Raggy Maggie
Authors: Barry Hutchison
Invisible Fiends
Barry Hutchison
To Mum and Dad.
For believing, even when I didn’t, and for
having confidence when I had none.
Oh, and for all the food and money.
Chapter One I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS
Chapter Eight SHADOWS OF THE LOST
Chapter Ten CADDIE CADDIE HA-HA
Chapter Fourteen COMPLETE SURRENDER
Chapter Sixteen HOME SWEET HOME
W
hat had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.
But not this. Never this.
There were hundreds of them.
Thousands.
They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection, relentless and unstoppable.
I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was tearing through the fence, its claws slicing through the wrought-iron bars as if they were cardboard. My breath fogged the glass and the monster vanished behind a cloud of condensation. By the time the pane cleared the
thing
would be inside the hospital. It would be up the stairs in moments. Everyone in here was as good as dead.
The distant thunder of gunfire ricocheted from somewhere near the village centre. A scream followed – short and sharp, then suddenly silenced. There were no more gunshots after that, just the triumphant roar of something sickening and grotesque.
I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.
‘It’s the same everywhere,’ she whispered.
I nodded slowly. ‘The town as well?’
She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait…You really mean
everywhere,
don’t you?’
Her only reply was a single nod of her head.
‘Liar!’
I snapped. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening.
She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.
‘See for yourself.’
Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’
She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’
The old television set gave a faint
clunk
as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.
Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People
dying.
Hell on Earth.
‘That’s New York,’ she said.
Click.
Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.
‘London.’
Click.
‘I’m…I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’
It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.
‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’
I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like
he’d
told me they would.
This was it.
The world was ending.
Armageddon.
And it was all my fault.
I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS
I
awoke with a start, clutching at my covers, my skin slippery with sweat. It was the dream again. The long, dimly lit corridor. The locked door. The
clop-ssshk
of strange, unknown footsteps chasing me, then the soft giggle as I was dragged down into the darkness. The same story, night after night after night.
As always, the details of the dream quickly began to fade. I usually remembered the bigger things – the lights in the corridor going off; the grey, shapeless figure battering against the windows; even the voices on the other side of the locked door. It was the little details that got lost. I
always remembered the voices whispering to me, but I could never recall a single word of what they actually said. Hopefully it wasn’t anything important.
I lay there for several minutes, slowly letting myself come round. There’d be no getting back to sleep, but lazing in bed for a few hours would be better than nothing.
Assuming I had a few hours. I had no idea what time it was. It was dark outside, but that didn’t help at all. It was early January, and dark until almost half past eight these days.
From the corner of my eye I could make out the red glow of my radio alarm clock. I couldn’t bring myself to turn and look at it. If I did then I might discover I had to get out of bed, and that was something I wasn’t ready to do. Not yet.
There were noises downstairs. That had to be bad news. The rattling of plates meant Mum was up, and the burning smell meant she was making breakfast. It would soon be time.
I shuddered at the thought of what awaited me today,
and snuggled down into my covers. Despite the dream, right at that moment I felt completely safe and secure – something I hadn’t felt in a fortnight now. I pulled the duvet up to my chin, wanting to prolong the sense of security for as long as I could.
It had been less than two weeks since Christmas Day. Less than two weeks since “The Incident”. Since then, I’d been constantly on edge, always expecting something to come jumping out of the shadows, or crashing through my bedroom window.
But there had been nothing. No monsters. No journeys to other worlds. No cryptic messages from long-lost relatives. Nothing.
As the days passed, the sense of dread faded a little, only to be replaced by a new creeping terror. Another nightmare had been drawing steadily closer, and now it loomed on the horizon. Something that promised to be almost as bad as Christmas Day had been. Something
horrible.
‘Kyle,’ Mum shouted from the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s time to get up.’
I groaned into my pillow, knowing there was no way of escaping my fate. Knowing without doubt that the time had finally come.
Raising my head, I looked in the direction of my bedroom door. Through the gloom I could make out a grey shape hanging there, its long, thin arms flapping loosely down by its sides.
My shirt. Mum had ironed it. That confirmed things. The holidays were officially over.
It was time to go back to school.
Mum was scraping the black bits off a slice of toast when I shuffled into the kitchen, tucking my shirt into the itchy grey trousers of my uniform. She had quite a fight on her hands – the toast seemed to be nothing
but
black bits.
‘I made you toast,’ she said, ‘but it might be a bit…crispy.’
I caught sight of another few slices of burned bread and headed for the food cupboard. ‘I’ll just have cornflakes.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Mum shrugged, but I could tell she was secretly relieved. She let the toast drop into the bin, then turned to face me. I could feel her watching my every move as I poured myself the final dregs from the cornflakes box and sloshed them with the last of the milk.
She waited until I had crammed the first spoonful into my mouth before she started to speak.
‘Excited about going back?’
I couldn’t reply, so I just shrugged.
‘It’ll be fun,’ she smiled. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house and mixing again. You’ve hardly set foot outside the door since…’ The sentence was left hanging there. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she repeated, at last.
Mum didn’t like talking about what had happened. I’d tried to bring it up in the days after Christmas, but she’d always changed the subject. Now I didn’t even bother to
mention it, because I couldn’t stand the awkward silences it created.
‘We’ve got a visitor this afternoon,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Little Lilly from down the road. I’m babysitting.’
‘Little Lilly who?’ I asked, through a mouthful of cereal.
‘Lilly Gibb. She’s three. Angela’s little one.’
That didn’t help. I didn’t even know who Angela was. ‘What does she look like?’ I asked.
‘You’ve seen her before. Little girl. Blonde hair,’ Mum said. ‘Isn’t her brother in your class? Billy, I think.’
‘Billy Gibb’s sister’s called Lilly?’ I snorted. ‘Billy and Lilly. Very imaginative.’
Mum’s smile was thin-lipped. ‘Not everyone has your imagination.’
She wasn’t wrong there. I doubted anyone had an imagination quite like mine. Lucky for them.
‘She won’t be here for long, will she?’ I asked. I couldn’t be bothered with a little kid running around the house.
‘Just an hour or so after you get home,’ she said. I must’ve pulled a face or something, because she followed up with: ‘I know, honey, but…well, the money’ll come in handy.’
I nodded and adjusted my face into something resembling a smile. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, then I stuffed some more cornflakes into my mouth to stop me saying anything else.
I chewed in silence for a few moments. Mum was watching me. I could tell by the way she was breathing she was building up to saying something.
‘You know you can’t tell anyone?’ she finally said.
I swallowed down the soggy milky mush. ‘About babysitting Lilly Gibb?’
‘No, about what happened. About any of it.’
‘I was kidding,’ I said. ‘I know.’
‘Right. Because they wouldn’t understand,’ she continued. ‘It’d cause…problems.’
‘You mean they’d think I was mental.’
She smiled. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t think…’ Her voice cracked and her head suddenly dropped. When she looked up again she was ten years older. ‘It’s over now, sweetheart,’ she whispered. ‘You can put it behind you. We all can.’
I nodded in what I hoped would be a reassuring way. Inside, though, I knew she was wrong. ‘It begins.’ That’s what had been written on the card my dad had left for me.
Whatever was happening, it was far from over. Christmas had just been the start. I didn’t know what danger awaited me. I didn’t know what horrors I was going to face. I just knew something was going to happen, and I had a horrible suspicion it was going to happen soon.
‘Have fun!’ chirped Mum from the kitchen, as I pulled my red school jumper over my head, slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out into the hall. I got there in time to
see a bundle of junk mail spew through the letterbox and spatter on to the mat.
‘Will do. Post’s here,’ I replied, kneeling to pick it up. ‘I’ll put it on the side.’ I flicked through the envelopes, looking for anything with my name on the front. There was nothing. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
As I moved to stand up, my gaze drew level with the letterbox. Two chubby fingers held it propped open. A pair of eyes stared in at me through the gap.
‘Um…hey, Hector,’ I said, recognising our postman from his grey eyebrows and wrinkled, weather-beaten skin. He watched me, unblinking. ‘You OK?’ I continued. ‘What…what are you doing?’
His gaze continued to bore into me, making me uncomfortable. Hector could be a bit quirky sometimes – that was part of what made him so popular on the street – but even for him, this was extra weird.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and lifeless,
lacking its usual colour: ‘Peek-a-boo,’ he muttered. ‘I see you.’
Slowly, without another word, he let the letterbox creak back down into place. A second later, I heard him break into his familiar whistle as he walked back along the garden path.
Unsure of what had just happened, I stayed where I was – kneeling on the floor – until the whistling had faded into the distance. Hector’s weirdness shouldn’t have bothered me, but for some reason my heart was pumping like it was about to break out of my chest.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded Mum. Her voice made me jump upright in fright. I turned and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway, her hands on the hips of her pale brown dressing gown. ‘You’ll miss the bus. You’re going to be late for school.’
Mum was right. I
was
late for my first lesson, English,
though not by much. The fact I arrived only two minutes after class had started didn’t seem to matter to Mr Preston, though. He was lounging in his chair with his hands behind his head when I stumbled my way into his classroom.
‘Well, well, speak of the devil,’ tutted the teacher, swivelling his seat to face me. ‘We were just discussing you, Mr Alexander.’
I glanced at the neatly spaced rows of not-so-friendly faces sitting in front of me and felt my cheeks redden with embarrassment.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I offered, making a move towards the one empty desk in the class.
‘Not so fast there,’ Mr Preston said. His chair gave a squeak as he leaned forwards and stood up. His fingers brushed the polished surface of the motorbike helmet that sat, in pride of place, on his desk, then he shuffled lazily across to the blackboard.
Mr Preston is into motorbikes in a big way. I know this
because he spends at least one whole lesson a week talking in excruciating detail about his own motorcycle. Once he joked that he loves the bike more than he loves his wife.
At least, I think he was joking.
The rest of the class and I watched as he chalked the words
‘What I Did in the Holidays’
on to the board.
‘To break us in gently, we were about to discuss what we did during the Christmas break,’ he explained, turning to face me. ‘Since you’re already up on your feet, perhaps you’d do us the honour of going first?