The 13th Horseman

by Barry Hutchison

  Dr Black was the most angular person Drake had ever seen. Every part of him seemed to taper to a sharp edge, from his pointed chin to the cheekbones that jutted like tiny pyramids from the craggy desert of his face. He wore a dark, neatly pressed suit that looked a size too big for his spindly body. His fingers, which he was steepling together in front of him, resembled chicken bones with fingernails drawn on the ends.

  Drake turned from Dr Black’s gaze and swallowed nervously. His new classmates sat like a battalion before him, row after regimented row of unfamiliar faces watching him expectantly. He felt his mouth go dry as his mind frantically scrambled to dig up just one interesting fact to share. All he needed to do was come up with a piece of trivia about himself that was so interesting they’d all be clamouring to become his friend. The only problem was that right now he was having difficulty remembering his own name.

  He could tell them about the shed this morning. But no, that would make him sound insane. What could he tell them, then?

  Drake felt a tickle as a bead of sweat formed just above his nose. It meandered all the way down to the tip, before dripping silently on to the scuffed floor.

  “Mr Finn?”

  “I had Frosties for breakfast,” Drake babbled. He bit down on his bottom lip immediately, trying too late to stop the words spilling out of his mouth. His eyes flitted between the six or seven stunned expressions in the front row, and for a few long moments the world seemed to stand perfectly still.

  Three boys, shorter than all the others, began sniggering at the back of the class. Drake leaped into the air as the teacher slammed his hands down hard on his desk and roared “BE QUIET!” No one else sniggered after that.

  “Well,” said Dr Black, composing himself. “That was… enlightening.” He unfolded upright and gave Drake a firm tap on the back of the head. “Now, if you could endeavour to contain your sugar high long enough to take a seat, the rest of you turn to page two hundred and forty-seven and we’ll find out what the history books have to say about my old pal, Attila the Hun.”

  Drake sidestepped through a narrow corridor left between two rows of desks until he came to the only empty seat in the classroom. He hurriedly sat down, desperate to blend in and no longer be the centre of attention.

  Almost at once, a skinny girl with big eyes and short hair leaned across from the next desk over and flashed him a smile. “Hi,” she whispered.

  “Um, hi,” he whispered back.

  “You shouldn’t eat Frosties,” she told him. “Do you have any idea what goes into those things?”

  “Sugar and cornflakes?” Drake guessed. This seemed to take the wind right out of the girl’s sails.

  “Right. Exactly,” she agreed. “And they exploit tigers,” she added, rallying somewhat.

  “Yeah, but… cartoon tigers, though,” offered Drake weakly.

  “Still tigers, though, innit?” the girl continued.

  “Er… I suppose so,” Drake shrugged. He noticed a brief flicker of a smile pass across the girl’s face. “Are you winding me up?” he asked.

  “Might be,” the girl admitted, and the smile widened further.

  “Right. Who are you, by the way?” Drake whispered.

  “Mel Monday,” beamed Mel, holding out her hand for Drake to shake. “I’m your new best friend.”

  It was around four hours later when Drake found himself hurrying through a twisting labyrinth of corridors, desperately hunting for the boys’ toilets.

  He’d spent the first fifteen minutes of the lunchtime break searching, and he almost yelped with delight when he finally spotted the familiar black outline of a man that signalled the end of his search.

  He was hopping from foot to foot as he pushed through the door and into the overpowering, yet strangely comforting odour of the toilets. Drake’s fingers fumbled with his trousers, finding it difficult to undo the safety pin that had held them up ever since his button broke off last term. The trousers were a size too small now, which only served to make the pain in his stomach ten times worse.

  With a triumphant cry, he finally managed to get them undone. Drake let out a loud sigh of satisfaction as a morning’s worth of pent-up terror sloshed past the lemon fragrance cubes and down the drainage hole of the stainless steel urinal wall.

  He was barely halfway through when something hit him heavily on the back. He stumbled forward, spraying his trouser legs with urine. Powerless to stop mid-flow Drake twisted his neck and looked down into the greasy, gargoyle-like faces of the trio of shorter boys who’d been sniggering at him in Dr Black’s class that morning. They scowled back up at him.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” said the raspy-voiced leader of the group, his eyes little more than narrow slits in his pock-marked cheeks. “These are our toilets. No knob ’eads allowed!”

  HE SLITHERS THROUGH the walls between worlds, crossing dimensions in the blink of an eye. How many planes of reality has he traversed? One thousand? Five? He has no idea, nor any desire to know. He knows where he is going, and he knows, in time, he will get there. That is enough.

  The entirety of time and space surrounds him in all directions. He pays it no heed. Only one location matters. Only one destination is his goal.

  Shed, he thinks, though he does not yet understand the word’s meaning. I am summoned to the shed.

  TODAY, DRAKE WAS coming to realise, was not his day. First the three weirdos and their disappearing shed, now this.

  The boy scowled. “Like Frosties, then, do you?”

  “Yeah, they’re all right.”

  “I bet you do. I bet you love ’em.”

  Drake hesitated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Shut up, knob ’ead !” barked another of the bullies. “Yeah, shut it, Frosties boy,” warned the third, smiling inwardly at his own comedy genius.

  A near-silence followed. Drake’s bladder continued to empty.

  “Right, this is taking too long,” the little group’s little leader snarled. “Get him, lads!” He stepped aside to allow his two henchmen a clear run at Drake. Neither of them raced into action.

  “I dunno, Bingo,” said the larger of the two. “Don’t you think we should wait? You know, until he’s finished?”

  “What?”

  “I’d prefer it if you did,” said Drake, glancing over his shoulder at the three tiny tyrants.

  “Shut up, no one asked you!” snapped Bingo. “Go on,” he barked, pushing his cohorts forward. “Get into him!”

  “Spud’s right, I don’t want pee on me,” said Dim, the third member of the gang. His dirty face frowned below a mass of greasy ginger hair. “My mum goes through the roof when I get pee on me.”

  “Right. OK. Fine,” Bingo sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “Wait until he’s finished, then get him. Happy?”

  Spud and Dim seemed satisfied with this compromise. All four boys stood in silence, the only sound in the room the splashing of Drake’s slowly draining bladder. Bingo muttered under his breath as he impatiently tapped his foot on the tiled floor.

  “Can we hurry this up?” he spat. “We haven’t got all day.”

  “Sorry,” offered Drake, his gaze now fixed on the matter at hand. “I’m going as fast as I can, but I’ve been holding it in for a while. Maybe you could come back later?” he suggested hopefully.

  “Nice try. Just get a move on.”

  Despite his calm exterior, Drake was fighting back a full-scale panic attack.

  He hated violence, but he knew that as soon as he’d dripped his last drip into the urinal, he was almost certainly going to find himself on the receiving end of some. They didn’t look like they could be reasoned with. He couldn’t run away, and he didn’t think an outburst of tears was going to win any sympathy with this lot.

  There was nothing else for it. He could see only one way out of his predicament. Only one way to avoid a full-scale pummelling from half-scale bullies. It wasn’t going to be dignified. It wouldn’t be p
retty. But it was the only option left.

  Swallowing hard, Drake spun one hundred and eighty degrees and let rip.

  “My mum’s going to kill me!” screamed Dim, as the first yellow splashes hit his white polo shirt. The other bullies had the sense to keep their mouths tightly closed as they staggered back into a toilet cubicle, their arms crossed in front of them to protect them from the spray.

  “You’re dead!” Bingo screeched, slamming the stall door closed. “You’re so dead!”

  His ammunition drained, Drake hurriedly did up his trousers and dashed for the door. Dim moved to grab him, then slid on the slippery floor and splashed down into the puddle at his feet. Drake’s fingers had barely wrapped round the metal door handle when he heard the cubicle fly open behind him.

  “Come back here!” Bingo bellowed, his spotty face a mask of pure rage. “I’m gonna kill you!”

  Drake stumbled out into the corridor, and failed to notice his safety pin pinging open. He powered forward, so focused on escaping that he also failed to notice his trousers slipping down round his ankles. He staggered forward for a few frantic paces until, with a clunk and a thud, his head and upper body hit the ground, one after the other.

  He was lying there, his cheek against the floor, the seat of his boxer shorts pointing towards the ceiling, when a pair of polished black shoes stepped into his field of view.

  “Get back here, you knob ’ead!” demanded Bingo, as he and his gang burst from the toilets. “I’ll make you wish you’d never been—” The bullies skidded to a halt mid-sentence, their eyes fixed on the figure before them.

  “Mr Bing,” droned Dr Black. “I should have known.”

  Drake rolled on to his back, bucking and twisting as he pulled his trousers up. He could see right up Dr Black’s nose from where he was. For a moment he thought he could see a tiny blinking light inside the teacher’s left nostril. Then he realised that wherever he looked right now he was seeing tiny blinking lights. The knock to the head must have taken more out of him than he’d thought.

  “On this occasion,” said Dr Black, lowering his gaze in Drake’s direction, “I’m electing to believe you are solely the victim of this little encounter, and not the perpetrator. Should it happen again I will not be so certain. Understood?” Drake nodded quickly. “Good,” the teacher said. He returned his gaze to the three bullies cowering before him. “You boys,” he scowled. “My classroom. Now.”

  “Hey, Chief, where you been?” asked Mel, appearing behind Drake as if by magic. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Toilet,” said Drake, hurriedly refastening the safety pin to his waistband.

  “OK, so maybe I didn’t look everywhere,” Mel admitted. “You going for lunch?”

  “Nah, not going to bother,” Drake replied, as casually as he could manage. He’d love to be going for lunch, but his free school meals card hadn’t been sorted out yet, and he’d forgotten to ask his mum for cash that morning.

  “Very wise,” said Mel. “I’m not even sure the stuff they serve in there is technically food.”

  They walked on in silence past three or four more classrooms. Drake considered telling Mel about the disappearing shed, but he had no idea how to bring the subject up without sounding like a maniac, so he didn’t bother.

  Dr Black’s door was swinging closed as they strolled by. Drake caught a glimpse of Bingo, Dim and Spud being led through another door at the back of the room, then the classroom door shut all the way over, blocking them from view. Drake wondered what was going to happen to them as he and Mel made for the stairs.

  When they reached the ground floor, Mel stopped in her tracks.

  “Euw,” she winced, holding her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  Drake’s mind raced. How could he tell her he had half a pint of urine all over his trousers? She’d laugh at him, or maybe never speak to him again. He’d only known her for a few hours, but for some reason he found that last possibility particularly disturbing. He was about to make up some excuse when a sour stench filled his nostrils and made his head go light.

  “That’s disgusting!” he gasped, pulling the neck of his polo shirt up over his mouth and nose. “What is that?”

  He suddenly became aware of movement on the floor behind him. Drake turned and looked down. A messy ball of hair and legs looked back up at him, its scruffy head tilted quizzically to one side. Flies buzzed round its flea-bitten ears, no doubt attracted by the overpowering stench that surrounded the animal’s body like a cloud of toxic gas. It was a cat. An unpleasant one.

  “Hey, look, what a little cutie!” exclaimed Mel, apparently ignoring the evidence being presented by her own two eyes.

  “A cutie?” Drake said. “It looks like a big scabby rat.”

  The cat bared a dozen rotting teeth and let out a growl. The deep, rumbling sound didn’t fit the animal, and Drake found himself glancing around to see if a big dog was standing nearby, throwing its voice.

  “I think you hurt his feelings,” Mel scolded. Holding her breath she reached down and felt round the cat’s neck. Below the matted fur she found a collar. Attached to the collar was a small metal tag shaped like a fish. “Toxie,” she read. “His name’s Toxie.”

  “How appropriate,” said Drake, his shirt still pulled up over his face. “Now let’s go before we catch rabies or something.”

  “See ya, smelly,” Mel said, standing up and saluting the animal. “You be good now.”

  Toxie padded round in a circle and watched Drake and Mel continue along the corridor. His green eyes remained fixed on them until they had disappeared through a set of double doors.

  “Woof,” he said at last, then he stretched, sniffed the air, and sloped off out into the afternoon sun.

  “WELL?” ASKED MUM, bobbing eagerly into the kitchen. She was wearing a different coloured tabard now – green, instead of blue. “How did it go?”

  “OK,” Drake said with a shrug. “Got lost a few times, but it was OK.”

  “Come across any magic sheds?”

  Drake pinned his smile in place. Better to let his mum go on believing he’d made the encounter up than to be sent back to therapy.

  “No interesting ones.”

  Mum laughed. “Make any friends?” She lifted her jacket from the back of a chair and draped it over her arm.

  “Yeah, one.”

  “Well done! He got a name?”

  Drake felt his cheeks flush red. He knew what was coming next. “She,” he said. “Her name’s Mel.”

  “She? Good grief, that was fast work!” Mum laughed. She threw her arms round Drake and pulled him in close. “First day there and he gets himself a girlfriend!”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Drake insisted when his mum let him go again. “She’s just... Actually, she’s a bit... odd.”

  “Odd’s good!” Mum beamed. “Is she pretty?”

  “Mum!”

  “Sorry,” she laughed. “Now, listen, I have to get going. I’m on until half-nine, but the way these buses are it’ll be after ten before I get home, so get yourself something from the freezer.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  “In fact, do you know what?” Mum began. She fished in her bag until she found her purse, then handed him over a tightly folded ten-pound note. “Get yourself a pizza or something.”

  Drake’s eyes went as wide as two six-inch-deep pans. His stomach rumbled at the mention of the word. Those Frosties were just a hazy memory.

  “Pizza? Can we afford that?”

  “It’s my boy’s first day at his new school,” smiled Mum. “We can’t let something like that pass without celebration. The phone’s still not on yet, so you’ll have to go out for it.”

  “Not a problem,” said Drake, tightening his grip round the money. “Can I go now?”

  “You can go whenever you like,” Mum said. “I’m just getting ready and I’m off, so I’ll be out when you get back.”

  “OK. Thanks, Mum. See you later.”
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  “See you later,” Mum said. She kissed him on the cheek, and then he was out of the kitchen, through the hall, and pulling open the front door.

  As he stepped outside, his foot caught on something on the front step. He tripped, stumbled and fell with a clatter on to the path. Holding the money tight, he rolled on to his back and lifted his head until he could see what he’d fallen over. His eyes met the eyes of a small, mangy cat.

  Toxie sat on the step, wagging his tail in a very un-cat-like way.

  “Oh, great,” sighed Drake, “it’s you.”

  Jumping up, Drake pulled the front door closed to stop the cat wandering inside and stinking the place out. He stared down at the cat. The cat stared up at him.

  “Right, come on, get out,” Drake said, pointing to the front gate. “You can’t stay in here.”

  The cat didn’t move.

  “Out!” Drake barked, striding along the path and throwing the gate wide open. “Go chase a mouse or something!” He looked down at the cat’s stubby legs and fragile body. “Or an ant, or whatever it is you little guys chase.”

  Toxie sniffed, crossed his front paws on the ground, and rested his head on them. His eyes peered up through a matted fringe of browny-black hair. Every line of his body suggested he had no intention of going anywhere.

  “Right, then,” Drake sighed. He took two large paces forward, then bent down and scooped the cat up. He held it at arm’s length, his face turned away. The stench was almost unbearable. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve forced my— Hey!”

  With a sudden jerk of its head, the cat’s rotten teeth clamped round the ten-pound note in Drake’s hand. The animal’s frail body twisted in Drake’s grip, and then it was on the ground, the money still held in its mouth.

  “Give that back!” Drake cried, as the cat scampered off round the side of the house. Drake gave chase, squeezing past the bins and the cardboard boxes that filled the little alley leading from the front garden to the back.