The Death House (3 page)

F
i
ve

It’s nearly two hours after Matron has done the final rounds when I hear the smothered belch of the lift starting its rumbling journey down through the core of the house. I knew it would come tonight, and part of me wants to hide my head under my pillow until it’s done, but my feet are itching to get up and my insides are tangled in knots around the dark ball in the pit of my stomach. I have to see it. Watching is better than lying here, just listening. The chill air prickles my skin as I creep over to the door and open it. The other boys don’t stir. Tom snores, but the rest are silent.

On the landing my heart beats so hard I can feel it throbbing in my neck. The lift has come to a stop upstairs and the soft
whoosh
of the large metal doors, their modernity so out of place here, is a sigh in the night. I creep up to the next half-landing and press myself into the dark shadows that cling to the wall. I stay very still. I can’t see the lift from where I am, but the nurses will have to pass by on the next floor when they go back to it. I wait, and then the quiet squeak of old wheels turning puncture the night. Ellory is leaving Dorm 7 for the last time and he’s not awake to know it. Perhaps he knew it when he went to bed. Maybe he thought he had one more day. It’s hard to imagine not having one more day.

Soft white shoes come into view, plimsolls under white scrubs, as the nurses from the sanatorium wheel the bed towards the lift. I can’t see Ellory but I know it’s him. No one else is sick. Not like he’s been. The nurses don’t rush, maintaining a steady, calm pace. Ellory isn’t going anywhere and neither is the sanatorium. These are different nurses from those who look after us during the day. I’ve seen them enough times now to know. Angels of death who only appear in the night to collect sleeping, sick children. Sometimes I think of the sanatorium as some awful creature that feeds on us. In some ways, that’s preferable to the empty unknown. In my small window on the action above, the bed is wheeled by, but I don’t move. I know the routine and they’re not finished yet. A minute or so later, two more sets of feet whisper past accompanied by the rustle of plastic bags as Ellory’s clothes and toiletries are removed. Nothing will be left for Joe to remember him by. He’s being efficiently exorcised from our community. I wonder what they do with the clothes. Are we all wearing dead boys’ clothes, recycled from a previous wave of Defectives? Is there a stockpile in the house somewhere ready for children of all shapes and sizes? The lift doors slide shut again and I let out a shaky breath as adrenalin rushes through me.

Goodbye, Ellory. It was nice not knowing you.

I feel almost sick, a tang of nausea in my mouth. I need the bathroom and a glass of water. I turn away, and only then does my eye catch on the landing two floors above. A thick strand of something has escaped from between the banisters and floats in the air like seaweed drifting in the shallows. I almost gasp with the unexpectedness of it, and maybe I do let out a short, sharp breath as my mouth falls open. It’s hair. Someone else is awake. I freeze, then frown, my thoughts jolted away from Ellory, the sickness, the dreadful nothingness that waits upstairs. Thoughts I can’t define but which are wrapped up in the ball in my stomach and sit like a sour taste on my tongue. They are gone in an instant. No one else is ever awake.

The shadow moves, the hair pulled away as its owner retreats, and the stairs creak. I dart back into my dorm and peer out through a crack in the door as the figure goes by. Who is it? What are they doing? More change – first Tom, now this. I seriously think about going back to bed and staying there, but I’m not tired, and why the fuck should I, anyway? The nights are mine.

I find her in the kitchen. She’s got slices of ham and cheese out and is making a sandwich.

‘Want one?’ she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that we’re meeting here in the dark at gone two in the morning. I don’t answer, just stare at her from the doorway as the wind outside whips around the building and whistles through the gap under the back door.

She spreads about an inch of butter on one slice of white bread. ‘My mum never let me have butter. Not good for the hips, apparently, and definitely not good for a dancer. Well, I’m having it now. Don’t think fat thighs are my biggest priority any more, do you?’ She smiles as she slaps the sandwich together and then jumps gracefully onto the stainless steel kitchen prep table to eat it. It’s hard to see but I think she has a rash of freckles across her face. Her teeth are white and even, and her thick red hair tumbles scruffily around her shoulders.

I look at her sandwich and my stomach tightens. The nights are no longer under my control. I have someone else’s mistakes to worry about. She follows my eyes.

‘Don’t worry. I was careful and I’ll clean up. They won’t notice I’ve been here.’

‘You came with Tom,’ I say.

She nods. ‘Poor Tom. He’s so angry about everything.’ Her legs swing back and forth and under her nightshirt I can see they’re slim and toned. There’s pink varnish on her toenails. An echo from her
before
. Energy fizzes from her. She chews another mouthful and watches me. I want a sandwich or something but I’m not going to have one. She’s killed my appetite.

‘You didn’t take the vitamins,’ I say. I’ve moved one step inside the kitchen but I won’t come any closer. I’m sullen but she doesn’t appear to notice. She laughs a little instead. It’s warm. Friendly. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know where she is?

‘Vitamins, my arse. My mum’s been taking “vitamins” for years. Normally with Scotch.’ She puts the sandwich down, forgotten. ‘Why don’t you take yours?’

I’ve learned to slide the pills between my upper lip and gum line so quickly that the nurses don’t notice, practising with peas from dinner. Now they’re all collected in a wrap of toilet paper stuffed into the ball of my bedpost. Same routine every night. I should probably just shove them down the sink but they’re a way of counting the days. Marking out my survival.

‘I like the nights,’ I say.

‘So what shall we do?’ She grins again, impish with delight. ‘Now that the house is ours?’

‘Do whatever you want. Just don’t fuck it up for me.’

Her smile falls. ‘But it’ll be more fun—’

‘I mean it.’ Suddenly I hate her. She has no right to be awake. This is
my
time. The ball inside me flares all the way up to my tongue and I spit out angry flames in words. ‘This isn’t your perfect fucking life now with your posh government dad and big house and whatever you want. You’re as Defective as the rest of us. You can sit there and laugh and joke and think it’s all so fucking funny, but you’re going to get sick and die just like Ellory, and me, and all the rest of the stupid fuckers here. You’re not special. So stay out of my way and get used to it.’

I glare at her, panting with the angry heat that’s making my body shake, and her swinging legs fall still. She’s not smiling any more. I turn away, not wanting to look at her. Not wanting to feel bad. The house is big. I don’t have to see her. Maybe she’ll start taking the pills now she knows she’s not welcome at night.

‘No,’ she says, soft and hurt as I walk away. ‘I think it’s
you
who needs to get used to it.’

Bitch
, I think.
Fucking bitch. What the fuck does she know?

His test was after
PE
on a Tuesday, and he was happy for two reasons. First, it got him out of ten minutes of Triple Science – maybe twenty if he stretched out the walk back, and second, they always did the test in alphabetical order so Julie McKendrick was always tested at the same time. The downside was that Billy Matthews would be there too, so it was unlikely he’d get to speak to Julie even if he could think of something interesting to say. Still, he’d be able to look at her and that was better than nothing.

The corridor outside the nurse’s room was hot, the windows lining the wall magnifying the sunshine outside, and even though he’d just showered in the gym, Toby was sweating as he joined the queue, kids of all ages chattering together. No one looked worried. The tests were routine, after all. He looked ahead in the line but couldn’t see Julie. His heart sank. She’d spoken to him yesterday in Maths – the only subject they had together – and he’d got through the whole conversation about the dullness of algebra without stumbling over his words or looking at her chest once. She’d laughed at something he’d said about Mr Grey and told him he was funny. Maybe being the class joker was finally going to pay off.

‘Hey, Toby.’

She was behind him with Amanda, whose surname didn’t begin with an M but who must have bunked off to come with her. Julie and Amanda, both blonde and pretty, but Amanda just didn’t have that extra something Julie had, plus her chest was flatter and her legs too thin.

‘Hi.’ The word felt like glue in his throat. He shoved a hand in his pocket to try and look casual but felt as if every joint in his body had stopped working properly. ‘What have you got out of?’

‘English.
And
it’s a test.’

‘Result.’ Over Julie’s perfect shoulder he saw Billy sauntering up to join the line. Great.

‘Amanda’s having a party on Saturday. You live close, right? Why don’t you come?’

Amanda rolled her eyes but Julie didn’t appear to notice. Toby’s face was burning so much he thought it might actually melt off his bones. An invite to a party from Julie herself. A cool party. Everything Julie and Amanda did was cool.

‘Sure. I don’t think I’m doing anything much,’ he said. He’d planned to hang out with Jonesy down at the rec but Jonesy could wait. He thought for a second about bringing him along but nixed it almost immediately. Jonesy was in no way cool enough for a party at Amanda’s. Neither was Toby, but he was fucked if he was going to miss an opportunity like this.

‘Of course he doesn’t have plans,’ Amanda drawled. ‘Like he
ever
has plans.’

‘Shut up, Mandy.’ Julie ignored her friend’s clear displeasure and smiled at him. Right at him. Her skin was flawless and her eyes bright under the mascara and liner that the cool girls wore no matter how often they were told to wash it off. Toby wondered if it was at all possible to love anyone more than he loved Julie McKendrick.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘See you there. From about eight.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to say any more, and then turned back to face the front. He could hear Billy talking loudly and both girls laughing but it sounded like they were just humouring him. His whole body buzzed with excitement. A party with Julie. That she’d actually asked him to go to. He couldn’t wait to tell Jonesy.

He was still grinning like an idiot as he walked in to give his blood. Life was looking up.

‘Double or quits, remember,’ I say as we come out of breakfast. Louis is heading to the rota, ready to scratch his own name out and replace it with mine, but I stop him. ‘It’s not a done deal yet.’

That’s all anyone says about Ellory that morning. Me and Clara might have been the only ones to see him wheeled away, but no one else is surprised by his disappearance. Dorm 7 had looked shaken as they came into the dining room, but apart from Joe they’d kept their chins up and expressions arrogant, Jake particularly defiant. There’s one chair fewer at their table and the rest have been pushed closer together. Even the signs of Ellory’s absence have been removed.

By the noticeboard, we watch as Dorm 7 trail past and head upstairs. ‘Consider it pencilled in,’ Louis says, eyes on Joe. The abandoned twin looks defeated, shoulders slumped and eyes rimmed red. There might be blotches on his cheeks but it’s hard to tell amidst the acne.

‘What are you staring at?’ Jake snarls at us. I shrug, and say nothing. I don’t have to. The Dorm 7 spell is broken.

Now only Dorm 4 remains intact.

S
ix

Outside, it’s stopped raining but the air is misty wet, as if the clouds have been pricked and are slowly deflating, slumped on the ground. Tom stares out of the kitchen window as I rinse the last of the lunch dishes and add it to the rest on the side.

‘Any time you’re ready, mate,’ I grumble as the steam collects in hot drops on my face. Tom picks up a plate and starts to dry it but his concentration is focused on the garden. I’ve been determinedly not looking but it’s hard when the window is right in front of the sink and the girls are laughing outside directly in our line of sight. Eleanor’s sitting on an old tree stump clutching her book but not reading it. Instead she’s watching Clara trying to teach Harriet to do a handstand against the rough brick wall. Harriet is failing miserably, but they’re all smiling as her legs wave in the air while Clara tries to grab them and hold them straight.

They move on to cartwheels, Clara turning perfectly across the grass, her limbs straight and strong. She does have freckles across her nose and her hair shines a deep copper red even though the grey damp deadens the colours around them. As she turns upside down, for a moment her top rides up and shows her taut, pale stomach. Tom’s swallow is audible.

‘Maybe she’s a gymnast,’ Tom says. I don’t have to ask who. He’s sure as shit not talking about Harriet, who’s doing her best with her unwieldy body to mimic the older girl.

‘She’s a dancer.’

‘How do you know that?’ Tom looks at me, curious.

I shrug, awkward. ‘Must have heard someone mention it.’

My rudeness when we met two nights ago hasn’t made her take the sleeping pills, and although I’ve tried to stick to my resolution to avoid her, it’s hard knowing someone else is awake in the night. Instead, I’ve almost shadowed her, waiting for her to leave one part of the house before I go there, checking that she hasn’t left anything out of place that could raise suspicion. Last night, I was about to go into the playroom – when the nights were purely mine, I liked to sit on a beanbag by the window and look up at the sky – when I saw her through the gap in the door. The record player was on, turning silently, the needle scratching in the quiet. Clara stood in front of it, large headphones covering her ears, swaying and dancing to the music, her body relaxed and her eyes closed. She was lost in her own space, oblivious to the house. The moonlight pooled on the floor through the open curtains – a spotlight she moved through. There was no form as such to her dance, but she’d found the rhythm and smiled as her arms rose above her head, her hips swaying in time to the song I couldn’t hear.

My mouth had dried up and I felt unsettled. I wasn’t sure why at first. It wasn’t her bare legs and arms or the outline of her body through her nightshirt. Those details made me feel uncomfortable in a different way that I refused to acknowledge, but didn’t stir up the tight ball in my stomach. Then I got it. Envy. That’s what I’d felt. A sour apple of jealously. She was smiling. Perfectly happy. Enjoying a moment of freedom in the music. How could she be happy?

Finally, she turned the record off and left the playroom. I waited in the shadows until she’d disappeared up the stairs and then gone to see what it was. I’d never heard of it, some album from generations ago. My fingers hesitated over the headphones for a second and then I stepped away. I wasn’t going to play it. I wasn’t going to be drawn in. I refused to be curious.

I went to bed but couldn’t settle. I tried to think of my family and then Julie McKendrick but the dread had crept in and constricted around my spine, and all I could hear in my head were the wheels turning as Ellory’s bed was pushed away, and all I could see was Henry’s plaintive face,
I think there’s been a mistake
, and all I could think was that I didn’t want to die and be just a terrifying nothing – not now, not ever.

‘How do you know that?’ Tom repeats, snapping me back to the present. I glance out of the window.

‘I must have overheard the girls, I guess,’ I say. She has no right to look so carefree. None of them do. I wipe the stainless steel surfaces down as Tom finishes the last of the drying up and then a nurse appears from nowhere and checks our work before nodding her approval and releasing us from the kitchen, our chores done.

I don’t wait for Tom, who’s still looking into the garden, but head back to Dorm 4 to try and sleep. I’m halfway up the first flight of stairs when Ashley comes striding along the corridor and stops outside Matron’s office. I pause. No one ever goes to see Matron about anything. Not since the first few days. Matron doesn’t have any answers, or if she does she’s not sharing them, and she made it clear she has no wish to be involved with us any further than her job requires. Why would anyone draw Matron’s attention to them? Matron makes all the decisions in the house . . . and sometimes I wonder if maybe she even decides who gets carted off to the sanatorium next. I don’t know what’s in the food we’re given. We’re all happy to stay under her radar.

Ashley takes a deep breath before knocking three times on the door and then rearranging the rough paper rolled up under his arm. He has several sheets in different colours, all poster-sized and thick. I catch a glimpse of careful writing on the inside of one but can’t make out the words. I lean over the banister to try to get a better look but then Matron’s door opens and Ashley is swallowed up inside.

I stay for a moment. Up the wide old staircase, the dorm and my bed are waiting. I shouldn’t care what Ashley wants from Matron – I
don’t
care, and yet I still want to know. I take two more steps and then stop again. I look back at the spot where Ashley had stood so nervously. My feet tingle inside my trainers, not knowing whether to go forward or back. Ashley’s in Matron’s office. My brain whirs through the possibilities despite myself. I don’t want to get involved with the other kids – what’s the point of that, after all? – and aside from Will and Louis who are too close to avoid, I’ve done a pretty good job so far of keeping myself to myself and out of everyone else’s business. We’re all going to die alone, so I might as well live alone. There’s nothing to do here anyway.

But still, Ashley is in Matron’s office and I want to know why. He didn’t look sick, and even if he is, he’d hardly march up to Matron to announce it. And what’s all the paper about? He can’t have drawn up a list of complaints about the house. Even a smug dick like Ashley wouldn’t be that stupid. I frown. Would he? Was this something to do with the dorm? Maybe this
is
my business, after all.

I turn away from the gloomy, yawning stairwell that twists and turns like a crooked spine through the vast house and go back down the way I came. The hallway is empty and I peer along the various corridors to check no one is coming before pressing my ear close to the door. I can’t make out any words, just the deadened murmur of voices. Neither of them sounds angry, but then Matron never sounds angry – or happy or upset, for that matter. She’s always just Matron, calm and impersonal. I wouldn’t be surprised if underneath her skin she’s simply a network of metal and wires and processors.

I don’t linger, already feeling like I’m spying – which I am – and I definitely don’t want to be caught here. I find Louis and Will in the playroom, in their corner away from the boys at the record player trying to find something they recognise or like in the antique collection and squabbling over what to play next.

‘I just saw Ashley going into Matron’s office. What’s that about?’

‘Look! She’s just swung herself up onto that branch! How did she do that?’

The chessboard is out – and judging by the lack of white pieces my bet is on Louis as black – but neither boy is at the table.

‘We should go and play with the others.’ Will’s feet are twitching with excitement. ‘It’s not raining.’

‘Jake’s out there.’

‘Yeah, but so’s Tom.’

Only a few days in and Tom was one of them. Their pack. For Will and Louis, at least.

‘He totally fancies her. He’s trying to look all cool.’

‘Epic fail.’ Snorts of laughter.

‘I said’ – I try to get their attention again – ‘that Ashley’s in with Matron. Got any clue why?’

Finally their heads turn. ‘Uh-uh,’ Will says. ‘Haven’t seen him.’

‘He hasn’t said anything weird?’

‘No more than usual.’ Louis suddenly smiles as the change in my routine dawns on him. ‘You’re not asleep. Let’s go into the garden.’

I almost groan. ‘Why? There’s fuck all to do out there.’

‘Clara’s climbing the tree. Look.’ Will points out of the window as if I can see from where I’m standing in the doorway.

‘I’m not stopping you if you want to go and play like kids.’ Maybe I should have just gone to bed and not worried about whatever ‘Reverend’ Ashley was up to.

‘But we
are
kids.’

‘Then fuck off and play. What do you need me for?’

‘Come on, it’ll be fun!’ Will says. ‘All of us together. And it’s not raining.’

‘It’s not exactly sunny, either.’

Louis looks down at his feet. One of his shoelaces is undone, but he doesn’t appear to notice. They were new when he arrived – his mum had only just bought them, he declared plaintively on the first night – but now the brown leather is scraped and worn. How he’s scuffed them so badly when all they do is drift around the house like ghosts most days, I don’t know. But then Louis is clumsy and all over the place, his mind moving too fast most of the time for his body to keep up with it. Blotches of embarrassed red colour his cheeks and he pushes his hands into his jeans pockets before looking at me and shrugging slightly. ‘Jake’s out there,’ he repeats. Quieter this time, and ashamed.

‘And Tom,’ I say. It’s a test. Tom’s older than me.

‘Yeah, but . . .’ One of Louis’ shoulders has risen so high in his awkwardness that it’s almost touching his pink ear. ‘Tom wouldn’t . . . you know. Look out for us.’

‘Please, Toby,’ Will says. They both watch me hopefully.

I glance from one to the other and wonder how I got landed with them. I sigh. I still want to know what’s going on with Ashley and Matron before I go to sleep. I need to kill some time anyway.

‘Ten minutes,’ I say, and think I sound like my dad. ‘That’s all.’

‘Fucking A!’ Louis says, the swear word sounding all wrong coming from his mouth.

‘Thanks, Toby.’ Will is already tugging his sweater on and the words are muffled. When his face pops out through the neck, though, he’s beaming. ‘Come on!’

As I follow them along the corridor and down to the back door, I wonder when going out into the garden became such a big deal. If it was so much fun, then why the fuck hadn’t we done it before? Maybe I’m not the only one who’s been hiding from their situation. I hide by sleeping all day; maybe the others hide by staying inside. Maybe outside is too much bright real world and we don’t belong in it any more. Or maybe it’s just that it’s been raining.

As I step outside, I wish that, for once, my brain would do less wondering. I need to drink more tea at breakfast.

‘Look how high up she is,’ Will says as we stroll over towards the tree. From inside, the old oak hadn’t looked so large, but now we’re in the damp garden air it’s huge, the gnarled trunk wide and thick enough that it would take at least three of us to be able to wrap our arms around it and touch fingers. The overgrown grass sparkles bright green and moist under our feet and I can feel the wetness creeping in through the fabric of my trainers. It’s not cold, though. Even if there is a breeze, the high walls around the grounds are blocking it. I don’t walk fast, and Will and Louis match my pace. If it had just been Jake and some of the Dorm 7 boys out and about, I wouldn’t have come; but the girls are here, too, and a few of the other kids, and suddenly people are mixing again, apparently.

High in the branches of the tree, Clara sits, her head tilted upwards slightly, her body half-hidden among the leaves. They’re all out here because of her. Girls are always the problem. It’s like they have a secret power that kicks in at some point around fourteen. Will and Louis might think they’re immune to it, but it’s starting. They’re out here, after all. I think of Julie McKendrick and my mixture of terror, awkwardness and abject nervous excitement whenever she was near me.

The garden is much bigger than I’d thought, almost the size of the house, and stretches out to either side of the building. There’s a pair of rickety swings over to the left and Joe rocks half-heartedly backwards and forwards on one, kicking tufts of grass as his too-long legs hit the ground. His head is down and his jaw tight. I don’t want to look at Joe. It makes me hear the awful squeak of bed wheels in the night.

Someone has found a football and Jake and Tom kick it between them with the little lardy kid, Daniel, running around trying to get involved.

‘Over here, Jake! To me!’ he wheezes, his face red with exertion. Maybe he feels more involved now that Joe is keeping to himself and Ellory is gone, but if he does then he’s an idiot. Jake kicks the ball at him, intentionally too high, and it soars over his head and bounces off the wall twenty feet away. He runs to fetch it as Jake laughs. It’s not the kindest laugh, but then half the kid’s fat arse is hanging out of his jeans, and as he bends over to pick the ball up the crack is visible and his fat rolls over the waistband. It makes me want to laugh, too.

I stay back from the tree and the other boys. There’s plenty of space and I don’t want to get involved. Will, however, is staring up through the branches of the oak tree.

‘How did you climb so high?’ he asks Clara’s swinging legs.

‘She just jumped and then swung herself up,’ Eleanor says. She and Harriet look like some kind of tree creatures or wood nymphs, their faces peering around either side of the trunk. ‘Then she kept on climbing.’

Will jumps but doesn’t even get near the lowest branch. ‘Maybe if you gave me a leg up?’ He looks at Louis.

‘It’s too high.’

It is high. Maybe not for Tom or Joe or me, but definitely for the rest of them. I look at the branches. That’s why neither Tom nor Jake have tried it. Even if they got to the first branch without making dicks of themselves, the higher ones are slimmer. You’d have to be light to be confident about not breaking them, and Clara must be strong to have jumped that high herself.