After yet more aimless wandering, without passing another soul, or even hearing the sound of distant traffic, Molly decided that she would very likely die of thirst and hunger unless she took some drastic action. The next shop she passed was a small newsagent’s. She tried the door, but like every other door she had tried since the Boy’s house, it was locked.
‘Right then,’ said Molly to gee herself up, and she picked up the largest rock she could find. It was the size of a baby’s head, and with careful aim she launched it through the bottom panel of glass in the shop’s door. The glass shattered with an almighty crash, Molly instinctively dashing behind a hedge in case someone angry came running. She stayed put for several minutes, ears straining, stealing the odd furtive glance, before it became clear that no one was coming to investigate.
Carefully, she ducked low and shuffled through the opening she’d made, being sure to avoid the shards of glass that remained in the frame like jagged, see-through monster teeth. With her feet crunching on glass splinters, Molly stood and took in her surroundings: a normal newsagent’s. She made directly for the counter first, feeling a slight thrill as she made her way behind. She quickly saw what she was looking for, and grabbed a few large plastic bags, but then tossed those aside when she spotted a large shoulder bag, presumably used by the shop’s paperboy. Next she went up and down the aisles, grabbing bags of crisps, packets of biscuits and chocolate, and placing them in the paper-boy’s bag. Finally she raided the tall drinks fridges, grabbing a bottle of cola and one of water too.
When the bag was too heavy to add any more, Molly slid it through the door, then ducked and shuffled after it. Once outside again she heaved the bag’s strap over her neck and made her escape. Just because she hadn’t seen anyone in hours, and no one had come to investigate the window smash, didn’t mean it was automatically safe to stay in the shop and consume the stolen goods there. Once she was far enough away, and had taken a left and a right and a left again, she finally stopped by a tall wooden fence, slid down it onto her bum on the pavement, and delved into the bag, stuffing food hungrily into her eager mouth and washing it down with pop.
After she had consumed enough to make herself feel not only full but sick as well, Molly stopped and began to think again about her situation. About her Mum. About the monsters who had her who pretended to be the Fisks. The nice, harmless, boring old wrinkly Fisks. To her surprise she realised she had started to cry, and she rubbed the hot tears off her cheeks angrily with her sleeve.
‘You are crying.’
Molly yelped in surprise. Falling to one side and leaning on her hand she looked up to see the source; it was the unnaturally Tall Man dressed all in black. At this distance it was quickly apparent that his unusual height was far from the strangest thing about him; not only did he have not a single hair on his head, but he also didn’t have any ears. Or eyes. Or nose. Just a far too large mouth.
‘What? What did you say?’ Molly stammered.
‘Tears. Tears are what happens when a person cries. So you are crying,’ the Tall Man said, matter of factly.
‘Yeah? So? I’m crying, big woop!’ Molly shouted at the strange man. ‘So what now, hey? You’ve caught me at last, what are you going to do about it?’ Molly found that she was too angry and bewildered to be frightened.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because... because I shouldn’t be here! And I ignored everything my Gran said, or her ghost said anyway, and I’m completely lost and now the Fisks have probably put my Mum in their garden and she’s dead and they’re eating her soul and it’s all my stupid fault! Is that enough reason for you?!’ Molly realised she was up on her feet now, and had been prodding the Tall Man in the stomach angrily with her finger; not that he reacted or seemed to notice even.
‘I see,’ replied the Tall Man.
‘Well?’ said Molly.
‘I am well, yes,’ replied the Tall Man.
‘Not ‘are you well’, ‘what now’ well?’
‘You spoke to the Boy. The Boy in the room.’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘He wanted me to let him out, said he was trapped, but I think he was trying to trick me. There was blood. A lot of blood.’
‘Yes. He is a very naughty Boy.’
Molly laughed at this, taking herself by surprise at its sudden eruption.
‘You did well not to let him out. He would probably have torn you to pieces. You would not have enjoyed that,’ said the Tall Man.
‘I suppose not. It’s the kind of thing that would really ruin your day, being torn to bits and your blood being splattered everywhere,’ said Molly, trying to suppress the giggles again.
‘I agree.’
Molly peered at the Tall Man’s face, or what he had of a face. ‘How can you see?’
‘I can see.’
‘But you don’t have any eyes.’
‘I can see,’ said the Tall Man again.
‘Okay, well that clears that up,’ said Molly sarcastically, ‘So can I just be clear, are you planning on doing anything horrible and painful to me?’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘Right then. Good.’ Molly slumped back onto her bum on the pavement. The Tall Man didn’t move.
‘You wish to help your Mother.’
‘Of course I do. Stupid question.’
‘Where is your Father?’ The Tall Man tilted his head to one side as he asked.
‘I don’t....’ Molly gulped back the hot prickle of tears. ‘He’s dead, so.’
‘That is....’ The Tall Man stopped as he tried to find the appropriate word, ‘Sad.’
‘Well, it’s not happy.’ Molly busied herself looking through the remnants of her snack haul. ‘I didn’t really know him much anyway; I was too little when he died. Barely remember him.’
‘But you feel the absence.’
Molly stopped rummaging and looked up at the Tall Man, his ‘face’ looking blankly back. ‘Yes.’ She looked back down quickly. ‘He was a Policeman. He helped people in trouble. Mum always says he was very good and very brave. Funny, too. Though I’m not too sure about that one.’
‘And your Grandmother. The old woman in the house. She is also dead. A ghost. She also left you.’
‘She was old. She got sick. She died. She tried her best not to. I didn’t think it could beat her, but it did.’ Molly shrugged and kept her eyes on the ground.
‘Your Father and your Grandmother. And ... and another?’
Molly wondered what he meant, then she remembered, ‘Neil. He was my friend. Is my friend. Was. The Fisks took him, too. He’s in their garden now.’
‘So many losses for one so small,’ said the Tall Man.
‘Maybe I should change my name to Lucky,’ said Molly; her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn’t.
‘That does not seem an appropriate name.’
‘Yeah, that’s sort of the joke.’
The Tall Man nodded, then moved his lips as though he was speaking, but no words came out.
‘What? What are you saying?’ said Molly.
‘Go to your Mother,’ said the Tall Man.
‘I can’t,’ Molly snapped. ‘I don’t know where I am-!’ But the Tall Man had gone. She stood and blinked dumbly in surprise. She twirled round, but he was nowhere in sight. There was no way he could have escaped from view that quickly, that was impossible.
‘Well, bye then! Just leave me here, I’ll be alright, I don’t need your stupid help anyway!’
And that’s when she saw the tree.
It was tall and wide and twisted in the middle, like someone had called its name and it was looking over its shoulder. She knew that tree. She’d fallen out of that tree last year when she and Neil were daring each other to see who could climb the highest. She’d broken her wrist when she hit the ground; she could still hear the crunching sound her bones had made as she hit the pavement. Neil had screamed and run away. It was the tree at the end of her street.
Molly whooped with joy and punched the air. Leaving the paperboy satchel behind on the ground, she sprinted down the street, towards the Fisk’s, towards the monster house, towards her Mum.
~Chapter Eleven~
Molly glanced up as she passed the Boy’s house; she saw him framed in the upstairs window, glaring down at her furiously, arms crossed. He stuck his tongue out; Molly returned the favour. There was no sign of Gran in the window of her own house; who knows what she must be thinking had happened to Molly.
She reached the Fisks' front gate. It was four times the size she remembered it, like it had reared up to make itself look big and scary as she approached. Molly took a few steps back; the gate was suddenly its normal size again, waist high, wooden, painted red. She shuffled forward; the gate grew, towering over her. A good trick, but Molly was pretty sure that was all it was, just some visual ju-ju to put off nosey passers-by.
‘Okay then,’ said Molly aloud, mentally preparing herself for whatever she was walking into. ‘Here goes something....’ She stood on tiptoes to reach up and pull the handle down, before leaning against the gate with her shoulder and pushing. Slowly the gate began to move under her weight, before suddenly swinging back, causing Molly to yelp and tumble to the ground.
‘Ouch.’ Molly got back to her feet, rubbing at her scraped elbow, and looked around; it was like night had suddenly fallen inside the Fisks' garden. Molly blinked several times to try and get her eyes used to the gloom. Over her shoulder, through the open gate, it was still light outside, but in here, within the gardens confines, it was the blackest of nights. ‘Yeah, nothing weird about any of that.’
Molly moved forward cautiously. The ground beneath her feet was covered in vegetation, the crackle of twigs breaking underfoot greeting each carefully placed step. The Fisks' garden was much more than a garden; it was a forest. Giant trees towered overhead and blocked out the sun with their thick canopy. Dotted around these giant trees were smaller trees. Almost trees. Not quite trees. They looked more like trees crossed with people.
Molly looked closer.
No, not crossed with people, they were people; they were all the people the Fisks had stolen over the years, all the children. Molly felt her stomach turn.
The people were stuck in the soil up to where their knees might be, their skin now bark-like: thick, coarse and cracking apart. Their arms jutted out like branches at painful angles, and their faces were partially covered by twigs, leaves, and bark outcrops from their skin. The person tree closest to Molly looked like it was probably a boy, perhaps around 9 years of age. His mouth was open as though in a silent scream, jaw trembling. His eyes were also wide; unblinking, though they twitched ever so slightly.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Just a millimetre or two one way, then back again. Over and over. Although the eyes were wide and bright, Molly was sure the boy wasn’t actually seeing anything. Whatever he was looking at, if it was anything at all, it was not in this garden.
Molly moved a step closer to the boy planted in the soil in front of her, ‘Hello? Hello, can you hear me?’ The boy said nothing. Molly waved a hand back and forth in front of his restless, unseeing eyes; they gave no indication that they saw her hand.
‘Somebody’s in the garden
...somebody...
...somebody...
...somebody’s in the garden...’
Molly whirled as the whispered voices whisked around her from every direction, pulling the Conductor’s rusty bayonet from her belt and brandishing it. ‘Who is that? Come out here you coward!’ But the voices fell silent again. ‘Oi, do you hear me? Hiding in the trees and the dark are you? Why don’t you come out and say hello?’
Molly at once felt brave and very, very hopeful that nothing would step out of the gloom to meet her challenge.
The voices remained silent; nothing stepped forward.
‘Yeah, okay, that’s what I thought.’ She tucked the bayonet back into her belt.
Molly turned to where the Fisks' house must be, though she couldn’t see it in the dark and the crush of trees. ‘Best foot forward,’ that’s what her Gran would say. Deep breath, and forward she walked.
It was after what must have been five full minutes had passed that Molly realised the front gate wasn’t the only thing about the garden that had grown. The distance from gate to front door must now be almost a mile, rather than the usual eight or nine steps. She had tried not to look too closely at the tree people that loomed all around her; she was terrified she would see one and realise it was her Mum, knee deep in the soil, eyes vacantly twitching, gone forever. Molly was so caught up in her thoughts about her Mum and the impossible garden that it took her a couple of seconds to register the hand around her wrist.
The hand grasping her was small and rough, like someone had fashioned it from ancient bark. It scratched at her as she tried to pull free. She turned to see the owner of the hand; it was a boy. He looked quite young, but in the condition he was in it was difficult to guess an age. His face was mostly obscured, lost in the unnatural vegetation sprouting from him, but she could see his mouth flapping. The jaw moving up and down as though trying desperately to speak.
‘Hello?’ said Molly. ‘Hey, can you see me? Are you alive?’
Molly could see an eye now, it moved, bit by bit, until it was looking directly at her.
‘...A...A...Andrew...’ the voice rasped with difficulty, painfully dragging itself up the boy’s throat and out of his mouth.
‘Andrew? Is that your name?’
‘He was... spoke to... me. So many... teeth and... I lost my... spoke to me...slipper. I lost my...’
Molly gasped. The slipper! A single slipper had been all that was found, the only evidence left behind. ‘Billy? Billy Tyler, is that you?’
‘Lost my slipper,’ said what had become of poor Billy Tyler, ‘Spoke to... maths tomorrow...Andrew.’ The wooden hand loosened its grip on Molly’s wrist as Billy Tyler raised his arm into the air. The arm cracked hideously as it bent backwards against the elbow and settled into its parody of a twisted tree branch. Billy Tyler’s mouth no longer flapped and his eye no longer looked at Molly or registered anything at all.
‘Billy? Billy, can you hear me? Billy!’ But Billy Tyler said nothing and saw nothing and thought nothing.
This would not happen to her Mum. What they had done to Billy Tyler, to everyone in this garden, to Neil, it would not happen to her Mum. She would not allow it. She turned back to the Fisks' house and ran, ran past more of the planted people with their wide unseeing eyes and twisted limbs. How many had the Fisks taken? How many had they feasted upon? For how many years had they hidden in plain sight stealing people away? Molly ran and she ran, until finally the Fisks' house was revealed, emerging from the dark suddenly like a trapdoor spider from its hiding place.
She looked down at the mat beneath her feet; the word ‘Welcome’ was stitched across it. She had never thought a welcome mat to be sinister before.
Molly was relieved to see that the house didn’t share the garden’s giant proportions; it looked just like it did in the real Awake world. Same bricks, same front door, same windows, same size. Time for check one. She knelt by the letterbox, slowly pulling the outer flap open with one hand whilst pushing the inner flap open with the other, and then peering inside. An empty corridor. She put her ear to it, straining to try and hear anything at all. Silence.
Next she half shuffled, half waddled in a crouched position over to the front room’s window, grasping the bottom of the wooden frame and lifting her head above it just enough to see inside. The thick curtains were wide open; the room beyond was empty.
Okay, that was check number two; the next one was high risk but she needed to know if the Fisks were inside and she could think of no other way. She stood before the front door, lifted a finger, counted silently to three, and pressed the doorbell. As she turned and raced towards a tree to hide, she heard the Fisks' doorbell sounding out a c
hirpy, jolly tune. Molly waited, stealing glances at the windows to try and spy any sign of movement, even the twitch of a curtain, but there was nothing. No one answered the door. The house was unoccupied.
‘Right,’ said Molly. ‘Right then. Okay. I can do this. I am doing this. Because I’m brave and I’m tough and no stupid monsters are going to scare me.’ Molly thought of Mr Adams, ‘I’ll grab hold of old Mr Death and give him what for! Front line, girl. Front line.’
‘Only way to live.’
Molly swallowed once and marched boldly back to the front door. She pushed the handle down expecting it to be locked. The door swung open, causing Molly to almost fall flat on her face in surprise. She regained her balance and looked around self-consciously, but of course there was no one to see her almost face-plant but a garden full of unseeing dead tree children.
She was inside. She was in the Fisks' house Between. Now she just had to hope Mum was still in here, and not out there. She shook her head to get rid of any such thoughts; Mum was not in the garden, she hadn’t been planted in the soil, not like Billy Tyler— Mum was in this house somewhere, she just knew it. She had to be.
Molly stepped forward.
The house smelled of old tobacco, of air freshener, and something else. What was that ‘something else’? Under the tobacco and air freshener, a staleness. A dankness. Like the mould that grows on the walls in basements. She walked carefully towards the first door; it was already half open and lead into the front room. Stepping inside, she could see framed photographs of the Fisks on the walls, smiling. The same Fisks she’d seen every day for the last eight years, the same Fisks she’d spoken to more times than she could remember, the same Fisks who had happily nattered away to her about gardening and the old days and what the street had been like years ago. They liked to point out houses to Molly and tell her who had lived there before, the other residents of her street who had come and gone whilst the Fisks remained, twinkly eyed, laughing, pruning their plants. Looking after Jeff the Bush.
A Monstrous Place (Tales From Between) Page 5
