Pinprick (13 page)

Chapter Twelve

July 2006

Shane tried to wait for Jack to leave the house before he got up. With all the raised voices downstairs he thought it would be better if he remained out of the way. When he heard Catherine shout his name, he knew they were rowing about him.

Eventually, he was bursting to go to the bathroom. Once there he took a long shower and decided to dress slowly.

His new clothes were very well made. The shorts were brown linen with a subtle embroidered decoration and his white shirt was made of the same material. He remembered how unbearable the weather had been, and taking responsibility for his welfare for once, he slathered himself in some factor fifty sunblock. He added a pair of cool designer sunglasses to his Marks and Spencer’s garb and felt pretty good about himself. So good, in fact, that he decided to keep it all instead of dumping everything at the end of his trip like he usually did.

When he heard the door slam followed by the sound of Jack driving off he ventured downstairs and into the heart of the family, the kitchen.

The arguing stopped as soon as he entered the room. Catherine stood at the sink scrubbing the life out of a china plate as if trying to remove the blue pattern. Angela sat at the table eating a strawberry-jam triangle of toast and Jennifer leant against a worktop, arms folded and a look of anger dissipating from her face.

“Morning, everything okay?” he said trying his best to be cheerful.

It was his last day here and he felt as though he had caused enough trouble, and that would be nothing compared to the shitstorm that would unfurl once he told Catherine about the their father’s proposal.

“Morning,” Catherine grunted unenthusiastically but didn’t bother to look up from the sink. Angela smiled politely but remained silent. Jennifer, his only ally in the household, for now anyway, gave him a sympathetic grimace.

“I’m going for a walk,” said Jennifer, “Do you want to see how things have changed?”

He accepted her invitation without a second’s hesitation and followed her out into the blazing sunshine.

His new clothes were perfect for the weather and he felt comfortable for the first time since he had been there.

“Well you’d need a sharp axe to cut through the tension in there this morning,” he said.

Jennifer laughed dryly; she sported her own sunglasses now which obscured not only her eyes but nearly half her face.

“I’m sorry for using such coarse language, but they’re really taking the fucking piss now!”

“Who, your folks?”

“Yeah, but mostly the people in this place,” she grabbed her hair up behind her hair and tied it into a ponytail without breaking her stride, “They need to just accept what’s what and get over it!”

“People just want closure, that’s all, and I guess they find it easier when they have someone to blame,” Shane added thoughtfully.

“They won’t,” Jennifer said as they approached a concreted area known as The Shops.

The Shops had once been a small row of around four or five outlets with a large paved area out the front of it. A traditional newsagent-cum-sweet shop called Richard’s used to be where most people went. The hairdressers stood next to it providing blue rinses for the old biddies. Shane remembered that there used to be a traditional greengrocer at the end of the row of shops that had all that weird fake grass they used to sit their produce on. Next to the grocer’s had been the video shop. He had vivid memories of the video shop from way back then. A friend of his called Andy used to work there since his dad ran it. Its white walls were covered with shelves that vanished upwards to unreachable heights. Each video tape case was presented with its cover forward and each genre had its appropriate section. Behind the counter was a solid wall of video cassette tapes all in alphabetical order. He loved the place and had blagged numerous movie posters from there in his time.

Fond memories of Brantham? Jesus you’ll be wanting to move back soon!

Where The Shops once stood, , a generic convenience store now occupied the majority of the space. He suddenly found an ounce of sympathy for the older generation of the village. There were some good memories of this place, but that’s all they would ever be. Places change, people change, times change, that’s all there was to it.

Jennifer led him round the convenience store and snatched a bag of crisps and a bottle of something orange.

“You want anything?”

Shane picked up a bottle of water and reached for his wallet when somebody called his name. He felt Jennifer take the water from him. She said something but he didn’t pay her any attention. He stood on tiptoes and looked over a shelf of biscuits to the far side of the shop, where a floor to ceiling display of DVD rentals lined the wall. He could just make out the top of someone’s head in the corner. All he could see was a pink scalp. Shane walked up the aisle of biscuits, teas and other sundries towards the person by the DVDs. A young acne ridden teenager of an undeterminable gender chewed gum behind the till in a kiosk with a backdrop of products they didn’t look old enough to sell. The kid frowned at him as he passed, probably wondering why every few steps he would walk on tiptoes and peer over the shelf tops.

The person who had called his name remained in the same place yet he still wasn’t close enough to see who it was. A sprinkling of freckles on the man’s scalp was the immediate give away of a ginger complexion.

As Shane rounded the end of the aisle, a row of two litre cola bottles obstructed his line of vision and the man had gone. How the hell? The aisle was empty. As he peeked again over the aisles Shane could see no one on the shop floor other than the teenager serving Jennifer. His mind must have played another trick on him.

He started to head out when he heard his name whispered close by. Absurdly, it came from near his feet. He crouched down on the beige tiled floor. He pushed aside a couple of DVDs in the red display unit as if he expected to find someone hiding behind the shelf.

I must be imagining it
, he thought. He was about to stand up when two sets of grey fingertips shot out from beneath the slat under the shelves. Shane slid back against the shelving as he watched the filthy fingertips try to lift it. He wondered how it was possible for someone to be trapped beneath the unit. Maybe there was an open area or something behind the wall. Shane moved away, ready to leave, when voice croaked from below and it sounded like it was choking on a throat full of dirt.

“Help me Shane!”

Before he knew what he was doing he was pulling at the metal slat. He threw the slat to the floor with a clatter and looked into the black rectangle below the shelf. The fingers had retreated into the dark, but with what little light penetrated the hole he could make out something grey and pale. He lowered himself to his knees and elbows and moved his face closer.

A dirty grey hand shot out, clamped around his wrist and yanked. He cried out in fear as another hand grabbed him and pulled him closer. He tried to fight back but whoever it was was stronger. Their skin was icy like death. He thrashed about on the floor and sent DVD cases flying. Shane watched as the skin on the forearms started to pucker and rise with goose bumps and strange symbols bled to the surface; tattoos, self-inked and badly done.

“Freddy?”

“You belong with us” it whispered. The metal shelf dug into his skin as his arm vanished up to the elbow.

“What the hell?!” The teenage staff member ran into the aisle to see what the commotion was about. Shane was lying on his stomach with his arm rammed underneath the DVD shelf.

“Freddy? Is it really you?”

Jennifer skidded into the aisle and skinned her bare knees on the floor. She pulled at Shane’s shoulder to try to free his arm and looked imploringly at the shop assistant for help.

Eventually, Jennifer and the shop assistant managed to yank his arm free and pull him away from the shelf.

There was nothing under the shelf, he could see that now. Nothing but dust. Shane lay on the floor and cackled to himself inanely.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” The shop assistant was pale under his acne. He ran through the door marked Private.

Shane thought he’d gone insane, so who knew what they would think. The shop assistant dressed the raw patch on his bicep where the metal edge had scraped at the skin. The boy exchanged a worried look with Jennifer. Shane hid his other hand in a pocket.

After they left the shop, Shane insisted on continuing the walk and gave Jennifer a lame excuse about dropping his wedding ring, leaving the shop with Jennifer’s address for its return. God knew he could do with clearing his head. He was going insane and had obviously undergone some kind of mental breakdown. There was just one contradiction to his rational thought process; even now, a rapidly purpling bruise in the shape of fingers enclosed his left wrist.

Shortly after they left the shops, Shane forgot to keep his hand in his pocket and scratched his nose.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” he glanced at his wrist.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

He was going to have to come up with something quick.

“I don’t know. The shop assistant must’ve done it when he pulled me out.”

She wasn’t going to believe that, was she? Shane watched her closely but she didn’t react.

“Okay,” she said.

They cut through a small alleyway that ran between two houses to a dirt lane. Derelict garages stood behind the row of semi-detached houses. Nothing much had changed around this part of the village and it was like being catapulted back to the eighties.

…Scuffed trainers shuffling on the dirt track, making clouds of dust and a steam train sound. Him and Johnny with white paper bags of ten pence mix, cola bottles, black jacks, fruit salads, toffee pennies. Beating down massive overgrown stinging nettles with sticks like they were Triffids…

They passed the back of Roman Catholic Church that stood at the summit of Brantham Hill. The red-brick building still maintained its spooky presence. They came out of the dirt track and onto the main road.

“So, are you going to tell me what all that was about?” Jennifer asked surprising him a little.

He saw no reason to lie to the girl, she still had his diaries. He had used them mostly to write about the times he had had with his friends; good times, bad times, happy times and sad times. There was nothing that could do any harm if they got into the wrong hands and besides, he trusted Jennifer. It was strange to realise how long it had been since he trusted anyone. It was also odd that it should be this niece who was so much younger than him, and who he had only seen a handful of times.

The pressure of the last few days was building up and the need to talk about it was overwhelming. But how to start? He was used to ad-libbing his way through speeches and conferences but now, when it came to something so personal, he felt nervous.

“I think I’m going insane,” he said with a bitter laugh.

“Woah, just throw that out there,” Jennifer’s laugh was a perfect imitation of his.

“I’ve, uh, seen things since I came back, strange things.” He felt no better for saying it.

“What kinda things?’

“Weird stuff. Hallucinations. I’ve seen a couple of my old friends.”

Jennifer stopped and stared at him, mouth agape.

“Yeah you called Freddy’s name.”

“They hadn’t aged a day. Well, Malcolm hadn’t.” Shane shook his head.

As they passed an old brick bus shelter Jennifer went in and sat down on the wooden bench inside.

“So they were ghosts or something?”

Shane sighed, sat beside her and studied the cobwebbed ceiling, “I don’t believe in such things. I don’t know whether I’m having some kind of breakdown or what. And this bloody ringing in my head is so much worse when I’m here.”

Jennifer frowned in concentration. “D’you think coming back here has maybe woken something up?”

“I think there is unfinished business here. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something.”

“Do you blame yourself for what happened to your friends? Do you think you are responsible for them vanishing?”

That was difficult to answer. He felt guilty, but not for their deaths or whatever had happened to them. He could see no reason at all why he would intentionally inflict harm on them and so he was confident in his innocence. No, the guilt he suffered from was the guilt of failing to remember what happened to them.

He wished he could help their families and he could only imagine how they felt. He thought he had had it hard, losing all his friends in one night, but the sorrow he felt was be nothing compared to the anguish and thirst for closure that consumed their families. Poor Mrs Lucas, she would take that hurt to the grave. He wanted to give them answers; it was something he had craved since returning. If the encrypted file in his brain was suddenly unlocked and laid out for him, and even if the truth was that he had brutally slain four boys, he wouldn’t care, he had to know the truth.

“I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge waiting for my ghosts; only Johnny and Karl to come.”

“Stay here for a while. Let whatever this is run its course,” she paused, “It sounds like it’s leading somewhere and if it’s come this far in a few days then it might be over soon.”