Dead Flesh (22 page)

“I found out
that McCain is a complete and utter whack-job,” she said.

“What do you
mean?” I asked her, fearing that he might have hurt her in some
way. We sat huddled around my iPod as Kayla told us about her visit
through Ravenwood to Emily Clarke’s bedroom. She described in
detail the blood that covered the walls and how she and Sam had
hidden when McCain had come to the room. On hearing how he had
licked the walls, my stomach lurched as it made me feel sick, but
not as ill as when Kayla described what he had done after that.
Kayla told us in a whisper how McCain seemed to have a permanently
blocked nose, and Isidor told her why.

Kayla seemed to
know little about the matching other than it took place at a
disused chapel and that McCain was responsible for the matching of
the wolves with the kids at the school. Hearing her description of
Emily’s bedroom, I feared that this was how Emily had met her
death. I asked Kayla if this is all that she had managed to
discover.

Then, for just
a second she disappeared from view, then was back again. She held
something up before her and said, “Look what I found.”

It took me a
moment to figure out exactly what it was she holding. “Is that the
camera Emily had hidden in her room?” I breathed.

“Sure is,” she
said, sounding pleased with herself.

“Have you
watched what’s on it?” Isidor cut in, sounding excited.

“Does it show
her being murdered?” Potter asked next.

“Shhh!” I
hissed. “Let Kayla talk.”

“No, I haven’t
been able to watch it,” she said. “It’s one of those cameras that
downloads straight to a laptop. Besides, I had to leave the power
cable behind.”

“Why?” Potter
asked.

“I was in a mad
rush to get out of that room before McCain came back,” she
explained.

“So how are we
gonna ever know what’s on there?” Isidor inquired.

“I’ll go and
get it,” Potter said, standing up as if he was going to leave right
now.

“No, don’t do
that!” Kayla insisted. “I’m not allowed visitors until the matching
is over and they drill it into the kids that if they see strangers
or anyone who looks odd, to report it.”

“I don’t look
odd,” Potter snapped. Then, looking at me, he said, “Do I look odd
to you?”

Ignoring him, I
looked down at the screen and said, “What do you suggest,
Kayla?”

“I’ll try and
sneak away tomorrow somehow,” she said. “But the place is pretty
guarded, what with the searchlights and towers. But I’ve got the
advantage that no one here knows what I truly am. I can move fast
and I can fly so I should be able to figure something out.”

“Don’t take any
unnecessary risks,” I warned her. “This world is screwed up enough
without throwing a winged half-breed into the mix.”

“I’ll try and
leave the camera on the other side of the school walls,” Kayla
suggested. “I’ll find a place to hide it, somewhere that you can
find it. I’ll leave a marker of some kind. Then, I’ll send you a
message, Kiera, to let you know where I’ve hidden it.”

“Okay,” I
agreed. The plan wasn’t great, but I couldn’t think of what else to
do, and we didn’t have time on our side. “As soon as the camera is
in place, let me know and I’ll send Isidor to collect.”

“Why not me?”
Potter asked, sounding offended.

“Because we
stand a better chance of Isidor getting close to the school and
getting the camera without drawing any attention to us,” I
explained. “If we lose that camera then we lose everything.
Besides, Isidor will be able to follow Kayla’s scent to wherever
she leaves the camera. Right, Isidor?”

“You bet,”
Isidor said proudly and sniffed the air.

Then, not
wanting to debate it further, I looked back down at Kayla’s ghostly
image and said, “Good work, Kayla. You’ve done a good job. Be
careful and we’ll wait for your message.”

“I miss you
guys,” Kayla said one last time before she ended the call.

I slipped the
iPod into my pocket and looked at the others.

“I don’t like
this one bit,” Potter said.

“Neither do I,”
Isidor said, and it was the first time that I had ever known them
to agree on anything.

“We get the
camera,” I said. “We see what it’s got to show...”

“And if it does
show McCain killing the Clarke woman?” Potter asked.

“We get Kayla
out of there,” I said.

“Then what?”
Isidor said.

But before I’d
had the chance to reply, Potter said, “We push McCain so freaking
hard, that he never gets up again.”

Kayla

I arrived for
the class the following morning only to discover that Sam had been
right, Brother Michael had taken ill. As I sat down next to Sam, he
couldn’t wait to tell me that rumours were rampant that our new
teacher, Sister Margaret, had actually gone berserk herself and
freaked out a few weeks before. Hearing this, my heart sank.
Another
freak
!

“What
happened?” I whispered behind my hand, as Sister Margaret sat
slumped in a rocking chair at the front of the class. Just like the
other Ravenwood Greys, her face was covered by the hood of her
robes.

“Listen to
this,” Sam whispered back. “I heard she started to eat a book she
was reading!”

I looked at him
and said, “That’s just a bunch of crap. That never happened.”

“Honest,” Sam
said. “I’m not faking. She started to rip the pages from her book –
then eat them, until she puked her guts up all over the classroom
floor.”

I had seen a
lot of crazy stuff in my life, but this story seemed

too strange to
believe. The class as usual was in silence, there hadn’t been much
work set for us. I guessed it was art class or something, because
on each desk had been placed a jug of cloudy water with
paintbrushes. It almost felt like we were killing time until we
were either chosen by McCain for matching or we were set free. The
class had been sitting quietly. As I spied around the room, I could
see that some weren’t painting at all, but just staring into space
like freaking zombies, while others sat and painted pictures.

Dorsey was
sitting in front of me. I peered over his shoulder and could see
that he was painting a picture. I couldn’t see what it was, but his
small, narrow shoulders were slumped forward, his burnt face almost
touching the paper in front of him.

Sister Margaret
continued to sit at the front of the class, with a book open, but
facing down in her lap. Her head was bent forward with her hood
concealing her face, and all the while she just rocked slowly back
and forth in her chair. I thought of the conversation that I’d had
with Kiera, Potter, and Isidor the night before and knew that I had
to find a way of sneaking out of the school and hiding the
camera.

Dorsey suddenly
stood up and went to the front of the class. He stopped at the sink
and filled a jug with water. It was then I noticed Pryor. He was
sitting next to two other boys. The three of them looked pale and
gaunt, as if they hadn’t seen daylight for a while. The last time
I’d seen Pryor, he was being dragged across the schoolyard by
Brother Michael on his way to the Rat-House. By the look of the two
emaciated-looking identical twins sitting on either side of Pryor,
I guessed that they were the Addison twins that McCain had
mentioned. By the look of them, their time spent in the Rat-House
hadn’t been great. They looked dirty, scruffy, and haunted.

I watched Pryor
lean over and nudge one of the Addison brothers. The twin began to
snigger and he turned to his brother and laughed. His twin winked
back at him.Dorsey made his way back from the sink holding the jug
of water and some paintbrushes. As he approached Sister Margaret,
Pryor stuck his leg out and sent Dorsey pin-wheeling through the
air. The jug he was holding flew from his hand and I watched as it
spun towards Sister Margaret. It crashed into her left shoulder and
shattered on impact, as if it had just been thrown into a brick
wall. Water sprayed everywhere, covering Sister Margaret’s head and
chest.

For a moment
she didn’t move, she didn’t even flinch, as if she had been totally
unaware of what had just happened. Sister Margaret continued to
sit, rocking back and forth several more times until she suddenly
stopped. The class sat in silence as we stared at her. Dorsey got
to his feet and began to brush himself off with his burnt and
twisted fingers. Sister Margaret slowly rose out of her chair and
loomed over Dorsey. For what seemed like the longest time, she just
stood there, completely motionless. Then, without warning, her
tongue rolled from between her lips like a fat, grey worm and she
licked the water from her chin. Once she had soaked up every drop,
her tongue crawled back into her mouth. She then raised one of her
arms and pointed at Dorsey. Then as quickly as she had raised her
arm, she lowered it and then freaked out.

She darted
across the room, colliding with chairs and tables, until she
reached one of the Addisons’ desks. Here, she snatched up his jug
of dirty paint water, which he’d cleaned his brushes in, and
raising it to her mouth she gulped down the lot. Thick coloured
water spilled from the corners of her mouth and dribbled off her
chin. She threw the empty jug onto the floor where it smashed into
tiny pieces. Sister Margaret then headed towards another kid’s
desk. Here she took hold of his glass of dirty water and hurriedly
swilled it down. As she drank, I could hear the revolting sound of
her slurping and choking as it washed down her throat.

Chucking the
empty glass to the floor, she was off again and heading straight
for me. She took hold of my paint jug in her grey hands, tilted her
head back on her neck, opened her mouth wide and poured the
muddy-looking water in. She spluttered and coughed as water
appeared around the creases of her mouth in tiny bubbles. Once the
water had gone, she sighed as if her thirst had at last been
quenched. Sister Margaret then let out the longest and loudest
belch I had ever heard, wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her
robe, turned and left the room. As she disappeared into the depths
of the school, I heard her start to scream.

The class
remained silent. I glanced at Sam.

“I told you,”
he whispered.

It was so still
and quiet that I could hear the racing heartbeats of those that sat
nearby. The silence was broken as Pryor jumped up, knocking his
chair flying. He grabbed hold of Dorsey with one meaty hand and
with his other he scooped up a paintbrush and dangled it in front
of Dorsey’s face.

Dorsey flinched
away, but he wasn’t quick enough and Pryor began to daub his face
with paint.

“There you go!
You look a lot better already. Let’s cover up those hideous burns,”
Pryor teased.

Some of the
others in the class began to laugh and jeer at Dorsey, as he was
humiliated in front of us.

Although it
wasn’t me who was being bullied, I felt for him and was furious
inside. The feelings I’d had the day Pryor had attacked Dorsey in
the yard came flooding back. I had wimped out that time and I’d
felt ashamed ever since. Those memories of how I’d been tormented
came flooding back and I felt sick for Dorsey.

“Let’s see if I
can’t make you look more human,” Pryor jeered, lurching forward
with the paint brush again. Dorsey made a whimpering sound as he
cowered before Pryor.

I felt rage
explode inside of me like a bomb going off in a confined space.
Then, before I even realised what I was doing, I leapt at Pryor,
swinging my clenched fists at him.

“Leave him
alone, you fucking arsehole!” I screamed.

Pryor looked
up, saw me, ducked out of my way and as I shot past him, he punched
me around the back of my head. Sam had been right, Pryor didn’t
give a shit that I was a girl. He would beat up on anyone weaker
than him, or so he thought. I lost my footing and clattered heavily
into a table, sprawling it and myself across the floor. With my
head throbbing from where he had struck me, I scrambled to my feet
and launched myself at him again.

“Pick on
someone your own size!” I roared at him. Then, all of a sudden, I
felt a hand grip my shoulder and yank me backwards. I tried to
whirl around to see who had taken hold of me, when I realised that
it was Sam.

“Leave it,
Kayla. He’s not worth it!” he shouted at me.

“Come on!”
Pryor taunted me, his huge fists swinging before him.

I wanted to
break free from Sam. I wanted to hurt Pryor, like he had hurt
Dorsey, like I had been hurt before.

“Leave it,
Kayla. Leave it!” Sam warned me.

I turned to
face him. He looked me in the eyes and I could feel myself shaking
with rage. I just wanted to rip Pryor’s fucking head clean off. I
knew that I could do it, too. In a blink of an eye, his head would
be spinning from his shoulders, and I would be on him, sucking the
warm blood from his twitching corpse. But if I did that, the
pleasure – satisfaction – would be short-lived. Everyone would know
that I wasn’t really one of them – human. However angry I felt, I
had to stay focused on the real reason I was at Ravenwood and that
was to discover what had happened to Emily Clarke. I wouldn’t be
able to do that from the Rat-House or worse.

“There’ll be
another time, I promise,” Sam said, his crystal blue eyes looking
into mine. I looked away and glared at Pryor.

“Chickenshit,”
he said, then laughed and picked up his chair.

Suddenly the
door was thrown open and McCain came bursting into the classroom.
His lips were drawn tight, looking as if someone had just run a
purple coloured marker pen across his face. McCain marched to the
front of the class and screamed at us.

“Get yourselves in the courtyard right now!
”