Adam Slater - Hunted

Had Jacob come back? Callum had shut him out once, but he was sure the ghost boy wasn’t going to give up. Could he be out there now, prowling with his demon hound? All Callum’s body was prickling now with the sensation of danger, not just his fingers. Was the danger all around the house? Callum closed his eyes and allowed the unfamiliar sense to guide him. No, it was worse at the back. He could feel it there, sense it as though it were calling him. It was in the back garden.

Next to the doorway leading to the little kitchen, the wall of the sitting room had a set of full-length glass doors that opened on to the garden. Callum crossed to them and quietly pulled open one of the curtains so he could look outside.

The sky had cleared. The garden was awash in silver moonlight and blue shadows. Callum didn’t know what he expected to see. Anything out of the ordinary would have startled him, even a fox crossing the garden, but all seemed peaceful. Nothing stirred, but the tingling in Callum’s body was stronger than ever. He scanned the night again and his heart turned over with a thump of shock.

Someone was standing at the far end of the garden.

Callum could not make out any features, but he felt sure it wasn’t Jacob. It was not anyone or anything he had seen before. It was thin and spindle-shanked, a black stick-figure silhouetted in the bright moonlight. It might have been a leafless tree, except that no tree had ever stood there before. Callum’s mouth went dry as he realised that the shadowy figure was inside, not outside, the low garden wall.

Then, as he watched, the figure began to make its way slowly up the winding brick path towards the cottage.

With every step, fear tightened its grip on Callum. The moonlight was so bright it threw long shadows from Gran’s plum trees and bird table, but the moving figure cast no shadow of its own. It was halfway to the house now, and Callum still couldn’t make out anything about it, except that its body seemed to be glistening wet. Callum watched, appalled and fascinated, his hair on end. The thing was not human, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was something else.

The dark figure came closer. Callum wanted to flee, but could only stand transfixed with horror. What was the point in running upstairs and hiding his head under the duvet, with something like this waiting for him outside the cottage walls?

The figure had reached the patio. It walked slowly across the stone slabs and stood at the glass door directly in front of Callum, confronting him.

It was shaped like a human. But it had no face.

Its head was a mass of wet, gleaming veins and cartilage, muscle and teeth – a face without skin or form; lipless, lidless, without nose or ears. It was a flayed face, a face that had been peeled of skin and laid bare. The creature held Callum’s gaze with its unblinking eyes. Callum, frozen in terror, dared not look away.

They stood only a foot apart, staring at each other, nothing between them but the thin panes of the old glass door. The thing tilted its glistening head with what seemed to be an arrogant, mocking curiosity.

And then the hideous face changed.

Before Callum’s eyes, human skin grew over the naked web of veins. A human face knitted itself over the bloody flesh. The staring eyes grew lids and lashes, lips grew full and hid the grinning white teeth. Hair sprouted from the gleaming skull.

The change happened in seconds. But the moment Callum realised what he was looking at seemed to go on for hours.

On the other side of the glass door stood a boy of medium height and rugged build in his early teens. There was nothing eerie about this boy, apart from the fact that seconds earlier he had been a monster. Callum saw a face with broad cheekbones and tangled brown hair that was too long and standing up at the back. The face looked a little anxious around the eyes, with a crease of worry between the eyebrows. But it was just a face. A normal face.

It was his face.

Callum stood trembling in the dark, staring through the glass at a perfect replica of himself, even down to the expression of wide-eyed horror and revulsion. It was as if the creature was giving Callum a moment to realise what he was seeing.

Beware the dark reflection . . .

The creature that was not Callum moved suddenly, reaching for the handle of the door. Callum met the movement frantically, grabbing at the handle from the inside to make sure the door was locked – both he and Gran sometimes forgot. Matching hands met on the door handles on opposite sides of the glass and Callum braced himself for a desperate struggle.

At that moment a long, wild howl cut through the silence of the night, deep and powerful and rolling like thunder, and Callum recognised the voice of Doom the Churchyard Grim.

For the first time, the creature outside produced an expression that did not reflect Callum’s. Instead, it frowned. It narrowed its eyes, glanced over its shoulder quickly, and took its hand from the door. Its look was cold and angry. Then the thing met his eyes again and smiled.

The smile turned Callum’s blood to ice. It was a look of ugly promise and anticipation. But for now, it did nothing more. Slowly, never taking its eyes off Callum’s own, the monster backed away down the garden path. Callum noticed that now the thing had taken his face, it cast a shadow too. He shivered.

Finally, with a triumphant, taunting grin, the thing with Callum’s face vanished in the black tangle of trees at the bottom of the garden, as if it had never existed.

Friday. It was Friday morning, thank God.

Callum trudged wearily through the corridors, hardly noticing the other kids that rushed past on either side of him, laughing and joking. His body might have been in Marlock High School, but his mind was still trapped in the moonlit cottage garden. His brain seemed stuck in a loop, replaying over and over again the terrifying moment when the monster had stolen his face. He had hardly slept, apart from an hour’s fitful dozing around dawn. The walk to school had been a waking nightmare – with imaginary monsters lurking behind every tree. But he had made it in one piece, and at least now all he had to do was get through one day of school and then he had the weekend to try to figure out what was happening to him – and how to stop it.

‘Bolton’s looking for you, Scott,’ Baz hissed in Callum’s ear on the way into English.

Typical. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about without having to avoid Ed Bolton – who, Callum imagined, had not spent the evening chasing ghosts and demons out of his garden. No, Ed had probably been sleeping soundly, dreaming of what he would do to Callum when he finally caught up with him. Because this morning, he was definitely on the prowl.

Callum barely avoided him between lessons, ducking into an empty classroom at the last minute as Ed marched past, his beady eyes scanning the crowd. In the middle of history, Melissa passed Callum a note which said, Don’t go to the canteen at break. Heard Ed making plans to come and find you there. Meet me in the library.

She dropped the message on Callum’s desk with such cool and quiet calm that Callum was sure no one could possibly have noticed. He was impressed by her yet again.

Then, after the lesson, Callum went to his locker and found a fearsome scrawl of tomato sauce still dripping down the door. Ed’s DIY decorating job was simple and ugly, but the message to Callum was crystal clear. It also brought back, harsh and sharp, the shocking bloody message of his dream, and Jacob’s warning.

‘Bolton’s stylish signature, right?’ said Hugh Mayes sympathetically as he arrived at his own locker. ‘Want a hand, Scott?’