The Demon of Devilgate Drive (Skeleton Cove Horror Book 1) Read online

  It was definitely a better explanation than the one I'd believed a few hours earlier, that what I'd seen was the skull portrayed on the business card I found in Harry's pocket. And anyway, that was stupid. It was just an image, not even a photo but an artist's impression of a skull.

  Looking at the poster now, I chuckled to myself. It was obvious - I'd had a shock (seeing Harry's body and all), so it was hardly surprising with that stuff going round in my head. And as for thinking there'd actually been someone in bed with me - hah! What an idiot.

  Standing up, I straightened out the bedclothes. Then, catching sight of something odd, I peeled the blankets back, revealing a wide stain down one side of the bottom sheet.

  At first I thought maybe I'd thrown up and hadn't realised, or that I'd literally done a poo in the bed and spread it around, but no. This wasn't the result of normal bodily functions.

  Hauling the blankets right off the bed, I stared at the image. Because that's what it was - embedded in the fabric of the bed sheet was what looked like the outline of a person... No, not a person, a representation of Some Thing, the whatever-it-was that had lain in my bed next to me, the Thing that had breathed on me and had told me for the second time, to leave.

  And that's when I threw up.

  'It sounds a bit farfetched, that's all.' Suzi swung her legs idly and gazed at me sideways.

  I jumped down from the wall and turned to face her. 'You'd believe me if you'd seen the sheet.'

  She gave me a sceptical look. 'Don't suppose you took a picture of it?'

  'I would've done, but by the time I'd had a shower and cleaned myself up an found my camera, Mum had stripped my bed and bunged everything in the washer.'

  'Convenient.'

  'No, it's not bleedin convenient, it's –'

  'I just mean,' she interrupted, 'it's convenient for whatever was in your bed.'

  I pulled a face. 'It's fine, I don't expect you to believe me.'

  'I do believe you,' she said. Sliding down off the wall, she brushed a hand down her jeans. 'It's just a bit...'

  'Yeah. I know.' I looked up and saw Suzi's mum watching us through the living room window. I gave her a wave.

  'Don't do that - she'll only give you more cake.'

  'I don't mind,' I said.

  'You will if you end up like Fat Bob.'

  I frowned. 'That's not this fault. Being fat. It's his ma - she can't cook. He ends up with fish and chips most nights.' I nodded towards Mrs Charlton who'd turned her attention back to cleaning the windows. 'You're lucky, you've got nice parents.' Suzi went quiet at that, so I changed the subject. 'Anyway, are we going to head round to Jimmy's?'

  'Think we should? What if Mrs Brick remembers us?'

  'She couldn't have seen us. And it was dark.' I shrugged. 'Okay?'

  'Okay.'

  By the time we got to Jimmy's house we'd agreed that if he wasn't home, we'd go and see Sergeant Potter and tell him Jimmy was missing. However, when we turned into Lonely Walk Road, the police were already there.

  Four

  Constable Stewart was standing in the garden of Jimmy's house talking to the woman from next door. As me and Suzi reached the garden gate, the officer nodded towards us.

  'Don't tell me - you've not had enough excitement for one weekend and you'd like to volunteer for extra duties?'

  I rolled my eyes at Suzi. 'Ignore her, she's my dad's sister.'

  'Oh,' said Suzi. 'Hello. Jeff never mentioned you.'

  'Yes I did,' I retorted. 'And if you'd listened, you'd know Maggie's just moved here from The Smoke.'

  'Well, I'm Suzi,' said Suzi, 'and I'm his best mate.'

  'Pleased to me you, best mate.' Maggie grinned at her, but turning to me, the smile dropped away. 'You're in bother, you are.' She glanced back towards the house. 'You'd better wait here.'

  'Why does he want to see me?' I said.

  She gave me a hard stare. 'Both of you, actually. And I think you know why.' She headed back to the house and disappeared inside.

  'That's torn it,' I said. 'Maybe Old Ma Brick did see us after all?'

  We spent an anxious few minutes waiting for Maggie to come back. When she did, Sergeant Potter was right behind her.

  'It's alright, lad, you're not in too much trouble, but I've a few questions for the pair of ye.' He strode off to the police car - a light blue Austin with a wobbly sign on top.

  'Come on, then,' said Maggie, giving me a gentle shove. 'We haven't got all day.'

  Me and Suzi had been in a police car once before and that had been only a few hours ago. I hoped it wasn't going to become a habit.

  'D'you think they'll arrest us,' whispered Suzi as the car pulled away from the kerb.

  'Don't be daft. We haven't done anything, have we?' Nevertheless, I wasn't looking forward to whatever it was the sergeant had to say.

  Skeleton Cove Police Station was not a big place. The front door opened into the reception area, which also served as the waiting room. Mrs Delacroix, who did all the secretarial-type stuff (because Sergeant Potter couldn't type), was sitting behind her desk. Her eyes lit up on seeing me and she gave me a huge smile.

  'Oh-oh-oh, what has happened? I 'ope this does not mean more paperwork for me, young man?' She winked at me the way she always did, and I felt myself redden. Mrs Delacroix was French and looked like that move star Sophia Loren (who isn't French, but you get the idea).

  I coughed and mumbled something about helping the police with their inquiries, then turned away and made on I was studying the wanted posters on the wall.

  Suzi poked me in the ribs. 'Who's that?' she whispered. 'Your girlfriend?'

  I glared at her.

  Potter exchanged a few words with the secretary then led us through to a small room at the back of the building. This was where they did all their interviews, as well as being a sort of broom cupboard where anything that wasn't important was stored. The burly sergeant squeezed past the mop and bucket and a pile of cardboard boxes and settled himself behind the table. He pointed at the only other chair.

  'You'll have to fight for it.'

  I let Suzi sit down while I took up a position beside her, so I could lean against the wall in a nonchalant fashion.

  'Right,' said Potter, flicking open his notebook. 'Mrs Brick tells me you two helped her son Jimmy escape from his bedroom last night.' His head swivelled between us. 'Is that right?'

  'Well,' I started, but Suzi gave me one of her shut-your-face looks, so I did.

  'She's lying.'

  The sergeant propped up his chin with one hand and looked at her. 'Go on.'

  'That's it,' said Suzi.

  Potter stared at her for a long moment, but Suzi simply stared back. Eventually he turned to me. 'You told me you'd gone to the pool hall to see Harry about a part time job.' His tongue slid along his lower lip and his eyes never left mine. 'But that's not quite true, is it?'

  I swallowed hard. 'Well,' I said again.

  'Because that place shuts at six,' he went on, 'and I know for a fact Harry was due to meet a couple of pals at The Skull and Crossbones public house at six-thirty.'

  'Oh,' I said. 'Was he?'

  'He was. So what I'm wantin to know is why you were really there and what it had to do with Jimmy Brick.'

  I glanced at Suzi. She gave me a look that said On your head be it!

  So I took a deep breath and started to talk.

  Half an hour and two cups of coffee later, we walked out of the police station, across the road and down the slope to the sea wall. Leaning against the concrete barrier next to Suzi, I risked a quick glance and saw her clenched jaw and the firm line of her mouth. She wasn't happy. Eventually she spoke:

  'You shouldn't have told him about the skull.'

  I shrugged in a non-committal way. 'Doesn't matter - he probably didn't believe me anyway.'

  She whirled round and thumped my shoulder. 'Course he didn't, ye daftie.'

  'How d'you know?'

  Suzi made a humphing sound. 'Flippin
obvious.' She glared at me for an absolute age, then her shoulders dropped and she half smiled. 'Jeff, how's a fully grown, fatbellied policeman going to believe you when even your best mate thinks you're talkin drivel?'

  I glowered at her. 'That's not what you said. You said –'

  'I'm your mate. I was worried about you so I said what you needed to hear.'

  I threw my hands up in the air. 'What for? How's that going to help? I thought I was going mad before - now I'm bleedin sure I am.' Sticking my hands in my pockets, I turned away from her in disgust, though mainly so she wouldn't see my bottom lip trembling.

  Her hand touched my arm. I shook it off and walked over to the paint-peeled sign advising bathers not to go in the water. Taking out my penknife, I stuck it into the wood and made on I was doing something interesting.

  'Jeff?' Her voice was softer now. 'I just didn't want you thinking...you know?'

  'Oh yeah?' I spun round, waving the knife in her face. 'Thinking I was a bleedin moron? Eh?'

  I'd never seen Suzi move so fast before - her left hand came up and grabbed my wrist, while her other hand grasped the knife by the handle and threw it in a long arc over the wall.

  'What the heck you do that for?' I wailed. 'My dad gave me that knife...' I pulled my hand free of her grip, braced one foot against the wooden sign and hoisted myself up onto the wall. The tide was coming in, but I could see the red handle of my prized possession lying between the rocks at the water's edge a good thirty feet beyond the wall.

  'Jeff - hang on...'

  But I was already over the top, racing over the sand and rocks towards the water. Jumping over a rivulet, I stopped at the spot where I thought the knife had landed, but it wasn't there. I bent down, my eyes scouring the rocks, throwing aside the smaller ones.

  'See what you've done?' I yelled. 'It's gone now - you've lost it...' I fell onto my knees, oblivious to the seawater seeping through my jeans. Peering at the ground, I leaned forward, studying the area, but the knife was gone.

  Behind me, Suzi jumped down off the wall. I heard her shuffling around in the sand. Then there was silence. I could tell she was standing beside me but I wasn't going to look. No way. She'd lost my flippin knife and that was totally the worst thing she could've done.

  She slid into my peripheral vision. I turned my head the other way. She moved closer.

  I felt her crouch down beside me. 'Here.' A hand reached out.

  'Go away.'

  'Here.' Her voice was insistent. I moved my head an inch, then another. The knife was in her hand, good as new.

  I wiped a sleeve across my face and without looking at her, took back my knife. 'Ta.'

  Suzi gave me a mock punch. 'Ye wally.'

  I sniffed and slipped her a sideways glance. 'Yeah. Sorry, it's just...'

  'I know. It's fine.' She stood up and gave me a minute to pull myself together. Then, 'So what now?'

  I gazed at the incoming tide. 'We have to go back to Jimmy's house.'

  'You're joking? What for?'

  Getting to my feet, I brushed the sand off my jeans. 'Cos I've just remembered where I've seen that skull before.'

  Obviously, we weren't going to be able to do anything during the day, so we walked back to Suzi's and had lunch. Suzi's mum wasn't quite as pleased to see me as usual, so I had to do a bit of bowing and scraping to get back into her good books.

  'Would you like to come to the pictures with us, Mrs Charlton?' I said, hoping my voice didn't sound too bogus. 'It's Revenge of the Sludge Monster. I bet you'd enjoy it.'

  Mrs Charlton looked up from her knitting. 'Just make sure you get Suzi back here in decent time,' she said. 'We don't want a repetition of last night, do we?'

  'No,' I said, shaking my head in an unequivocal way.

  We still had a few hours to kill so we scuttled up to Suzi's bedroom and pretended to listen to records while planning our mission. Jimmy's dad worked as a long-distance lorry driver and wasn't at home very often. His mother didn't work but spent at least part of every day at Benny's Bingo Emporium. The only problem would be if she didn't go out, and given that her son was missing, it'd be perfectly normal for her to want to stay at home in case there was any news. Luckily for us, Jimmy's mother wasn't perfectly normal.

  We went back to my house for tea and left just after six on the pretext of going to the movies. Waiting at the end of Lonely Walk Road, it was already dark and colder than I'd have liked. Checking my watch, I was glad to see it was almost six-thirty. If Mrs Brick was going out, it had to be soon. With any luck, she'd be getting ready to go and would appear at her front door in the next few minutes.

  'What are we waiting for?' said Suzi.

  I peered round the corner. 'I told you - the car's still there. Mrs Brick always goes to bingo with that wifie from along the road, cos she's the only one with transport.'

  'Oh, yeah.'

  'As soon as they've gone, we'll get to work.'

  Suzi shook her head slowly. 'I'm not sure about this Jeff. Maybe it's not such a good idea. If we're caught again, we'll get in a heap of bother.'

  'What? You're the one who wanted to break into the house in the first place.'

  'Yeah, well...I've thought about it since then.'

  'Look, if you don't want to come with me, that's fine. I'll do it myself.' I leaned round the corner again. 'This is the only way we're going to find what we're looking for.'

  Suzi sighed loudly, but didn't offer any further objections.

  A few minutes later, the woman from along the road appeared on the path. She jumped into her car and reversed down the road. Outside Mrs Brick's house, the woman peeped her horn. Me and Suzi watched the front door expectantly. After a minute, the neighbour peeped her horn again.

  That's when the door opened. Mrs Brick didn't have her coat on. My heart sank. She wasn't going out after all.

  But then she waved to her neighbour and shouted something. Going back in the house she reappeared with her hat and coat and ran up the path to the car.

  'Right,' I muttered as the car sped off up the road. 'Let's go.'

  Five

  It would've been too much to expect that she'd leave the back door open again, but we checked just the same.

  'Try the windows on that side,' I said. 'I'll do these ones.'

  Like most of the houses in Skeleton Cove, this one had sash-type windows. If we couldn't find one that was open, I reckoned a bit of pressure might bust the latch. Even so, I hoped we could get inside without breaking anything.

  It didn't take long to discover we were out of luck this time. We stood for a moment considering the options.

  'You're a good climber, ' Suzi said. 'Maybe you could shimmy up the wall?'

  'I'm not flippin Batman,' I said, though another thought occurred to me. 'Round here...'

  Standing underneath the bathroom window, I pointed up at the waste pipe. It looked good and solid and had a sort of branch pipe off to the right that led under the bathroom window. 'Just like a tree, eh?'

  'Yeah, and easy to fall out of too,' muttered Suzi.

  'Got any other ideas?' She hadn't. 'Thought not. Give me a leg up.'

  Suzi cupped her hands. I planted one foot on my makeshift ladder and hauled myself up, gently placing my other foot on her right shoulder.

  'Cripes, Jeff,' she moaned. 'Take it easy.'

  But I'd already grasped the offshooting pipe, which allowed me to scramble up as far as the bathroom windowsill. A minute later, I had one foot resting on a sticky-out brick and the other nestling in the joint where the offshoot met the main pipe.

  'Can you reach it?'

  I looked down. The window hadn't seemed so high when I was on the ground, but now it looked pretty dangerous. 'Hang on, I'll give it a try.'

  Keeping one hand on the wastepipe, I stretched up to the window and gave it a push. Nothing. Shuffling along a little further, I tried again and this time there was movement. A few more heaves and the lower section of the window slid upwards. It was only a few inches
but it allowed me to get a hand underneath and push it all the way open.

  It took a lot of shoogling around to get my arms and chest through the window, but once I'd got over the half-way point, the weight of my body carried me over the sill. Unfortunately, I hadn't bargained with the window being right over the basin, and I caught my belt buckle on the taps. It took a bit of too-ing an fro-ing to pull it free, but finally I got it loose, slid over the sink and tumbled in a heap onto the floor.

  The room was dark, though I could easily make out the door. Out on the landing I stopped and listened for a moment, but there was no sound except Suzi's insistent calling to Hurry up.

  I ran downstairs and unlocked the back door, letting my pal into the house. Then we hurried back up to Jimmy's bedroom.

  'Okay, so what exactly are we looking for?' Suzi was jiggling up and down and I could tell she was nervous. (Either that or she needed a wee).

  'A tee-shirt with a skull on it.' I went to the window and opened the curtains as far as they would go. The room was dark, but we couldn't take the chance of switching the light on.

  I began pulling drawers open while Suzi looked in the wardrobe. I was taken aback at how few clothes Jimmy had, though if his mum spent all her money at the bingo it was hardly surprising.

  'Nothing in here,' said Suzi. 'What about under the bed?'

  'Sure, give it a go.' I finished with the drawers and checked underneath, as well as in Jimmy's bedside cabinet, but all I found were back-copies of Scare-Your-Pants-Off Monthly and Frightey Night Features.

  I stood up and looked around. There didn't seem to be anywhere else it could be.

  Suzi shook her head. 'Nothing under here.' Then she brightened up. 'The washing!'

  'What?'

  She rolled her eyes. 'It'll be in the dirty washing pile.'

  'Nah, can't be - Jimmy only ever wears that tee-shirt when his ma's not around. He'd never let her see it.'

  Suzi made a face. 'Why not?'

  'Cos of where he got it from.'