Tim O'Rourke - Dead Flesh

“I’m in my room,” she explained, her voice just above a whisper. “Lights go out at nine at Ravenwood. I daren’t put the light on or it might attract the attention of one of those Greys. They’ve gone crazy tonight.”

“How come?” I asked her, Potter and Isidor now standing behind me so they could see Kayla.

“I don’t know, but something spooked them,” she said, bringing the iPod closer to her face. “These alarms were ringing and Greys were running around everywhere. One of them nearly caught us.”

“Us?” I asked her, wondering what was happening in that school.

“Me and Sam went walk-about tonight,” she whispered, her face ghostly looking as she stared back at me.

“Why?” Isidor asked, leaning over my shoulder.

“Hey, Isidor,” Kayla said, catching a glimpse of her brother. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” he said back, sounding a little choked. “But why did you…”

Before he had a chance to finish, Kayla said, “I’m not going to find anything out unless I actually go and investigate, am I?”

“Who’s Sam?” Isidor asked, sounding like a concerned older brother.

“Just a friend, he’s really nice,” she said, and I heard her voice soften slightly at the mention of him.

“So, did you find anything out on this little trip of yours?” Potter suddenly cut in.

“Hey, is that cranky-pants?” Kayla asked, and I could hear her giggle back in her room.

“Watch it,” Potter said but he didn’t really sound angry with her, he knew she was just teasing him. “So did you find anything or not?”

“I found out that McCain is a complete and utter whack-job,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, fearing that he might have hurt her in some way. We sat huddled around my iPod as Kayla told us about her visit through Ravenwood to Emily Clarke’s bedroom. She described in detail the blood that covered the walls and how she and Sam had hidden when McCain had come to the room. On hearing how he had licked the walls, my stomach lurched as it made me feel sick, but not as ill as when Kayla described what he had done after that. Kayla told us in a whisper how McCain seemed to have a permanently blocked nose, and Isidor told her why.

Kayla seemed to know little about the matching other than it took place at a disused chapel and that McCain was responsible for the matching of the wolves with the kids at the school. Hearing her description of Emily’s bedroom, I feared that this was how Emily had met her death. I asked Kayla if this is all that she had managed to discover.

Then, for just a second she disappeared from view, then was back again. She held something up before her and said, “Look what I found.”

It took me a moment to figure out exactly what it was she holding. “Is that the camera Emily had hidden in her room?” I breathed.

“Sure is,” she said, sounding pleased with herself.

“Have you watched what’s on it?” Isidor cut in, sounding excited.

“Does it show her being murdered?” Potter asked next.

“Shhh!” I hissed. “Let Kayla talk.”

“No, I haven’t been able to watch it,” she said. “It’s one of those cameras that downloads straight to a laptop. Besides, I had to leave the power cable behind.”

“Why?” Potter asked.

“I was in a mad rush to get out of that room before McCain came back,” she explained.

“So how are we gonna ever know what’s on there?” Isidor inquired.

“I’ll go and get it,” Potter said, standing up as if he was going to leave right now.

“No, don’t do that!” Kayla insisted. “I’m not allowed visitors until the matching is over and they drill it into the kids that if they see strangers or anyone who looks odd, to report it.”

“I don’t look odd,” Potter snapped. Then, looking at me, he said, “Do I look odd to you?”

Ignoring him, I looked down at the screen and said, “What do you suggest, Kayla?”

“I’ll try and sneak away tomorrow somehow,” she said. “But the place is pretty guarded, what with the searchlights and towers. But I’ve got the advantage that no one here knows what I truly am. I can move fast and I can fly so I should be able to figure something out.”

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” I warned her. “This world is screwed up enough without throwing a winged half-breed into the mix.”

“I’ll try and leave the camera on the other side of the school walls,” Kayla suggested. “I’ll find a place to hide it, somewhere that you can find it. I’ll leave a marker of some kind. Then, I’ll send you a message, Kiera, to let you know where I’ve hidden it.”

“Okay,” I agreed. The plan wasn’t great, but I couldn’t think of what else to do, and we didn’t have time on our side. “As soon as the camera is in place, let me know and I’ll send Isidor to collect.”

“Why not me?” Potter asked, sounding offended.

“Because we stand a better chance of Isidor getting close to the school and getting the camera without drawing any attention to us,” I explained. “If we lose that camera then we lose everything. Besides, Isidor will be able to follow Kayla’s scent to wherever she leaves the camera. Right, Isidor?”

“You bet,” Isidor said proudly and sniffed the air.

Then, not wanting to debate it further, I looked back down at Kayla’s ghostly image and said, “Good work, Kayla. You’ve done a good job. Be careful and we’ll wait for your message.”

“I miss you guys,” Kayla said one last time before she ended the call.

I slipped the iPod into my pocket and looked at the others.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Potter said.

“Neither do I,” Isidor said, and it was the first time that I had ever known them to agree on anything.

“We get the camera,” I said. “We see what it’s got to show…”

“And if it does show McCain killing the Clarke woman?” Potter asked.

“We get Kayla out of there,” I said.

“Then what?” Isidor said.

But before I’d had the chance to reply, Potter said, “We push McCain so freaking hard, that he never gets up again.”

I arrived for the class the following morning only to discover that Sam had been right, Brother Michael had taken ill. As I sat down next to Sam, he couldn’t wait to tell me that rumours were rampant that our new teacher, Sister Margaret, had actually gone berserk herself and freaked out a few weeks before. Hearing this, my heart sank. Another freak !

“What happened?” I whispered behind my hand, as Sister Margaret sat slumped in a rocking chair at the front of the class. Just like the other Ravenwood Greys, her face was covered by the hood of her robes.

“Listen to this,” Sam whispered back. “I heard she started to eat a book she was reading!”

I looked at him and said, “That’s just a bunch of crap. That never happened.”

“Honest,” Sam said. “I’m not faking. She started to rip the pages from her book — then eat them, until she puked her guts up all over the classroom floor.”

I had seen a lot of crazy stuff in my life, but this story seemed

too strange to believe. The class as usual was in silence, there hadn’t been much work set for us. I guessed it was art class or something, because on each desk had been placed a jug of cloudy water with paintbrushes. It almost felt like we were killing time until we were either chosen by McCain for matching or we were set free. The class had been sitting quietly. As I spied around the room, I could see that some weren’t painting at all, but just staring into space like freaking zombies, while others sat and painted pictures.