by Graham Marks
“Why didn’t you call someone, your cell out of juice?”
“I did call someone, I’m not a total knucklehead. It just wasn’t 911.” Gabe frowned. “I thought it would take too long to get them to take me seriously, OK? Thought I should stay following you.”
“So who…”
“I got Stella’s number from one of the other girls and called her, told her everything. Figured she could sell it better’n me. Time it’s taken them to get here, looks like she had trouble too.”
“But how’d they get you, Ant, what happened?”
“I dunno… Saw a coyote outside this place, like it was on guard? I figure it must’ve got my scent or something, cos the next thing I know it’s coming for me and has me cornered, and then these couple of spooky guys appear and take me off.” Anton flopped back against a gravestone, grimy and blood-spattered and looking like a refugee from a war zone. “OK, bro, your turn. You were stupid enough to have something to do with Benny Gueterro and ended up here? How did that happen?”
“This place –” Gabe nodded towards the chapel – “it’s nothing to do with Benny.”
“He’s dead, and his van was outside that house, right? There’s a connection, dude.”
“Yeah, kinda…” Gabe looked past Anton at the squad cars now screeching to a halt, uniformed men bursting out of them. “But you’re gonna have to wait for me to explain what it is.”
Gabe sat on the red moulded plastic seat, Anton next to him. They were in a room, in some department, in a hospital, somewhere. Neither of them had asked where they were, or what time it was, both of them were strung out and exhausted. It had been the strangest of days.
They’d been through the ER, they were clean, checked out and patched up. Anton had needed patching up more than Gabe, who just had a few burns and a couple of blisters as physical evidence of what he’d been through. The plasters on Gabe’s hands were no match for the plate-size dressing Anton had over the gash on his side, for which he’d been given a tetanus jab and a couple of serious painkillers. They’d been brought into the room by a nurse, who’d given them some candy bars and cans of soda and told them their parents should be arriving soon. Oh, and by the way, there were some officers who wanted to talk to them too.
Gabe opened a candy bar and took a bite. “Is there a story we have to get straight?”
“You tell me, bro,” Anton popped a can. “It’s your gig, all I did was follow.”
This was the first time they’d been on their own since the police had arrived at the chapel and up till then they’d had no chance to talk. Now there was time, Gabe didn’t know what to think or say. Maybe he should just claim he was suffering from amnesia. It might work. Just deny all knowledge, of anything, and keep denying it no matter what they said. He sighed and stuffed the rest of the bar in his mouth. That plan might’ve worked, except that Anton and Stella were involved. Back to square one.
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Anton chugged some soda. “I read that somewhere.”
“You, read?”
“Sure, why not? You think I’m stupid?”
“No, I just never seen you with a book. Who said that, anyway … the remembering thing?”
“No idea. Sounds reasonable, though, right?”
Gabe sat back in the chair and stared at nothing in particular, thinking, yeah, it did sound reasonable. But only if the truth wasn’t going to make you sound like you were completely insane. Which to be be honest, with himself at least, he was somewhat surprised he wasn’t, considering what he’d been through these last few days.
“I also read it was better to make no excuses than make bad ones.”
Gabe turned and stared at his friend like he was a total stranger who had just dropped in out of nowhere.
Anton finished his can. “Just saying, bro.”
“Are you a replicant or something?”
The door opened before Anton could reply. A man in a beige suit came in; he left the door ajar.
“My name’s Mr de Soto, Detective de Soto. Your parents are here, but we need to have a word with you both before you go home.” The detective jerked a thumb out of the room. “Just down the corridor…”
Chapter Forty-Six
After retrieving her car from outside Father Simon’s place, Stella and Gabe had driven Anton over so he could pick up the scooter. She’d pulled over and parked near to where Anton had left it, but so far they’d all just stayed in the car, Anton in the back, silently watching the Vespa. Which was a weird thing for them all to be doing for a number of reasons, including that it was a Tuesday, late morning, but they weren’t bunking off school. They were ‘recuperating from their recent traumatic experiences’, as some news report had put it.
If you believed everything you heard on the TV news what they were recuperating from had been a drugs-related thing, which centred on Benny Gueterro, and seemed to be a mash-up of Stella’s and Gabe’s stories. As Anton said, these days it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference between fiction, news and reality TV.
The one recurring element in every version of events had was the rogue-cop angle, and for some reason this had taken a lot of the heat off their part in what had gone down. Apparently rogue cops were the kind of meaty story journalists seemed to like – a lot. But what really made them disappear pretty much completely off the radar was the fact that on Monday – a scant twenty-four hours after a priest disappeared, a drug dealer got murdered outside the priest’s house and an as yet unspecified number of people died in a fire at a historic chapel – a major political scandal erupted in Washington.
And it turned out that every single part of the media liked those stories best of all. Especially as this scandal looked like it might have the potential not only to go all the way to the front door of the White House, but right inside the Oval Office as well. Christmas had come early to newsrooms across the country and everything else got wiped off the agenda. Who cared about local news when there was some serious dirty laundry being washed in public? Exactly nobody. Even their parents were cutting them fairly major amounts of slack, for the moment.
“Are we gonna get away with it?” Anton blew and popped some bubblegum.
“Get away with what?” Gabe looked over his shoulder.
“Whatever it is that we did…” Another bubble popped. “Or you guys did and I got mixed up in and had my ribs shaved. Did you say sorry yet, dude?”
“A million times already.”
“Not nearly enough…” Anton stuck a leg up between the seats, rested his trainer next to Gabe’s head and tapped it with the toe. “So, look, not only do I feel like a third wheel here, guys … but you, bro, you owe me an explanation.”
Stella looked sideways at Gabe. “If you say anything you’ll have to kill him…”
“I already nearly did that.” Gabe swivelled round in his seat. “OK, I’ll tell, simple as I can…”
“What? OK, first you think I don’t read books, and now you have to give me the nursery-rhyme version?”
“Aw geez, Anton, gimme a chance, OK? Please?” Gabe turned back and stared out of the windscreen, shaking his head. “This is all so damn crazy I don’t even know if I believe it myself…”
Anton grinned. “Try me. I have a very active imagination, my kindergarten teacher said so.”
Stella shot him a glance. “Give Gabe a break?”
Where did he start? Gabe shook his head and dived in. “You remember that storm a week, ten days ago? Well, I was up in the canyon and found something, a skeleton … and some gold. And I also kind of brought some old Spanish priest back to life…”
Ant listened, not interrupting for once, while Gabe told him everything. Finally, Gabe’s throat tightened and he stopped talking, like he’d run out of words for a moment. The silence began to stretch like a wire pulled tight. Then Anton popped a big one.
“So, what happened to the gold?”
Gabe looked at Stella in disbelief, then bac
k at Anton. “Really?”
“Really what, man?”
“That’s all you want to know?”
Anton shrugged. “Follow the money, right?”
“It all got…”
People always said traumatic events got burned into your memory, and Gabe had a feeling he was never, ever going to be able to get rid of those final horrific moments in the chapel… The sight of Rafael, flames consuming his crumpled body. Gabe shivered involuntarily. He stared out of the car, his gaze finally coming to rest on a red hatchback. It was still there, where Rafael had parked it.
“It all got what, bro?”
Gabe looked away from the car and turned round. “It was, you know, all in the chapel, Ant. Rafael was wearing it…”
“Damn shame.” Anton opened a door and began to get out, then leant between the seats to check the dashboard. “It’s kinda lunchtime … and there’s fresh home-made lasagne at mine. Want to meet me there, or you two got plans?”
“Lasagne sounds good.” Gabe turned to Stella. “Right?”
“Sounds good.”
“OK.” Anton got out and shut the door. “See ya there…”
Another silence stretched out, with no one around this time to pop a bubble and break it. Finally, Stella turned the ignition and started the Toyota.
“Gabe?”
“Yeah?”
“Why d’you think you never got taken over by Rafael, like the others?”
“He said…” Gabe closed his eyes and looked upwards, his voice hushed. “He said he recognized me, that I’d been with him before and was supposed to be with him, some kind of disciple…”
“That’s not true.” Stella indicated and waited for a gap in the traffic.
“But what if it is?”
“It just isn’t, OK?” Stella edged out. “But the gold… It did get burned up in the fire, didn’t it?”
Gabe nodded slowly, wondering why she was asking. “Yeah, it did. All of it, Stella. Truthfully… All of it… I saw it happen.”
“What’re you gonna do with the money?”
Gabe’s head began to fill with all kinds of thoughts… That he had over two thousand dollars hidden at home… That he would find some way of doing some good with the money… That he needed, badly needed to sit down with his dad and talk… He would do that as soon as he got back…
“Gabe? Are you all right?”
Gabe slowly unclenched his fists. “Yeah, really, I’m fine… I was just, you know, thinking… Thinking that I’m done with thinking about that stuff. It was evil, I wish I’d never found it.”
“It was an accident, you didn’t go looking, right?”
“But Rafael said I’d found him, made it sound like I’d done it on purpose…” Gabe replied, remembering exactly how he’d felt when he touched the gold, when it was his. “And you can’t find something if you weren’t looking for it in the first place.”
“Know what you’ve go to do? It’s simple – you gotta believe.”
“Believe what?”
“That Rafael was lying.”
Gabe glanced at the red car as they drove past it and felt a coldness, like a knife being run down his spine.
He didn’t notice the coyote, a grey silhouette amongst the shadows across the street.
Frozen Charlotte
Alex Bell
Following the sudden death of her best friend, Sophie hopes that spending the summer with family on a remote Scottish island will be just what she needs. But the old schoolhouse, with its tragic history, is anything but an escape. History is about to repeat itself. And Sophie is in terrible danger…
Sleepless
Lou Morgan
The pressure of exams leads Izzy and her friends to take a new study drug they find online. But one by one they succumb to hallucinations, nightmares and psychosis. The only way to survive is to stay awake…
Flesh and Blood
Simon Cheshire
When Sam hears screams coming from a nearby house, he sets out to investigate. But the secrets hidden behind the locked doors of Bierce Priory are worse than he could ever have imagined. Uncovering the horror is one thing, escaping is another.
Read on for the opening
chapter of Flesh and Blood…
An extract from Flesh and Blood
by Simon Cheshire
Chapter One
I didn’t want things to turn out this way. I really didn’t.
There have been deaths, and worse. Even if there’s no blood on my hands, not directly, I have to face the consequences of my actions, of what I did do. If events had happened differently, if I hadn’t been so intent on following my theories, then perhaps I wouldn’t be here now, sitting at this desk, writing out what some might see as a confession. But, if I hadn’t reacted as I did, then I’d never have found out everything I uncovered. I had to try, didn’t I?
Maybe I could have prevented some of it. Maybe I could have saved a life or two, if only I’d acted sooner. No, that’s not true. I acted soon enough. I think.
Nobody believed me, except Liam and Jo. And they didn’t take me seriously, at first.
When did I last sleep? I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter, I guess.
I have to write. I have to tell myself to stop being a pathetic baby and be calm and rational. That’s what I have to do. I must record the facts, a sequence of events, the chain of suspicions and thoughts that have led me to where I am now. So that, when someone reads this, they understand.
At least it’s quiet right now, and I can collect my thoughts. This desk I’m sitting at is small and antique. A really nice piece of furniture. You can see the dark grain of the wood, the years displayed in its warm colour, its soft shine. The notebook has smooth, off-white paper. It almost seems a shame to write in it, but of course I must. I have to set down everything, to document it, from the beginning.
I have to think clearly. Breathe deeply.
I’ll sit and think for a while. Then I’ll write.
I must begin on September 18th. That was the day we moved into No. 3, Priory Mews. A matter of weeks ago.
My name is Sam Hunter. That’s Sam as in Samuel, but I hate being called Samuel. Only my gran calls me Samuel. That’s my mum’s mum. She still talks to me as if I’m five, even though I’m seventeen.
I’m OK at school work. I normally hover around a B-grade. I keep my room tidy, when I can be bothered to, or when friends are coming round. I like films, graphic novels, regularly changing the posters on my walls, and those chocolate bars you can get with marzipan inside. I’m not keen on sport, and I don’t like vegetables. Maybe I’m still five after all.
I have parents, unfortunately.
My mum is one of those mothers who spends every minute she possibly can at work and the rest of the time moaning about how much time she spends working. She’s employed in a bank, and has been since she left school at my age. Twenty-five years, slowly climbing the corporate ladder. A very slow climb. Up just three rungs, Assistant Cashier to Deputy Thingummy of Accounting, whatever it is she’s called now. You have to admire her determination, I guess. Also her ability to work around money all day long and never once nicking any of it. I don’t think I’d be able to keep up the same level of will power. Even so, it’s had its effect. She assesses everything and everyone according to the amount of cash involved. Except my dad, that is.
Dad’s a musician. It’s not as interesting as it sounds. Mostly, he sits around the house and strums at his guitar, or phones his friends ‘in the business’ and goes to the pub. Middle-age spread has been piling on the pounds for a while now, and he’s kept the same scraggy ponytail since about 1995. I try to keep him away from school functions.
In his late teens, he joined a punk band called The Howling Sirens. The punk movement had just ended. They had one very minor hit, then split up. Dad’s been reliving the glory days ever since, spending money we didn’t have on the latest recording gear, or on worthless tat he claims is rock’n’ roll memorabilia. He
’s a dreamer. Not that being a dreamer is a bad thing in itself, but he’s lazy with it. His idea of a full day is lying on the sofa and staring out of the window.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love my parents, on the whole. They’ve always been as good to me as circumstances allow, but they’re not the easiest of people to cheer for, if you see what I mean.
As a family, we’d always been just-scrape-by, go-without-to-pay-the-bills people, until recently. We’re something approaching minted now. I’ll get to why in a minute. It’s the reason we ended up in Priory Mews. For as long as I can remember, we’ve lived at a series of run-down addresses in a series of run-down streets. Until Priory Mews.
For several years, we lived in a flat above a newsagent’s. I really liked that place, because I could get comics and magazines for free. The guy who ran the shop would let me rummage through the stuff he was going to return to the wholesaler.
I read a lot of American Marvel and DC comics. I read film review journals and blokey stuff about computers, which made me feel grown-up. I’d gaze over the cultural sections of the sunday papers, getting glimpses of a wider world that seemed sophisticated and stylish.
The newsagent had a rack of paperbacks, too, and I’d got through all the James Bonds and several Stephen Kings before I was twelve. It was exciting, almost magical, finding something new. The thrill of discovery.
Looking back now, I think the newsagent allowed me all those freebies because he felt sorry for me. At the time, the look on his face seemed like kindly indulgence, but now I’m older I can see he was wondering if I was OK, what with Mum at work all hours and Dad off somewhere or asleep.
But I was fine. I relished the freedom. I could watch telly in peace. They lived in their own little worlds, and so did I. All that solitary rummaging through the newsagent’s boxes did me a big favour: without it, I might never have become interested in journalism. That was the fully formed idea that popped into my head when the word ‘career’ was first mentioned at school. It was swiftly followed by a resolution not to approach adulthood like my parents. I was going to make more of myself, I was going to do better.
