The Fear (15 page)

For a moment the kids couldn’t make sense of what they were seeing.

And then DogNut understood that it hadn’t grown completely dark out the front. There was someone in the hallway, blocking the light.

Someone huge.

A man.

He completely filled the gap between the piles of newspaper and was staring at them with yellow-rimmed eyes.

He was monstrously fat, with two great naked legs like tree trunks. He was wearing a pair of shorts with no shoes or socks and the remains of a vast sweatshirt that was ripped and full of holes. Barely able to contain his obscene bulk, the sweatshirt cut into his body like the string round a trussed-up chicken ready for roasting. Fat bulged out of the holes and his vast belly hung down over the top of his shorts.

He had great pendulous breasts and his hair was long and matted, with bits of food stuck in it. If it wasn’t for the straggly beard that framed his bulbous, sweating face they might have mistaken him for a woman. His skin was so dirty it looked black; his eyes stared out brightly, like the eyes of a coal-miner. There was snot streaming from his nose and into his half-open mouth. The noise they had heard was his breath rattling in his throat.

‘Stuff …’ he said. ‘Stuff …’

Courtney psyched herself up and ran at the giant with a roar, her spear aimed at his juddering belly, but he swatted it aside and the point stuck fast in the wall of newspaper. Courtney swore and abandoned it. As the man advanced on her she thumped him with her forearm. The blow bounced harmlessly off him, sending a ripple through his upper body.

‘Stuff …’ he said again, his voice squeezed into a wheezy high-pitched croak. He looked to be in his late twenties and he stank powerfully. He didn’t look badly diseased. There were a few spots on his face, but no major boils or sores. There was green mould growing on him, though, in all the folds and creases of his exposed flesh.

‘Stuff …’

As he moved along the hallway his sides rubbed against the walls of newspaper, making a rustling sound. Felix darted past Courtney and clumsily jabbed at him with his sword, but the blow was lost in the layers of fat.

DogNut ran through their choices. Stay here and try to fight the monster, try to push past him towards the front door, retreat into the basement with its maze of newsprint, or go upstairs. This last option seemed the safest choice, even though they had no idea what might be up there.

The giant plodded on, slow and steady, repeating the same word over and over.

‘Stuff … stuff … stuff …’

DogNut stared at him and his mind was filled with one stupid thought, the one that Courtney had planted in his brain. This man could overwhelm them.

‘Upstairs!’ he yelled. ‘Now.’

He charged at the waddling hulk, hoping to hold him back long enough for his friends to reach the stairs. He hacked uselessly with his sword; there wasn’t enough space for a full swing. And having seen what happened when Felix and Courtney attacked him, DogNut was scared to jab him with the point in case he lost his weapon. As it was, his blade did little against the sicko except split his skin. The fat that swelled out of the superficial wound was bright pink against his dark skin.

DogNut turned and joined his friends, who were scrambling up the stairs. The last to make it was Olivia, and even then DogNut had to grab her by the arm and jerk her away from the approaching sicko.

They clattered upwards, hoping to find a room they could get in and barricade. Behind them they could hear the sicko place his fat foot on the first step with an almighty thud.

‘More stuff …’

The rooms on the next floor were too crammed with junk to even get in. Electrical appliances, mostly, and computer hardware, monitors, keyboards, hard drives and miles and miles of cable. DogNut swore and ordered the gang up to the next floor. It was a similar story here, except that most of the junk consisted of toys of some sort, many still in their packaging. They were mixed up with other bits and pieces, sporting equipment, expensive luggage, clothing and more books.

‘Maybe we could get on to the roof, or something,’ said Courtney. ‘Let’s try the top floor. We can always come back down again.’

‘I don’t want to go up!’ Olivia screamed. ‘I want to get out of here. We’ll be trapped.’

‘We’ll be all right,’ said DogNut. ‘We’ll get out. Don’t worry.’ He grabbed her arm again and roughly pulled her up the stairs. They could hear the steady
clump
,
clump
of the man coming after them.

They thundered up to the next level. It immediately looked more hopeful. It was still full of rubbish – carrier bags, cardboard boxes, more toys, empty bottles and cans – but there was a lot more room to move around. Obviously, being so heavy, and not too keen on climbing stairs, the huge sicko was filling the house from the bottom up.

The room at the back had a small balcony overlooking the garden. Felix and Marco stayed to secure the door to the stairs while the rest of them went over to the sliding glass balcony windows and figured out how to open them.

Felix found a key in the bedroom door just as Courtney opened the latch that released the sliding windows, and they both yelled in triumph at the same time. There was a rush of clean fresh air and the kids were reminded just how badly the house stank. Finn, Olivia, Courtney and DogNut hustled out on to the balcony and looked down. They were five floors up.

‘Can we climb it?’ Courtney asked.

‘I can’t,’ said Finn bluntly, and he shook his head. ‘I’ll stay here and try to hold him off, if you lot want to try and climb down.’

DogNut was looking at the long drop.

‘We don’t need no heroic sacrifices, Finn. What we need’s a bloody ladder.’

‘I can’t do it either,’ said Olivia. ‘I can’t climb. I can’t do it. I’m scared of heights. I can’t. I won’t.’

‘It’s way too dangerous for any of us to try it,’ said DogNut. ‘So don’t worry about it.’

‘What about up?’ said Felix, who had come out on to the balcony to see what was happening. ‘Is there a way up on to the roof maybe?’

But that looked hopeless as well.

‘So what do we do now?’ said Felix, looking accusingly at DogNut. ‘You got us up here.’

‘Shut up and let me think,’ said DogNut, and Felix muttered something under his breath.

‘What did you say?’ DogNut glared at Felix, who rubbed his face nervously.

‘I said thinking’s not your strong point,’ said Felix. ‘I should have stayed at the palace. At least David knew what he was doing.’

‘Ignore him,’ said Courtney, putting a hand on DogNut’s back. ‘He’s just scared like the rest of us.’

Olivia was ignoring the argument. She had sat down with her back to the balcony wall. She was ignoring everything. Hoping it would all go away. She closed her eyes and covered her ears with her hands. She wasn’t here. She was back at home in her room, before any of this had happened, with Paul and her dad and his new girlfriend. And her new stepsister. Kira. She always forgot about Kira. She hadn’t been around that long. She was all right, but not like a proper sister.

That was better. Take yourself back. She could picture her old room. She imagined she was sitting on her bed and slowly her things came into place around her. Her pink CD machine that also played tapes and woke her up in the mornings with the radio. Her posters. Her old dressing-up box. Her clothes all neat in the cupboard that Dad had built for her. And Dad was there too, reading her a bedtime story. That was nice. He didn’t do it much, but she loved it when he did. She could see him there now. His hair all messy as usual. The smell of him. A warm smell. She tried to listen to the words. Her favourite Cathy Cassidy book.
Dizzy
. She smiled. She was sure she could hear his voice in her head. So familiar. She was hardly aware of footsteps around her, hardly felt it as someone jostled her, and she went deeper into her memories, humming quietly to block out the sounds.

So she didn’t hear Felix yelling that the sicko had arrived at the top of the stairs. Didn’t see the others run back into the bedroom. Didn’t see the door bulging as the man leant his enormous weight against it.

Didn’t hear the panic in their voices.

‘He’s gonna get in.’

‘We’re trapped here now.’

‘What do we do?’

‘All right.’ DogNut got their attention by clapping his hands. He had put his sword back in its scabbard. It would only get in the way. He was grinning.

‘It’s like this, OK? Listen to me. It’s easy. We fox him like we did downstairs. We let him come in, yeah? Right into the room. Make sure he gets away from the door.’

‘I get you!’ said Marco. ‘We can do it. We just have to get past him and we’ll be down the stairs before he can even squeeze his great fat arse back out through the door.’

‘OK,’ said Courtney, who was grinning too. ‘OK.’

She had found a golf club among the rubbish in the room, and felt more confident with a weapon back in her hands.

The door stopped bulging for a moment, there was a moment’s silence followed by an almighty thump as the sicko threw himself against the woodwork with more speed. The frame cracked. The panels split.

‘Wait for it,’ said DogNut. ‘Wait for it.’

‘I’m gonna whack his lardy butt,’ said Felix.

‘Like that’ll make any difference, you nunce,’ Marco scoffed. ‘He don’t feel nothing.’

‘I’m gonna whack him anyway, show him who’s the big man.’

‘Oh, he’s the big man, all right, Felix,’ said Marco, and the two of them giggled nervously.

‘Don’t bother trying to fight him,’ said DogNut angrily. ‘Just don’t waste your time. All we got to do is get round him, that’s it.’

Before he could say anything else the door gave way and burst inwards as if there had been an explosion outside. And there was the sicko, forcing himself into the opening.

‘Stuff …’ he said. ‘More stuff …’

He could hardly fit through the door. He had to stretch his arms out in front of him and roll his shoulders. Finally, with a wriggle and a shrug, he was in the room.

True to his word Felix lunged at him with his sword, but the point just sank into the side of his belly and lodged there so deeply that Felix couldn’t pull it out. As he tugged at it, the man moved towards him with sudden speed, almost dancing on his toes, and one meaty hand reached out for Felix. He got him by the wrist and Felix screamed.

Courtney brought her golf club down with all her might on the sicko’s wrist. There was a hefty slap and the man must have relaxed his grip a little because the next moment Felix was free. He saw that Courtney, Finn and DogNut were already out of the room and he threw himself into the narrowing gap between the man and the wall, swearing with the effort. He felt the heat coming off the solid bulk of flesh, and an unholy stink of mould and sweat and shit. If the man’s body hadn’t been slicked with grease, Felix doubted he would have been able to get past. As it was, he was nearly trapped as the man tried to squash him against the wall with his belly, but Marco took hold of his friend and pulled him clear.

‘Don’t try and give the man a hug, you stupid pumplex! I know you want to kiss him all over, but you gonna catch something.’

‘Shut up, Marco!’

The next moment the two of them tumbled out on to the landing, crashing into the banisters. They could hear the others clattering down the stairs below.

Felix sometimes had dreams where he was running down an endless twisting staircase as someone chased him. In his dreams he’d learnt to swing on the banisters at the corners like a monkey so that he would sort of fly from one handhold to another as he whizzed down. If he remembered to do it, the nightmare was turned into something fun and exhilarating. He tried to do the same now, but it was hard in the darkness and he kept falling and rolling down the steps. He was too pumped up to feel anything, though, and was laughing all the way, so relieved was he to have got away from the sicko. He fell past Courtney, caught up with Finn, overtook him, overtook DogNut, and now he was in the lead.

He was first to the front door, half running, half stumbling along the hallway. He kicked the bust of Shakespeare out of the way and wrenched the door open, not caring what might be waiting for them outside.

Mercifully, the street was clear. Felix staggered into the middle of the road and fell to the ground, laughing and sobbing with relief. One by one the others emerged. Courtney was last out and she stopped just long enough to pull down some of the stacks of newspapers and magazines so that they blocked the doorway.

‘That’ll hold the fat bastard up!’ she yelled triumphantly as she ran out and they all hugged each other and exchanged high-fives. It quickly hit them, though, that they weren’t out of danger yet. All their noise had attracted a band of sickos who were approaching along the road.

‘Looks like we gotta keep on running,’ said DogNut, and they sprinted away in the opposite direction. It was only when they turned the corner at the end of the street that DogNut stopped and swore. Thrashing his sides with his balled fists.

‘What is it?’ said Courtney, looking around for a fresh threat.

‘Olivia,’ said DogNut bitterly. ‘Where’s Olivia?’

Olivia was on the balcony. Tears running down her face. They’d left her. She couldn’t believe they’d done it. They’d all run off without her. And now
he
was coming. The man. She’d slid the glass door shut and was standing watching as he trundled across the room towards the balcony.

She was shaking her head from side to side, unable to take her eyes off the huge wobbling bulk of the man.

‘No, no, no, no, no …’

He reached the glass of the door and started to press his body against it, flattening his mass of fat so that he grew wider and wider. And now he pressed his face as well, squashing his nose and lips and smearing pus and snot and saliva over the window. And still he kept pressing, flattening, widening.

At last Olivia could stand it no more. She turned away and looked over the edge of the balcony. It was such a long way down. Immediately she felt dizzy and sick. The ground appeared to come nearer in a rush then speed away again, as if she was bouncing on a bungee cord.