dining table was long and rectangular, with seating for eight. Paintings of various scenes lined the walls: a ship on a stormy ocean, a fox hunt, a burning building, and open fields near a dark forest. Dan thought they looked creepy. A painting took pride of place over the mantelpiece, a family portrait of a somewhat overweight man, balding with an unpleasant smile, a woman at his side with long black hair, and a girl and boy, both blonde, who stared disconcertingly at the viewer.
How horrible, Dan thought. That’s going if we move in!
He wasn’t sure why the others always wanted a base. Dan didn’t mind living on Liber8tor. Sure, the decor was reptilian and the food terrible, but it was a safe haven away from the world. It was their home.
They headed upstairs. The staircase was long and winding and seemed to take forever to get to the next floor. Four bedrooms branched off the hall.
Mavis pointed at another flight leading to the attic. ‘No one’s been up there for years,’ she said. ‘That’s where all the ghosts live.’
She laughed, but she was the only one who did. Glancing at the others, Dan thought they all looked a bit spooked, but Brodie tried to put a positive spin on the place.
‘It just needs a little spit and polish,’ she said. ‘Then it’d be a lovely place to live.’
Sure it’d be lovely, Dan thought. As lovely as the cemetery down the road...
At least the house was solid and dry, and he didn’t mind the opportunity to have a little more room. By the time they reached the living room, he was beginning to think moving in might not be such a bad idea. Brodie was thinking the same.
‘We could stay for a while,’ she was saying to Mavis. ‘And fix the house up while we’re here.’
‘That would be wonderful,’ Mavis said. ‘An old woman gets lonely out here by herself. Having company would be lovely.’
The woman handed Brodie a set of keys and promised to look in on them the next morning.
Chad swung on Brodie as soon as Mavis was gone. ‘Have you gone crazy?’ he asked. ‘We can’t move in here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because...well, because it’s an old house...’ His voice trailed away. ‘And when I looked up at the window...’
Brodie rolled her eyes. ‘You must be joking,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts.’
‘Of course not,’ Chad said, reddening. ‘But I did see someone up there.’
‘It must have been a trick of the light,’ Ebony said.
Chad turned to Dan. ‘You didn’t see anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Dan said. ‘Of course, I am short and young, so who can trust anything I say?’
Clamping his jaw shut, Chad turned on Brodie one last time. ‘What will we do about Ferdy?’ he asked. ‘What if someone finds the ship?’
‘That’s a good question.’ She tapped on her communicator and explained the situation to Ferdy. ‘Any thoughts about how we can keep you safe?’
‘The cloaking device will stop the ship from being discovered,’ Ferdy said. ‘The power drain is still continuing but has slowed now that Liber8tor is not in flight. Ferdy will continue to run diagnostics to pinpoint the issue.’
‘But what if someone does find the ship?’ Chad asked. ‘The Agency has tracked us down before.’
‘Ferdy can control the ship if required,’ he said. ‘And the onboard security systems are highly effective at keeping out hostiles.’
‘So we can stay here a while,’ Dan said.
‘Indeed.’
Dan and the others returned to Liber8tor to grab their belongings. Returning to the Cooper house, they found Mavis had left a large box of blankets and sheets on the front doorstep.
‘Thought you’d need these,’ Brodie said, reading the note. ‘What a lovely lady.’
‘Yeah,’ Ebony said. ‘Funny about her cat, though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we first turned up, it treated her like she had the plague. By the time we left, it was all over her.’
‘Maybe it’s skittish.’
Once inside, they arrowed for their rooms. Dan noticed Chad grabbed the room furthest away from where he’d seen the face at the window.
‘Not afraid, are you?’ Dan asked.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! I just wanted a...smaller room.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Forget it,’ Chad said, stomping off.
Stepping into his bedroom for the first time, Dan looked about critically. It was dusty, but it was also kind of exciting to have a place of his own. A larger place of his own, too. His cabin aboard Liber8tor was fine, but cramped. Pulling the coverings off the bed, he was pleased to see the bed was in good order. He made it before removing the throw sheets from the other pieces of furniture: a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and an old rocking horse. They all looked like antiques.
The last cover revealed a Cheval mirror—a tall mirror set on an upright frame that could rotate 360 degrees. The edges were hand-carved in a motif of vines and flowers.
‘Wow,’ Dan murmured. ‘This must be worth a fortune.’
He was surprised to see himself full length. The mirror in his cabin on board Liber8tor was tiny; he rarely got to see more than his face. Now he realized he was taller and skinnier than he used to be.
Must be all that
K’tresh, he thought.
Glancing about, Dan noticed another painting on the wall of the two Cooper children. What were their names? Tina and Joe. He frowned. It had been painted by the same artist as the painting downstairs. The two children, unsmiling, were staring straight at him.
‘What an awful painting,’ he said.
Gripping the edges of it, Dan tried lifting it off the wall, but the wire holding it in place would not dislodge. Pulling it one way, then the other, he struggled to take it down.
What the—
It would not move. It was so large Dan couldn’t see the hook attaching it to the wall, so he pulled at it, sliding it up and down, left and right for another minute. It stubbornly refused to come away.
‘That’s weird,’ he said.
Nothing an ax wouldn’t fix.
Frowning, Dan stepped back from the painting.
What on Earth—
He hadn’t noticed before, but the children’s mother was in the painting as well. Standing between the kids, Maria Cooper held her arms protectively around them as she glared directly at Dan.
Chapter Ten
‘I’m telling you,’ Dan said, ‘it changed.’
‘When you weren’t looking?’ Chad said, raising an eyebrow.
‘That’s what happened. One minute the woman wasn’t there, the next she was.’
Brodie peered up at the painting over Dan’s mantelpiece. It looked utterly ordinary.
‘Maybe you didn’t notice her the first time,’ she suggested.
‘How could I not notice that face?’
He had a point. The woman looked so unfriendly she was hard not to notice. Brodie had tried taking the painting down, but it wouldn’t come away, and she didn’t want to risk damaging it or the wall.
‘You’ll just have to put up with her,’ Brodie said.
‘Maybe someone would like to change rooms,’ Dan said.
No one did.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Brodie said, eyeing a book Dan had on his bedside table. ‘Monster Attack? I wouldn’t suggest reading this before bed.’
Dan nodded silently.
Brodie went to bed feeling worried but slept surprisingly well. She woke the next morning and peered about her new bedroom. It was almost as if her whole life had changed in an instant—and she supposed it had. Her room was like any teenager’s bedroom in any regular home.
I wish Axel were here, she thought.
He was happy where he was. That was the main thing. And nothing would stop them from visiting him occasionally. Not immediately. Best let him settle in for a while before visiting.
She was pleased that she wasn’t the only person who’d slept well. Over breakfast, Dan said he’d slept soundly, even with the creepy painting in his room. Brodie asked Ebony to go into town to buy some cleaning supplies. At the same time, Chad said he would go to the supermarket for groceries. Dan told them he would play Zombie Moon for a while.
‘Hey,’ he said, at their outraged faces. ‘I need to make certain it’s working.’
Targo turned out to be a small town about a mile away, with houses and shops lining a single winding street. After buying armfuls of cleaning supplies at a tiny hardware store, Brodie grabbed Ebony’s arm and pointed to a restaurant on the main road.
‘Bobby’s Diner,’ she said, reading the sign. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.’
‘I think it might be the place to go,’ Ebony replied, glancing about. ‘This town’s so small it might be the only place to go.’
The diner was a red and white building with a faded neon sign over the front. Inside, the decor was classic nineteen-fifties, with silver trim around the bar, tables, and seating. Pictures of Elvis and other rock legends decorated the walls.
‘Nice,’ Ebony said. ‘I like some of the oldies rock and roll.’
‘Really?’ Brodie frowned. ‘There was music before the year 2000?’
The owner came over and introduced himself, not as Bobby, but as Eric. An affable fellow with a neatly trimmed beard, he wore an apron as faded as the sign out front. He told them he’d grown up in the town and had run the diner for eight years.
‘You like the town?’ Brodie said.
‘Wouldn’t live anywhere else,’ Eric said. ‘Although it’s quiet. Way too quiet for most.’
Which might make it ideal for us, Brodie thought. Not many people coming and going. We could settle down without fear of being found by The Agency.
It didn’t take long for their food to arrive—a couple of Bobby Dazzler burgers and some milkshakes. The music on the jukebox was some old song by Buddy Holly. It was bright and cheerful, but they were the only ones to enjoy it. There were no other customers and hardly anyone on the street. Despite being midmorning, the whole town seemed deserted.
‘How are you feeling?’ Ebony asked Brodie. ‘Now that Axel’s gone I mean.’
Brodie took a sip of her milkshake. ‘Okay, I guess,’ she said. ‘I miss him.’
‘That’s understandable.’ Ebony peered out the window. ‘It’s hard to believe he’s not going to be around anymore.’
‘He’s not so far away. We can visit if we want.’
‘You don’t sound so sure about that.’
Brodie thoughtfully swallowed a mouthful of burger. ‘I don’t want to interfere in his life,’ she said. ‘After all, he’s got a family now.’
‘He already had a family,’ Ebony said. ‘Us.’
‘It’s not the same thing.’
‘I think family is wherever you find it. I hope it all works out for Axel, or Adam, or whatever you want to call him. If it doesn’t, then he can always come back.’
Brodie stared into her milkshake. She wanted what was best for him, but she couldn’t help wishing that things wouldn’t work out with his aunt and uncle. Finishing her milkshake, she excused herself to visit the bathroom.
‘Don’t get lost,’ Ebony said.
Locating a door at the rear of the diner, Brodie found a clean bathroom, decorated in a blue-and-white check. After she came out of the cubicle, she peered at herself in the mirror over the sink.
I really do want what’s best for Axel, she thought. But it’s not easy.
She dried her hands and turned to leave.
Broooddie...
Brodie frowned. That’s strange, she thought. That sounds like someone calling my name.
Shaking her head, she went to the bathroom’s single window, a frosted pane high on the wall. She listened hard but heard nothing. Unnerved, she headed for the door.
Broooddie...
She looked around. Where’s it coming from? There were no air vents. No other windows or doors. It wasn’t coming from the cubicles. Her eyes shot to the sink.
‘That’s not possible,’ she murmured.
She peered down the drainpipe.
‘Brodeeeeee....’ the voice sang out. ‘Brodeeeeeeee...’
Brodie’s throat went dry. It was some sort of illusion. It had to be. The water was just gurgling in the pipes somewhere and making a noise that sounded like her name. Her mind was turning it into something she recognized.
Except...
The sound was remarkably like Chad’s voice.
She shook her head. What a ridiculous idea. Chad’s voice coming out of a drainpipe in the women’s bathroom? The others would laugh their heads off when she told them. The mind could do all sorts of crazy tricks when—
‘Hellllppppp,’ the voice called. ‘Brodeeeeee....hellllpppp meeeeee...’
Brodie looked into the drain and saw only darkness, except for the tiny reflection of the window in the shallow water.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘How...?’
Then something moved in the water.
Brodie had faced supervillains, monsters, aliens, and things with no name, yet she had rarely been as frightened as she was now. Looking down into the tiny square of light, she saw a person splashing about.
And she recognized him.
‘Chad?�
� she gasped. ‘What...how...?’
Against all reason, Chad had been shrunk and dropped into, of all places, the sink of Bobby’s Diner. And he was drowning. His hand was literally breaking the surface as his head disappeared under the water for the last time. Gripping the porcelain, Brodie pulled it away from the wall. A pipe snapped loose, and water flew everywhere. Dropping to her knees, Brodie searched the growing puddle of water.
‘Chad!’ she screamed. ‘Where are you? How did you—’
‘Girly!’ a voice came from behind her. ‘What have you done to my bathroom?’
Brodie turned to see Eric, the owner, standing in the doorway. His face was aghast as he stared at her in astonishment.
Ebony, equally astounded, stood behind him. ‘Brodie,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’
Chapter Eleven
Shopping is the most boring thing in the world, Chad thought.
He rarely shopped when they needed supplies for Liber8tor. Usually, one of the others went out to buy things, but it seemed that settling down meant a whole new redistribution of duties. He had been put in charge of food. If it were up to him, he’d be buying corn chips and soda, but Brodie and Ebony had given him a list of everything ranging from breakfast cereals to bananas. The list looked as long as his arm.
There are times you almost wish for a fight with a supervillain.
‘Eggs,’ he muttered. ‘Where do they keep eggs in this place?’
The girl at the checkout of Bill’s supermarket looked young and bored. Chad had already asked her the location of two items. The first, she didn’t know where it was; the second, she didn’t know what it was.
Can’t get good help these days, he thought.
There were eight aisles of goods. He could be here all day. At least the supermarket wasn’t busy. He’d only seen an elderly lady buying tinned meat and a woman carrying a baby, cleaning out a shelf of disposable diapers.
Muzak played over the store loudspeakers. It sounded like Kenny G. That’s what they’re playing in Hell, Chad thought. Kenny G’s greatest hits. And you have a shopping list that never ends. And a bottomless trolley that swallows everything you put in.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 68