Dead Flesh (21 page)

“You’re
shitting me, right?” Sam gasped in disbelief.

“You were
rushing me,” I insisted.

“You’re telling
me we nearly got busted to get that camera and we can’t even watch
what’s been recorded on it?” he asked me.

“Looks like
it,” I said, looking at the camera.

It was then Sam
started to laugh.

“What’s so
funny?” I asked him.

“Us,” he
laughed. “We must be out of our freaking minds.”

Staring down at
the camera and knowing there was no way I was going to find out
what was on it, I started to laugh too. It wasn’t just a giggle or
snigger. We lay next to each other and laughed great big belly
laughs until tears streamed from our eyes.

With his
laughter under control, Sam turned his head so he could look at me
and said, “You know, Kayla Hunt, I’ve never met a girl like you
before.”

“Oh,” I said. I
didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re
different,” he smiled. “It’s kinda exciting being with you.”

“Is that a
compliment?” I asked him, his blue eyes burning into mine.

“A big
compliment,” he smiled again.

I didn’t know
what to say. I had never had a boyfriend before and the last guy
who paid me a compliment ended up murdering me. With those memories
in the front of my mind, I sat up and said, “I think you should go
back to your own room now.”

“I didn’t mean
to upset you,” Sam said, sounding concerned.

“I’m just
tired,” I lied.

Sam went to the
door and opened it. Before he left, he looked back at me and said,
“There is something different about you, Kayla. I don’t know what
it is, but you’re definitely not like other girls.” Then he was
gone, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone.

Kiera

On arriving
back at the farmhouse, Potter and I found Isidor sitting before a
roaring fire with the laptop on his knee. The late afternoon was
cold, and the sky looked as if it was threatening to snow. Isidor
sat with his back arched and his eyes fixed on the screen before
him. The fire flickered in the grate, casting warm-looking shadows
across the walls. The room felt cosy, and sinking onto one of the
old armchairs next to Isidor, I stretched out in front of the
fire.

“Had any luck?”
he asked us without looking up.

“I don’t know
yet,” I said, taking the disc from my jacket pocket. “Put this
in.”

Isidor looked
at the disc. “What’s that?” he asked.

“A disc,”
Potter said.

“I know what it
is,” Isidor said. “What I meant is, what’s on it?”

“It’s CCTV from
a petrol station which looks across the street at the store where
Emily Clarke’s credit card was used yesterday,” I explained.

“Nice,” Isidor
smiled, taking the disc and sliding it into the side of the laptop.
“What about CCTV from the store?”

“Didn’t have
any,” Potter said, perching on the arm of my chair.

We all sat and
watched the screen as the disc loaded. In seconds the shot of the
petrol station forecourt flashed onto the screen.

“Wind forward
to ten-thirty-three,” I told him. Isidor found the place on the
disc. I stared at the screen and waited for the man to appear from
within the store. The image looked clearer on the laptop than it
had on the TV back at the station.

“There!” I
said, jabbing my finger at the screen. “Stop right there.”

Isidor hit
pause and the image froze as the man I suspected to be McCain left
the store.

“It’s not
great,” I said. “Is there any chance you can get a bigger
image?”

“Give me a
second or two,” Isidor said, and I could see that he was enjoying
showing me, more likely Potter, that he could be of use. Isidor
took a screenshot, then opened it with the paint programme, where
he enlarged the picture.

“That’s
McCain,” Isidor said, looking at me.

“Are you sure?”
Potter asked him.

“You asked me
to do some research on the guy,” Isidor said, ignoring Potter and
looking straight at me. “I searched the net for info on the guy,
but it was hard because there are loads of McCains all over the
place, so it was difficult for me to track him down. But I
eventually found this article on a Morris McCain. He is known as
the
Matcher
by the wolf community.”

“The
matcher
?” I breathed.

“It would seem
that Morris McCain has spent his life organising the matching of
wolves into human skins. He is meant to have a nose for it. And I’m
not trying to be funny about the whole nose thing either.
Apparently he has this amazing sense of smell, a bit like my own I
guess,” Isidor explained. “That’s how he matches wolves to humans –
he matches them by smell. But over the years, it has been rumoured
that his sense of smell has weakened and some of the matches that
he has arranged recently haven’t been entirely successful.”

“How come?”
Potter asked him, sounding interested in what Isidor had
discovered.

“It seems that
for there to be a successful matching, the human host has to be
very similar in attitude, temperament, and spirit to the wolf. If
they’re not, then there can be problems.”

“What sort of
problems?” I asked him.

“From what I’ve
read, it’s almost like organ donation,” Isidor said. “If you don’t
get a perfect match like blood type and stuff the body rejects the
organ. If this happens in
matching
, the
human rejects the wolf. It’s like they have an internal clash – a
battle – if you like.”

“What happens
then?” Potter asked, taking a cigarette and twiddling it between
his fingers instead of lighting it.

“They go kind
of crazy,” Isidor said, looking at us.

“How crazy?” I
asked him.

“Put it like
this,” Isidor said, “The crazy ones are known as the Berserkers.
They either get humanely destroyed like rabid animals or get locked
away. They are too dangerous to be allowed to just wander around
the place.”

“So what about
McCain?” Potter quizzed.

“Well, he seems
to be quite high up in COW.”

“Cow?” I asked
him.

“The Council of
Wolves. It’s a self-regulating body of Skin-walkers who make sure
that the Treaty of Wasp Water is adhered to. The humans have the
same kind of thing, it’s called UNCOW. United Nations Control of
Wolves,” Isidor explained, stroking the little beard that jutted
from his chin. “Both organisations monitor the treaty. McCain is a
prominent figure who is in charge of matching wolves with humans.
He is highly thought of amongst the wolves and some humans.”

“Only some?” I
asked, as a flurry of sparks from the fire disappeared up the
chimney.

“There have
been reports that he is brutal with some of the children he chooses
for matching. The treaty says that although the matching of wolves
with humans is a necessary evil to maintain peace, it has to be
done humanely and with as little suffering to the child as
possible. Those who aren’t chosen have to be returned unharmed to
their families within a reasonable time. They can’t be held
indefinitely.”

“That’s good of
them,” Potter said dryly, then lit the cigarette he had been
playing with.

“I can’t
believe what you’re telling me, Isidor,” I said. “I know the world
has been pushed...but this is nasty.”

“It gets
worse,” Isidor sighed. “McCain is also rumoured to have murdered
parents and teachers who have uncovered his cruelty and threatened
to expose him. But it has never been proved. Witnesses have either
retracted their statements or gone missing.”

“Just like
Emily Clarke,” I said thoughtfully.

“But this time
he just might not get away with it,” Isidor said, turning to face
the laptop again. “Take a look at this.”

He brought up a
page on the screen which contained an article about Morris McCain.
In the top right hand-corner was his picture. Although the CCTV
footage was grainy, I could see that it was McCain who had left the
Seven-Eleven just moments after Emily Clarke’s credit card had been
used.

“We have him,”
Potter said grimly.

“Not quite,” I
cautioned him. “We have a piece of dodgy-looking CCTV of a guy who
looks like McCain leaving the store. Even if we could prove that it
was him, we don’t actually have proof that it was him who used
Emily’s credit card. How many other people were there in that
store? Any one of them could have used that card.”

“We could go
back and get a statement from the dude with the zits,” Potter
suggested. “He might remember serving him.”

“What, and have
another witness go missing?” Isidor cut in.

“Okay, Velma
Dinkley,” Potter said, “what do you suggest this time? Perhaps we
fire up the Mystery Machine, storm the school, and torture a
confession out of this piece of shit?”

“No,” I cut in.
“We pray that Kayla finds that camera.”

Kiera

I could see him lying there, his face white, bruised, and
featureless. I moved towards him in my mind, feeling nauseous and
not wanting to look at him at all. But despite my fear and
repulsion, I edged forward, half expecting him to sit bolt upright.
I stood over him, his hard, cold, grey body looking like stone. I
couldn’t tell how old he was, but there was something – I didn’t
know what - but I had seen him before.

Who would sculpt a statue lying down, hidden amongst a pile
of wild bushes? I wondered.

I leant over him and just like I feared, he sat bolt upright.
I screamed and staggered backwards out of the bushes and into the
woods. He crawled on his broken hands and knees into the clearing,
parts of him falling away into grey, powdery dust.

I had seen that before. But there had been a girl. Hospital
beds...

“C’mon, Kiera, come on in out of the cold!” the statue
suddenly said, beckoning me with one cracked-looking hand, back to
the shelter of the bush, “I have so much to tell you.”

“What do you have to tell me?” I whispered, stepping
away.

“Come on in out of the cold,” he said again, not through his
mouth as he didn’t have one. His voice seemed to seep from the
crevices and breaks in his stone flesh.

“I’m not cold,” I lied, shivering in the snow-covered wood.
“What is it that you have to tell me?”

“I need to talk to you about Alice,” he said, crawling
forward, two of his fingers crumbling away as he grabbed at the
woodland floor.

“Who’s Alice?” I asked him.

“The girl in the hospital bed,” he said.

Then there was a noise. It was shrill and sounded like a
far-off alarm. I looked back into the wood, the snow seesawing down
in giant white flakes. The sound of the alarm was coming from back
there somewhere. I faced front again and screamed. The statue was
standing inches from me, its broken hand outstretched.

“What’s that noise?” someone asked from beside me.

I turned to see Potter.

“Kiera, it’s Kayla,” he said...

“Potter?” I
whispered, opening my eyes.

“Kayla is
Skyping you,” Potter said, shoving my iPod into my hand.

I looked around
me, half expecting to see the statue in the snow-covered wood. But
I wasn’t in the wood; I was curled in the armchair before the
roaring fire, where I had drifted asleep.

“It’s Kayla,”
Potter said, thrusting the iPod towards me again. Hearing his
sister’s name being mentioned, Isidor came into the room and looked
at me.

I took my iPod
from Potter and looking down I could see her pretty face staring
out of the screen at me. Wherever she was, it was dark, as the
light from the screen of her own iPod lit up her face in eerie
shades of blue and green.

“Kayla,” I
said, raising my iPod so she could see me. “Are you okay?”

“I guess,” she
half-smiled back at me, her voice sounding faint and distorted. “I
needed to speak to you.”

“Where are
you?” I asked her. “It looks dark where you are.”

“I’m in my
room,” she explained, her voice just above a whisper. “Lights go
out at nine at Ravenwood. I daren’t put the light on or it might
attract the attention of one of those Greys. They’ve gone crazy
tonight.”

“How come?” I
asked her, Potter and Isidor now standing behind me so they could
see Kayla.

“I don’t know,
but something spooked them,” she said, bringing the iPod closer to
her face. “These alarms were ringing and Greys were running around
everywhere. One of them nearly caught us.”

“Us?” I asked
her, wondering what was happening in that school.

“Me and Sam
went walk-about tonight,” she whispered, her face ghostly looking
as she stared back at me.

“Why?” Isidor
asked, leaning over my shoulder.

“Hey, Isidor,”
Kayla said, catching a glimpse of her brother. “I miss you.”

“I miss you
too,” he said back, sounding a little choked. “But why did
you...”

Before he had a
chance to finish, Kayla said, “I’m not going to find anything out
unless I actually go and investigate, am I?”

“Who’s Sam?”
Isidor asked, sounding like a concerned older brother.

“Just a friend,
he’s really nice,” she said, and I heard her voice soften slightly
at the mention of him.

“So, did you
find anything out on this little trip of yours?” Potter suddenly
cut in.

“Hey, is that
cranky-pants?” Kayla asked, and I could hear her giggle back in her
room.

“Watch it,”
Potter said but he didn’t really sound angry with her, he knew she
was just teasing him. “So did you find anything or not?”