Evil Star (2 page)

The audience roared with laughter. Gwenda laughed, too.

"But we've got a great show for you tonight. And in a minute we're going to meet the three lucky contestants who are competing for tonight's big prizes. But remember: If you want to get your hands on a cool million, what do you have to do?"

"You have to spin to win!" the audience yelled.

Brian said nothing. It was beginning to annoy Gwenda, the way he just sat there.

"But before we can get started," Rex went on, "I want to have a quick word with a very special lady, a real favorite of mine. ..." He stepped closer to the camera, and as his face filled the screen, it seemed to Gwenda that he was looking directly at her.

"Hello, Gwenda," he said.

"Hello, Rex," Gwenda whispered. It was difficult for her to believe that he was actually talking to her. It always was.

"And how are you tonight, my love?"

"I'm all right. . . ." She bit her lip and folded her hands in her lap.

"Well, listen, my darling. I wonder if you've given any more thought to what we were talking about. Matt Freeman. That guttersnipe. That little creep. Have you decided what you're going to do about him?"

Rex McKenna had started talking to Gwenda two months ago. At the beginning, it had puzzled her. How could he interrupt the show (watched by ten million people) just to speak to her? Somehow he Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star even managed to do it in the repeats — and that couldn't be possible, because some of them had been recorded years ago. At first, it had worried her. When she'd told Brian about it, he'd laughed in her face and said she was going mad. Well, Rex had soon put her straight about Brian. And now she didn't worry about it anymore. It was bizarre but it was happening. The truth was, she was flattered. She adored Rex McKenna and it seemed he was equally fond of her.

"Matt Freeman made a fool out of you," Rex went on. "He came into your house and he ruined your relationship with Brian. Then he got into trouble and everybody said it was your fault. Now look at you!

No money. No job. You're a mess, Gwenda. . . ."

"It's not my fault," Gwenda muttered.

"I know it's not your fault, old love," Rex replied. For a moment the camera cut away and Gwenda could see the stu-dio audience getting restless, waiting for the show to begin. “You looked after the boy.

You treated him like a son. But he's pushed off without so much as a by-your-leave. No gratitude, of course. Kids these days! He's full of himself now — and you should hear the things he says about you!

I've been thinking about it and I have to say... I believe the boy ought to be punished."

"Punished ..." Gwenda muttered the word with a sense of dread.

"Just like you punished Brian for being so rude to you." Rex shook his head. Maybe it was a trick of the studio light-ing, but he seemed almost to be reaching out of the television set, about to climb into the room. "The fact of the matter is that Matt is a very nasty piece of work," he went on. "Everywhere he goes, he causes trouble. You remember what happened to his parents."

"They died."

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"It was his fault. He could have saved them. And there are other things you don't know about. He recently upset some very good friends of mine. In fact he more than upset them. He killed them.

Can you believe that? He killed all of them. If you ask me, there's no question about it. He needs to be punished very severely indeed."

"I don't know where he is," Gwenda said.

"I can tell you that. He goes to a school called Forrest Hill. It's in Yorkshire, just outside the city of York. That's not so far away."

"What do you want me to do?" Gwenda asked. Her mouth was dry.

The can of beans had tilted forward in her hands and cold tomato sauce was dripping into her lap.

“You like me, don't you, Gwenda?" The television host gave her one of his special smiles. There were little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. "You want to help me. You know what has to be done."

Gwenda nodded. For some reason she had begun to cry. She wondered if this would be the last time Rex McKenna would talk to her. She would go to York and she wouldn't come back.

“You go there on the train and you find him and you make sure that he never hurts anyone again. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to everyone. What do you say?"

Gwenda couldn't speak. She nodded a second time. The tears were flowing faster.

Rex backed away. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Gwenda Davis. She's a lovely lady and she deserves a big round of applause."

The audience agreed. They clapped and cheered until Gwenda left the room and went upstairs.

Brian remained where he was, sitting on the sofa, his legs slightly Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star apart, his mouth hanging open. He had been like that ever since Gwenda had stuck the kitchen knife into his chest. It was still there, jutting out of the bloodwy rag that had once been his shirt. Rex had told her to do that, too. Brian had laughed at her. He had said she was mad. She'd had to teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget.

A few minutes later, Gwenda left the house. She'd meant to pack, but in the end she hadn't been able to find anything worth taking, apart from the ax that she once used to chop wood. She'd slipped that into the handbag that dangled from her arm.

Gwenda locked the door behind her and walked away. She knew exactly where she was heading: Forrest Hill, a school in Yorkshire.

She was going to see her nephew, Matt Freeman, again.

He would certainly be surprised.

Chapter 2 The New Boy

It was the same dream as always.

Matt Freeman was standing on a tower of black rock that seemed to have sprouted out of the ground like some-thing poisonous. He was high up, alone, surrounded on all sides by a sea as dead as anything he had ever seen. The waves rolled in like oil, and although the wind was howling all around him and the sea spray stung his eyes, he felt nothing . . . not even the cold. Somehow he knew that this was a place where the sun never rose or set. He wondered if he had died.

He turned and looked toward the shoreline, knowing that he would see the other four waiting for him, separated by a stretch of water half a mile wide and many miles deep. They were always there.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Three boys and a girl, each about his age, waiting for him to make the crossing and join them.

But this time it was different. One of the boys had some-how found a vessel to carry him across the water. It was a long, narrow, flimsy boat made of reeds that had been woven together with a prow rising up at the front, shaped like the head of a wildcat. Matt could see the waves batter-ing it, trying to send it back. But the boy was rowing with strong, rhythmic strokes. He was cutting across the water, getting closer by the minute. Now Matt could make out some of his features: brown skin, dark eyes, black, very straight hair hanging down to his neck. He was wearing torn jeans and a loose shirt with a hole in one of the elbows.

Matt felt a surge of hope. In a few minutes the boat would reach the island. If he could just find a way down, he would at last be able to escape. He ran to the edge of the tower and that was when he saw it, reflected in the inky surface of the water. A bird of some sort. Its shape rippled, distorted by the waves, and he was unable to make out what it was. It seemed to have enormous wings, white feathers, and a long, snakelike neck. A swan! Apart from the three boys and the girl, it was the only living thing that Matt had seen in this nightmare world. He looked up, expecting it to skim overhead on its way inland.

The swan was huge, the size of a plane. Matt screamed out a warning. The creature was hideous, its eyes blazing yellow, its claws reaching down to grab hold of the water, pulling it up like a curtain behind it. At that moment, its bright orange beak opened and it let out an earsplitting cry. There was an answering crash of thunder, and Matt was beaten to his knees as it flew overhead, wind pounding at him, the sound of its shriek exploding in his ears. The curtain of Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star water fell, a tidal wave that smothered the tower, the shore, the entire sea. As Matt felt it crash down on him, he opened his mouth to scream . . .

. . . and woke up, gasping for breath, in bed, in his little attic room with the first light of dawn seeping in through the open window.

Matt did what he always did when his day began like this. First he checked the time on the clock next to his bed: half past six. Then he looked around, reassuring himself that he was in his bedroom, on the third floor of the flat in York where he had been living for the past five weeks. One by one, he ticked the items off. There were his school books, piled up on the desk. His uniform was hung over the back of a chair. His eyes traveled over the posters on the wall: a couple of Arsenal players and a film poster from
War of the Worlds.

His PlayStation was on the floor in the corner. The room was a mess. But it was
his
room. It was exactly how it should be.

Everything was all right. He was back.

He lay in bed for the next thirty minutes, half awake and half asleep, listening to the early morning traffic that started with the milk truck wheezing past the front door and gradually built up with delivery vans and buses setting out on the school run. At seven o'clock, he heard Richard's alarm go off in the room downstairs. Richard Cole was the journalist who owned the flat. Matt heard him get out of bed and pad into the bathroom. There was a hiss of water as the shower came on. It told Matt that it was time he started getting ready, too.

He threw back the covers and got out of bed.

For a moment, he caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror that stood in the corner of the room. A fourteen-year-old boy wearing a gray T-shirt and boxers. Black hair. He had always cut it short, but recently he had allowed it to grow and it was untidy, with Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star no part. Blue eyes. Matt was in good shape, with square shoulders and well-defined muscles. He was growing fast. Richard had been careful to buy him school clothes that were one size up, but as he reached out and pulled on his pants, Matt reflected that it wouldn't be long before they would be too small.

Half an hour later, dressed for school and carrying a bagload of books, he came into the kitchen. Richard was already there, stacking up the dishes that had been left out the night before. He looked as if he hadn't had any sleep at all. His clothes were crumpled and although he'd been in the shower, he hadn't shaved. His fair hair was still wet and his eyes were half closed.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked.

"What is there?"

Richard swallowed a yawn. "Well, there's no bread and no eggs." He opened a cupboard and looked inside. "We've got some cornflakes but that's not much use."

"Don't we have any milk?"

Richard took a carton of milk out of the fridge, sniffed it, and dumped it in the sink. "It's off," he announced. He held up his hands in a gesture of apology. "I know. I know. I said I'd get some. But I forgot."

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters." Richard sounded genuinely angry with himself. "I'm meant to be looking after you. . . ."

Matt sat down at the table. "It's not your fault," he said. "It's mine."

"Matt. . ." Richard began.

"No. We might as well admit it. This isn't really work-ing, is it?"

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"That's not true."

"It is true. You don't really want me here. The truth is, you don't even want to stay in York. I don't mind, Richard. If I were you, I wouldn't want to have someone like me hanging around, either."

Richard looked at his watch. "We can't talk about this now," he said.

"You're going to be late for school."

"I don't want to go to school," Matt replied. "I've been thinking about it." He took a deep breath. "I want to go back to another family on the LEAF Project."

Richard stared. "Are you crazy?"

LEAF stood for Liberty and Education Achieved through Fostering.

It was a government program that had been designed for delinquents, and Matt had been part of it when he and Richard had met.

"I just think it would be easier," Matt said.

"The last time you joined the LEAF Project, they sent you to a coven of witches. What do you think it'll be next time? Vampires, perhaps. Or maybe you'll end up with a family of cannibals."

"Maybe I'll get an ordinary family that'll look after me."

"I can look after you."

“You can't even look after yourself!" Matt hadn't meant to say it, but the words had just slipped out. “You're work-ing in Leeds now," he went on. “You're always in the car. That's why there's never any food in the house. And you're worn out! You're only staying here because of me. It's not fair."

It was true. Richard had lost his job at
The Greater Mailing Gazette

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star but after a few weeks he had managed to find work on another newspaper,
The Gipton Echo,
just outside Leeds. It wasn't much better. He was still writing about local busi-nesses. The day before, he'd reported about a new fish restaurant, a garbage disposal plant, and a geriatric hospi-tal that had been threatened with closure.

Chips, tips, and hips,
as he put it. Matt knew that Richard was working on a book about their adventures together — including the events that had led to the destruction of the nuclear power station known as Omega One and the disappearance of an entire Yorkshire village. But he hadn't been able to sell the story to the press. Why should publishers be any different?

"I don't want to talk about this now," Richard said. "It's too early.

Let's meet up later. I won't be in late — for once — and we can go out for dinner if you like. Or I can get takeout."

“Yeah. All right. Whatever." Matt gathered up his books.