Dead Flesh kh2-1

by Tim O'Rourke

  “No, Kayla. Pryor won’t give a crap that you’re a girl. He’ll smash your face in, too.”

  “But I can’t just stand by and do nothing,” I told him.

  “You might have to,” Sam warned.

  Then, the air was ripped apart with the ear-splitting sound of the sirens from the search towers. It sounded like an air raid was underway. The kids swarming around Pryor and Dorsey split to the four corners of the yard.

  Sam yanked on the sleeve of my blazer and said, “C’mon. They’re coming!”

  I followed Sam as he darted away across the yard. Before we reached the other side, I glanced back. Several of the Greys were racing towards Pryor and Dorsey. Their robes fluttered like wings as they swooped down on the two boys who still rolled around on the ground. I turned front and followed Sam around the corner of the school wall and the Whap! Whap! Whap!sound was replaced by Zap! Zap! Zap!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kayla

  Sam and I ran round the side of the school building with the Zap! Zap! Zap!sounds fizzing behind from the schoolyard. Without even noticing it, a Grey pounced from a doorway like a shadow detaching itself from the wall. From beneath its flowing robes, the Grey produced one of those sticks and fired it up. Coils of blue-mauve electricity snapped from the end of it and lit up the mouth of the Grey which protruded from beneath its hoodie like a jagged cliff edge.

  “STOP!” the Grey roared, pointing the stick at me and Sam.

  Sending up plumes of dust from beneath our shoes, we both skidded to a halt, stopping inches from the sizzling electric sparks.

  “Follow me,” the Grey ordered us.

  “We haven’t done anything wrong!” Sam insisted.

  “Stop your noise, Brook, or I’ll fry you,” the Grey grinned from beneath his hood.

  “But…” Sam started.

  Zzzzzzz…the Grey waved the stick under Sam’s nose and he staggered backwards like a tightrope walker.

  “Get going!” the Grey cried, pointing in the direction that we had come.

  We made our way back onto the yard, the Grey inches behind us.

  What have I done? I wondered. Perhaps Sam had been right, I shouldn’t have tried to get involved.

  Pryor was bent double on his knees and he looked sick. Dorsey was knelt beside him, and he was wringing his hands together in his lap. Behind them stood two of the Greys. One of them was huge and towered over the other, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew it was Brother Michael.

  Sam and I joined Pryor and Dorsey as a giant of a man strode onto the yard. Without him even having to introduce himself, I knew that this was McCain, the self-appointed Headmaster. His hair was black and slicked back over his brow. He was incredibly thin, borderline anorexic-looking. His cheeks were so sunken that it looked as if he was permanently sucking in mouthfuls of air. His nose was so bulbous and red; it was like something a circus clown would have been proud of. But it was his eyes. I had seen eyes like that before — Jack Seth had had a set. They glowed a brilliant yellow from within two sunken eye sockets. McCain was a wolf — a Skin-walker.

  “Get up!” he barked at Pryor and Dorsey.

  Pryor was the first to stand, although his legs looked as if they might buckle under him at any moment sending him crashing back onto the ground. His eyes brimmed with pain, but even so, he eyed McCain with defiance.

  Dorsey was slower to get up, so I stepped forward and looped my arm through his and dragged him to his feet.

  “Get off me,” Dorsey groaned. “I don’t need your help.”

  I let go of him, startled at his ungratefulness. Dorsey swayed from side to side like a drunk.

  McCain walked amongst them like a caged tiger. “Well, well, well!” he said. “Time after time it’s the same old faces lined up before me.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but I’ve never — ” Sam began, but was cut short as the Grey behind him dry-stunned him in the back with his electric stick.

  “Aaaarrrgghh!” Sam cried out, locking up on the spot and going rigid. I glanced at Sam, his thick, black curly hair had straightened like he had just stuck his fingers into a wall socket. The effects were momentary, and Sam unlocked and loosened up.

  “Wow, that hurt!” he groaned under his breath at me.

  “Just keep your gob shut,” I whispered back, just wanting to get out of this situation without drawing any attention to myself. Jeez, I’d been at the school less than twenty-four hours and I was already in the shit with the Headmaster.

  McCain stepped forward and said, “Even when you’re lined up before me, you don’t know when to keep quiet do you, Hunt?”

  I looked at him, surprised that he knew my name already. McCain’s nostrils flared in and out, they looked red and sore.

  “Well?” McCain said.

  “Well what, sir?” I asked. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

  McCain’s lips contorted into a bloodless grin. “I can tell that you think you’re a real smartarse, don’t you, Hunt? You’ve only been here five minutes and I can tell we’re going to have trouble from you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” I said again. I wasn’t really scared by him. I had dealt with werewolves before. I had met Jack Seth and he had been a complete and utter freak, a screw-up, but dangerous. He could teach McCain a thing or two.

  McCain eyed me with suspicion and said, “You even say ‘sir’ like a smartarse. Well, let me make myself clear. In here, you’re mine. I own you. You are no one and you have no one.” Then, stepping away from me, McCain looked at the four of us who stood before him. “The lot of you have been given over to me by your parents or you were orphaned and the state gave you to me to look after. And this is how you show your gratitude, by behaving like wild animals?”

  McCain strode towards Pryor, and Pryor looked away.

  “Look at me, Pryor!” McCain roared, grabbing hold of his face and snapping it towards him. “Don’t think you can throw your weight around in here. No wonder your mother and father ran out on you. God knows if I’d had a son like you I might have been tempted to disappear!”

  I watchedPryor clench his fists into two meaty clubs.

  “You’re nothing but an animal so you’ll be treated as such,” McCain roared. “Brother Michael, take this vermin to the rat-house.”

  Hearing this, Pryor loosened his fists and said, “Not the rat-house. I spent most of last week in there!”

  “You shouldn’t worry, Pryor, you’ll be in good company — the Addison twins are serving a fortnight in there. Now get going!”

  Brother Michael stepped forward, and taking hold of Pryor by the arm, he marched him across the yard.

  “What’s the rat-house?” I whispered at Sam.

  “Some rat-infested shack,” he whispered back.

  “Please, Mr. McCain!” Pryor pleaded over his shoulder. “Anything but the rat-house!”

  Then, there was the zapping sound and Pryor crumpled to his knees. Taking hold of him by the tails of his blazer, Brother Michael dragged Pryor off the yard and out of sight. McCain approached Dorsey and looked down at him.

  “You need to toughen up, boy, or no wolf will ever want to be matched with you,” McCain told him, like Dorsey would be missing out on some sought after honour. “What’s your problem? That house fire melt your backbone along with your face?”

  Dorsey stood staring down at the ground and said nothing.

  “Answer me,” McCain said, rummaging in his trouser pocket.

  “Can’t you leave the kid alone?” Sam suddenly said from further down the line. “Can’t you see he’s got…issues?”

  “You’ll have issues in a minute, Brook, if you don’t keep your trap shut!” McCain barked, and he nodded at the Grey who stood behind him.

  “Aaaarrrgghh!”Sam shrieked as he was zapped again from behind.

  “Brother Vincent, take this jellyfish Dorsey to the pool and don’t let him leave until he has swam a hundred laps. It might help him develop a spine,” McCain s
aid. Then taking a bottle of sinus spray from his pocket, he rammed it up his own right nostril and breathed in.

  “But I can’t swim,” Dorsey whispered.

  “Then it’s about time you learnt,” McCain sniffed, screwing the cap back onto the bottle and putting it away.

  Brother Vincent took Dorsey by the scruff of the neck and marched him back into the school. McCain waltzed in front of me and said, “It would appear that your parents were in need of some swimming practice, Hunt.”

  I met McCain’s cruel stare and said, “My parents were excellent swimmers.”

  “That’s not what your uncle told me when we spoke on the telephone. Didn’t your mother and father drown?”

  You know they drowned and I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of thinking that you’re hurting me, I smiled to myself.

  “So it would seem, sir,” I said, emphasising the word ‘sir’, knowing that it pissed McCain off.

  McCain wiped the tip of his bulbous nose with his forefinger and stared hard into my eyes.

  “Give me your stick,” he said, holding out his hand towards the Grey who stood behind me. The Grey passed him the stick and straightened the folds of his robes.

  “Put out your hands, Hunt,” McCain said, his voice just above a whisper and his eyes never leaving mine.

  I did as he asked and held out my hands, palms facing upwards. Bracing myself for the pain, I tightened the muscles throughout my entire body. McCain raised the stick and I could hear it humming, like the sound of a cat purring in the sunshine. Except there wasn’t any sunshine. The sky was the colour of gunmetal and full of clouds.

  McCain fired up the stick, and hues of blue and pink flashed in his eyes. I clenched my jaw and gritted my teeth.

  Here comes the pain! I thought.

  But yet it didn’t. McCain thrust the sparking end of the stick into the palm of my hand and I felt nothing. The stick hissed and spat and the smell of burning skin wafted up into the air. I was startled by the sweetness of its scent — like roasted pork glazed with applesauce.

  McCain’s eyes widened, not because of the smell of my roasting flesh, but the fact that I seemed to feel no pain. Yanking the stick away, McCain pressed down as hard as he could onto the fleshy ball of skin beneath the thumb on my other hand. Again the stick hissed and spat, sending tendrils of smoke up into the air. But again, I felt nothing. I didn’t even flinch. I just stared hard into McCain’s eyes.

  What’s happening here? This should be frying me! I thought. But then again, I was dead — did I not feel pain now?

  More out of frustration than spite, McCain bore the end of the electric stick down into the palm of my hand again. I looked up at McCain and couldn’t help but notice that his nose had started to bleed.

  Staring at him, I said, “Your nose is bleeding, sir.”

  McCain removed the stick from my hand and he wiped the end of his nose against his suit sleeve. Looking down, I could see blood smeared up his wrist. McCain touched the tip of his nose with his fingers and looked at the globules of red that now covered them. He glanced at me and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, spreading the blood across his upper lip like a crooked crimson moustache. I looked down at my hands, they were blistered and raw. The skin around my fingers had turned black and crisp in places, and streams of white liquid-fat oozed from the fleshiest parts of my hands.

  McCain looked at them too, and realising that I wasn’t in any pain, he turned to the Greys standing behind Sam and me and said, “Get them out of my sight. Send them back to their rooms.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kiera

  I was woken by the sound of the telephone ringing. Potter groaned beside me and rolled over. Without surfacing from beneath the bed covers, I fumbled blindly about the bedside table as my hand tried to locate the phone. I plucked the receiver from its cradle and dragged it under the covers with me.

  “Hello,” I groaned, still partially asleep.

  “Hudson! Hudson, is that you?” an irritable and obnoxious voice asked.

  “Speaking,” I mumbled, rubbing sleep from my eyes with my free hand. I felt Potter’s hand brush against my thigh and flicked it away.

  “It’s Inspector Cliff Banner,” he barked down the phone at me. He didn’t sound happy.

  As soon as I realised who it was on the other end of the phone, I yanked the blankets from over my head and sat up.

  “I’ve got some good news and bad news for ya,” he snapped.

  “Okay,” I said as I tried to focus on what he was about to tell me.

  “The good news is that your friend Emily Clarke is still in the land of the living, walking around as pretty as you like!”

  I felt relief and shock all at the same time to hear this piece of news. I had convinced myself that Emily had been murdered by McCain.

  “So, what’s the bad news?” I asked cautiously.

  “You’ve been wasting my fucking time!That’s the bad news!” he roared down the line at me. “I got onto the bank first thing this morning — gave ‘em your friend’s details. Within the hour they had faxed me back with a list of transactions she’s made in the last week!”

  “Oh…” I started to say, but he cut me dead and continued to rant.

  “How long did you say she’s been missing?”

  “About four days.”

  “Jeezus wept! According to these bank records, she was buying Cadbury’s chocolate fingers in the local Seven-Eleven at ten-thirty yesterday morning for crying out loud!” he bellowed.

  I felt Potter’s hand brush against my thigh, and again I brushed it away.

  Then it hit me. Banner hadn’t actually spoken to or physically seen Emily Clarke. He was just going on a computer printout from credit card transactions. Credit cards which were rightly in Emily Clarke’s name, but not necessarily being used by her.

  “Has anyone been to the store and spoken to staff or checked out the CCTV?” I asked Banner.

  “Has anybody been…?” he sounded exasperated with me. “Listen, I’m up to my frigging neck in shit down here and you expect me to go running around town on some fantasy…looking for your friend who is supposedly missing! Jeez, if this is her idea of going missing, I’d hate to see what happens when she gets fucking lost!” he bellowed.

  “I just thought you could send someone down to the store to check…” I started

  “Listen here, smartarse, you’ve got a badge…fucking use it!” and he hung up the phone.

  “Who was that?” Potter groaned from beneath the blankets. Then, snaking one arm around my waist, he tried to drag me back under the covers with him.

  “Banner,” I said, taking his arm from around me. “The copper I spoke with at the police station yesterday. The one who couldn’t give a shit about what’s happening at Ravenwood.”

  “What did he want?” Potter asked, poking his head from beneath the blankets.

  “He reckons Emily Clarke is alive and well and buying chocolate in the local Seven-Eleven,” I told him, throwing on my dressing gown and heading for the door.

  “How does he know that?” Potter mumbled, still half asleep but already reaching for his cigarettes and lighter.

  “He doesn’t know for sure,” I said looking back at him. “But he’s too lazy to go and check it out.”

  “Do you want to check it out?” Potter asked, peering at me bleary-eyed through a haze of blue smoke.

  “Straight away,” I said, heading out of the room and across the landing to the bathroom.

  I shut the door and ran a shower. As the water warmed, I dropped my dressing gown and stood naked in front of the mirror. I didn’t want to release my claws, fangs, or wings, but I had to know. With my wings fluttering behind me, and those little black claws rolled into three-fingered fists, I stared at my reflection. I felt sick as the cracks appeared around my eyes and the corners of my lips. They spread like wild ivory down my neck, over my shoulder, and across my breasts. They covered my stomach, my hips, and the lengt
h of my legs down to my toes. I looked like an ancient statue, like the one outside the summerhouse back at the manor. As I stepped closer to the mirror, I felt a slight relief to see that the cracks weren’t as deep and ragged as they had been. The blood I had sucked from Potter’s neck had worked in filling the cracks for a while, but now the effects were fast wearing off.

  Then, from behind me, I heard a noise and gasping out loud, I spun around. Potter was standing naked in the bathroom with his back to the door. Without saying anything, he came towards me. He held his wrist up to my mouth. I looked down and could see the green and blue veins beneath his skin.

  “I can’t,” I whispered, tears beginning to stand in my eyes. “I feel like some kind of drug addict.”

  “Stop thinking of it like that, Kiera,” Potter said gently, holding out his arm. “Are the living addicts because they need air to survive?”

  “But they’re not hurting anyone by breathing in air,” I said, looking into his black eyes.

  “And neither are you,” he said back. “You can’t hurt me, Kiera, I’m already dead, remember?”

  “But you might not always be here,” I said. “What happens then? I might have to hurt someone to survive.”

  “Kiera, I’m never going to leave you,” he whispered, brushing his wrist against my lower lip, and the smell of blood was almost intoxicating. It made me feel as if I was losing control — losing my mind. He looked into my eyes and said, “Kiera, the cracks are back and they will only get worse. Then what? They become so bad that you crumble into a pile of dust. What happens to me? I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of eternity here without you. I couldn’t do that. I know taking my blood isn’t perfect, but until we figure this whole thing out, it’s the best that we can do.”

  “And what if we don’t figure it out?” I whispered, the smell of his blood driving me half-crazy.

  “Tiger, you have the knack of figuring everything out,” he half-smiled. “You’re Kiera Hudson.”

  Then, unable to fight the urge anymore, I lunged forward, sinking my fangs into the fleshy part of his wrist. His blood exploded into my mouth and I gulped it down. It felt hot as it splashed over my tongue and down the back of my throat. I heard Potter making a hissing sound, as if in some small way he was in pain. But even though I knew that, I just couldn’t stop until I was full.