The Deviants. C.J. Skuse
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anyway. Ours backs onto a dog toilet.’
‘Don’t be fooled, Corey. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’
‘Huh?’
‘Nothing. It’s just this stupid quote Dad’s got framed in his study.’
‘Max’ll inherit all that when they croak, won’t he?’
‘He’s not interested in the money,’ I said. ‘Not really. Max would be happier working for a living, I know he would. He just hasn’t got any incentive to at the moment. He’s certainly not arsed about all the businesses, the arcades and the garden centre and that.’
‘He owns the Pier now, doesn’t he?’
A salty breeze stung my eyes. ‘Yep. Yet another Rittman Inc property. It’s like a cancer in this town.’
‘Doesn’t Greenland sponsor your running? He can’t be that much of a knob head.’
‘Oh he is, believe me. And it’s only while I’m winning. He’s still a twat.’
‘Huge twat,’ Corey added.
‘Colossal.’
‘Mammoth.’
‘Gargantuan.’
‘Humungulous!’
We were laughing by the time Neil sped off down the seafront and Max returned to us.
‘What are you two giggling about?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Come on, we’ve got a cat to find.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, flinging an arm around me. ‘And a serial killer to ask about it.’
*
I don’t know why I didn’t try harder to talk Corey out of going to Whitehouse Farm. Maybe a part of me wanted to go back. A pretty sadistic part. Maybe I wanted to be reminded of a place I used to go as a child, before everything went wrong. I don’t know, I really don’t.
But anyway, we took the lunchtime bus to Cloud, the tiny village on the outskirts of Brynstan, where ‘Roadkill Rosie’ lived. It had been a while since any of us had been out there – Fallon had been the only reason. We’d befriended her in primary school, on the basis that she would do anything for a dare; ‘Don’t Dare Fallon’ became one of our catchphrases. Take your knickers off and throw them at that windscreen. Jump off Devil’s Rocks. Steal a Chocolate Orange. Flick a chip at that policeman. Go past the preaching Christians on the corner of the High Street singing that song about blow jobs. She’d do it all. She had no fear. She was also the kindest person I’d ever met.
The bus ride was endless, just like tomorrow seems like next year when you’re a kid. I drifted into a daydream of the past. We were in the lounge at JoNeille – me, Max, Fallon, Corey and Zane – and we’d made a den out of the dining chairs, with some king size bed sheets draped over the top. All around the inside were sofa cushions, and in the middle we’d got ourselves a midnight feast of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, crisps, Haribos and cans of cherry Tango. Suddenly, a head parted the flimsy wall, giving a terrible cry.
‘Wooooaoaaaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhh!’
‘Argh! Jessica, don’t scare us like that!’
‘Ha! What are you lot doing in here?’
‘Dad said we could make a den and sleep in here tonight.’
‘Have they gone out?’
‘Yeah. Some dinner dance thing. Where have you been?’
‘Just out, Beaky Boy.’
‘Can you tell us a story, Jess?’
‘Oh, not another story, Ella.’
‘Yeah, please, Jess. Tell us a really scary one.’
‘You can’t handle a scary one, Zane. We had to call your mum when I read you some Silence of the Lambs, remember?’
‘I won’t cry this time, I promise. Please.’
‘OK. Give me an idea, then, and I’ll tell you a scary story about it.’
‘Ummm…’
‘Cats!’
‘Cats? All right, then, Corey, cats it is. Hmm. Well, OK. There’s this Edgar Allan Poe story called ‘The Black Cat’. Have I told you that one before?’
‘No. Tell us now!’
‘OK, well, a long time ago, there once was this man who lived in this house with his wife and their cat—’
‘What was the cat called?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe Claude or something. Yeah, Claude. Anyway, Claude was black, black as night, and the couple who owned him loved him very much. Then, as time went on, the man started to drink way more than he should—’
‘Was he sad about something?’
‘Yeah, he’d probably lost his job or something or he hated being married, something like that. Anyway, he started taking out all his problems on the cat. When he was drunk he got moody, and the cat was always around, rubbing against his legs and meowing for food. And one day, this cat got on the man’s nerves so much that he took it out into his back garden…’
*
The bus dropped us off on the corner of Long Lane, and we walked the rest of the way until we came to the grubby sign for Whitehouse Farm, me with a gnawing throb of dread in my chest. Weirdly, it hadn’t changed at all in the years since we’d last been there. The mud-spattered jeep was still parked in a garage next door; the field opposite was still barricaded with three rusty shopping trolleys, linked end to end with rope. The sweet smells of hay and dung still hung in the air, and, despite my fear, I felt strangely happy to be back.
‘Go on then,’ said Max, nudging Corey forward. ‘Go and see if Mort’s there. Then we can go.’
Corey took one look back at the everlasting lane we had just walked down from the bus. I saw him take a deep breath. Then he led us inside, one by one.
‘Oh my GOD!’
FlapflapflapflapflutterflutterflutterScreeeeeech!
‘Get it off! Get it off me!’
‘AARGH!’
‘What the HELL is THAT?’
‘Jesus!’
Hell had been unleashed, and we were in the middle of it. Things squawked and screeched at me from branches, flapping about beneath the corrugated plastic roof. There were living things everywhere; creatures, birds, things crawling over my feet. Rabbits, ferrets, cats and an earless Jack Russell terrier brutally shagging a wig. Everywhere you looked were scruffy, eyeless or legless animals: a furry, flappy, feathery nightmare.
‘Shut the door, quick!’ a voice shouted, and Corey dived behind us to bang it shut.
All the way to Cloud, I’d held on to one hope – that Fallon Hayes might not be home. That we could just ask Rosie if she’d seen Mort, commiserate with Corey when she hadn’t, then walk back to the pub on the main road and call a cab back into town. But the curt instruction had come from a girl – a long-legged, green-eyed girl with slightly buck teeth, a platinum blonde confusion of hair, and thick make-up. She had once been my best friend.
I took a deep breath. ‘Hi, Fallon.’