Piggies

Copyright © 2003, 2013 Nick Gifford

Cover © Tan Tan

All rights reserved.

Published by infinite press

www.nickgifford.co.uk/

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No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

The moral right of Nick Gifford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

ISBN: 9781310778773

Electronic Version by Baen Books

1 Change

At some point during Ben Aynsley’s walk home, the world changed around him.

He didn’t realise it was happening at the time, of course. It was only when he reached town that he began to spot the differences, the changes.

It was only when he reached town that his problems really began...

~

He’d been over at Andy’s house in the small village of Weeley, watching football on satellite TV. After the match they’d had a kick about in Andy’s back yard and then, with the storm clouds heaped up on the horizon, Ben had headed for home across the wasteland known as Barlow’s Patch.

The storm was like no storm he’d ever experienced.

Within minutes of Ben setting out, the clouds had tumbled across the sky, blotting out the afternoon sun. As he cut across the old quarry track the first heavy raindrops began to fall.

Ben only had a light coat on, so he took shelter in one of the ruined quarry buildings: a brick shell with empty window frames and a half-collapsed, corrugated tin roof.

Outside everything was grey, the clouds overhead so dark it was like a night sky. Lightning strobed, edging the clouds with white. Rain hammered on what remained of the tin roof, and Ben backed away into its shelter.

At one point, he looked up at the dark, twisting clouds, and that must have been when it happened.

When everything changed.

The sky flickered and then the clouds seemed to bulge with light. A fork of lightning ripped across the grey and for an instant it was as if the sky itself was being torn apart. Ben felt a tingle of static electricity across his skin. Heart racing, he wondered if this was what it was like to be struck by lightning.

Suddenly the air was sucked from his lungs and he felt powerful forces tugging at his limbs – like strong hands trying to tear him apart. He twisted, fighting the pressure; he felt as if he had been pulled off the ground and was spinning in mid-air.

A heavy impact knocked the air from his lungs and he found himself flat on the ground, face in the mud.

He rose to his knees, gasping for breath.

He felt sick and dizzy, his head still spinning. Where...? He couldn’t think straight.

He looked around.

The old building was no longer there. Hadn’t he been sheltering from the storm in the ruins of a quarry building?

He wiped his face with his cuff, then stood unsteadily and brushed the dust from his clothes.

Dust.

The ground was dry.

Hadn’t there been a storm?

He heard voices coming from the quarry. Men: shouting, arguing. That wasn’t right, either. The quarry had been closed for five or six years. It was surrounded with chain-link fence and barbed wire to keep children and dogs away from the old workings. There were tunnels and deep pits in there and it was easy to get lost – or so people said. You could lose yourself in the quarry and never be found, they said, and so people tended to stay away from the place.

Paths popular with dog walkers and mountain bikers went past the quarry, though. Maybe that explained the voices he could hear.

They were louder now, and definitely angry. They were arguing: the words were hard to make out but the violent tone was unmistakable.

Ben was still shaken by the storm. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew for certain that he didn’t want to meet the owners of these angry voices while he was in such a confused state.

He hurried back onto the track across Barlow’s Patch and soon the quarry was far behind.

~

He must have taken the wrong turning. That would explain it.

That would explain why the allotments weren’t there any more, and why the new houses on Campernell Close had been replaced by a small industrial estate: a tyre and exhaust centre, a printing company, a builders’ merchants, a lorry depot.

There were dozens of paths across Barlow’s Patch. They twisted and turned and crossed each other repeatedly. It was difficult to tell one area of scrubby grassland from another.

That must explain it: in his confused state Ben had followed the wrong track.

He came to the road that ran along the edge of the Patch. He crossed it and soon he came to Regent Road, just where he had expected.

He looked along at the industrial units, puzzled.

He shrugged, and headed down Regent Road, past lines of bungalows that were somehow familiar and strange at the same time.

He couldn’t work it out. He didn’t doubt that this was Kirby. Where else could it be? He’d lived in this small town for six years, since he and his parents had moved down from Norfolk.

If you head across Barlow’s Patch from Weeley the first place you reach is Kirby.

Maybe that lightning had actually struck Ben: maybe it had rewired the memories in his brain, making the familiar look strange. Maybe that was why something as simple as walking home left him feeling so confused.

He came to the end of the road, where it met the main road into town. According to the sign, this wasn’t Regent Road at all, but “Regency Road”.

Familiar yet strange.

He shook himself, as if that would somehow clear his mind.

He followed the alleyway that formed a shortcut through to the old market square in the town centre.

An elderly lady was coming the other way, a small white terrier straining at the lead. As they passed in the alley, the dog started jumping up and yapping. The woman glared at Ben as if it was somehow his fault, then pulled her dog away.

The market square was all wrong.

The shops were the same as Ben remembered: the chemist, the grocer’s, the newsagent and two estate agents. But... the grass and trees, the walled pond with the spitting fish fountain, were missing. In their place was a chained-off square with parking spaces painted onto it, some litter bins and some kind of display board showing a tourist map of the town.

Ben leaned against the high brick wall at the end of the alley. He pressed his forehead against the cool bricks, trying to stop his head from spinning, trying to make sense of something that quite clearly made no sense whatsoever.

Somewhere on his way back to town the world had changed. Or something in Ben’s head had changed.

He wasn’t sure which alternative he preferred.

2 Love bites

The map. The map would explain everything, Ben felt sure of that.

All he had to do was pull himself together and go to look at the map.

He pushed himself away from the wall, waited for a car to pass, then headed across the main street.

A few cars were parked in the spaces painted onto the square. They looked like normal cars but the makers’ badges were unfamiliar and Ben didn’t recognise them. Not a Ford or a Nissan in sight.

He approached the display board. The map had been put there for holidaymakers: made to look as if it had been painted by hand, with little pictures of some of the buildings and tiny black footprints picking out interesting walks.

“The Historical Market Town of Kirby” the map proclaimed in big letters. The layout of the streets looked familiar to Ben, and some of the names.

But some of the street names were slightly different: as he had already seen, Regent Road was now Regency Road, but also Mill Street had become Miller’s Row, Hearst Green was Hart’s Green, Lime Street was Lyme’s Street...

And Duke Street! According to this map, Duke Street, where Ben had lived with his parents for six years, was now called Tanner’s Cut...

~

Ben heard voices.

He dragged his gaze from the map.

Three teenagers, about Ben’s age, came running out of the newsagent’s, laughing and shouting. They sprinted round the corner into ... was it still Richard Street?

A middle-aged woman in an old-fashioned shopkeeper’s apron appeared in the shop doorway, waving a hand in the air, shouting at the youths. “Thieving little so-and-sos!” she yelled.

She didn’t run after them, though. They had a head start and she was too heavy to give chase anyway.

She saw Ben watching and took a step towards him.

“You with them, are you?” she demanded. “You keepin’ watch while your mates go nicking sweets and things, are you?”

Ben backed away, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know them. I’m not with them. I’ve never seen them before.”

She took another step across the road. “You’re lying,” she screeched. “I can tell. You’re a lying little so-and-so.”

Now, there were some other people in the street. They must have come out of the shops when they heard the commotion.

They were all staring at Ben.

He turned and ran.

He couldn’t be sure, but one of the three shoplifters had looked just like his friend Andy.

It wasn’t possible, he knew. He’d left Andy at his cottage a mile and a half away, on the far side of Barlow’s Patch. Andy hadn’t been coming into town. He must be mistaken.

But he wasn’t going to hang around and try to explain all that to the angry shopkeeper and the people in the street who were all staring at Ben accusingly. How could he ever begin to explain something as strange as what was happening to him this afternoon?

~

He headed back along the alleyway to Regency Road, then turned right, and right again into a road he knew as Beaumont Street. Sure enough, he heard the voices again a few minutes later: the three must have stopped running when they were clear of the square, confident that the shopkeeper wouldn’t give chase.

They appeared at a junction a short distance ahead of Ben.

He walked faster.

Mid-brown hair down to his collar, a good head taller than his friends, a casual, rolling stride – from behind it looked just like Andy.

Ben didn’t recognise the other two. A boy with short, dark hair and a scuffed leather jacket. A girl with spiky blonde hair and tight jeans. She was full of energy, bouncing about, pushing and poking at her two friends, talking and laughing all the time.

When he was only a few paces behind, Ben said, “Hey, is that you, Andy?”

The three turned as one and stared at Ben. There was something in their look that Ben didn’t like, something that cut right through him.

The one who looked like Andy seemed puzzled for an instant, as if he was struggling to place Ben.

“I... sorry,” said Ben. “I thought you were someone else. From behind, you looked like someone else.”

The tall boy shrugged, just like Andy, and the three of them relaxed.

“You shouldn’t do that,” said the girl. “Thought you were the filth.”

They turned to walk on and Ben fell into step with them. He felt the need to explain. “I was at the square,” he said. “I saw you running off and you–” he nodded at the tall boy “–looked just like a friend of mine called Andy.”

The boy shook his head. “My name’s Stu,” he said.

“But we all know him as Stacker, don’t we?” chipped in the girl.

That jarred Ben: he’d been joking about that with Andy while they watched football. It was something their form teacher Mr Marshall had said just before the summer holidays.

“Because all he’ll ever be good for is stacking shelves in a supermarket, right?” said Ben.

The girl looked at him strangely, then grinned and smacked him on the arm. “Spot on, matey,” she said. Then she added, “My name’s Rachel and the quiet one here is Lenny. Lenny hardly says a word, ’cos he’s got a crush on me. Haven’t you, Lenny?” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Lenny beamed at her, his cheeks bright red.

“My name’s Ben.”

“Hello, Ben. D’you fancy me, too? Stacker does – he’s nearly as bad as Lenny.”

What she said was clearly true, but she fancied herself more than the other two added together. Ben didn’t say that, though. “That woman from the shop thought I was with you lot,” he said instead, unable to meet the girl’s steady gaze. “I had to leg it, just like you did.”

“We were just nicking,” said Rachel. “Something to do, you know?”

“Want some?” Stacker produced a handful of chocolate bars from his jacket pocket and tossed one to Ben. “Hate the things, myself.”

They came to the recreation ground and went in through the steel barrier that was supposed to stop kids getting bikes and motorbikes onto the playing field.

They stopped behind the old sports pavilion. Its pebble-dashed concrete walls had been sprayed with graffiti: mostly Rachel’s name picked out in jagged purple letters by her or one of her admirers.

“You from round here, then?” asked Rachel, suddenly intense. “I don’t know you. You don’t sound like one of us.”

A harsh rattling broke through the silence that followed her question. Lenny had produced a spray can and was shaking it loudly, getting ready to paint something new on the wall.

“I... just moved here,” said Ben.

Rachel relaxed. “Thought you was one of them Grammar School snobs,” she said.

The Grammar School... She must mean Harpers College in Colchester. Ben’s parents had wanted him to go to Harpers but he had argued with them that he wanted to go to the local Community High School with his friends.

“A new boy,” said Rachel. She turned to tall Stacker and blew a kiss to him. “New boy’s got a lot to learn, hasn’t he?” she said.

Ben looked from one to the other. He didn’t understand what they were talking about. All of a sudden he didn’t want to be here with these three. He didn’t know why he’d followed them.

He glanced across to where Lenny was spraying the pavilion wall. Where someone had painted “Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!” Lenny had added, “IS A PIG”.

Ben looked back at Stacker and Rachel.

They were kissing. Rachel pulled away. “I bet new boy hasn’t even had a taste of the locals, yet, has he?” She grinned at him, and said, “Is that right, Ben darling? You want a taste?”

She reached out and took his hand, while he stood rooted to the spot.

She moved closer and kissed him on the cheek, and then on the neck. He felt her teeth on his skin. “Fancy a love bite?” she whispered.

He backed away, feeling dizzy, feeling that she was teasing him, confusing him even more.

She laughed and spun away.

Lenny had finished at the wall and now he came towards Rachel. He grinned, revealing his long white teeth.

“Lenny’ll show him how to do it, won’t you darling? Come on, Lenny, give me a love bite.”

Lenny lowered his head to Rachel’s neck. After a second or two, Rachel gasped and her eyes opened wide. She looked at Stacker and said, “Come on, Stu, you too. Come here.”

She pushed Lenny away.

Slowly, the leather-jacketed boy turned to look at Ben.

There was blood smeared all around his mouth and a peaceful, faraway look in his eyes. At his side, Stacker stooped low over Rachel’s neck, lapping at the wound.

Rachel raised a hand towards Ben. “Come on, new boy,” she gasped. “Come and have a taste of the locals. Kirby’s purest.”

Ben turned and ran and behind him he could hear the three of them laughing and giggling like little children at play.