Graveyard Shift Read online

  “See, I should know these things. I shouldn’t need to ask. I’ve been a terrible mother.”

  “Don’t be daft,” I said. “You’re great.”

  She threw her arms around me, holding me so tightly, I thought I might suffocate.

  “Love you, son,” she said, and that was when I knew something was badly wrong.

  It wasn’t because she didn’t say it often, but because of the way it came out, spoken under her breath like a secret.

  “Fancy a cuppa?” she said, letting go and straightening herself up.

  “Yeah, I could murder one.”

  I sat in the living room like a visitor, perched forward on an armchair, too anxious to relax. She’d been out when I’d come home the previous night. Exhausted from my first full day with the Ministry, I must’ve fallen asleep before she came in. I hadn’t seen her since Friday night, come to think of it.

  She brought the tea and sat facing me across the room. Her cup shook in her hand when she tried to drink and rattled in its saucer when she set it down on her side table.

  The note she’d left me, I thought. The way she’d written it. Something about it had bothered me, so I’d pushed it away, tried not to think about it too much.

  She was putting off the moment, taking her time. She tried to smile, but seemed to have forgotten how.

  “Is this about Dad?” I asked.

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “OK.”

  “How’s your tea?”

  “It’s fine, Mum.”

  “You haven’t touched it.”

  “It’s hot.”

  She looked at her cup on the side table, but decided against lifting it again. She held her right hand in her lap and winced.

  “It’s about your hand, then,” I said.

  “Yes. I think you should sit down to hear this.”

  “I’m sitting already.”

  She nodded. “So you are. I’m sorry. Ben, you should prepare yourself. This isn’t good news.”

  I had a sudden falling sensation, the kind that snaps you out of a dream. Something in my stomach turned slowly around. No, this wasn’t good news, and Mum losing the use of her arm was only a part of it, only the beginning.

  She talked on but I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want to know what it meant. Her lips moved but her words sailed over my head, except for a few, and I didn’t like the sound of them at all: specialist, biopsy, lymph nodes.

  Seated with her back to the window, she fell mostly into shade, a frail figure far away and out of reach. And I couldn’t reach out, I couldn’t go to her, because for the next few minutes I couldn’t move. All I could do was sit there and cover my ears.

  “Don’t worry,” she finished. “These things often work out. We’ll do what we can. We’ll manage. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

  I slept in fits and starts that night. The hands on the bedside clock never changed their position. Darkness filled the room and the hours were long and empty. I lay with my face buried in the hot, damp pillow until gray first light found its way between the curtains.

  Yes, there’s hope, I thought. There are doctors who know about this and there are treatments that work. Mum will get better. Other people get better. Sick people get better every day.

  I sat up against the headboard, blinking into the light. I felt unrested and scruffy and was still fully dressed except for my sneakers. An object in my jeans pocket was digging into my hip, and I slid it out: the Apocalypti phrase book I’d had on me since Saturday.

  The words were still wriggling when I looked inside. If only they’d settle, I thought, there may be something to help Mum. If words had the power to build up or destroy, it was the building up part that interested me. Could the right combination of words have the power to heal?

  But the book was no use yet. I wasn’t ready. I slotted it on the shelf next to a DC Comics encyclopedia, then opened the knickknack tin where I kept the four-leaf clover chain. It should’ve withered and died by now, but the leaves were still fresh and green.

  Love and hope and . . . I couldn’t remember what the leaves signified. Love and hope and . . . something, something. I closed the tin and placed it back on the shelf next to my Sweeney Todd shaving kit.

  Mum was in the kitchen, not dressed for work. She sat at the breakfast bar with a mess of papers and official-looking forms and looked up when she heard me. She seemed brighter than she had yesterday, and her smile came easily, not so strained.

  “Does this make sense?” she asked, showing me one of the forms. “I’ve done it left-handed and I swear I can’t read my own writing.”

  “I can read it. What’s it for?”

  “To help us get by while I’m unable to work.”

  She frowned at the form where she’d signed it.

  “It’s strange not to recognize your own signature. Well, if they can’t decipher it and send it back, you can fill it in for me, can’t you? Do us a favor, darlin’, and seal it up. It’s awkward doing it one-handed.”

  “No probs.”

  “And pop it in the mail on your way to school.”

  “I’m not going to school.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Someone has to be here to look after you.”

  “Don’t be daft. Like it or not, you’re going.” She squeezed my fingers with her good hand. “Yes, there’ll be changes around here, and no, it won’t be easy. But believe it or not, I still have friends. They’ll visit me and a nurse will come once a week. And every other week I’ll have an appointment at the hospital, so you might like to help me with that.”

  “OK.”

  “But everything else will be exactly the same, understand? Don’t think you can skip school that easily. I’m not your excuse.”

  Fitting the claim form into its envelope, I sealed it and put it aside.

  “How long have you known?” I said.

  “Since Saturday. Actually, I’ve known something was wrong for some time, but it was Saturday when I got the . . . when the doctor explained it.”

  I looked away, chewing my lip. Sunlight crept slowly across the street below. The graffiti-covered building looked somehow different this morning, but I couldn’t place how.

  “You’re going to get better,” I said. “People do.”

  “Yes they do, so we won’t get down about it. This won’t stop your schooling and it won’t stop you from seeing your friends.”

  “But —”

  “No buts. That’s the way it will be.”

  “OK.”

  After breakfast, I slipped the envelope into my backpack and stood watching her from the kitchen door. Still at the breakfast bar with a memo pad in front of her, she was practicing left-handed writing. She looked peaceful, lost in thought.

  “Love you too,” I whispered, then turned quickly down the hall and went out. By the time I’d clomped down the stairwell, my eyes were burning. I stood on the path outside wiping them with my sleeve.

  Across the street, workmen in hard hats and luminous yellow jackets were setting up around the unfinished building. A regular chip and tumble of bricks sounded somewhere inside its shell. A cement mixer churned away.

  The graffiti did look different. Something about it had changed. My eyes cleared, and a numb sinking feeling went through me when I saw what it was.

  The stenciled cat and rat were still there, up on the wall’s right side. But now the cat’s head seemed tilted, and its hungry eyes weren’t fixed on the rat just above it. Instead they were staring at me.

  Not only staring, but burning right through me. Its face looked weirdly alive. In a speech bubble next to its head were the words:

  We’re watching. We can get to you and yours anywhere, any time.

  “Leave me alone!” I yelled. “Leave us alone! She never did anything to you!”

  I took off along Middleton Road while, behind me, the workmen stopped what they were doing to stare after me all the way.

  As soon as
Mercy Road School came into view, I slowed to a standstill and doubled over on a street corner, hands on knees, gasping. The street vibrated with car engines and the voices of kids in the yard.

  The warning on the wall had shaken me up. It wasn’t just saying don’t meddle. It didn’t just mean they could get to me whenever they liked. You and yours. Had I made a target of Mum as well as myself?

  “Behind you,” someone whispered.

  I swung around and there he was, the raggedy man, the pirate, lolling on the low wall outside the chapel, his face upturned to the sun.

  “You,” I said, surprised but glad to see him.

  “You’ve been having an emotional ride, I can tell.”

  “How did you know? Did I call you again?”

  “You must’ve done. I can’t answer if you don’t call. What’s the problem?”

  “Mum’s very ill. I found out last night. And I don’t know what to do. I think it’s because of you and the Ministry.”

  A look of sheer surprise. “Really?”

  “Yes, because I’ve taken sides. I think they’re getting to me by getting to Mum.”

  Across the street, five of the gang of six stepped off a bus and into the gray and maroon mob. In the midst of the crowd, Raymond Blight was picking on a kid half his size, dragging him along by his tie.

  “You sometimes appear as a businessman,” I said to Mr. October. “Very smart in a suit.”

  “So I do. Not my alter ego of choice. I’m not exactly the tie-wearing kind, but you have to keep your superiors sweet at board meetings.”

  “Did you ever dress up like that and go to a café on Mare Street? Did you leave the waitress a massive tip?”

  Mr. October frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because someone did, and if it wasn’t you, it could’ve been one of them. She made him sound like a charmer, but I bet he put a curse on her or something.” I looked at him sharply. “Could they have made her sick?”

  He considered this for a moment. “They could, but I doubt they did. It would be a waste of resources. And other things could have made your mum ill. Working too hard, pining for your dad all these years, always worrying about money. Life gets to people in all kinds of ways.”

  “You sound very sure.”

  “Well, I noticed her with you at your Aunt Carrie’s funeral. I can tell a lot about people at a glance. First impressions aren’t always everything, but that’s what I saw in her.”

  “But their warning . . . They left me a message on a wall. Doesn’t that mean something?”

  “I know these demons,” he said. “I know Randall Cadaverus and all his evil hordes. They’re basically bullies and, like all bullies, cowards at heart. They know you can harm them by being with us, and they mean to scare you away. That’s precisely why you should stay. Always do the thing your enemy would least want you to do.”

  The first bell sounded across the street.

  “Will Mum be all right?” I asked. “Is she safe?”

  “Try not to worry. I’ll put a watch on your house if you like. But I believe she needs something more than protection and medicine.”

  He slid off the wall, checking his pockets, and pulled out a fresh set of cards. He made a face as he read the first one.

  “Duty calls,” he said. “My plate is full again. So will I see you at the office later? I’ll understand if you can’t come.”

  “Dunno. I’ll try.”

  “That’s all you can do. And now I’d better look lively. There’s a 24381 in Bermondsey — very unpleasant indeed.”

  “Mr. October?”

  “Yes?”

  “What does she need? If it isn’t protection or medicine, then what?”

  “Closure,” he said mysteriously. “You’ll soon understand what I mean.” He glanced up and down the street. “I don’t suppose there’s a phone booth nearby, is there?”

  Becky wasn’t in homeroom that morning, and by English with Mr. Glover she still hadn’t appeared. Although we’d only spoken once, I felt at a loss without her there. She was the only one who’d had anything to do with me so far.

  “Listen, everyone,” Mr. Glover said as we settled at our desks. “Here’s your chance to let those wildly imaginative minds of yours run free . . . as long as you don’t let them run freely through the door to the corner store. Today you’ll write your very own short stories, on any subject you like. Each of you will produce a masterpiece of at least five hundred words. You have fifty-five minutes from now.”

  Groans around the room. Much shuffling and fidgeting. Mr. Glover sat behind his desk, grading papers for the first half hour, then patrolled the class, snatching half-written pieces from desks and reading aloud:

  “Fascinating, Tommy. ‘The creature came into the room looking uncannily like something no one had ever seen before.’ I’d have a think about that if I were you.”

  Muffled snorts and giggles.

  “Don’t know what you’re laughing about, Dan,” Mr. Glover said, stopping by the twins’ desk. “‘“Curse you!” McBride bellowed. “Just for that, I challenge you to a duel at dawn.”’”

  Even I laughed at that one, but I hadn’t fared any better. In fact, I’d barely started. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was my mother holding her pen in the wrong hand. I could see the hungry cat’s eyes on the wall. The demon thrashing its arms by the water as the ravens swept down. I had loads of things to write about, but I didn’t dare share them with anyone.

  At the top of the page, I’d scribbled, Where there’s life, there’s hope.

  “Very profound, Ben,” Mr. Glover said over my shoulder, making me jump. “So what’s the rest of your story about?”

  “Dunno,” I shrugged. “That’s all I’ve come up with so far, sir.”

  “Well, you still have twenty minutes to pull something out of your hat. Must try harder.”

  I didn’t get much further. I’d have to do the rest for homework. When the class ended, I started putting away my pens and books, then looked up to find Matthew and Kelly from Becky’s gang standing over me.

  “You’re Becky’s pal, yeah?” Kelly said accusingly, her usual stone-cold stare fixed on me.

  “Am I?”

  “Well, that’s what she says. She says there’s something she needs to talk to you about. Sounds important, but she wouldn’t tell us what it is. Do you know what it’s about?”

  “No idea. Where is she?”

  “Dentist,” said Matthew. “Having all her teeth out.”

  “Just a filling,” Kelly said. “He’s joshing.”

  “She’ll be in about lunchtime,” Matthew added. “She asked us to tell you, that’s all.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  The conversation ran dry after that and they soon turned away. After break we had Mr. Glover again, this time for English Lit: more readings from A Tale of Two Cities followed by half an hour’s reading by ourselves while Mr. Glover graded more papers.

  Becky came in ten minutes before the end and sat with her friends, but when the bell rang for lunch she stayed at her desk, obviously waiting for me.

  “How was the dentist?” I asked.

  “Fantastic. Best time of my life,” she said.

  We started down the corridor.

  “Are you going to your usual place?” she asked. “You always chow down at the crypt, dontcha? I’ll join you, but I can’t eat anything. And remind me not to order hot drinks. I won’t feel a thing and it’ll run all down my chin.”

  “Something cold with a straw,” I suggested.

  At the crypt tea rooms I got a grilled cheese with coffee while she got milk. It was as noisy and echoey as ever, but less busy than usual, so we took a table in an alcove near the entrance, just below the steps. While I stirred my coffee, Becky pulled a newspaper from her bag and opened it on the table to page seven.

  “So what’ve you got to say about this?” she said.

  She pointed to a follow-up story on the fire children. “SOURCE OF FATAL BLAZE
STILL UNKNOWN,” read the headline. It was too dim in the alcove to read the smaller print, but Becky wasn’t showing me that. She wanted me to see the photograph of Mitch and Molly that accompanied the story: Mitch holding a teddy bear, Molly clutching a rag doll to her chest.

  “Got your sketch pad?” Becky said. “Let’s see it.”

  She drummed her fingers on the table while I unzipped my backpack.

  “By the way, my folks were dead impressed by your portrait. They want to get it framed. They think you’re very gifted.”

  “Tell them thanks.”

  She flipped through the sketch pad to my drawing of the children. Her gaze skipped between that and the newspaper photograph.

  “Yup,” she said, “as I thought. Apart from the sooty marks they have in your drawing, they’re nearly the same. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Tell the truth, Ben.” She sat forward, watching me with impatient eyes. “You saw them after the fire, didn’t you, all smoky and dirty, right there in Miss Whatever’s class. Why not admit it?”

  Part of me wanted to, but if I spoke about the fire children I might be opening a door to everything else. One word about them and I’d soon be chewing her ear off about Mr. October and the Ministry and the rest of it. Some secrets, I knew, were best kept to yourself and never shared.

  “Final answer?” she said, folding the newspaper back into her bag. “Well, if you won’t say, then I won’t tell you what I saw. You’re infuriating, Ben, you really are.”

  She got up in a fluster, with a look that told me I wasn’t meant to leave with her.

  “Oh, and another thing,” she said. “What’s that on your face? That pattern? Looks like a scar.”

  My fingers went to my face. I’d almost forgotten about Nathan Synsiter’s “message.” Mum hadn’t mentioned it. Nor had anyone at school — not the staff, not the other kids in 8C. Perhaps they couldn’t see it. But if they couldn’t, how could Becky?

  I decided to check around class after lunch.

  “Nah, there’s nothing there,” Ryan said when I asked. “Someone’s been putting you on, mate.”

  “Is this a trick question?” Matthew said. “Nope, not a jot. Look in the mirror if you don’t believe me.”