I hammered at the window, yelling like an idiot. She must have seen me – she bipped the horn and waved a cheery hand over the roof of the car, then sped off down the road.
The key turned in the lock and I burst out the door and down the front stairs. By the time I hit the footpath, the Getz had caught the lights and was heading off for another doomed attempt at making my mother a thousandaire.
I spun on the spot, furious at myself for sleeping in and missing my chance. I muffled a scream of frustration and kicked out at the neighbour’s wheelie bin on my way past. It was full and I damn near broke my freaking foot.
Bin day. Crap.
I hobbled down the driveway to get our garbage and put it out front. Even injured, I couldn’t risk missing the garbage truck, not in this heat. The idea of hosing out maggots made my flesh crawl.
I dumped the bin out front and headed back down the drive, cursing my mother to an uncaring universe. Why couldn’t she have waited until I got up? Why did she always have to be off somewhere else when I needed her here?
‘Is everything all right? Do you need some help with something?’
The voice, coming from the other side of the fence, sounded genuinely concerned. I swung round, answering automatically. ‘No, really it’s fine, it’s just my mum, she–’
I stopped dead, the hairs on the back of my neck springing to attention.
It was the tall man in black. The one the others had called Caleb, leaning over the chain-linked fence. Wondering how he could help me with my problem. Not having a clue that he was my problem. Him and his weirdo mates. And their coffin.
Daylight hadn’t done him any favours; he looked every bit as creepy by day as he had by night.
He was unnaturally pale, with black stovepipe trousers and a long-sleeved black shirt that, despite the heat, was buttoned to the throat and wrists. Reflective shades covered his eyes, and he’d pulled a dark pork-pie hat down low over his brow. The long hair that fell past his shoulders had been clippered short around his ears, showing off small silver rings, two in each earlobe. He had a neat goatee that I hadn’t noticed last night and a slight paunch, which I found momentarily reassuring. It made him less intimidating, more human somehow.
The thought made my throat seize up. More human... what on earth had made me think that?
‘Is there someone you’d like me to call?’ His voice was soft and smooth, but I couldn’t see his eyes, which was freaking me out. ‘You’re welcome to borrow my phone, if there’s a problem.’
My mouth wasn’t working properly. I was fairly sure it was moving, but no sound was coming out. Perhaps he was used to people gulping like goldfish at him, because he didn’t seem to take offence.
‘My name is Caleb.’ He raised a pale, hairless hand. For a moment I thought he wanted me to shake it, but he just gave me a kind of a half salute. ‘I’m your new neighbour. We’re moving in here today.’
I nodded as though this was news and I was cool with it, and tried to shove my hands into my pockets. But I was still in my pyjama shorts, so I ended up just kind of wiping my sweaty palms on my pants legs, folding my arms, unfolding them and then running my hands through my hair because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with them.
He was making me nervous. That always made me blither like an idiot on the inside, but not much was managing to work its way out through my mouth.
‘And I assume that you would be ... Henry?’
How the hell did he know that? Was he psychic as well as psycho? Was this weird guy in black stalkingme?
‘Lydia said I’d probably run into you before school.’
I swallowed and the day kind of dimmed. ‘You know my mum?’
He nodded. ‘We met this morning.’ Then he hesitated. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you seemed keen to catch her before she left for work. Are you sure you don’t want to borrow my mobile and give her a quick call?’
He held out a wicked iPhone – one that ordinarily I would have queued to even touch. But now I backed off. I didn’t want to use his phone, I didn’t want anything to do with him and I certainly didn’t want him doing me any favours.
‘No, it’s OK. I’ll call her – uh–’ I kept back-pedalling, trying to get as far away from him as possible. ‘–Later.’
He raised a hand in a casual salute.
‘Sure, Henry. Later. You can count on it.’
I rushed back into the house. I’d have to ring Mum, there was nothing else for it. Please God, let her have remembered to leave her numbers out for me.
I headed straight for the kitchen. It was a house rule wherever we lived: one corner of the kitchen bench was always reserved as our in-and outbox. It was where I would leave newsletters, permission slips from school, and any messages that came in while she was out. It was where she would leave embarrassing lovey-dovey messages when she had to leave before I got up in the morning, five dollars for tuckshop, instructions on what I had to do before I left the house and when I got home in the afternoon. Buy milk. Bring in the washing. Hang out the clothes. Put the sheets in the dryer. That kind of thing.
If Mum’s new phone numbers were anywhere, the end of the kitchen bench was where I would find them.
I skidded to a stop and pounced on the bright orange note, recycled from some yoga flyer dropped in our mailbox.
Hi honey-bun ...blah blah, mushy bit, blah blah, washing, blah blah – ah, there it was. Location Location Location– that must be the name of the real-estate agency where she was working – and her numbers.
I grabbed my only-for-emergencies, bottom-of-the-range Samsung mobile and tapped in her mobile number, hoping to catch her in the car. Her voice clicked in, bright and sunny in the panicked fog of my morning.
‘Hi, honey-bun. Did you meet our lovely new neighbour yet?’
Was she kidding me? ‘Mum – are you nuts? Are you talking about that crazy serial killer who–’
‘Come on, honey, Caleb is a perfectly nice man. He introduced himself this morning and told me he was planning on having some moving-in drinks tonight–’
I snorted. ‘Is that what he’s calling it? He and his evil dead cronies filling a coffin with–’
‘Honey, for heaven’s sakes, be a bit nice! The poor man hasn’t even moved in and you’re inventing some ghastly–’
‘I’m not inventing anything. Him and his mates are freakozoids. I heard them last night talking about coffins–’
‘Henry. That’s enough. You’re being ridiculous–’
‘But Mum–’
‘Oh God, there’s a police car and I’m not on hands-free. I have to go. See you tonight. Love you.’
I stared at my mobile in disbelief. She’d hung up on me.
I tossed the phone onto the kitchen bench in disgust. It slid to a stop on top of the note she’d left me not ten minutes earlier. Decorated with love hearts and kisses.
What the hell was that supposed to mean when she couldn’t bring herself to listen to, let alone believe, a single word I had to say?
I paced the worn lino in the kitchen, unsure of my next move.
A packet of Weet-Bix caught my eye, on the bench where she’d left it out for me. Might as well eat while I tried to figure things out. I threw four biscuits into a bowl, covered them with sultanas and brown sugar, then put on some toast while the milk soaked in.
I grabbed a spoon out of the drawer and studied my distorted reflection in its stainless-steel back. Swollen and unappealing; a face that only a mother could love. I turned it over and my reflection flipped upside down in the curved surface of the spoon.
Cool.
I kept turning the spoon, watching my reflection flip over and back again.
Sometimes it helped to look at a problem from a different angle...
Mum was taking the new neighbours at face value. Because she hadn’t heard what I’d heard, or seen what I’d seen.
I flipped the spoon again and saw a straightforward solution.
Evidence.That’s what I needed. That wou
ld convince Mum. Then she’d have to believe me.
I buried my reflection in the milk-softened cereal. The sultanas had plumped out and the brown sugar had melted into a syrupy stain across the surface of my breakfast.
Seeing was believing.
I hooked into my Weet-Bix, a plan beginning to take shape in my mind.
CHAPTER NINE
There was a truck parked out front when I marched down the front steps for the second time that morning.
Caleb and Manny – the misshapen bloke from last night – were unloading bags and boxes and carrying them into the house. Manny had an odd set to his shoulders, as though not all his moving parts were working properly. As if something, somewhere had jammed, making his movements more awkward than most.
A tall man – someone I hadn’t seen before – emerged from the back of the truck. Dark-haired, whip-thin and silent, his face closed, as if bracing against a stiff wind. While the other two grunted and sweated over the heavy lifting, he worked easily and methodically, the only sign of strain showing in the corded muscles that stood out on his arms.
He worked in and out of the back of the truck, shifting furniture by himself and handing it on to Manny and Caleb, who would then ferry it with difficulty into the house. I watched silently while they took in bedheads and mattresses, a chest of drawers and a dining table, before working up enough courage to put my plan into action.
‘Um, do you need a hand with anything?’ My voice chose that moment to change pitch, ending up somewhere near a squawk. The heat flooded my face as Caleb turned towards me, lowering the chair he had been carrying.
The sheen of sweat on his pale face made him look clammy and unhealthy. He was breathing heavily. He didn’t answer immediately, but looked up at the man standing motionless on the tailgate of the truck.
‘What do you think, Anders? We could get it done a lot quicker, if the four of us worked in pairs.’
The tall, wiry guy stood unnaturally still and didn’t appear to be breathing. He had his eyes on Caleb, but for some reason I felt sure it was my presence that had caused him to stiffen. Finally he nodded – once, curtly – then disappeared into the body of the truck.
Caleb’s face was turned away from me, so I could see a sliver of dark eye fixed on the truck through the side of his reflective glasses. The tall bloke, Anders, had retreated deep inside. He stood with one hand braced against the wall, head hanging, his back towards us. After a moment he straightened, took a deep breath and slowly resumed work, unstacking more boxes and manoeuvring them out towards us.
A heavy hand on my shoulder made me flinch.
‘Jumpy little fella, aren’t you?’ I spun around. The gravelly voice jangled with amusement. ‘I’m Manfred–’ he stuck out a thick paw, ‘–but my friends call me Manny.’
I shook his hand, trying not to stare.
Up close, he looked like he’d been broken into large chunks and reassembled. His face bore the gouges of deep ugly scars that roped down his thick neck and disappeared into his T-shirt.
‘Want to work with me, matey?’
I swallowed, and looked from him, to Caleb, then back to the tall bloke in the truck. I didn’t want to work with any of them. This plan of mine was starting to look like a very bad idea.
Caleb’s voice cut in. ‘Let him work with Anders. You and I are managing fine as we are.’
Manny raised a scarred and tufted eyebrow. ‘You’re the boss.’ He shrugged. ‘C’mon, kid. I’ll give you a boost up.’
Before I had a chance to argue, he grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me into the belly of the truck.
CHAPTER TEN
My throat closed over. Every warning Mum had ever given me screamed inside my head, but nothing came out. Not even a squeak.
Never get in a car with a stranger. If anyone ever tries to grab you, scream your head off, kick him in the goolies and run like the clappers.
She didn’t mince words, my mum, when it came to my personal safety. Now here I was, bundled into the back of a truck by the very freaks I had tried to warn her about. She was going to kill me, if I lived long enough to tell her the story.
I was lucky: the bloke in the truck, Anders, hadn’t noticed me yet. He was clattering a bundle of long-handled implements – a mop, rake, broom and a hoe – across the metal floor of the truck. I edged away from him under cover of the noise, risking a quick glance back outside. Manny and Caleb were halfway up the driveway, with pairs of dining-room chairs clamped under their arms.
I hesitated in the open back of the truck. For would-be abductors, they were showing a remarkable lack of interest in me. I glanced back at the man inside the van, but he was still fiddling with loose stuff up front.
No-one was taking the slightest bit of notice of me; they were all intent on what they were doing. That’s not how I would have expected serial killers to act.
From where I stood, I could easily jump back out of the truck, and there was no-one on the ground to stop me. I figured that had to make me fairly safe, at least for the moment.
When I turned back round, Anders was standing little more than a body length away from me.
I knew it was a body length, because stretched out between us, resting on top of a long narrow table, was a gleaming polished wood coffin.
***
He dropped his eyes to the armful of blankets he held, as though unsure what to do next. The blankets must have been wrapped around the coffin, to protect it in transit, because I hadn’t noticed it until this very moment. Believe me, a coffin wasn’t the kind of thing that normally escaped my attention.
It had a strange kind of beauty: an elongated six-sided casket, with six ornate silver handles and six decorative silver clips clamping down the burnished oak lid.
Goose flesh broke out all over my body.
Six sides. Six handles. Six silver clasps.
Six ... Six ... Six ... the devil’s number.
I plunged my hand into the pocket of my school shorts. It was still there, the reassuringly solid lump of my old mobile phone. It might be the cheapest on the market, but it came with a built-in camera. If I could get off just one quick photo, Mum would have to believe me. But first, I had to get this bloke out of the way.
‘Uh, would you like me to watch your stuff? You know, while you take those blankets inside?’ My voice echoed uncertainly in the confines of the truck.
I’d packed and unpacked enough times to know that this was one of the better jobs associated with moving. Blanket and pillow carrying. You’d have to be crazy not to put your hand up for that job.
Which apparently he was ... because he said nothing, just dumped the armful of blankets on me and backed away, his blue eyes locked onto me in a weird, intense way.
I looked away, not sure if he was mute, rude, or maybe a bit crazy.
‘That’s OK, Henry. Just pass them down here. I’ll take them in.’ It was Caleb, back for another load, looking like he needed a bit of a breather.
I passed the blankets down to him just as Manny arrived beside him. He stared past me, into the body of the truck, a look of concern leaping onto his face.
‘Anders! Don’t try to move that on your own – you’ll chip the finish! Kid, quick, give him a hand–’
I turned just in time to grab the shiny end of the coffin as it swung my way. My hands left sweaty skid marks on the wood’s polished surface. It wasn’t heavy, thank God – that meant it was still empty – but it was long enough to be a bit awkward for one person to carry on his own.
Anders hesitated as I adjusted my grip, and then shuffled back down the length of the coffin. I edged towards the open back of the truck, planning my next move.
Manny held up his hands for me to pass the coffin down to him, and I knew that this was my chance. As soon as he had it, I could mutter something about having to phone my mother, pull out my camera phone and snap off a quick shot. Bingo, I’d have my evidence.
But just as I handed my end to Manny, a flash went off in my ey
es. I blinked in confusion; it was as though the real world and the one inside my head had somehow collided. It took me a moment to realise what had happened.
Somebody else had just photographed the coffin.
When my vision cleared, a Perpetual Sucker uniform and hat swam into focus, then a second flash went off. I yielded the coffin to Manny’s sure-fisted control, blinking out stars, trying to focus on the source of the flash.
The photographer backed away with a girly squeal as the coffin swung towards her. The phone dropped away from her face, revealing eyes wide with excitement and triumph.
My heart shrank in my chest.
It was Angelica. The queen of the catty Year Seven girls had just captured me on film, sliding a full-sized coffin into the waiting arms of someone who looked like a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, while Count Dracula looked on.
My life, pathetically un-newsworthy as it had been until this point, was now officially over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I clambered down from the truck and watched Angelica run off, mobile phone held high like a trophy, schoolbag thumping against her back.
She was a bit early; according to my watch, school didn’t start for another half hour. Pretty soon, though, the whole street would be bristling with Perpetual Suckers heading on down to the school.
‘Friend of yours?’ Caleb appeared at my shoulder, gripping the other end of the coffin close to his chest.
I shook my head, too sick to speak. Manny nudged me with the casket, rocking me back on my heels. ‘You want a photo too? Souvenir of your morning’s work?’
‘I didn’t do much.’ My voice came out sounding flat and pathetic.
Manny snorted – ‘Suit yourself ’ – and started to move off, pulling Caleb along with him.
I mentally shook myself. I had to get a grip. I’d come this far, it would be stupid not to salvage what I could from the morning’s disaster. I fished my mobile out of my pocket and snapped off a couple of quick shots as they carted the coffin off down the driveway.
Henry Hoey Hobson Page 4
