Hunted (10 page)

Callum wasn't even aware he had heaved another sigh until Melissa patted him kindly on the shoulder.

“Cheer up, it's our turn next.”

The little shop seemed empty after the jostling crowd in the street. Callum slouched by the cold drinks cabinet where he could keep an eye on the kids passing by outside. There was still no sign of Ed, or Callum's phantom double.

“I'm finished,” Melissa said, appearing at his shoulder. She held out a Mars bar. “Got you a chocolate bar.”

Callum forced a laugh. “Typical girl—you think chocolate cures everything!”

“Can't hurt. Come on, let's get to the library before the enemy turns up.”

The shopkeeper-turned-bouncer stepped back to let Melissa and Callum past on their way out and beckoned to the next pair of lucky shoppers, growling the unnecessary warning: “
Two
. Two of you only.”

The bell above the door chimed as Callum opened it, and as if in answer, the Friday afternoon was shattered by a piercing scream of agony.

The Hunter walks among the living crowd, wearing the face of its chosen victim.

Rage burns though its inhuman veins. The Hunter had its prey within its grasp, only for the victim to slip through its fingers again. What is it about this boy? He is different from the others: more cunning, more elusive. And oh, so much more powerful. The Hunter yearns to feed on that power.

It is too hungry to wait any longer. There is another chime child whose nourishing spirit the Hunter can trace. It is not as strong as the boy whose face the Hunter wears. It is one of those weaker beings born close to dawn, hardly aware of their own abilities. It will not be a satisfying meal. But it will strengthen the Hunter for the longer chase to come.

Here, now, the other victim approaches—the feeble, fearless one, escorted by another boy. Its fury still boiling within it, the Hunter confronts the human, smiling its borrowed smile.

“Look! It's Scott, just waiting for you, Ed! And grinning like a dope. Hey, Scott, been looking for us?”

“I guess you got my message, Scott,” says the one that will make a nourishing morsel, with a nasty smile of its own. “Thanks for waiting. You coming for a chat with us? We want to hear about your freaky girlfriend. And your gyppo gran.”

The angry words mean nothing to the Hunter. It can use human speech if such speech serves a purpose, but its purpose now is simply to feed. It savors the moment when its victim stands willingly within reach, so foolishly unafraid.

“Answer me, Scott!”

A fist whips out. The Hunter brushes the flimsy hand aside.

“Come on, Ed, don't do it here. Let's take him along to the engine shed and give him a kicking.”

The Hunter is too hungry to toy with its prey any longer. In an instant, faster than either of the mortals can react, it attacks. Its claws rake the boy's throat, biting into the warm flesh. Red blood sprays like a fine mist, the salt taste seeking out the Hunter's lips. The boy staggers back, his eyes wide now with terror.

It is almost an invitation.

The Hunter leaps forward. The boy collapses beneath the onslaught. Now the Hunter is on his chest, its talons seeking those glistening orbs, piercing the pupils and sinking into the jelly.

The boy screams once, in terror and agony, as the meal begins.

Callum and Melissa raced towards the cry.

Why am I running
towards
the screaming?
thought Callum fleetingly.

Then he knew. Memory battered him from all sides—the sense of urgency, the terrible shriek of agony suddenly cut short, the knowledge that he had come too late, and—

And a boy slouched against the brick wall with dripping bloody holes where his eyes should be.

But not an unknown boy this time.

Ed Bolton.

He lay broken and disfigured, his face a river of bloody tears leaking from the empty sockets. Ed's second-in-command, Baz, was backed against the wall beside the body. He was weeping his own tears of terror, and he had been sick all over the road. Now he looked up at Callum and started screaming.

“Don't come near me! Don't come near me! Get away from me!”

Paying absolutely no attention, Melissa ran forwards with outstretched arms, instinctively offering help.

“No, no, you crazy witch, get away!”

Baz scrambled backwards away from Melissa, but slipped on his own vomit and went sprawling into the pool of blood that was slowly spreading across the pavement. He screeched again and tried to claw himself to his feet against the wall without having to touch Ed's lifeless body. Melissa reached him and offered her hand; Baz shoved her back into the street. Callum stepped between them.

He glanced swiftly at Ed and felt his own stomach lurch at the sight of the glistening, bloody eye sockets.

How had it happened—in broad daylight, here in Marlock, barely outside the school gates? How? He turned away from Ed's ruined face and asked Baz in desperation, “What happened?”

“What happened?” Baz repeated wildly, frantically trying to wipe Ed's blood off his hands. “What do you mean,
what happened
? You freakin' murderer! You killed him!”

Baz stopped suddenly, doubled over in the gutter, and vomited again. Callum drew back, shaking. Melissa grabbed his arm.

“
What
happened?” Melissa whispered.

“Get away from him, you stupid cow! He's a crazy freak, a killer! He jumped him, he jumped right at his face, and he just dug his nails into Ed's head and then he … he … he
ate
them! He
ate
—”

But Baz couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead he tried to vomit again, his empty stomach bringing up nothing but bile as he retched and retched. Finally, gasping, he looked up at Callum and screamed hysterically, “Just back off, Callum Scott! Just back the hell off!”

By now a crowd was gathering. Callum and Melissa weren't the only ones who had heard the screaming—first Ed's terrible death agony, and then Baz's hysterical accusations. The crowd was mostly kids, but there were some adults too.

“Get him away from me. He did it.
He
did it!” Baz pointed and shrieked, all his fear and revulsion focused on Callum. “He went crazy! He ripped Ed's eyes out—ripped them right out of his head. He killed him!”

Weeping, whispering girls and muttering boys crowded the pavement. There were more screams as new people arrived and saw the sickening horror of the scene for the first time. Everybody had a phone. Every one of them was calling the police. Two separate crowds were forming now, one around the savaged wreck of the body that had once been Ed Bolton, and the other around Callum. Hands grabbed at him, driving him to his knees and pinning his arms behind his back. Through the fog of shock that seemed to have paralyzed him, Callum heard conflicting orders flying.

“Tie his arms together!”

“No, you'll get in trouble, doing that to a kid. Wait for the police!”

“Who cares? A lad who does a thing like that? Tie him up, safer for us all that way—”

“Callum didn't do it!”

Melissa had managed to push her way to the front of the mob. Stunned by the fierceness of the crowd, Callum noticed for the first time that one of the men holding him down was Mr. Gower, the deputy head. Melissa noticed at exactly the same time.

“Mr. Gower! Mr. Gower! Listen to me!” she shouted. “Callum's been with me all afternoon, since school got out! I was waiting for him outside and I've been with him the whole time since! He didn't do anything!”

“You're in it together!” Baz screamed at her. “You both hated him!”

Melissa ignored Baz completely. She brandished her recently purchased notebook.

“Mr. Gower, you've got to listen to me!”

Gower beckoned to another man to come and take his place holding Callum, then got to his feet and drew Melissa aside.

“I know it's hard to accept,” Gower said, “but sometimes we don't understand—”

“No,
listen
!” Melissa cried. “We were in the post office. See this?” She held up the notebook. “We just bought it. We were in the queue for fifteen minutes with tons of other kids. Then we were in the shop. We only heard the screaming as we came out! We've got
dozens
of witnesses. Ask any of them! Callum didn't do it!”

“Well, we can check,” said Gower dubiously. “But that's up to the authorities.”

Right on cue, wailing sirens and flashing lights began to pull up around them. It was emergency vehicle overkill—a couple of ambulances, a police van, and at least three squad cars. Dazed as he was, Callum couldn't see through the crowd to count them all. A medical team swooped down on Ed's lifeless body and a swarm of uniformed police officers began to organize the crowd. Baz was gently coaxed into one of the police cars so he could make a statement. At this point the policemen noticed Callum, nailed to the ground by half a dozen men.

“This the suspect?”

Melissa was as persistent as a bulldog. Since she'd got no joy from the deputy head, she shifted her focus to the police officers.

“Callum Scott didn't do this! I was with him all afternoon. We were in the queue outside the post office! You can ask anyone who was there. And there's CCTV too. You can check that. You can check!”

She wasn't hysterical; she was dogged. But she couldn't stop the officers from hauling Callum to his feet, frisking him against the wall, and snapping handcuffs into place around his wrists. She finally got through to one of the junior officers who was taking notes and looking for witnesses.

“CCTV in the corner shop. Right, we'll check that. There's a camera at the school gate too.” The brisk young woman swiveled on her heel and pointed with her pen. “Anyone from the school here now? Teachers, I mean.”

“The deputy head there—the bald guy,” Melissa gasped gratefully. “Mr. Gower.”

“Right-o. I'll speak to him.” The officer scribbled his name down. “And your name, miss?”

“Melissa Roper.”

“Are you one of the victim's friends?” the policewoman asked kindly.

“No!” Melissa's answer was forceful. “No, I wasn't. He was a bully. But …” Callum saw her staring woefully at the police-woman with her big, soulful eyes opened wide. “But what happened to Ed shouldn't happen to anyone. And there isn't a girl or a boy in the school who'd do
that
.”

A couple of other kids were gathering around Melissa now. Some of them nodded in agreement with her, but then Ed's mate George shouted, “Don't pay any attention to Melissa, miss, she's Callum's
girlfriend
!”

“I am not!” Melissa responded angrily.

The officer gave Melissa a quick, sharp look, but continued scribbling on her notepad. “Telephone number?” she asked.

Callum didn't hear any more of the conversation. He was being frogmarched to the police van by four black-suited officers in protective vests while another two wrestled the heavy doors open. He was still too numb to struggle or even protest.

Just as they got the doors to the van open, Melissa appeared at his side again. She'd forced her way out through the crowd and past the barrier of police surrounding the emergency vehicles.

“Callum!” she cried. “They're not going to take my word against Baz's, but they'll check the cameras.”

One of the policemen grabbed Melissa by the shoulders and pulled her back. Callum finally came to his senses.

“Tell Gran!” he called out to her.

“What?”

“Go and find my gran. Tell her what happened—tell her where they're taking me!”

Never in his life had Callum been so anxious to have Gran, with her practicality and determination, battling on his side.

“Anything else? Can I do anything else?” Melissa cried out desperately.

“Just tell Gran!”

The strong arms that held him began to lift him into the van. Inside its dark interior, Callum was shoved down on the single hard bench, a policeman on either side of him. Someone pulled a barred gate across the opening with a clang.

Callum heard Melissa's anxious voice calling out one more desperate message to him:

“I'll go and get her now!”

Then the van doors slammed shut.

The police cell was clinically clean and bare. Callum sat on the narrow mattress with his head in his hands, still dazed, and growing increasingly frightened.

He had not been charged with anything. The term they had used when they locked him up was “detention before charge.” The custody sergeant had been very clear as he explained it. While they decided if there was sufficient evidence to charge him, Callum would be held in custody. If a charge was made, it would be for murder—for the grisly, cold-blooded murder of Ed Bolton.

Callum could scarcely believe that the events of the past few hours had actually happened. His arrest had gone strictly by the book. He had been taken into Marlock police station, photographed, fingerprinted, Breathalyzed, and made to give a urine sample too. Baz's description of Callum's behavior had made him sound so thoroughly insane that there was suspicion he might be high on some kind of mind-altering drug. They had taken his clothes for forensic testing, leaving him a pair of white overalls that were at least three sizes too big for him. And he was bombarded with questions—did he have any existing medical conditions? Did he want to speak to a lawyer? Callum couldn't imagine that the ability to see ghosts counted as an existing medical condition, and he didn't think it would be a good idea to mention it. He had been allowed one phone call and had tried to ring Gran. She hadn't answered.

So Callum waited. He sat with his head sunk in his hands. It was all unbelievable. He couldn't think straight. Couldn't get the events of the day ordered in his mind. His brain dragged him relentlessly back to the scene of Ed's murder—to that first terrible moment of discovery, when he had seen his eyeless body …

A memory of something Jacob had said popped into Callum's unwilling head.

Surely you have seen it—boys and girls like you, killed.

Chime children, with their eyes torn out.

Could Ed have been a chime child? Now that he thought about it, there was no reason there shouldn't be other chime children in Marlock—Callum wasn't necessarily the
only
child in the town born between midnight on Friday and cockcrow on Saturday on the night of a full moon. The thought had never occurred to him. No one else could see ghosts, could they? Or maybe, like Callum, they just didn't admit it. Jacob had said that Callum was like other chime children, but stronger. Maybe someone like Ed only saw ghosts now and then, and was able to explain it away to himself. Or didn't care. Or hadn't developed the ability before …

Before he was killed. Killed horribly, just because of when he was born.

It was Friday now, but only early evening—not yet midnight. Callum wondered feverishly if something would change within him during the chime hours. Would his powers be sharpened, his ability to see ghosts heightened? He tried to remember if there was any pattern to his visions, but he couldn't concentrate on anything further back than the beginning of the week.

And what good would it do if his powers
did
increase after midnight? Another chime child had been killed and Callum hadn't been able to do anything to stop it. Instead, he was being blamed for it. Why
had
Baz insisted Callum was the murderer?

Then Callum's dazed mind came sharply into focus.

What an idiot!

It was the creature with his face.

That was what was killing the chime children. Not the sinister Jacob, or his hellhound. The monster had come for Callum in the night, but it had fled when it heard Doom's howling. Thwarted at the cottage, it had come to find him at school. Ed's friend Craig had mistaken the creature for Callum in the cafeteria. After school, Ed must have come looking for him, and got more than he bargained for.

BEWARE THE DARK REFLECTION

Jacob had said it was a warning, but Callum hadn't believed him. He'd been so busy running from the monster that it hadn't occurred to him it might harm someone else. And now, how could he possibly escape a murder charge if the killer was wearing his own face?

Footsteps broke the silence, echoing down the bare corridor outside the cells. Then voices—one deep and authoritative, the other shrill and demanding. Callum raised his head suddenly in wild relief.

Gran.

The harsh echoes made it difficult to make out what she was saying, but she was talking to the custody sergeant. It sounded like he was getting a right earful.

With a clank, the cell door opened, and there she was.

“Callum!”

Then she was running to him, and crushing him to her tightly in one of her rare hugs. It had never felt so good.

“You're free, Callum,” she said firmly. “No more worries.”

Callum jerked back.

“What?”

“That girlfriend of yours is a right bright spark,” the custody sergeant said approvingly. “She was absolutely spot-on about the CCTV. You're a very lucky lad. Every step you took since you left school this afternoon is on camera, and you were clearly nowhere near the scene of the crime.”

Callum let out a huge sigh of relief to hear the custody sergeant sounding so convinced and sympathetic.

“It's true that the allegations against you were very serious,” the custody sergeant continued, “but quite apart from the only eyewitness being unreliably hysterical, even without the camera footage there's not a shred of evidence against you. This was a violent crime. It would have left your hands and clothes covered in—”

The custody sergeant coughed, clearing his throat at the unpleasant thought of what Callum would have been covered in had he really ripped Ed's eyes out of his skull and eaten them.

“Well, as I said, there's no evidence,” he finished. “I don't know what did happen, but you clearly had nothing to do with it.”

“What do I do now?” Callum asked faintly.

“Go home with your gran, have your tea, and have a lie-in tomorrow,” the custody sergeant said kindly. “You can leave this case to Greater Manchester's Finest now. It's nothing to do with you anymore—though of course you may be called on as a witness.”

“Come on, Callum,” Gran said.

They let him change back into his uniform and gave him back his anorak and rucksack. Then Gran and Callum walked home in silence. It had been dark for some time, and Callum was glad to have Gran's no-nonsense company on the road through Marlock Wood. None of the usual ghosts were hovering there, and the light over the front door of Gran's cottage shone cheeringly through the leafless trees. Callum stood shivering on the path while Gran let them in. They both sat down in their usual armchairs in front of the fire, without even taking off their coats.

“Well, good grief!” Gran exclaimed finally. “All right, Callum. I've heard out the Marlock police and I've heard out your friend Melissa Roper. Let's hear
your
side of this awful story.”

“Oh, Gran—” Callum started. He broke off and tried again. “Was the actual murder caught on CCTV too?”

“No. The camera only gets the car park. It caught you and Melissa running past after you heard the screaming.”

Callum didn't know whether he was relieved or disappointed. He didn't really think the supernatural creature that was after him was any more likely to be caught on film than a ghost was. Yet Baz had seen it. So had Craig, in the dinner hall. Sure, they'd seen the monster when it was in Callum's form, but they'd seen
something
. It was a being that could reveal itself to anyone, not just chime children. Not like a ghost …

Gran leaned forward in her chair. “So what happened?”

Something in Callum snapped. He just couldn't keep up the pretense, the secrecy of his fourteen years, any longer. He didn't think he should keep it secret now. The world of ghosts and monsters was affecting
his
world—not just him, not just chime children, but everyone. Every boy and girl at Callum's school who had witnessed Ed's defiled body lying on the pavement in a pool of blood. Callum couldn't bear the burden of being the only one who knew what had really happened.

“Gran, I think I know who did it. I mean,
what
did it. It wasn't human.”

Gran sat very quietly. She didn't protest. She seemed to be listening, so Callum went on.

“Last night there was … there was a
thing
in the back garden. Like a person, but without a face. I don't know what it was. It came down the garden path and stood at the glass doors and looked at me. And then …” Callum paused. Unbelievably, Gran was still listening. Her expression was serious but impossible to read. She didn't interrupt. “Then it
grew
a face. And the face was mine. The thing looked just like me.”

“Oh, Callum,” said Gran softly. Her voice was full of dismay, but there was no surprise in it, and her expression was one of understanding.

“I don't know what the thing was, Gran, but it … it wasn't a ghost—” Callum broke off again.

“A ghost?” Gran prompted quietly.

“I can see ghosts too,” Callum admitted. “I've always been able to, Gran. They're real. And they're everywhere.”

“Can you see them here?” Gran asked seriously. “Can you see them in this house?”

“No, I can't,” Callum replied. “But then you already know that, don't you?”

Gran sighed. “Yes, Callum,” she said softly.

“But you never said anything!”

“People don't like to talk about ghosts, do they?” she answered, her voice edged with something like sadness. “But if you don't see them here, then what was the thing in the garden?”

“That's what scares me. I don't know what it was. It was something
else
. A monster. It borrowed my face, and now it's out there pretending to be me, killing people.”

Gran sighed again but said nothing.

“You believe me!” Callum gasped.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why, Gran? You're not superstitious! You don't even go to church! So why do you believe me?”

“Callum,” Gran said, her voice still quiet and even. “We need to talk. There's a lot you don't know that I suppose I have to tell you. Things about me, and about yourself. And—”

She paused, then added reluctantly, “And about your father.”