Hunted (4 page)

“What the devil is going on here?”

It was Mr. Gower, the deputy headmaster, his shining bald head red with outrage.

Melissa gave a wail as she realized she was covered with ketchup. She looked up to see where the drips were coming from and pointed. “Someone's pouring ketchup down the stairs!”

“It's Ed Bolton,” Callum burst out before the bully had a chance to flee the scene. No one could see him from down here, but Callum was so certain it was Ed that he didn't even think about the consequences of naming names.

“Bolton!” roared the deputy head. “Get down here!”

Ed came skulking down the stairs. He gave Melissa a smirking, disdainful glance as he carefully skirted the mess at the bottom of the steps, and shot Callum a meaningful look of warning. Finally, he stood scowling before Mr. Gower.

“This isn't a circus,” Mr. Gower snapped over his shoulder at the gathering bunch of onlookers. “Get to your class. Get to lunch. Get out of here. Not you, Scott, you seem to know it all. What happened here?”

Callum swallowed. Anything he said now would make a mortal enemy of Ed.

“I think it was an accident …,” Callum began. Then, disgusted at his own cowardice, he straightened his shoulders. Ed was less frightening than the thing in the woods; Ed was something Callum knew how to fight, if he had to.

“No, I'm sorry, it wasn't,” Callum said boldly. “Melissa was talking about vampires this morning, and Ed thought he'd tease her by dripping ketchup on her head. But I saw—”

Callum pulled himself up short. He couldn't tell Mr. Gower what he'd seen; he didn't even properly understand how he had seen it. And if he said anything about his vision of Melissa lying dead, they'd all think he was deranged.

“I saw that there was sauce on the stairs and Melissa was about to slip,” he continued. “So I pulled her away from it, but we lost our balance and fell over.”

Mr. Gower nodded. He glared at Ed.

“I've just about had it up to my eyeballs with your pranks, Bolton. Detention slips again, is it? But first, you've got a mess to clean up. Come to the caretaker's office and help yourself to a mop.” He pointed down the hall. “Get on with it, Bolton.”

Ed threw Callum a look of pure hatred and marched off with the deputy head, leaving Callum and Melissa alone in the hall.

“Are you all right?” Callum asked awkwardly.

Melissa wiped her face with her spangled scarf.

“I'm okay. Thanks. Thanks for helping.”

“Do you need to get cleaned up?”

Melissa shook her head. “This scarf only cost ninety pence at Shaman's—I'll just bin it. I'm going to lunch. If I go up to the girls' toilets I'll have to pass Ed cleaning the floor on my way back down.”

Callum could see why Melissa might not want to risk that.

“All right.”

Callum followed Melissa into the cafeteria and they picked up their lunch trays without speaking. He was still shocked by what had happened. He had seen the future. He had
changed
the future.

There were two empty seats at the end of a table, so they sat down together.

“Cheer up,” Melissa said. “At least you didn't get sauced.”

Callum couldn't help smiling.

“Ed's a bully,” he said. “Don't take it personally. He's always looking for an excuse to make people look stupid.”

“Oh, I know. He's picked on me before. But not … not physically, you know?”

Callum realized suddenly that having their clothes ruined and being made to look stupid in front of half the school would have reduced a lot of other girls to tears. But Melissa just seemed resigned to it.

“Yeah, he picks on me too,” Callum told her sympathetically, poking at his mushy peas with his fork. “Anyone who's not popular.”

“You!”
said Melissa. “What do you mean? Everybody likes you.”

Callum glanced up at her in surprise.

“Well, they do,” she said. “You're good at sports. You don't talk much, but people
like
you. You're not a swot, you don't try to get in with the teachers, but you don't mess about either. Like today—you knew Ed was responsible and you weren't afraid to say so.”

Callum was astonished. Of course, you had to filter this news through Channel Melissa, but it had never occurred to him that popular kids like Hugh and Andrew spoke to him in the hall and helped him keep his eyes open in class because they liked him.

Melissa frowned a little, stabbing at her own plate. “I hope he doesn't try and get back at you. How did you know it was him, anyway?”

“What d'you mean?”

“When you told Gower it was Ed dripping the ketchup, how did you know it was him?”

Callum bit his tongue.

“I just saw him, that's all.”

Melissa put down her fork.

“C'mon, you were standing in front of me, Callum. I was coming down the stairs, I could see the rail at the top, but I didn't notice Ed. You were standing at the
bottom
of the stairs, under the landing. You couldn't have seen him at all. How did you really know?”

“Must have been a lucky guess,” Callum countered evasively. He certainly wasn't going to tell her about his vision. “You know Ed. If someone's dripping ketchup down the stairs, it's probably him.”

Melissa's brow furrowed, as if she was puzzling out something that didn't make sense.

“Yes, but when you pulled me out of the way, it was as though you knew something
terrible
was going to happen to me. Not like I was just going to get ketchup in my hair.”

“Look, anyone could see you might have slipped,” said Callum defensively. “I didn't
know
anything. How could I?” He stirred the green paste on his plate for emphasis.

“Yes, but—”

“Look, I've got to go,” said Callum abruptly, standing and picking up his tray. He'd been here before—people noticing the strange things he could do. It always meant trouble. “I'll see you later, okay.”

Callum didn't wait for a reply, but turned and headed out of the cafeteria. It wasn't just that Melissa's questions were getting a little too pointed. The truth was, even he didn't know the answers. It was more than luck; more even than his own special kind of Luck.

How
had
he known?

Ed was in three of his afternoon classes, so Callum spent the rest of the day slinking in and out of lessons at the last possible second, desperately trying to avoid an encounter. He had rugby practice after school, but luckily it lasted longer than Ed's detention, so the bully was long gone before he had finished. Still, he didn't want to chance it.

“Aren't you changing out of your kit?” asked Owen, the team captain, as Callum picked up his rucksack. “You look like you've been mud wrestling.”

“I want to get home before dark,” Callum said.

“Can't say I blame you. Who'd want to walk through Marlock Wood at night!”

Though it wasn't exactly dark yet, the day was so overcast that twilight seemed to fall an hour earlier than usual. Marlock High Street was jammed with slow-moving traffic as commuters made their way home, and the shops were beginning to shut. The town's pavements were thick with the spirits of the dead.

Callum didn't think he'd ever seen so many ghosts in one place. Forgotten villagers from Marlock's thousand years of history lurked in doorways like gossiping smokers. Although he'd seen a few of them before, there seemed to be dozens of new ones—new to Callum, at least. As he waited to cross the road, the ghost of a wartime pilot, still in his smart blue uniform, stepped out in front of him. The spectral figure climbed up into an invisible bus and disappeared. A dead woman lay facedown in the middle of the pavement, her long skirts flapping in a chill breeze only Callum seemed to feel. Another slumped against a post box, staring blankly at the sky and beckoning to someone invisible. It was like walking through a war zone that only he could see—normal passersby hurried among the ghosts, oblivious to their presence.

Callum hunched his shoulders against the cold. Weren't ghosts supposed to haunt the places where they died? How could so many people have died on Marlock High Street? Or were they coming from somewhere else?

And how come,
thought Callum bitterly as he reached the estate at the edge of town and turned on to the road that led down to Marlock Wood,
how come with all these ghosts, I don't just once see my own mum?

“Hey, it's Scott! Look, it's Callum Scott! Been rolling in mud again, Scott?”

Ed and his gang were crouched under the wooden fort in the toddlers' play park at the edge of the estate, trying to keep their cigarettes out of the wind. Callum cursed himself. He'd been so distracted by the hordes of ghosts in town he'd forgotten that Ed lived around here.

He'd been lying in wait for him.

In a few seconds, the gang had Callum surrounded: Baz, Harry, George, Craig, and Ed.

“Look at him, he must have been playing in a pigsty!”

That was Baz, Ed's best mate, always eager to please the boss.

“Nah, he just lives in one,” sneered Ed. “Don't you, gyppo? You and your crazy gran.”

Callum gritted his teeth at the usual insult. “Better than playing in a baby's sandpit,” he fired back.

He picked the biggest gap between Ed's buddies and set off at a fast walk. Maybe they wouldn't follow him into the woods. It was nearly dark now, and the ruined church didn't need a ghostly congregation to make it eerie.

But they did follow him. They kept up with him, walking as a group on his shoulder. Safety in numbers.

“You calling us babies, Scott?” Ed's voice dripped with sarcasm. “So why are you running away from a bunch of babies?”

Callum didn't reply.

“Hey! I asked you a question.”

“I didn't call you anything,” Callum said evasively.

“Yeah, but you shouted my name fast enough when you thought you could get Gower after me, didn't you?”

“Leave me alone,” Callum said, struggling to keep his voice level. They were well into the woods now, and the light was almost gone.

Someone laughed. “He's running to tell his gran. Watch out, Ed—she'll turn you into a frog!”

“Frightened, Scott?” Ed gave him a shove that sent Callum stumbling forwards. “You should be.”

Callum clenched his fists, ground his teeth together, and kept walking.

“Oi, Scott, you've got my hands dirty now.”

Callum spun around. “Keep them to yourself, then!”

“Here, you can have your muck back,” said Ed, flicking his muddy hand towards Callum's face.

Callum reacted instinctively. He'd only really intended to deflect Ed's blow, but instead his fist connected with the bully's leering face with a dull, wet crunch. An unexpected fountain of blood burst from Ed's nose, almost black in the twilight. Ed staggered backwards into his mates. It took the gang a moment to reorganize. It took Callum a briefer moment to realize what he'd done.

God, how stupid!

He ran.

Callum could hear the noise of ten trainered feet pelting down the road only a few seconds behind him. There was no way he could outrun them. Through the trees, he saw the squat black ruin of the old church tower, and instinctively swerved up the lane towards it. Maybe there would be somewhere to hide.

Nettles and brambles whipping at his shins, Callum dodged through the rusted iron gate. The churchyard was overgrown and filled with shadows. Callum was sure he'd be able to lose his pursuers among the worn tombstones.

He raced along the north side of the church, stumbling over graves. Stone angels stared down at him with blank eyes, their hands open in useless gestures of comfort. Where were the sword-wielding
guardian
angels when you needed them?

And where were the ghosts?

The sudden thought made Callum feel sick. Specters had been crowding him off the pavement on Marlock High Street. Where the hell were they
now
? They were always here in the churchyard—except for today … and last night.

Callum veered round the northeast corner of the church and stopped dead. Standing no more than ten meters away, beneath the black and tossing branches of an ancient yew tree, was a boy. For an instant, Callum thought that one of Ed's gang had somehow cut him off. Then he looked closer, and his blood froze.

The boy seemed to be about Callum's age, but his melancholy eyes made him look older. He stood straight and alert. His clothes were old-fashioned—his long, high-necked jacket was so dark it seemed to blend into the falling night, while his deathly white face glowed with its own light. Mute at his side stood a dog the size of a lion, black as the inside of a well. One of the boy's pale hands was buried in the shadow-fur of the beast's neck.

With chilling certainty, Callum knew that the pale figure wasn't a living human. And the strange familiarity between the boy and the dog made Callum sure that the creature wasn't mortal either. Its eyes glowed red, floating in the darkness of its head. Callum recognized their fiery gleam, and the waves of icy air that drifted from the beast towards him, tugging at his ankles. This monster was, without a doubt, the thing that had hunted him through the woods last night.