Monster (11 page)

Barely containing the ear-piercing squeak of joy caught in my chest, I two-stepped it up the back staircase, passing
Regan Matsumoto in the middle. She stared at me, her eyes not leaving mine until I had made it to the top and rounded the corner.

K
nowing I was going out with Charlie on Wednesday made the days in between seem slightly sweeter than they had done. We all passed the time in relative harmony; Maggie, Tabby and I played games and got Matron’s permission to use the Art room to create huge murals and make sculptures with clay. Regan was still watching every move I made, and coming back from the woods with tiny animal skulls and soil tinged with red stuff, which she swore was blood. Dianna was still doing her disappearing act every so often and coming back pretending she’d been out jogging or taking the air or, the best one yet, ‘I thought I saw a rare bird in the foliage and went to investigate.’ I didn’t really care what Clarice was up to, but she was out of mine and Tabby’s hair and that was all that mattered.

I had another phone call from Dad on Sunday morning, just to say there was still no news but that he and Mum were fine. On Monday, Matron got us all sorting and dusting the library books
all day,
and on Tuesday she had us washing floors, repairing hymn books and redoing the House noticeboards
all day
in preparation for the new term.

By Monday, the weather was starting to worsen and Matron banged on about our battening down for a big heavy snowstorm. I was worried our date would be called off, but on Wednesday, Charlie was as good as his word. I watched the clock on the common room wall tick over to 09.58 a.m. and, at the far end of the drive, I saw a small silver car rolling in. I watched it come all the way down the drive, go round the turning circle and stop by the front entrance. The clock struck ten just as he was ringing the door chime.

‘He’s here,’ I said.

Maggie and Tabby were in there with me, getting just as excited as I was. Well, maybe not quite as excited as I was.

‘Have an amazing time and I want
every
single detail when you get back.’

‘Okay,’ I said, taking one last look in the mirror. I smoothed Tabby’s hair. ‘You will keep an eye on her, won’t you, Maggie?’

‘‘Course I will, now go on. Go forth and enjoy oneself for once.’

Matron came to the door in her aproned uniform, smudges of flour on her cheeks and stains of pasta sauce on her hands, and escorted me to my visitor in the main hall.

‘Now you have your spending money?’ she checked.

‘Yes, Matron.’

‘And he knows to have you back here in time for dinner at five o’clock sharp, yes?’

‘Yes, Matron. What are we having?’

‘Well, it was going to be stew but … have we had stew recently? I could have sworn there were five pounds of stewing steak in the bottom of the utility fridge. Anyway, we’re now having lasagne followed by jam sponge and custard.’

‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later, Matron. Thank you again.’ I think she could tell I really meant it.

I didn’t think Charlie could look more beautiful than he usually did in his white t-shirt, jeans and apron, but he’d made a real effort today and worn a white shirt with a soft blue jumper over the top of it and navy trousers with creases in. I’d never seen him out of trainers either. Today it was polished shoes. He looked older than his seventeen years and I felt as weak as a kitten. My heart was racing as I greeted him at the front door.

It was freezing outside and the clouds were heavy with snow.

Charlie handed the signed permission slip from his dad to Matron and we got in the car. He didn’t say anything until we’d both put on our seat belts then he turned to me and said, ‘You look really nice.’

I could smell the aftershave on him. He usually smelled of biscuits and meat.

‘You
smell
really nice,’ I said.

‘Do I?’

‘Yeah.’

He started the engine. Before putting the car into gear, he opened the glovebox and pulled out a leaflet. ‘Things to do at Bathory Gorge,’ he said. ‘Have a look through and see what you think.’

His tablets fell out into my footwell.

‘Oh, sorry.’

I bent over, picked them up and put them back in the box. ‘Did the doctor change them for you?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m much better, he said. I’ve got to keep an eye on it though.’

‘Do you get it bad?’

‘Yeah, every now and again. It’s worse in summer, you know, with the pollen.’

‘Yeah, it must be,’ I said, looking over the tourist leaflet. ‘Erm, well we could do the fudge factory?’

‘It’s a bit crap,’ he said. ‘You can’t actually go in, you just sort of watch through a window. Might be free fudge though.’

‘Hmm. Crazy golf?’ I suggested. ‘Oh. Looks like it shut on December seventh.’ The car sped out of the drive and onto the road. ‘There’s rock climbing at the far end of the Gorge?’

‘Not this close to Christmas,’ he said.

‘There’s a cliff-top walk?’ We looked at each other. ‘Bit cold?’ we said simultaneously.

‘How about the caves?’ he suggested.

I looked for a mention of them. There was also mention of the entrance price. ‘Twenty-five quid?’ I cried.

Charlie laughed. ‘Jeez, it used to be about a tenner when I was younger. They must have bumped up the prices when the overseas tourists started coming. I can pay for you though if you want to see them?’

I was still recovering from the shock of it. ‘No way. I wouldn’t go in on principle, not just to see a bunch of rocks.’

He laughed again, the car swerving a little on the road. I wasn’t surprised; he was going so fast. ‘Whoa. Icy. There’s an underground cavern and a witch’s grotto and a stalagmite shaped like Vernon Kay.’

I giggled. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I swear!’ he said. ‘Look, it says on the leaflet. There’s Vernon, Harry Styles and Shrek riding on Donkey’s back.’

‘Still not worth twenty-five pounds each.’

‘No, maybe not.’ The car swerved again on a patch of ice. ‘Sorry. My alignment needs looking at.’

‘Yeah, maybe you should … slow down a bit. Or something. Maybe.’ I clutched the armrest on the door.

‘Nah, it’ll be fine. You’re better off going at top speed on ice. It’s safer.’

‘Safer?’ I laughed. ‘Who taught you that?’

‘It’s a well-known fact. There’s tea rooms open all year-round. And a cinema, but it’s pretty tiny and it’s all Disney films over Christmas, I think.’

‘There’s a cheese shop. It’s got the area’s only haunted cheese.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Charlie. ‘The owner’s got it in a glass case. Says it moves every now and then. I’ve got my doubts.’

‘How about the museum?’ I suggested, scanning the Tours page of the leaflet. ‘Oh and it says there’s a guided double decker bus tour through the Gorge and surrounding villages. That’d be nice.’

‘I think that’s a summer-only thing, isn’t it?’ he said, an embarrassed look on his face.

‘It’s okay, I don’t mind where we go. It’s just nice to be out of school. I haven’t left the village since September. Well, we played a netball tournament at Toppan Academy.’

We’d reached the end of a road and Charlie indicated left. ‘How come you have to stay there anyway? Where are your folks?’

I sighed deeply. I guess spending the day together in a tourist town where pretty much every single tourist attraction
was shut would mean we would have a lot of time for talking. So we talked. I told him about Seb. I told him about my parents having to fly over to Colombia to meet the ambassador.

‘Blimey. So how long’s he been missing?’ he asked.

‘Uh, nearly two weeks now.’

‘And there’s no news at all?’

‘There’s bits of news,’ I said, as the car slowed down for a tractor to pass us along a narrow stretch of country lane then roared off again at top speed, even though there were multiple warning signs for ice around. ‘Nothing for certain. It’s the not knowing more than anything. Every time they say I’ve got a phone call, I freeze. It’s like the world just stops for a split second, and I know I’m on the precipice of unbelievable joy or unbelievable pain. And it’s never one thing or the other.’

‘Must be horrible.’

‘Sorry. I’m putting a dark cloud over the day already, aren’t I?’

‘No, no, not at all,’ he said, gripping the steering wheel like his life depended on it. His knuckles were white. I glanced across at the speedometer. He was doing nearly sixty miles an hour on a country road. On an icy country road.

‘God, I’m really sorry, Nash. What’s his name?’

‘Seb.’

He nodded. He seemed like he was groping for more words but none would come. Nobody could ever think of the right thing to say. I was tired of all the
Don’t worry
s and
They’ll find him
s. Then he just said, ‘I think you’ve just got to have faith that he’ll turn up. Until then, there’s nothing else you can do, is there?’

I looked at him. He snatched his eyes away from the road for a second to look at me.

‘That’s what you’d do?’ I asked, noticing the car freshener stuck to one of the vents was in the shape of a football boot. Seb had one just like it in his car.

‘Until you know for sure, then just have faith. I think that’s what I’d do.’

‘Then that’s what I’ll do,’ I said, feeling slightly better already.

I made up my mind: I’d think about it when I got back. If there had been a phone call while I’d been out, I’d handle it. Now was about me. And Charlie.

After a short discussion about the freezing weather, another couple of skids on black ice, and a tiff about the music on the radio, which he wanted to turn up but I didn’t, we arrived safely at the main public car park in Bathory and Charlie went to get a ticket from the pay and display machine. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got out and when I held out my hand, it was slightly trembling. I had to admit though, he was a good driver. He’d probably seen a few too many
Fast and the Furious
movies, but he knew how to handle a car, that was for sure. When he came back, we started walking into the street that we would follow right up through the Gorge.

‘I wanted to ask you out for ages,’ he said, taking my freezing, gloved hand in his own bare, warm one as we passed a jewellery shop.

‘Did you?’ I said.

‘Yeah. Ages and ages. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I didn’t know whether I should ask you out or what you’d say. Bathory girls tend to be a bit … well, stuck-up.’

‘You thought I was stuck-up?’ I said.

‘No, no, not at all, I didn’t mean that.’ He blanched. ‘No, I …’

‘And how many Bathory girls have you asked out in the past, may I ask?’

‘Uh, well, not many, I mean, it … you’re definitely the first. I just meant …’

I laughed. ‘It’s okay. I know what you meant. Bathory girls aren’t supposed to fraternise with boys. It affects our studies. Apparently.’

‘Will it affect your studies?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘Probably. I might not be able to stop thinking about you.’

He grinned and squeezed my hand tighter. ‘I might not be able to stop thinking about that,’ he said.

We just sort of looked at each other, for the longest time, as we walked. Then he inadvertently careered straight into a wooden chef’s sign for fresh vanilla fudge. I couldn’t stop laughing. He didn’t laugh, though; he just looked angry with himself for his slapstickery.

The setting was undeniably beautiful. It was a proper Christmas card scene. At the top of the picture was this colossal rock, split in half by the road snaking down through the village and dotted with tiny shops and tea rooms that twinkled and shone with decorations and fairy lights. Most of the shops sold local crafts like ciders, jams and home-made sweets, while others were devoted to items like mountaineering gear, wax jackets and guidebooks or pure sheepskin leather jackets and slippers. Some shops seemed particularly enamoured of the Beast myth; their neon signs yelled out ‘Come inside for your Beast of Bathory Souvenirs!’ which comprised everything you could think of with
a black wolf logo on it: cuddly toys, tea cosies, tea towels, belt buckles, even cutlery.

It was starting to snow and we were heading dangerously towards a perfect movie moment, one where we would be making snow angels and walking in a winter wonderland. But there’s one problem with winter wonderlands.

They melt.

I
wanted to walk up to the top of the Gorge, let the clean winter air launder my lungs and throat, but Charlie spotted an arcade centre called The Sunspot and wanted to go in there, so we did that for an hour. I didn’t mind; it was warm and there was tinsel draped across most of the fruit machines. It still felt like Christmas.

‘Which one do you want to play? Gears of War? Call of Duty? Guitar Hero?’

‘Death on Castle Mars,’ he said, without hesitation. As the name suggested, it was about a castle. On Mars. And there was a lot of death. The player was this extremely muscly soldier with a neck as thick as a tree stump and covered in tattoos, gun straps and strings of bullets and he had to run
in and out of all these spooky corridors, machine-gunning aliens until they burst into flames.

‘I’m brilliant at this,’ he said gleefully, pumping the slot full of pound coins. ‘I’m up to level seven at home. I played it for seventeen hours straight last week. I haven’t got this version though. Dad’s getting me it for Christmas.’

‘Cool,’ I said, and hung around the machine for what seemed like an age listening to him yell things at the screen like: ‘Stop running. You know you can’t outrun me. I’m too quick. I’m just too damn quick for you’; ‘Oh I’ve got you now, Busta Rhymes’; ‘Yes! Yes! YEAAAAS!’; ‘Eat lead! ‘; and, ‘You are deader than dead now, Martian Mike’. All of which would be followed by him gritting his teeth and punching the air when the scores flashed up. He only stopped, begrudgingly, when a man came over and started queuing for a turn. I think he’d have happily stayed there all day.

Halfway up Gorge Road, there was a sign for ‘The Beast of Bathory Museum’.

‘Can we go in there?’ I said to Charlie, who was looking in the window of the fancy dress shop next door.

He looked at the sign. ‘It’s pretty crap,’ he said. ‘It’s only, like, one room. I haven’t been in there since I was a kid. Probably hasn’t changed.’

‘I’d like to,’ I said.

He shrugged and followed me up the steps to the museum. He was right too; it was just one room. A room with a large, glass-topped table in the centre. The walls all around detailed the history of Beast sightings, sites of corpses ascribed to the Beast and alleged victims. A little old man was seated on a chair by the entrance with a small tin marked
‘Donations’, and Charlie and I both put in some coins. He nodded thanks.

The first sign on the wall was entitled ‘The Strange and Colossal Predator’.

Since just before the First World War, there have been over forty-six reported sightings of a strange and colossal predator, roaming the fields and villages. Despite official inquiries purporting to disprove local lore as nothing more than superstition and scaremongering, many people in Bathory maintain that one or more large black animals stalk this area.

The second sign was entitled ‘Sightings and Eyewitness Reports’. I caught the words ‘large wolf’ and ‘as big as a horse’. There was a mocked-up drawing of what an eyewitness claimed to have seen. It looked like a picture Tabby drew in Prep a few nights ago.

It is feasible,
said a quote from someone from the Government who checked the area out in the late eighties,
that a turn-of-the-century entrepreneur who lived in the area and privately owned a small group of big cats may have let them go when he was thought to be contravening the laws of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, and that, since the early part of the twentieth century, these animals have been living hidden in the Bathory countryside.

‘That actually makes sense,’ I heard myself saying, thinking back to Regan and her refusal to believe that the myth was just that: a myth. This was in front of me, in black and white, and seemed perfectly believable. I felt a bit ashamed of the way I’d spoken to her.

The third sign on the wall was entitled ‘Victims of the Beast’ and it talked about all the bodies of animals that had been found on farmland. I recognised a couple of the farm
names—Daisy Brook and Willow Mead—they were the farms either side of the school.

Across the room, Charlie was laughing at a papier-mâché model a local primary school had made of the Beast. Its eyes were crossed and its teeth were wonky, with several chipped off. It did look pretty ropey, but behind it were black-and-white pictures of sheep lying dead in the fields, the black on their wool denoting blood, though it was hard to tell as the photos were so grainy.

Over the last century, a total of 128 sheep and lambs have been killed by the Beast of Bathory,
the sign read.
Fifty-seven cows have been reported killed or with mysterious long scratch marks on their hides. But perhaps most chillingly of all, seven people, mostly hikers and travellers, have been reported missing, having been last seen in the Bathory area.

‘Blimey,’ I said aloud.

‘What?’ said Charlie, who was now looking into the glass tabletop. Inside it was a scale model of Bathory village and the surrounding areas of Gunness-on-Sea, Toppan and Barfield. All around were little red dot stickers.

‘What do those mean?’ I asked him.

He read the little sign: ‘“The dots denote where traces of victims, both man and creature, have been found”.’

‘Traces?’

‘Yeah. Body parts and stuff, I guess.’

‘I thought it was just a couple of tourists last summer and a walker last winter. That’s what Mrs Renfield said in the shop.’

‘Yeah, but they found evidence of them,’ said Charlie. ‘They never found the others.’

‘They’re all near the school,’ I said on a long exhale. ‘The
fields. The woods. The farmland.’ The dots encircled Bathory School. I was starting to feel just the slightest bit ill.

‘Took that one too,’ said a voice not coming from either of us. We looked across at the little man by the door with the collection tin. ‘Last week. Fella in the village. The Beast what did for him ‘n’ all.’

Charlie leaned in and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, he has to say that for the tourists.’

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I saw him carried out his cottage. Covered in blood.’

I felt a sense of dread, as though a heavy cloak had been thrown upon my back.

The old man continued, scratching his pepper-stubbled chin. ‘You don’t go walkin’ at night. You keep your doors locked. You don’t go lookin’ for it in the winter. Winter’s when he takes ‘em. Takes ‘em back to his lair. Stores ‘em up. Feeds on ‘em till spring.’

I didn’t understand. ‘Why would it hunt in the winter? Surely it would spend the summer hunting, and then in winter—’

‘Not this un, lassie. Winter’s when he comes out. He don’t hunt when the tourists are about, do he? Always in the wintertime. Always this time of year.’

Another of the signs read, ‘Theories about the Beast of Bathory’. The page was split into four different headings: ‘Prehistoric Legend’, ‘Escaped Zoo Animal’, ‘Alien Cross-Dimensional Traveller’ and ‘Native Wildcat’.

‘So what do you think the Beast is?’ Charlie asked the man.

He shrugged. ‘Could be any of ‘em.’

‘Even an alien cross-dimensional traveller?’ I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny.

The old man gripped his chin and stared straight ahead. ‘I don’t know, lassie. You just heed my words. Don’t go lookin’ for it. Don’t go bein’ a hero. You hear anything or see any sign of it, you call the police proper quick. That’s what the others didn’t do. That rambler and those tourists. Don’t believe the other stories. That thing’s real all right. It’s evil, straight from the jaws of Hell.’

‘Yeah, can we go now?’ I muttered to Charlie.

‘Thanks for your … time,’ said Charlie, as he guided me back through the door before him and down the steps.

‘Whoa, that was intense,’ I said, as soon we were safely back outside in the freezing cold air. ‘Better not tell Regan about this place. She’ll want to move in.’

‘He’s been in there years, that old bloke. “That thing’s evil straight from the jaws of Hell, I tell thee!”‘ he mocked.

‘Stop it,’ I said, pushing him so he stumbled on the pavement.

‘You got a bit scared then, didn’t you?’ He smiled.

‘I did not.’

‘Oh, you so did,’ he laughed. ‘You couldn’t wait to get out of there.’

‘That’s so not true!’

‘So you don’t want me to hold your hand then?’ he said.

I looked at him. ‘I didn’t say that.’ I reached for his hand and held it in my own.

He was shaking. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘Are you cold?’

‘Yeah. And nervous.’

‘Nervous about what?’

‘About, I dunno, you. I dunno. I like you.’

I smiled at him and held his hand tighter. ‘I like you too. So you can stop shaking.’

We walked a little further down the street, holding hands all the while, though he didn’t stop shaking. He was obviously frozen to the bone. I spied a shop that sold Bathory souvenirs and fossils and gemstones so we went in to get out of the cold. I had always been a bit of a magpie when it came to shiny objects and rocks, even when they were no more than bits of overpriced tat. For that day only, they would be precious jewels.

‘I’ll be over here,’ said Charlie, heading towards a vast wall of local ciders and local chutneys as I made a beeline for a home-made jewellery display. There were some beautiful pieces—amethyst rings, quartz bracelets, tourmaline earrings and brooches, and all sorts of different unpronounceable rocks strung together as necklaces with tags claiming they ‘helped aid fertility’ and brought the wearer ‘peace and harmony’ or ‘a long-lasting marriage’.

There was the most stunning bluey-green necklace of little smooth rocks strung together on a wire. The tag said the rock was called ‘Howlite—a calming stone used to relieve stress and restore order to the wearer’s life. Wear the Howlite to absorb worries and your peace shall be restored.’

‘Ha, fat chance,’ I said, seeing the back of the tag also read twenty-three pounds and I only had ten pounds in the world. I put it back and decided to buy something for Charlie as a gift for bringing me out for the day. I spied some novelty car air fresheners in the shape of the Beast of Bathory and I remembered the football-shaped one in his car, which had run out of smell. I decided to buy one, plus a small button badge that said ‘I’ve Seen the Bathory Beast’ for my collection. I never could resist a badge. I caught up with Charlie by the tills.

‘Pick a hand,’ I said, holding out both fists out before him.

He looked at me. ‘Okay.’ He touched the top of my left hand. I opened it, empty. I opened the right and handed him the air freshener. ‘Aw, sweet,’ he said. ‘Mine’s just run out. You didn’t have to get me that.’

I shrugged. ‘Just a tiny thank you, you know, for today.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He smiled.

We walked up the entire length of the road running up through the Gorge and looked into all of the shops. Charlie went in the phone shop to see about a new SIM card for his Samsung, and I helped him choose some Christmas presents for his mum and sister in a lovely high-end gift shop called
Seymour’s,
then we went and got something to eat.

The tiny tea room we both liked the look of was halfway down the Gorge on the other side of the street. It was up a short flight of stone steps and from the window it had a great view of the village and the little bridge crossing the river. The place was called The Wishing Well and there was a wishing well by the entrance. Legend had it that wishes came true if you made them there. I knew exactly what my wish would be.

‘It’s just another money-making scheme,’ said Charlie, as a lady in full maid’s regalia greeted us and showed us to a table for two in the corner, right next to a little inglenook fireplace and the window with the perfect view. ‘The bloke who owns this place owns most of the tea rooms and shops in the Gorge. He’s loaded.’

‘That’s very cynical,’ I said, pinning my Beast badge to my jumper in the empty spot where the Head Girl badge would have gone.

He handed me one of the little leather-bound menus. I noticed his hand was still shaking. The barometer on the wall said two degrees centigrade. ‘I’ve made about a dozen
wishes in there over the years and none of them have ever come true.’

‘What were your wishes?’ I asked.

He frowned. ‘I can’t tell you.’ His leg was jiggling under the table.

‘Why not? If it’s just a cynical money-making scheme, then it doesn’t matter if you tell me, does it?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘I guess you’re right. It was usually material things, like I wanted a scooter a couple of years ago. And I wished my dad got over his cancer.’

‘Did he?’

‘Yeah, but …’

‘There you go then.’

‘I never got a scooter for my birthday though.’

‘Did you get money?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And what did you buy with your money?’

‘Well, I bought a scooter but it wasn’t bought
for
me, so the wish doesn’t count.’

‘I think you’re underestimating the power of the wishing well,’ I said, looking at a picture on the wall conveying the history of the restaurant. ‘There, see?’ I said, pointing up at the picture. ‘“People who’ve visited the wishing well over the last seventy years have reported wishes coming true when they’ve thrown coins in the water, from finding lost objects to relatives recovering from illness and even miraculous conceptions!” See, told you.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ he said, both legs jiggling now.

‘Weren’t you the one telling me to have faith?’ I smiled.

‘I used to wish … my mum came back. She left us. I thought at first that the Beast had taken her in the night.’

‘Oh, Charlie,’ I said, speechless of anything useful. ‘She didn’t …’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘We found a note. She’d just left. Couldn’t stand it any more at home. There was a lot of arguing and stuff. She went to the city. She wanted me to come too, but I stayed with Dad and ran the shop. He needed me.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry, Charlie.’

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Do you still see her?’

He shrugged. ‘Hey, do you want to know a secret?’

‘What?’

‘Dad didn’t give me the afternoon off. I snuck out.’

If I’d been a cartoon, my eyes would have popped out on stalks. ‘You lied to him?’