Dead Flesh (13 page)

“I’ll keep in
contact,” she assured me with a smile.

“We’ll be
close,” I said. “We’re going to stay at a nearby farmhouse that
Isidor has found on the internet. We’ll be renting it for a week,
so find out what you can and fast.”

“I know what to
do,” Kayla said.

“Got the iPod?”
Potter asked her.

“You bet.”

I let go of
Kayla and she went to Isidor who stood by the door. “I’ll miss
you,” she told him.

“I’ll miss you
more,” he said, gripping her tightly in his arms. I couldn’t help
but notice the look of sadness that had come over his face.

“I better go,”
Kayla told him, and I could sense that if she didn’t go now, she
never would.

Isidor let go
of her, and we all watched as she stepped out into the rain. Kayla
pulled the collar of her coat up around her throat. She looked
right, then back at us. “I can see the car waiting just outside the
gates,” she said.

“Are you sure
you want to go?” Isidor asked, hiding from view in the doorway.

Then, looking
back one last time at him, Kayla said, “See you later,
alligator.”

“In a while,
crocodile,” Isidor whispered, closing the front door on his
sister.

Kayla

My journey from
Hallowed Manor to Ravenwood School took just over an hour. The
driver had spoken little, offering the odd grunt in response to my
attempts at conversation. In fact the man had seemed too busy
chewing on the end of the cigarette he held between his teeth to
say very much at all.

I sat and
glanced through the rain-spattered windows as we reached the
grounds of the school. The first thing I noticed was the huge
search towers that Elizabeth Clarke had described and the razor
wire that covered the tops of the walls. I could see that a bunch
of hooded figures were watching from the towers as the driver drove
the car through the gates and steered it up the winding drive to
the school.

With the back
of my hand, I rubbed away some of the condensation from my window.
But however much I stared up at those hooded figures in their grey
robes, I couldn’t see their faces. It kinda freaked me out, my
stomach started to somersault. It was too late to go back now.

“What is this
place?” I asked the driver, keen to make out that I knew nothing of
the building that stretched before me.

“A school,” the
driver said, the tip of his cigarette winking on and off as it
dangled from the corner of his mouth.

I watched the
blue-grey cigarette smoke squirt from his nostrils and said, “Do
you think you could put that out? It smells disgusting.”

“Quit
complaining,” the driver said, and sucked on the end of the
cigarette as if in defiance.

“It’s bad for
my health,” I told him.

“Yeah and so is
a smack in the mouth, so keep it shut!” the driver replied.

Elizabeth
hadn’t been kidding when she had described the school staff to us.
Ignoring him, I turned and looked back through the car windows at
the school, which loomed ahead. Elizabeth had been right in her
description of it. It did look more like a prison than a
school.

“Are you sure
this is a school?” I asked the driver.

“I’m sure,” he
coughed.

“It’s just that
it doesn’t look like a school – it looks like some kinda mental
institution.”

He stubbed out
his cigarette in the already overflowing ashtray, and flashing a
set of bright yellow teeth he said, “You’ll feel right at home
then, won’t you girlie.”

“I thought my
uncle had sent me to a place of education,” I said.

“Jee-sus!” the
driver wheezed. “Don’t you ever quit your moaning? No wonder your
parents topped themselves!”

I knew that
Potter had told McCain that my make-believe parents had died in a
boating accident, not that they had killed themselves. This jerk
was just trying to be cruel. I looked at the driver and said, “My
parents never killed themselves. They died in a boating accident.
They drowned.”

“Blah! Blah!
Blah!” he mocked. “You go on believing that, girlie. Whatever
floats your boat!” Laughing, he looked at me and added, “Get-it?
Whatever
floats
your boat!”

Just wanting to
punch this whack-job straight in the face, I sat on my hands,
turned away and looked up at the school. The car tyres crunched
over gravel, and it sounded like the car were rolling over a carpet
of broken bones. The driver swung the car round the last bend in
the driveway and killed the engine in front of the school. Not
wanting to spend another moment in the driver’s company, I snatched
hold of my small case and fled the car. One of the hooded figures
stood in the rain and beckoned me forward with a gnarled
finger.

“This way!” the
figure ordered. “Follow me.”

With my stomach
churning as if my innards were being strangled, I started after the
figure.

“Hey!” a voice
called after me.

I spun around
to see that the driver had wound down the passenger’s window of his
car and was now leaning across both front seats. “Good luck,
girlie!” he grinned. “You’re gonna need it!” Then the driver wound
up the window, drowning out the sound of his obnoxious laughter,
started the engine, and drove away down the drive.

With rain
jabbing away at my face like broken fingernails, I watched the car
until it had disappeared from view.

“Follow me!”
the hoodie ordered, its voice sounding stern and old.

I gripped the
handle of my case over my shoulder, turned on my heels and followed
the hoodie into the school.

The school was
very old. The building was constructed of cold slabs of grey stone
and rock. The corridors the hooded figure led me through seemed
never-ending. The walls towered high above me like some ancient
cathedral. The sound of my shoes snapping off the cobbled walkways
echoed all around me as the hoodie’s long robes made a whispering
sound as they trailed behind him. Set into the walls were giant
stained glass windows and they cast eerie shadows along the
corridors.

The hooded
figure led me to a small, wooded door. He pushed it open to reveal
a dimly-lit room. On the floor was a cardboard box with the words
Poor Box
written along the side in red
marker pen.

“Find yourself
a suitable blazer then get to class,” the figure hissed, its grey
robes swishing back along the floor as it made its way up the stone
corridor.

Once it was
gone, I bent down and rummaged through the
Poor
Box
, my hands lost amongst second-hand ties, socks, jumpers,
and blazers. The clothes smelt musty – like a tramp that had
brushed up too close to me on the London Underground.

“This sucks,
don’t you reckon?” came a voice from beside me.

I looked up to
find a boy about my own age standing next to me. He was
thin-looking, with a long face, a mop of black curls, and
mischievous blue eyes.

“I guess,” I
sighed and went back to rummaging through the box.

“You’re new
here, ain’t ya?”

“Yep,” I said
without looking up.

“Don’t worry,”
the boy said. “This place takes some getting used to, but…”

“Who said I’m
worried?” I asked, pulling a dusty-looking blazer from the box and
holding it against me.

“You look as if
you’ve just seen a ghost!” he smirked. “Either that or you ain’t
feeling too well.”

I brushed the
dust from the blazer, and said, “I’m fine, okay? So if you don’t
mind, I’m trying…”

“Just look at
this crap, will ya?” he groaned, cutting me dead. “How do they

expect anyone
to wear this stuff?” he said, yanking a blazer from the box and
putting it on. The sleeves dangled over his wrists and covered his
hands. I slid my arms through the sleeves of the blazer I had
chosen and they stopped halfway up my arm.

Then he looked
at himself, then at me. “We look like a right pair of Muppets!”

“Swap?” I
suggested.

“You kidding?”
the boy grinned. “If they insist we wear this crap, then they’ll
have to put up with us looking like a couple of dicks.”

“But we don’t
look very smart,” I said.

“That’s the
point,” he smiled, poking his fingers from beneath his sleeves.

“But…”

“I’m Brook. Sam
Brook,” he said, thrusting his hand out towards me.

“Kayla Hunt,” I
replied, shaking Sam’s hand.

“What year you
been put in?” Sam asked, kicking the box over and walking away up
the corridor.

“Sorry?” I
asked, watching the second-hand clothes spill out of the box like a
pile of entangled guts.

“How old are
ya?” Sam shouted over his shoulder.

“Sixteen!”

“Nice one.
You’ll be in the same classes as me!” he smiled back at me, and his
piercing blue eyes seemed to sparkle with delight. “C’mon, you
don’t want to be late for Brother Michael’s lesson!” And with
another wicked grin, Sam mooched away and up the corridor.

I straightened
my thick auburn hair and said, “To be honest, I do feel kinda
nervous.”

“I knew it,”
Sam smiled at me.

“How? Is it
that obvious?”

“You look as if
you’re gonna shit yourself!’ Sam laughed.

“Thanks!”

“I’m just
taking the piss!” Sam grinned and slapped me on the back. “Don’t
worry, you’ll get used to being at Ravenwood.”

I knew that my
time at the school was short, and I needed to find out as much
information about it and the staff as possible. So not wanting to
waste any time, I said, “The teachers here seem weird – kinda
strange.”

“The Ravenwood
Greys, that’s what we call ‘em,” Sam said, his voice dropping to
just above a whisper.

I thought of
the teacher who had met me outside of the school and the grey robes
and hood that it had worn, and the name seemed to fit. Wanting to
know more about these Ravenwood Greys, I said, “You’re not
reassuring me, Sam. Are they really bad?”

“The old lot of
teachers we had – they were pretty safe. But one morning we all
tipped up for lessons as normal, and they’d all gone – vanished!”
Sam told me.

“What do you
mean, vanished?” I asked, thinking of Emily Clarke.

“Dunno,” Sam
shrugged. “They just disappeared and were replaced by the
Greys.”

“Where did they
go?” I asked him.

“How should I
know?” Sam whispered, approaching the door to the classroom and
pushing it open. I followed him inside.

Just like my
blazer, the classroom smelt old, musty, and of sweat. It was full
of teenagers all about the same age as me and Sam. Some looked a
few years younger. They sat in rows behind single wooden desks. I
followed Sam across the room, and finding a spare desk and seat
next to him, I sat down. Along one side of the classroom, windows
spewed dreary shafts of winter morning light across the desks and
chalkboard. Glancing out of the windows, I could see one of the
turrets that surrounded the school spiralling up into the overcast
sky. At the top I could see a hooded figure pacing back and forth
as it kept watch over the school and everyone imprisoned within
it.

Kayla

“I thought you
said we shouldn’t be late for Brother Michael’s lesson?” I said to
Sam, looking at my watch. “He’s five minutes late already.”

“Shhh!” Sam
said. “He might already be here!”

“What do ya
mean?” I asked. But before Sam could explain, something
happened.

At first there
was a rustling sound, like leaves being carried along the street in
a storm. This was followed by a wailing sound and a spray of
shadows that flickered across the chalkboard like the silhouette of
a giant bird. Then out of the gloom in the corner of the room
stepped one of those Greys. His robes fluttered all around him as
he made his way to the front of the class.

“Where did he
come -” I began.

“Shhh!” Sam
said again, prodding me in the ribs with his elbow. “That’s Brother
Michael.”

Brother Michael
stood at the front of the class, his giant frame wedged into a grey
coloured robe. But it wasn’t just his cloak and the hood that he
had draped over his head, everything about him was
grey
. His hoodie was pulled so far down over his face
that the only part I could see was his mouth. Brother Michael’s
lips were puckered, cracked, and blistered looking.

“For the
benefit of the new student,” Brother Michael’s mouth hissed, “I
will remind you of the entire list of school rules.” Then, running
his tongue over his lips to moisten them, he began. “You will not
leave the school grounds. In fact, you won’t have any contact with
the outside world until you leave this school!”

School! Is that what he calls it?
I wondered.

His tongue
snaked from between his lips again and a silver globule of spittle
glistened as it dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He looked as
if he were about to throw a fit. “If you should see anyone other
than a member of staff in the school grounds, you are to report it
at once!” Straightening the rope that hung about his waist, he
continued. “By that I mean anyone odd – anyone looking strange! Do
I make myself clear?” he asked.

What? Stranger than you?
I thought to myself.
Not likely!

“Yes, Brother,”
the class replied. I sat silently and watched Brother Michael knock
away the spit that swung from his chin.

Brother Michael
continued to inform the class of the many rules that we must all
obey, and as he did, I stole a glance about the room and spied at
some of the other students. They sat with their backs straight,
faces taut and emotionless, like mindless dummies in shop windows.
They looked haunted – lost in some way – like they had given up
somehow. Then, as I was turning back to face Brother Michael, I
caught someone staring back at me. It was a boy, about my age I
figured, with narrow green eyes and a scrunched-up looking face. He
had a fierce-looking crew cut like a Marine, and he had his fists
on his desk like two giant clubs.