Those eyes, like a fish on a slab. Like the shark she saw on the telly that time. “Fair enough,” she says.
Fitton nods once, then goes out, the door banging behind him then swinging wide. Muffled noises; the van door opens and slams. Alan stumbles up over the pavement and in through the door. As Vera goes to get him the van roars away leaving only a whiff of diesel fumes, as she hears the blare of the ambulance siren at last, getting louder as it nears Shackleton Street.
W
HAT TIME IS
it now? Alan in his narrow bed, looking up at the ceiling and trying to believe.
Sis said Daddy Adrian’s dead. Well, he
is
dead, isn’t he? Alan’s seen the body. It didn’t look like Daddy Adrian, not anymore. But she says he’s dead. And she says she’s fixing things so he won’t be hurt again, the way Daddy Adrian hurt him, and Mr Fitton, Father Joseph, the Policeman and the rest. Alan looks up at the bare bulb and tries to believe that. Men have trooped into this room, all of Daddy Adrian’s friends, and they’ve hurt him. They’ve done things to him. But Sis says they won’t anymore. Sis says they’re going away.
If he keeps secrets. Sis says he has to keep secrets. Well, he’s used to that. He’s kept them for years. He’s done alright, so far. He was with Mr Fitton and Yolly because he wants to be a butcher one day and Mr Fitton lets him help out a bit, for a few quid, cash in hand. There was a policeman, came round. Didn’t look much older than Yolly.
Is everything really going to be alright?
Alan wants to believe it, but he can’t.
He tried to tell Vera. Tried to tell her about the farmhouse off Dunwich Lane. About Johnny, Mark and Sam. About the Shrike. But she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know. She doesn’t know about the Shrike, doesn’t know how bad he is. But then he hasn’t told her. Because she said,
Do you want to get out of here? Then sod every bugger else. It’s just you and me, sweetheart. We can’t trust any fucker round here. And I’m not having you going in a care home. We get out. You and me
.
And that shut him up, because Daddy Adrian told him
all
about the care homes they have for kids like him.
Full of people make me and my mates look like the Roly Polys
, Daddy Adrian said, shark’s teeth gleaming in a smile. And so Alan’s said nothing. And so eight o’clock will have come and gone, both here and at the old farmhouse off Dunwich Lane. And he knows what that means, knew it before, when there was a time he could’ve spoken and he didn’t. Alan knows.
There are things Alan doesn’t want to think about, and that’s one of them. Another is Yolly, or rather how when Yolly kissed and cuddled him hefelt his own body respond, his dick stiffen. No, not like him. He won’t become like Yolly. He won’t.
Alan wants to believe it’ll be all alright. But he can’t. Not least because something’s changed in the room.
Normally Shackleton Street’s a noisy place. You can hear them shouting and screaming next door; hear the drunks roll home on the street outside. But all of a sudden that’s gone. It’s dead silent. He turns on his side but he can’t even hear the thump of the blood in his ears. He breathes deep, in and out, but he can’t hear that either.
Panic growing slow and clammy in him; he doesn’t know yet what it is he has to be afraid of, but he fears it.
And then he rolls onto his back again and he sees the man at the end of his bed.
The breath clogs silent in his throat. Cold light flickers. The man wears a black, thigh-length coat. His head is pale and bulbous-looking, with only a thin feathering of hair around the ears reaching round the back. His eyes are pale and vast behind thick pebble lenses, and there’s red smeared round his pale, pursed mouth. His jaws lump as he chews. His hands are pale and soft-looking. Child’s hands. They hold something long and white. A bone, a big one. From someone’s arm or leg, maybe? A bone. It has chunks of meat hanging from it, and Alan knows he’s looking at the Shrike.
The Shrike swallows. His red mouth opens. He’s speaking but there’s no sound. But Alan... Alan doesn’t hear the words so much as see them. They seem to hang in the air, glowing red against the dark.
Do not look at me.
Alan would cry out, but there’s no hearing in this place. He claps his hands over his eyes instead. He tries to sob, but there’s no sound. It isn’t coming back. The world will never know song or laughter again, not that it’s known much of either in his limited experience. Slowly, slowly, he peels his hands away from his eyes. Maybe the Shrike will still be there, waiting for him. Maybe there’s no escape for those like him, ever. Maybe he never really left that cellar and he’s dreamt everything since.
When he looks, the Shrike is gone. But the room’s still choked with that unnatural silence, and he’s not alone.
Three small, naked boys stand at the foot of his bed, their backs turned to him. One has fair hair, one has brown, the third has black. He knows them, of course; knows who they have to be.
Johnny, Mark and Sam
. He’d name them all if he could, but he has no voice. But they’ve heard him nonetheless, it seems; as he watches, the boys turn slowly to face him.
They face him and he almost screams, not that it would make much difference here. They have no eyes. Only holes where their eyes should be.
Alan wants to clap his hands back to his face, to turn, to run away. Their lips move, the three of them, in perfect unison.
Look at us.
Look at us, Alan.
And so he does.
We are the dead
.
We are the dead.
He can’t speak. What would he say, even if he could? They’re right, of course. They’re dead, were good as dead as soon as Yolly and Mr Fitton delivered them to the farmhouse on Dunwich Lane.
But you could have stopped it
, they say, and he knows it’s true. He could have told. The police–
But the Policeman. Daddy Adrian had the Policeman to protect him.
Daddy Adrian is dead. And only he knew who the Policeman was. The Policeman won’t risk himself to save Mr Fitton or Father Joseph. You could have saved us.
Daddy Adrian always said Alan would get put in a children’s home if he told, full of worse than him–
We were your friends
, the dead boys say.
We looked up to you. We trusted. We trusted you as we trusted Daddy Adrian and Mr Fitton and Father Joseph. And you betrayed us.
No. No, he wasn’t like them. He’d only wanted the pain to stop. He’d only ever wanted to get out.
Oh, you’ll get out alright, Alan. You’ve bought your freedom with our blood. But there’s a price. There is always a price.
Alan knows this. He’s been paying all his life, and he doesn’t even know what for. What price now, for this?
The Sight, Alan. We give you the Sight.
The sight? What sight?
The sight of us, Alan. The Sight of the dead. You’ll make a living from it. Telling pretty lies about the afterlife. But we’ll always be with you to remind you of the price. And one day we’ll call you home. A day of reckoning, Alan, when you’ll finally atone. But not yet. Not for years yet. We give you those years, Alan. Remember it. You owe them to us.
The shadows beyond the foot of the bed are deep and thick. The three boys glide back into them and are gone. Sound returns, and he realises he’s sobbing, loud.
“Alan?” He starts, scared, but it’s only a normal voice, a girl’s; Vera’s. The door opens. The landing light spills into the room. “Alan, are you OK?”
“Nightmare,” he says. He’s lying to her, but perhaps he can lie to himself as well, convince himself that what just happened didn’t.
“Oh, sweetheart.” She comes to his bedside and sits on the edge, squeezing his hand. “Today was the last time, baby. They’ll never be able to do it to you again. I swear to god that they won’t. D’you believe me?”
At last Alan nods, but he can’t stop crying. Can’t stop. For Johnny and Mark and Sam. For him. Even for Yolly who was once a boy like him. He will not become like Yolly, he won’t.
“Sweetheart.” Vera bites her lip, takes a deep breath. “Alan, do you want me to...?”
Will it help? It can’t hurt. It’s made the hurt go away before, just for a little while; much of what little tenderness, pleasure and joy his young life has known has come from it. And it proves, too. Proves he’s not like Yolly, not into boys. He likes girls, girls, girls. And so he nods.
Vera nods back. She’s wearing a nightie with nothing on underneath. She peels it off over her head, drops it on the floor and slides under the covers with him.
As she unbuttons his pyjamas, she knows it’s wrong; she’s known that for a while now, maybe has done ever since she first offered this comfort to him. But it was all she had, as he is all she has. And in places like this, you take whatever comfort you can find.
“M
R
F
ITTON
?”
A pause filled with hoarse breath. “Yes.”
“It’s Vera Latimer, Mr Fitton.” She always kept her dad’s name; even when Mum took Walsh’s she wouldn’t. Outside it’s raining; it’s the hour before dawn and two nights have passed since Walsh died. “Have you got it?”
“Yes. Have you got what I want?”
“Yes.” She glances over at Alan, sat pale and shadow-eyed in the corner. Their three suitcases beside him. Ready to go.
“So?”
“Meet me at the station. Half an hour. Come alone.”
“If–”
“Alone, Mr Fitton.”
Click. She breathes out. Her hands are shaking.
E
VEN IN THE
early morning, there’s comings and goings at Kempforth Station. Vera’s been there with Alan for ten minutes before Fitton heifers in through the doors. His black eyes flick to Alan, who flinches back. “Little shit,” says Fitton.
“Leave him,” says Vera.
“Well?”
“Money first.”
Fitton glances round, then palms an envelope. “Show me,” says Vera. She keeps a hand on the knife.
Fitton opens the envelope, flicks through a sheaf of fivers inside. It’s enough for train fare to Manchester and for food and lodgings, for a while at least. And after that? She’ll think of something; sell herself, if she has to. But Alan won’t. She’ll see to that. She’ll starve first. She gave him her word and she’ll keep it.
“Alright. Give me.” She takes the envelope, stuffs it in her pocket.
“Well?” Fitton demands again.
She holds up the front door key; she’ll not need it again. “Back at our house. My room. In the wardrobe.”
Fitton breathes through his nose.
“Come on, Alan. Our train’s due.”
They move fast, and she keeps her hand on her pocket, but Fitton doesn’t follow. The train pulls onto the platform as they reach it. Alan runs for it with a sudden burst of a younger boy’s energy and speed. Vera smiles.
Everything, she tells herself, will be alright.
A
S THE TRAIN
pulls away from Kempforth, Alan looks at the platform and knows that he and he alone sees the three small boys stood naked in the rain watching them go. Because he has the Sight.
One day they will call him home and he’ll pay what he owes. In the meantime, like they said, he can make a living. There’s always someone wants to talk to their dead mother, father, husband, wife. Son, daughter, dog. Vera doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to make them rich. He promises it, for both of them. And he’ll do all he can to work off his debt.
J
UST AFTER DAWN
and Yolly creeps downstairs, having dressed on the landing. He walks stiffly, sore; Mr Fitton took things out on him, like he often does, but it didn’t do him much good; Yolly’s too old for his tastes now. And so Mr Fitton hurt him because of that.
Out back of the butcher’s shop the last embers still glow where Mr Fitton burned the bags of stuff from Mr Walsh’s house. He goes outside and looks to see that it’s all been burnt up. There’s nothing left. Good.
Yolly goes back inside. He’s pinched Mr Fitton’s keys. He unlocks the gun cabinet and takes out Mr Fitton’s twelve-bore. He puts shells into his pockets and two in the shotgun, snaps the breech shut and goes back upstairs.
The butcher’s shop is under the railway viaduct. The ceiling rattles faintly; a train’s coming.
Yolly steps in through the door. “Mr Fitton?” he says.
“What?” The greasy bulk in the bed stirs, rolls onto its back. Piggy eyes glare at him. “What the bloody hell are you...?”
Yolly cocks the shotgun.
“Yolly.” Mr Fitton tries to sit up, voice wheedling. The train goes overhead, its roar shaking the room. “Yolly, lad–”
Yolly fires the left-hand barrel and blows apart the sheets over Mr Fitton’s groin. The grimy white sheets are red. Mr Fitton’s screaming, fingers clawing into the ragged, spurting hole that Yolly’s made. Yolly puts the gun to his shoulder, aims and fires the second barrel into that scream. It cuts off; Mr Fitton snaps back against the headboard and most of his head splashes up the wall and onto the ceiling. He stays sat up but sags, like a great big pudding collapsing.
The train passes on. Yolly’s ears hum. The room stinks of shit and gunsmoke. He breaks the shotgun, discards the shells, goes out.
Next he takes Mr Fitton’s van out to Saint Matthias’. He parks across the road and watches and waits and smokes three of Mr Fitton’s cigarettes until he sees Father Joseph come out of the parochial house and approach the church doors; then he gets out of the van and goes up the path after him. “Father Joe?”
The priest turns in the doorway; he hates being called that. “What?” And then Yolly takes the shotgun out from under his coat and gives him both barrels, blowing him back through the doorway and halfway down the aisle before he hits a pew and clings on. Yolly walks through the doorway and up the aisle, reloading as Father Joe’s knees buckle and his guts slide out onto the floor. The priest turns and looks at him and opens a mouth full of blood; Yolly shoves the gun muzzle into it and fires. Father Joe falls forward with a lower jaw and fuck-all else attached; his blood goes all over Yolly and spreads across the aisle floor. Yolly doesn’t care; it doesn’t matter now.