The Fearful (15 page)

‘It was already open,' Scott said. ‘We didn't have to smash it.'

Tim double-checked it anyway, then stuck his head
inside. Gully was picking himself up off the concrete floor, feeling around for his scattered money. He couldn't see it in the dark.

‘Get out, Gully.'

‘We thought we'd sleep in here,' he said. It was obvious he was just as drunk. ‘We didn't want to wake you up.'

‘Why not? Worried my sister has grassed you up?'

He turned away. ‘Lost my money.' He cast around in the dark again.

‘Just get out, will you? My dad'll go mad when I tell him. I'm not joking.' He glanced at Mourn Home; the windows were still dark.

‘Why've you got to tell him?' Scott asked. ‘Just let us in quietly and nobody'll know anything.' He'd taken a couple of steps closer to Tim and although he was slurring slightly there was a sharper edge to his words. ‘No one
needs
to know. Right?'

Tim had no real intention of telling anybody anything, but . . . ‘Why should I do you any favours after what you did to my sister?'

‘That was just us messing about.'

‘She could have drowned.'

‘She gave as good as she got. She kicked Gully in the balls.' He leaned in the garage window. ‘Hey. She kicked you in the balls, didn't she?' He thought it was funny. ‘We were just having a laugh,' Scott told him.

‘Yeah, well, Jenny didn't find it very funny.'

‘Did you really think she was going to get eaten?' Gully called from inside the garage. ‘That's
wild
if you did.'

‘Of course he did,' Scott said. ‘That's why he didn't jump in after her. He may be
wild,
but he's not stupid.'

Tim stayed silent while they laughed.

‘Are you going to let us in, then?' Scott eventually asked.

Roddy Morgan stepped up to them. ‘Stop being a nob-head and let them in, Monster Boy.' He was standing behind Scott, but close up to his shoulder. He was with the big boys now and wanted Tim to know it.

‘What's it got to do with you?' Tim said, hating the way he sounded like a kid. ‘What're you doing here anyway?'

‘We invited him,' Scott said. ‘Told him he could come back to our room for a couple of beers. He wangled us some free drinks out of his boss and we wanted to pay him back.' Everything he said was a statement of intent, no question attached. Kind of,
This is what we're doing whether you like it or not
.

‘Vic always gives me a few freebies at the end of the night,' Roddy said. ‘I'm his right-hand man.'

‘Yeah, I bet you are.'

Roddy didn't get it at first, not until Tim gave the international gesture for wanking. Then he went a deep, angry red and moved out from behind Scott. He was heated enough not to need the older lad now.

Scott laughed, but Roddy met Tim's eyes with real malice. He stepped up to the garage window and leaned inside, as if looking for something. ‘Hey, Gully. Have a look in that freezer. You won't believe what they keep in their freezers at this place.'

Tim's heart went cold. Roddy smirked at him; it was
well known locally what was kept in their freezer. Tim pushed him away from the window. ‘Get out of there, Gully. It's for the—' But too late.

‘Bloody hell!' Gully was understandably amazed. ‘Scott! Have you seen this? Look at all this stuff!' He dragged a frosty, lumpy plastic bag from inside and ripped it open.

Scott recoiled. ‘Is that a cat?'

Gully held up the remains of the roadkill. ‘Don't you know a fox when you see one?' Its back legs were crushed, twisted, its head the wrong shape, but it was definitely a fox. ‘Gross!' He threw it at them – they all three ducked as one. It flew over their heads to land behind them in Anne's flowerbeds.

Tim immediately ran to grab it. Gingerly he picked it up by its rigid tail. The covering of cold, crispy frost on the fur felt like woolly gloves after a snowball fight. ‘Just get out, Gully. I'll let you into the house, okay?'

Roddy thought it was hilarious. ‘I always knew your family were freaks, Monster Boy. But this is
sick
.'

‘What else is in there?' Scott was curious in an appalled kind of way.

‘It's just feed,' Tim said, wanting to make it sound normal, thinking deep down he never could even in a million years.

‘You eat dead foxes?' Gully called through the window. ‘Wow! McDonald's are missing a trick there all right.'

‘It's what they give their guests for breakfast.' Roddy was in stitches.

Tim turned on him. ‘Yeah. Funny. It's for the Mourn, obviously.'

‘
Obviously
,' he mimicked.

An icy hedgehog Frisbee flew out to land in the grass at his feet. Its spilled but frozen guts sparkled like jewels in the moonlight.

‘Hey, watch where you're chucking that stuff!' Scott had to dodge a couple of stone-solid starlings with snapped wings and broken legs. ‘Hey!'

‘Come on, Gully,' Tim said. His anger had turned over to reveal the age-old embarrassment underneath. ‘Leave it alone, will you? All this is needed for next week.' He was trying to pick up everything Gully was chucking out into the garden. ‘Just pack it in.' He was watching for lights again, but none came on. Maybe he was lucky the old walls were so thick – maybe not. He knew all he had to do was fetch his dad, but somehow this had got well out of control and he felt he was to blame. He could have just let them into the house and none of this would have happened.

Gully was back at the window, another flat hedgehog in his hand. ‘Would you like fries with that?'

Everybody laughed, except Tim.

Scott swallowed the last of his lager, crumpled the can and tossed it aside. He surprised Tim by grabbing the dead fox out of his hand before he could stop him. ‘I'm going fishing,' he said. He swayed slightly on his unsteady feet then set off towards the feeding pier.

Gully was confused. ‘Fishing?'

Scott held the frozen fox up above his head. ‘Yeah, fishing. For
monsters
.'

Gully laughed loudly and virtually leaped out through
the garage window. He snatched up a dead bird or two to go with his hedgehog. ‘Wait up! I want to see this!'

Tim hadn't believed the night could get any worse.

‘Why didn't I ever think of that?' Roddy wanted to know. He picked up a starling of his own.

Too late now, Tim thought, but maybe he really should have woken his dad. He turned to look at the house. Maybe—

‘You don't want to do that.' It was as if Roddy had read his mind. And then Gully was next to him too. ‘Come on,' Roddy said. ‘We're having a laugh, don't be your usual boring self and spoil it.'

If Roddy had been alone Tim would have stood up to him. But with Gully there as well all he could do was let them walk him out onto the feeding pier above the lake.

Their boots and trainers sounded loud on the planks, but Tim knew they were too far away from the house to be heard. The wind had died down during the day and now, although it was cold, there was not even a whisper of a breeze. The water beneath the pier could have been black ice. They went all the way out, right to the very end. The little rowing boat tied up to the side was motionless, looking like it had frozen into the blackness.

Gully was shivering. Scott got out a cigarette and Gully stole it from between his lips.

‘Bet the water's freezing,' Scott said, lighting another. ‘It's cold enough during the day.'

‘Bloody perishing,' Gully agreed.

Tim was worried. With a heavy, sinking dread he knew that one of them would pretty soon come up with the idea of chucking him in. They'd done it to Jenny; they'd do it to him just as quick.

Again it was as if Roddy knew what he was thinking. ‘Wouldn't want to fall in. You'd be an icicle in seconds. You'd never even reach the bottom.'

Tim shivered involuntarily.

‘I didn't think it had a bottom. Or it's a hundred miles deep or something.' Gully said. ‘Has anybody ever checked?' He stamped on the wooden planks. ‘How come this doesn't sink then, if it is?'

Roddy tutted. ‘Doesn't anyone know their local history except for me and Monster Boy?'

‘We're not local,' Gully said.

Scott put his cigarette to the dead fox's fur and listened to it hiss. ‘About which we're extremely pleased.'

Roddy waved his dead birds at Tim. ‘I'll let you explain it if you want.'

But Tim only glared at him.

Roddy shrugged. ‘It's only really deep once you get past here,' he said. ‘They built this as far out as they could, before the bottom sort of falls away and suddenly goes down really steeply.' He stamped his foot like Gully had. ‘But this is on solid rock.'

‘You know a lot about something you reckon you hate,' Tim said.

‘Why do you think I hate it so much?' There was real venom in Roddy's words. ‘Don't you get it? I've had it
rammed down my throat since the day I was born and it's all bollocks! It's impossible not to know about this stuff if you live around here.' Then to Gully again: ‘No one really knows how deep it is the middle. Like everything else round here, you just have to believe what
his
family tells you to. And why should we give a shit what a family full of freaks says? They've never done anything except sponge off everyone else and make our town look stupid because people think we believe in monsters.'

Gully wasn't really interested in Roddy's ranting. He was staring at the water. ‘It can't be a hundred miles deep. That'd be impossible.'

‘I don't think anybody really believes it's that deep,' Tim said, as if to a child. ‘It's just one of those really old names that stuck. It was called the Hundredwaters long before 1699.'

‘You're admitting it's a lie!' Roddy cried.

Tim didn't want to argue about it. ‘If you like.'

‘You see, it's all bullshit! Everything his freaky family says, they expect you to believe. And we get it shoved down our throats all the time as little kids. It's like the three men who died building this feeding pier. It was a big storm and only one body was found afterwards. And the freaks round here expect you to believe that the big, bad monster ate the other two.'

‘Believe what you want for all I care,' Tim said.

‘I will, I will. Because
I
believe the Mourner killed them.'

‘What?' Tim had to laugh.

Roddy was serious. ‘It was your great-granddad, wasn't it?'

‘Have you trapped your head in one of those outboard motors you were supposed to be mending or something?'

‘If they were builders they probably just went down the pub and couldn't be arsed to come back,' Scott said. ‘My old man's a builder. I should know.'

Gully was poking his dead starling suspiciously. One of its brittle legs broke and pinged off into the darkness. ‘Is that who your boss was talking about at the bar?' he asked Roddy. ‘He said it was the teacher that killed them or something?' He leaned over the edge and dropped the little speckled corpse over the side of the pier with a muted splash. The ripples spread quickly across the smooth blackness of water.

‘No, that was the teacher who started it all: Old Willy the pervert. He killed the kids and made the whole legend up so no one would find out he'd been molesting them.' He eyed Tim carefully, and Tim met his stare without saying a word. Because he'd heard this story before – and from people far more intelligent than Roddy Morgan. He was just hoping the three of them would get bored and cold and want to go inside.

‘Interesting theory,' Scott said. ‘So you really don't believe in this monster?'

‘I'll tell what I believe,' Roddy said. ‘The whole family's a bunch of perverts and murderers, that's what.'

Scott turned to Tim. ‘And what about you?'

Tim kept his face set, blank. ‘Who knows what to believe?' he said.

Scott laughed. ‘Excellent point – well made.'

Tim turned away. He was wondering if he could shove Roddy in. One hard push. Then run.

‘Come on, let's see if we can catch us a legend.' Scott had the fox by its tail. ‘Stiff as a broom,' he said.

‘Brush,' Gully corrected him.

The three of them laughed. They were all just good mates together, united by Roddy's antagonism towards Tim. And Tim surprised himself by thinking how good it would be if the Mourn
was
real. Apart from wanting it to appear right here, right now, and bite a chunk out of Roddy (which would obviously be bloody marvellous for lots of reasons), he realized how great it would be to prove him wrong. He remembered what Jenny had said about wanting to be different to people like Roddy and Gully and Scott, and now he understood what she'd meant. He wanted people like them to be wrong. He wanted his father to be right. Because wouldn't that be the greatest revenge of all?

Gully was kneeling down dangling his crushed hedgehog over the edge. ‘Come on then, you big bastard!' he shouted out at the lake. ‘Come and eat me if you dare!' He hurled the hedgehog.

Tim watched him kneeling there. If he couldn't shove Roddy in, maybe Gully instead. Give the Mourn a helping hand. Do it for Jenny. It would be so easy to kick him over the side – he wasn't even looking.

It was now or never. He took a step forward. But Roddy saw him and grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind him, making him cry out. He put his face right up close to Tim's.

‘You're too late,' a voice called from further down the pier.

Roddy instantly let go of him. Scott dropped the fox at his feet.

A tall man was striding towards them. ‘It's already been fed. Won't be hungry till next Saturday at least.' He was wearing a tatty, black leather jacket, had his hands stuffed in the pockets. He was in his early forties, with a pale, oval face and a widow's peak of short black hair. He was grinning from ear to ear.