The Red Road (7 page)

There was further reluctance from
the receptionist. I then grasped at his reasoning. Most likely, he
was wondering why I wasn’t at school right now. With half term
still several weeks away, he might be thinking that I was either
skiving off classes or was having to repeat my GCSEs in my own time.
The reception here both smelt and looked expensive. They likely had
very high standards.

“I actually go to boarding school.
St Christopher’s, near Hallmouth,” I further explained. “But
they’ve had to close the school for a few days, due to an outbreak
of salmonella from some bad chicken. It’s affected about
three-quarters of the pupils, including the staff, so they sent the
rest of us home until everyone is feeling better.”

“Oh dear.”

“Indeed,” I nodded. “I didn’t
get it myself because I’m a vegetarian. It will probably only be a
week or so, but I thought I should do something constructive and plan
for my A-Levels while I’m here.”

Yes, I could bullshit like the best
of them when I needed to. Besides, it sounded better than telling the
man the school had been shut because one of the boys had been found
murdered.

“Very wise,” the receptionist
said, now handing over the booklet. “They didn’t give you much
work to do, then?” he smiled.

He sounded as though he was teasing
me, and so I grinned back. “I’ve already done it. Did it before
they sent us home.”

The receptionist chuckled at that.
“What courses did you have in mind to study?” he asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said,
casting an eye over the front cover of the prospectus. It was bland,
but functional, white, with the letters B.S.F.C., the abbreviated
name of the college, on the front as well as their emblem.

“I’m
still trying to work out what would best suit my career choice.”
What career choice?
I asked himself.
Now you’re just
babbling
. I hoped I wouldn’t come unstuck.

“You’re how old now?”

“Sixteen,” I said. I was
actually fifteen. I wouldn’t be sixteen until February. Sixteen
sounded better, though. More mature.

“Oh? So, you’ve already done
your GCSEs?”

“Not yet, no,” I said. “I’ll
be doing them in the summer. I was sixteen last week, but the school
says that I needed to be sixteen before the end of the summer term to
have done my GCSEs, otherwise I go into the year below,” I hastened
to add. I really should stop lying now.

The receptionist nodded in
understanding. “We have the same policy here,” he said. “Have
you been predicted good grades? Because places tend to fill up
quickly and so we only take the very best. I won’t lie to you –
it can be tough, and competition for seats can be rather fierce.”

I felt a small stab of panic, as I
saw cracks starting to appear in my escape plan from St
Christopher’s. “I’ve been predicted mostly As and Bs, including
English, French, maths, and science. Individual sciences, not
combined,” I added.

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a
problem, then,” the receptionist said. “Cs would probably earn
you a rejection, but As and Bs are fine. The more As the better, of
course. I would suggest you come in on one of our Open Days and speak
to some of the tutors. You’ll find a list of our Open Days on the
inside cover of the prospectus. In the meantime, have a look through
that and see which courses you’d like to do. We’re looking to
introduce a Computer Science course next year, although it might
actually be the year after, depending on whether we can get the
teaching staff and facilities.”

I smiled. I might not know what I
wanted to do with my life, but at least I knew that I didn’t want
it to involve me sitting in front of a computer for several hours a
day. “Thanks. Have a good day.”

“Have a nice weekend,” the man
said as I departed.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the unexpected break
passed slowly. Rob was around a lot of the time, but with little
money to go and do things with, we would often walk the high street
and discuss recent events. From time to time, we would throw an
American football around in the park, but otherwise I found it
strange how I couldn’t actually wait to get back to St
Christopher’s, if only for something to do.

After ten days at home, the school
called to say that it was re-opening; everyone was going back on
Sunday night. Lessons would resume on Monday afternoon, after a
church service for Scott Parker, the dead boy.

Yes, I was glad to be going back.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the goblins had been waiting for me.

Chapter Five

D
own
the length of the darkened corridor I saw the shadowy figures of the
stunted little beasts begin to elongate. Their shadows seemed somehow
darker than they should be, as if they were consuming everything they
touched and drawing it into an inescapable void. Their numbers, too,
appeared to have swelled recently. I could hear their inhuman,
bloodthirsty cries echoing down the passageway to my ears, almost
threatening to shatter my eardrums. I turned and ran.

I could see the doors at the other
end, not far from where I was, but my legs felt as though I were
pulling them through treacle. There was nothing around me, save for
the dimly lit corridor, and though I tried to leap free of whatever
invisible force was preventing me from escaping, I made little
progress towards the doors.

I looked about as the horde of
goblins rounded the corner and came into sight. I caught snatches of
gnashing yellow teeth as they howled, raised their little spears and
charged after me.

Still unable to move, I tried to
scream for help. I croaked the request, my throat completely closed
up. The mass of goblins were then on top of me, dragging me to the
floor as their numbers overwhelmed me. They immediately began
stabbing their spears into my legs, my stomach, my arms, and my back.
I could feel my blood beginning to seep out of my body, my hands and
feet slipping in it as I tried to stand back up and somehow escape.

A
tip of a spear was thrust into my ear, being forced deeper and
deeper, as though trying to skewer my brain. I tried to pull it out,
but my hands were being held fast by a number of the cackling little
monsters. Claws were then in one of my eyes, digging in hard until
they popped the eyeball and yanked out the fleshy remains, upon which
the creatures began to feast.

I tried to cry out again, before
claws began working their way into my mouth, the goblins’ pale-white
arms sliding down my throat, all the way into my stomach ...

~ ~ ~

The dream ended. I found myself
outside the school’s main entrance, standing in my dressing gown
and slippers. How had I gotten out here? I must have been
sleepwalking. I hadn’t done that in years, not since I had first
moved to the senior school. It was quite chilly out, most likely what
had woken me up. I glanced at my watch. It was just after three in the morning. I had
been asleep for about four hours or so.

I turned around and headed back
through the door I supposed I had exited, actually the main entrance
to the school. Someone had failed to lock it tonight. Either that,
or I had somehow opened the door myself.

I was surprised to discover how
dark it was inside. Apparently, I hadn’t switched on any of the
lights. How I had managed to negotiate the Marble Stairs and the near
pitch-black corridors I didn’t know. That was dangerous; I could
have fallen and broken something.

I paused then, not certain I wanted
to walk any further into the school. What if I was still dreaming?
Would the goblins be waiting for me?
No
, I told myself.
They’re not real
. Even so, I walked stealthily through the
school, making for the west wing, where Butcher was located, and
looking for the elusive light switches as I went. I failed to find
any until I was back at my dormitory. No one else was awake. I got
back into bed and lay down, but I didn’t sleep.

I wondered how often I had done
that. I could well be doing it a lot, but just never waking up. Now I
had an idea of how the mud and dirt had gotten on my slippers. It
wasn’t the first time I had noticed it, and I had often dismissed
it as having been trodden in on my everyday shoes and spread about
that way. Perhaps not.

I found that troubling.

~ ~ ~

“You were sleepwalking?” Sam
asked.

“From my bed, down the Marble
Stairs, and out the main doors,” I said. “In the dark.”

“How the hell did you not break
your legs?” Baz wanted to know. “I couldn’t walk down those in
the dark if I was awake.”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I
somehow did, though.”

“And you went outside?” Sam
said.

“Woke up just outside the main
school entrance.”

“Why?”

“Because it was cold,” I
answered, a little incredulously.

“No, I mean why did you go
outside?” Sam said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I
was sleepwalking.”

“Were you having a dream?” Baz
asked.

“Yes, I was,” I replied, after a
moment of hesitation.

“What about?”

I hesitated again at the question. I
knew that even if I told them the truth, they would laugh at me. I
didn’t want them to know the details of the dream, let alone the
fact that they were recurrent nightmares.

“I was being chased by
someone,” I said. “It was probably me thinking that whoever
killed what’s-his-name was coming for me next.”

“Do you still think about that?
Seeing the body, I mean?” Sam wanted to know.

“A little bit,” I admitted. “But
not all the time, no.”

Sam and Baz nodded, and Sam was
about to add something else when my dormitory door opened and Mr
Somers entered.

“Ah good, there you are, Joe. Can
you come with me, please?” my housemaster said, sounding practical
and not inviting comment.

I glanced at Sam and Baz. “Is this
about last night? Because I was genuinely sleepwalking,” I said to
Mr Somers.

“No, nothing like that. Come on,”
Mr Somers said, before coaxing me to follow after him.

~ ~ ~

Despite reassurances from Mr Somers,
it certainly looked as though I was in trouble. I couldn’t think of
what I had done wrong, other than the sleepwalking. Sure, I had
opened a door that might have been locked and, now I thought about
it, hadn’t locked it behind myself as I had come back in. But I had
been sleepwalking. That was hardly my fault.

“Where are we going?” I asked my
housemaster as we walked through Butcher and into the main school
building.

“The headmaster’s office. There
are two police officers that would like to speak to you.”

I came to an immediate halt and
began to back away quickly. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t
kill him!”

“Joe, calm down,” Mr Somers
said, clearly sure that any minute now I was going make a run for it.
“You’re not in trouble; they’re not going to arrest you, and
you’re not going to be expelled. They just want to ask you a few
things. It’s a routine thing under these kinds of circumstances.
You’re basically going to be giving a witness statement, that’s
all.”

The words did little to relax me,
but I did stop backing up and reluctantly resumed following him. I
wondered just what it was the police wanted to talk to me about.

I
saw as we continued through the school how many of the other boys
stared at me. Some, the sixth formers and members of the Clique,
watched me with scowls, probably wondering why an often squeaky clean
individual such as myself was being escorted in clearly what was the direction
of the headmaster’s office, by Mr Somers. Others were quick to avoid
me.

I saw a police car parked out the front of the school through one
of the windows I passed. My eyes locked on the back seats, and I did
my best not to picture myself sitting there later.

We came to the headmaster’s
office, Mr Somers knocking hard on the thick wooden door before we
were called inside. The headmaster was behind his desk, while two
police officers were seated in chairs parallel to it. A third chair,
opposite them, sat empty.

“Ah, that was quick,” Father
Benedict smiled. “Come in, come in,” he added, as I hovered in
the doorway.

Mr Somers pushed me forward, yet I
walked only a few feet into the office. The headmaster’s office was
a place that I had only ever been in once before, and a room that
most of the school preferred to stay well away from. The time before
had been when I had been asked to talk about a very serious fight in
the refectory one Sunday night, between two of the upper sixth. It
was late in the evening, and many of the boys had already finished
eating and left, meaning there were few to assist with breaking it
up. It had been a particularly brutal attack, including hot black
coffee in the face of the victim, as well as at least two stabs to
the torso with a fork. It had led to an immediate expulsion for the
attacker. I hadn’t seen everything that went on, but, along with
several other boys, I had been asked to furnish the headmaster with
as many details as I could. Being still in my first year of senior
school, my responses had been intentionally woolly. I could do
without making enemies.

Now it appeared as though I was
going to be asked to provide another witness statement, this time
with answers not quite as vague as before.

“Joe, this is Inspector Richards
and Sergeant Jones from the Thames Valley Police,” the headmaster
said, indicating the two men.

The two officers rose from their seats,
smiling and shaking my hand. While I might have felt quite
intimidated by what was going on here, for these two men this was
just an everyday part of the job.

“Have a seat, Joe,” the
headmaster said, his tone still warm and friendly.

I did so, seeing Mr Somers walk over
to a corner of the office, getting out of the way. I caught sight of
another man then, sitting on a sofa with a cup of tea in his hand. He
was dressed far more casually than anyone else here.