James Munkers (5 page)

‘Yeah, you definitely want to steer clear of her. But at least she isn't dangerous.'

‘Hang on,' I say, holding my hands up. ‘This village has
dangerous
crazy in it?'

‘Well, only the Rambler,' Jem says. ‘But don't worry, he doesn't exist.'

I frown. ‘Who's the Rambler?'

‘Oh, this evil guy someone made up once to frighten children into coming home before dark.' Jem puts his hands behind his head. His reflection in the window behind him does the same. ‘He's supposed to stalk the streets of Ouse after sundown, preying on stragglers and stealing little kiddies. If he catches you he carves you up and feeds your flesh to his bloodthirsty hounds.'

Beyond Jeremy's reflection, out in the garden, a dark figure appears.

I swallow.

‘But he doesn't exist?' I check.

‘Can't do. There have been stories about him for generations. He's a myth.'

The figure walks to the middle of the lawn, then stops and turns to the house.

‘And this mythic Rambler guy that definitely doesn't exist – what's he supposed to look like?'

Jem shrugs. ‘Long leather coat, big boots, scraggly hair, evil grin. That kind of thing.'

Light from the house glints off the figure's boots, then his teeth as he grins evilly through a veil of scraggly hair. He reaches into his long leather coat.

‘Every now and then some idiot thinks he sees him,' Jem continues, throwing the empty jelly baby bag at the bin, ‘and the myth just keeps going.'

A knife flashes bright in the darkness.

‘Aaah… Some idiot thinks he sees –
him
?' I say, pointing.

Jeremy turns. Freezes. Then he stands up, blocking my view of the garden. ‘You're joking,' he whispers.

Suddenly he dives for the cover of my desk. I have half a second to see why before the dark figure, a yard now from my window and running at full speed, leaps and crashes straight through the glass.

I stumble away, knocking over my stool, hands raised against the flying shards. When my back hits the far corner of the room I peer through my shaking fingers to assess the situation.

The Rambler, large as life and twice as muscle-bound, is crouching in the middle of the wreckage of my room. Pieces of glass shower down from his shoulders and cling to his hair as he stands up and walks straight towards me. His boots crunch down on the debris with each step. He raises his knife.

‘Haaarrr!' he roars as he towers over me.

‘Aaaaaahhh! I scream as I slide down the wall.

‘Yaaarrr!' Jeremy yells as he swings the stool straight at the Rambler's head. It whacks the Rambler over the ear and he stumbles sideways. He takes in Jeremy and his makeshift weapon, rolls his eyes and charges off through the broken window and back out into the garden.

‘Quick,' Jem says. He hauls me to my feet and runs to the window himself. Quick what? What are we doing? Building a barricade?

‘What?'

‘He's getting away,' he yells as he heads outside, still holding the stool. ‘Come on! Bring your phone.'

‘Jem, wait,' I call, but it's no good. He's pelting off into the darkness to chase a murderous maniac who feeds your flesh to his bloodthirsty hounds. I moan quietly as I grab my phone and inch my way through the broken glass in my socks. Ow! Ouch! Where have my shoes gone?

By the time I get outside, still in my socks, there's no sign of either Jem or the Rambler. I think they were headed for the woods at the back so I totter in that direction, the wet grass soaking my feet. It's so dark, though. The light from the windows cuts out a few steps away from the house. I wake my mobile up and shuffle forward in its dim light, tripping over clumps of grass as I go.

I finally reach the end of the garden and find the track they probably took through the woods, but I can't see anything, even when I hold my phone as high as I can. There's no trace of Jem. The Rambler's probably caught him by now. Poor old Jem's probably dog food.

Well, that's just typical. A friend for less than a day, and the universe chops him up into Chum.

I reckon this is the moment to call the police, before anything else happens. I lower my hand and turn the phone towards me, and the display light illuminates a face right next to mine.

‘Gaagh!' I yell and almost drop the phone. The display light fades as I clutch the phone to my chest, but I don't need it now. That glowing blue cat has appeared again. It casts a ring of light all around us.

‘You shouldn't be out in the garden all by yourself at night,' Pippa Green says calmly. ‘Anyone could be out here.'

And she swishes off in her long skirt across the lawn as if she were the hostess at a garden party. The glowing blue cat trots after her. What the hell is her deal?

‘Nice cat,' I call after her.

She turns her head just before she disappears around the corner of the house.

‘What cat?' she says.

‘I lost him,' a voice gasps behind me. I swing around, my mobile raised once more, and Jem appears out of the darkness of the woods.

‘Good,' I say vehemently, thumping him on the arm. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing, running after him like that?'

‘Are you kidding? Do you realise who that was?'

‘Yes. Hence my desire
not
to chase him alone through dark, spooky trees.'

‘Well, I wouldn't have been alone if you'd come with me,' he points out, walking back towards the house and swinging the stool about. ‘You were
supposed
to be there to take a photo of me whacking him again.'

That's why he wanted me to bring my phone? He's insane.

‘Jeremy, you're insane.'

‘I thought that was your job description.'

I jog to catch up with him. ‘Well, it appears to be contagious. We must have caught it off Pippa Green.'

He frowns. ‘Pippa Green? What's she got to do with this?'

‘She just wandered through the garden being completely random,' I say. ‘She said anyone could be out here.'

‘Well I believe that. We just got our lives threatened by a make-believe killer. For all we know, we're about to be attacked by multi-coloured flamingos.' He grins through the darkness. ‘If we are, make sure you get a photo this time.'

Like I said – insane.

‘I brought the phone so I could call the police,' I say, ‘not so I could take action shots of you.'

He looks shocked by this idea. ‘You didn't, did you? Call the police?'

‘No, but shouldn't we? We were just attacked in my own home.'

‘Yeah, but the local plod here is old Plonker Wilson. He's not equipped to deal with the Rambler.'

‘Neither are we.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' Jem says, hefting the stool. ‘I think we came out okay. Seriously though, Jim, we can't go around saying the Rambler attacked us. That's like writing your own ticket to the loony bin.'

‘Then what did you want a photo of him for?'

‘Because it'd be cool.'

‘Well, we're going to have to say something,' I say as we walk across the patio towards my room. ‘How else are we going to explain how my window got…'

My voice peters out as we both stare up at the window in question.

‘…broken,' I finish. Jem steps forwards and runs his hands over the smooth pane of glass that, a few minutes ago, he was climbing through the wreckage of. It's whole and clear, not a crack in it.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘That's interesting,' he says and slides the door open. He checks the glass on the other side, then peers about on the floor. ‘Not a speck,' he reports. I walk in after him. He's right. It's as if the glass had never been broken.

‘But we saw it happen,' I say lamely. ‘The room was covered in glass. The whole wall was completely smashed up.'

‘Yeah,' Jem agrees. ‘And the sound – it was deafening. Surely your family heard it.'

Suddenly I go cold. My family. Where are they? There's been smashing and screaming and running around outside, and not one of them to be seen. The look on Jem's face tells me he's just had the same thought. As one, we run for the door, bolt down the passageway, and spill out into the lounge room in a tangle of limbs.

Michael looks up from his book. ‘Hello there. You two have been very quiet. Studying hard?'

Jem and I gape at him, speechless.

‘A little too hard, by the looks of things,' Mum says, getting up from the table. ‘How about a hot chocolate?'

Can you die of sleep deprivation?

I pull myself out of the car and stare in despair at the school buildings. Do they honestly expect me to spend the entire day dragging myself from class to class, thinking and talking and writing? I can barely stand up, I'm so tired. Every little sound last night had me sitting bolt upright in bed, looking for attackers.

BANG!

I yelp and whip around, arms raised in defence. Claire looks from me to the car door she just slammed and back again.

‘You know how you told me to kill you if you do anything crazy?' she says. ‘Does this count?'

I lower my arms and glare at her. ‘I'm tired, is all. I'm not crazy.'

And I'm starting to believe that, too. It's not me. It's something else that's going on – something weird and abnormal, and for some reason I just keep getting involved.

And I'm getting sick of it.

‘You'd get a nice, long rest in a mental asylum,' Claire says as we walk across the car park. ‘I bet they'd let you pick the colour of your straitjacket and everything.'

My bleary vision suddenly focusses on someone leaning against a tree on the other side of the yard. Someone I think I'd better have a word with.

‘We could get you a twin room to share with Pippa Green.'

‘Mm-hmm. Sounds good, Claire. Half a tick.'

I leave Claire gawking at me and stomp over to the girl under the tree. I'll give her what for, being weird around me. Being stalker-like around my house. She'd better stay the hell away from me.

‘Now, look here, you,' I snap.

Pippa Green looks around and gives me a languid stare. Then she sighs, raises her right hand and whips it round.

Ow! My cheek. God, that stings.

‘Stay the hell away from me!' she screams in my ear, and flounces off.

What the… I turn away, my hand pressed to my face, and find half the school smirking at me. Claire points at me and runs her finger across her throat.

Jem hasn't turned up yet.

It's only two minutes until our English class starts, and he's still not here. Could be he slept in. Might be he had a podiatry appointment. Who knows?

Not that I'm worrying, mind. It's not that I think he bumped into the Rambler again last night on the way home and now he's dog meat. It's more that I saved him a seat next to me, and I'd hate for all that effort to go to waste. It's not that I'm panicking at all. No way.

Where is he?

‘Good morning,' the English teacher calls as she charges up the aisle to her desk at the front. Oh God. The class has started now, and he's still not here.

‘I believe we have a new face among us today.'

I crane my neck around and stare desperately at the door. I wonder if I should alert the authorities.

‘Young man.'

Because the longer it takes them to get to a crime scene, the more unreliable the evidence is. It could be days before they find his hideously mutilated…

‘Mr Munkers.'

I turn back to the front of the class. ‘Huh?'

She tuts. ‘Welcome. I am Miss Lassen, this is your English class, and I'd appreciate not only your full attention, but also for you to refrain from using words that should not be found in the English dictionary, such as “huh”.'

Sheesh.

‘Now, if we could continue on with our discussion of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
that we started last week…'

She waffles on about the juxtaposition of the natural and the supernatural, and I spend an agonising five minutes trying to avoid contributing to the class, and casting furtive glances towards the door. Just when Miss Lassen thinks she has me cornered with a question about the futility of opposing the magical forces within the text, Jem comes in and sidles sheepishly into the seat next to me.

I knew he was alright.

Miss Lassen tuts again. ‘So glad you could join us, Mr Allen,' she snips.

‘Yeah. Sorry, there was a thing.'

‘Indeed? Well, there's a thing called detention, at lunchtime today.'

‘Yup,' Jem acknowledges philosophically. Miss Lassen complains about the continual raping of the English language by her students for a bit, then turns back to me. I was hoping she might have forgotten.

‘The futility of opposing the magical forces?' I stall.

‘Yes. Your opinion, please.'

My opinion on magical forces, lady, is that they can bog off.

‘Well, it doesn't seem very fair of the magical forces to be interfering in the first place. I'm sure that if they just went away, then the humans would be able to sort everything out in a normal, mature kind of way and do a lot less screeching and running around.'

‘You, sir,' says Miss Lassen, ‘are neither romantic nor adventurous.'

I don't see a problem with that.

The lesson continues on for about a year, and we get about five years' worth of homework. Finally the bell sounds for break. Jem taps me on the arm, gestures with his head towards the door, and leads me back outside to the wall of yesterday.

‘You weren't fed to the hounds, then?' I ask.

‘Scare you, did I?' He grins and hoists himself up to sit on the wall. I scramble up less gracefully. ‘Nah, no Rambler action, but Pippa Green ambushed me on the way to school this morning and threw some crazy at me.'

I snort. ‘You're lucky. She threw a fist at me.'

His eyes widen. ‘She punched you?'

‘Well, no. She just slapped me. It's not funny, Jeremy.' The stupid idiot is laughing so hard he's almost falling off the wall. ‘It jolly well hurt.'

‘Oh, I wish I'd seen that,' he says, wiping his eyes. ‘I had to be late today, didn't I? What did you do to her?'

‘Nothing. I was just going to tell her to stay the hell away from me, but she hit me before I could and told
me
to stay away from
her
.'

He stops laughing. ‘Well, that kind of fits with what she said to me this morning.'

‘What did she say this morning?'

‘She said she couldn't hang out with us.'

Hang out with us? Good God, the very thought of it. ‘Who the hell asked her to?'

Jem shrugs. ‘Maybe you gave her the impression that you really liked her last night and she wanted to let you down gently. You know, by way of a message through a trusted friend.' He's grinning again.

‘If that's what she was trying to do, there was nothing gentle about it. The further away she is, the better.'

‘I think you're perfect for each other,' he teases.

‘Piss off.'

‘She's interesting.'

‘She's mental.'

‘She has nice eyes.'

‘They probably have lasers behind them.'

He laughs and shakes his head. ‘It was the other thing she said that was really bonkers.'

‘God, there's more?'

‘Yeah.' He frowns, trying to remember. ‘She said she couldn't be seen hanging out with us –'

‘Good.'

‘– because that would make them realise you're the One.'

Wait… what? ‘Make who realise? The one what?'

‘Dunno. Didn't ask.' He bites into a pear.

I look at him incredulously. ‘You didn't ask? Someone gives you a cryptic message about me and you don't think to inquire further?'

‘It was just Pippa Green talking crazy – I didn't want to encourage it. Besides, it wasn't a cryptic message about
me
.' He licks pear juice off his hand. ‘Except for the last bit.'

‘What bit?'

‘The bit where I have to protect you.'

Protect me? ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Nothing, I told you. Don't worry so much.'

‘But why do I need protecting?'

‘Apart from the fact that imaginary people are after you?'

‘Yeah, apart from that.'

‘It'th becauth you're tho
thpecial
,' he explains in a slow voice.

‘No, Jewemy,
you're
thpecial,' I drawl back, patting him on the side of the head and laughing.

Then I hear a grunt and look past Jeremy's special head to see Martin Hacker standing a few paces away, glaring at me. He points at me and draws his finger across his throat.

That's the second person today.

We narrowly survive a science class, although I still feel shaky at the end of it by the presence of cows' eyeballs. Most of the boys really get into the gore and filth. I just try to keep from vomiting.

When we finally emerge into the sweet, sweet fresh air Jem says he needs to go do his detention. I watch him run off and feel sorrier for me than for him. Without Jeremy I don't know where to go or what to do. I go and get my bag from my locker, then make my way through the groups of friends towards the wall we sit on, only to find it's been overrun by primary school kids. I consider throwing them off but I'm outnumbered.

Deciding I'm not hungry anyway, and having no one to muck around with, I find that lunchtime loses all purpose. In desperation I decide to go to the library and start on my homework. Maybe I should have stabbed someone with a compass point in English and got a detention too.

I take a few wrong turns, but finally find the corridor I'm after. I push open the library door and am immediately bailed up by a severe-looking woman in an old cardigan.

‘No bags in the library,' she barks, and stands there waiting for me to mend my wicked ways.

‘But it's got all my homework in it,' I say.

‘No bags in the library,' she repeats. She must only be programmed with one response. I sigh, turn around and walk out again. I figure if I can find my way back to my locker I can dump my bag, take out my homework, find my way back to the library, do two minutes of work, go back to my locker, put my homework away, get my books for the next class and bribe someone with my uneaten lunch to show me where it is. Perfect.

Now, which way do I have to turn?

To get back outside I try to follow the way I came, but I somehow get myself turned around and can't find the door I want. Eventually I just walk through the next fire door I find.

Outside is a small courtyard, deserted by all except Martin Hacker and his friends. They're sitting around on old benches, smoking and throwing things at the opposite wall. As the fire door clangs shut they turn and stare at me.

I think I'll find another way around.

I quickly turn and grab the handle of the door, but it won't budge. I give it a desperate shake, but it doesn't open.

Turning slowly back around, I find myself surrounded by four guys much bigger than I am. Martin walks up, takes a last drag on his cigarette and flicks it in my direction. ‘That door only opens from the inside,' he says.

Oh.

The first blow lands in my stomach, which makes me double up wheezing, giving him the perfect opportunity to whip his elbow up into my nose. My head snaps back and hits the fire door behind me. I slide down helplessly until I'm sitting on the ground, and try to curl up into the smallest size possible.

I'm dimly aware of Martin's friends cheering him on and calling out helpful suggestions, but a couple of kicks to the shin and another to the stomach and he's done. He leans down, grabs my hair and pulls my face up to his. I can smell the nicotine on his breath.

‘Did you think I didn't see what you were doing this morning?' he snarls. This morning? What did I do this morning? I thought this was about the take-away shop. ‘I ever catch you doing that again,' he says, pointing his finger at me, ‘and you're mincemeat.'

He drops me back onto the gravel and walks off, his mates following.

I lie there with my eyes closed, breathing through my bloody nose, until I can't hear them anymore. Then I pull myself into a sitting position, only to find I've been surrounded by little blue squirrels. They're sitting on their haunches, looking at me expectantly.

‘What the hell do you want?' I say, throwing some gravel at them. They scatter.

I stay there until well after the bell has gone, listening to all the kids on the other side of the door making their way noisily to the next class. Only when it's quiet again do I pull myself upright and totter off to find an empty lavatory to assess the damage.

It's very well done, I decide, when I'm peering at myself in a mirror. No visible bruises, no obvious bumps. My nose isn't broken; the bleeding could be normal. A sore stomach can't be proven. The only things that show at all are a few red marks on my shins, and I'm wearing long trousers. I don't look like an assault victim. I just look like a berk with a bit of toilet roll stuck up his nose.

Martin must have done this before.

I suddenly hear adult voices just outside, and don't have time to clear away the bloody tissues in the sink or hide in a cubicle before the headmaster and a caretaker walk in.

‘It keeps getting blocked. I think one of the students is –'

Mr Grayson stops talking as he sees me and holds up his hand, keeping the caretaker from coming in any further. ‘Phil, could you just give me a minute?' he says and shepherds the man back out into the hall again. Once the door is closed he comes up and gives me a worried look. ‘Are you alright there, James?'

‘Yes, sir.' I scoop up the mess in the sink and throw it into the bin without looking at him.

‘It is James, isn't it?' he asks.

‘Yes, sir. Well, it's actually Jim, unless I'm in trouble.'

‘And are you?'

I look up then, and for a second I consider telling him – at least the bit about Martin Hacker. I don't, of course. It doesn't work like that.

‘It's just a nosebleed, sir.'

‘Does it happen a lot?'

‘Yeah, sometimes. Usually in the spring, though, with hay-fever and that.'

He nods. ‘Stress can bring them on too, you know,' he says. ‘I get them sometimes. I was talking to your mother earlier today – lovely woman. It sounds like you've had some big changes happening in your life.'