Jason Willow: Face Your Demons Page 8

  Jason sat still, concentrating on breathing slow and deep. A fight in these close quarters would get messy.

  ‘Hello, Hairy,’ Mouse said to the lead skinhead. Jason winced - was that his real nickname or just one of Mouse’s little witticisms? ‘You have missed our company, yes?’

  Hairy’s small pig eyes narrowed. ‘I ain’t missed you, Mouse, don’t be fick - you’re too ugly for anyone to miss.’ He turned to gawp at Louisa who stared coolly back. ‘Got your sticks wiv ya, Mouse?’ he asked, finally dropping Louisa’s stare.

  Mouse just smiled.

  Hairy nodded and turned to Jason, leaning close to him as if peering at some grub found crawling along his mattress. His breath smelled - a mix of old beer, onions and decay. Jason stopped himself from swallowing hard.

  ‘Wot you doin’ on my bus, you skinny little rat?’

  The skinhead girl snorted behind him. ‘Hey, Mouse’s mate would be a rat, wouldn’t he?’

  Jason moved his head to the side a little to get a breath of cleaner air and to smile sweetly at the female wit of the gang. She’d a thin little rat-tail of blonde hair, sticking out from the back of her head. Despite this, with fewer studs and a bit more hair she’d actually be really good looking. The boy with the spider-web face scowled and slung his arm across the girl’s shoulders, mouthing some obscenity at Jason.

  The bus jerked forward, wisps of black diesel fumes curling in.

  ‘Well, rat-boy – you too scared to talk?’ Hairy grunted, leaning even closer. ‘Wot ya doing on my bus?’

  Jason turned back to the big, ugly face in front of him. He was getting a bit sick of this foul smelling thug and there was no way he was going to look afraid in front of Louisa.

  ‘I’m coming to your school to make some lovely new friends,’ Jason said, straightening up so he was closer to Hairy’s height.

  Hairy’s face split back into its dirty-toothed grin and he twisted around to face his posse. ‘He talks posh, don’t he?’ Hairy nodded as he said this, giving them the right answer and so they nodded back, laughing. Only the girl with the rat-tail hair looked a little suspicious of Jason’s apparent lack of fear.

  Just then, the bus lurched and the skinheads half stumbled with it.

  ‘You had better find a seat upstairs where it is safe, Hairy,’ Mouse said, fiddling with something inside the thin leather jacket he was wearing over his black tee shirt. ‘We would not want you all falling down and having your faces smashed in now, would we?’

  Louisa sat up straighter and interlocked her fingers. She pushed out her index fingers to form an arrow pointing straight at Hairy’s crotch. One quick flick of her foot at the target and the Skin would be in agony.

  Hairy stared at Louisa’s hands and nudged back into his gang. A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Maybe we’ll… make friends wiv ya’ at school then, new boy,’ he said, then turned away, pushing through the others and leading them up stairs.

  The last Skin to go up was the rat-tail girl. She stared at Jason for a moment and he waved to her. She shook her head, cut one finger across her throat and followed her gang.

  ‘Nice,’ Jason said, forcing himself to relax back into the seat.

  ‘Hairy and the baldies?’ Mouse said. ‘They’re not so bad – it is Big Wig you need to watch out for. He is not so friendly.’

  ‘Big Wig?’ Jason snorted, his tension starting to drain away.

  Mouse just winked.

  Louisa shivered and wrinkled her nose as if she could smell something bad. ‘He means Callum Mennis – the leader of the Skins. Do not call him Big Wig.’

  ‘You said something about the gangs that time in the woods…’ Jason said. ‘Isn’t there a Brash gang or something as well?’

  ‘You actually listen to what we say?’ Mouse said, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Only the interesting bits,’ Jason said.

  ‘So,’ Mouse continued, ‘there are indeed two gangs – the Brash and the Skins. It is like a fairy tale, yes - the Brash are rich, beautiful people from a pretty village but the Skins are poor and ugly, their families slave in the brewery and drink away their lives in these pubs we are passing.’

  ‘Nice,’ Jason said.

  Mouse nodded. ‘Luckily the Skins all live in the hovels of Drunken Abbot and are fenced off from the nice people.’

  Jason stifled a grin. ‘It must be quite a big fence to keep the whole town out.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Louisa answered, ‘Brash is very strict about security. He says it is to protect the laboratories against spying but of course, we know it is to guard against… other dangers.’

  Jason nodded. She must mean the Brethren rather than the Skins and brewery workers of Drunken Abbot.

  He looked down the bus. The “normal” teenagers who had got on after the Skins, had all stayed on the lower deck. They looked fairly rough in their dirty, ripped jeans and crumpled T-shirts but they weren’t threatening like the Skins. They were talking more loudly than the Darkston Wick children however, confident on their own turf and some of them openly stared back at the new boy. Were they guessing at his fate once he got into school?

  ‘So, these town kids sitting here,’ Jason whispered, ‘they’re not part of the Skins’ gang then?’

  Mouse answered. ‘No – the Skins only want the best of the pickings… the strong or just the most vicious. The others are sometimes used as punch bags so they do their best to be invisible most of the time.’

  Jason nodded and looked out of the window. It wouldn’t be difficult to disappear in the dilapidated buildings and rat-runs of Drunken Abbot.

  ‘They are not all bad people, of course,’ Louisa said, snapping his attention back to her. She paused for a moment, then looked straight into his eyes. ‘For an example - you seem to have caught the eye of that nice girl, Lindsey Davenport.’

  Trapped in her gaze like that, there wasn’t another girl that existed for Jason. He swallowed hard and stammered ‘The skinny, rat-tail girl? I think she wants my throat cut.’

  Louisa held him for a few more delicious moments then smiled. ‘Be careful of her, Jason, she is clever.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jason said. Was Louisa bothered that he might like another girl? Feeling his face start to burn at the thought, Jason looked out of the window again.

  They trundled along the main road, passing more rows of indistinguishable grey terraced houses – many of them boarded up like the shops.

  ‘Why are there so many pubs?’ Jason asked.

  ‘I think you would need to drink if you lived in this place, yes?’ Mouse asked.

  ‘Brash sells Drunken Abbot Ale and whisky very cheaply to his workers,’ Louisa explained, looking out of her window. Her voice sounded flat, bordering on hopeless.

  Mouse carried on. ‘Brash is very clever - he pays very little but gives them their homes and feeds their... what is your word… addictions - yes? This makes it very difficult for anyone to leave the town where they might spread rumours and secrets that might bring… unwanted attention.’

  ‘Have you ever tasted it?’ Louisa said, suddenly facing Jason. ‘Drunken Abbot Ale I mean… or the whisky?’

  ‘Uhh, no, I’ve had plenty of lager and cider and stuff though,’ Jason said then immediately felt like a pathetic schoolboy trying to impress a girl about how big a drinker he was.

  ‘Do not ever try it,’ she said. ‘We do not know what Brash has found to make the drink become so addictive but it happens very quickly.’

  ‘So there are no magic potions that you people use then?’ Jason asked, trying to keep his voice light whilst digging for a little information about the world of demon hunting.

  Louisa hesitated a moment then spoke quietly. ‘No, we have no potions or magic spells to change princes into frogs.’

  They stopped twice more to pick up Drunken Abbot kids. Each time it was the same - a bunch of skinheads pushing and swearing their way upstairs followed by more normal children, often running from across the street to catch the bus at the last minut
e presumably to avoid waiting with the Skins.

  All the normal pupils stayed downstairs, happy to stand once all the seats were filled rather than venture onto the upper deck.

  Hating to admit it to himself, Jason didn’t blame them.

  ‘Is there much trouble with the Skins at school?’ Jason asked.

  Mouse grinned. ‘Only the fighting.’

  ‘Don’t the teachers do anything about it?’

  Mouse shrugged. ‘They don’t care as long as it is outside the buildings. They are scared to come out into the grounds, I think.’

  Louisa scoffed. ‘It is more likely Alan Brash has told them to let the gangs get on with their fighting. It is good training for the Brash gang – he chooses the best ones for his private army of security guards.’

  ‘This is true. The Brash gang are like the Securitate or the KGB of the school,’ Mouse grunted, ‘his secret police.’

  ‘And now you will see where they live,’ Louisa said, nodding out of the windows.

  They had arrived at the fence.

  Razor wire stretched six metres high between towering, bright steel poles and ran continuously across streets blockaded by concrete posts and behind derelict and boarded up houses. The wire was electrified too, according to the yellow streaked lightening signs and there were floodlights and motorised cameras on top of the foot-thick poles.

  The bus turned down a narrow street and everyone started reaching inside their coats and trouser pockets to pull out dark blue pass holders.

  ‘Get your pass out,’ Mouse said. ‘These security people are not very patient.’

  The bus shuddered to a halt some way before a glistening, sheet-steel gate hung between twin watchtowers. Two metres in front of the gate a double row of thick, steel bollards jutted up out of the road.

  Jason tugged out his photo pass just as the bus door hissed open and four dark blue uniformed security guards stepped on board. They each wore a belt hung with a long police baton, handcuffs, spray can and bulging pouches. They wore dark blue helmets, complete with smoked visors pushed up for the moment, and some sort of tiny web-cam and microphone stuck on the side.

  ‘Brash likes his security, doesn’t he?’ Jason whispered.

  Mouse kicked his foot. ‘Just keep quiet.’

  Two of the guards went upstairs and two moved slowly along the lower deck checking everyone’s photo pass in small card readers.

  ‘The readers blue-tooth to a database,’ Mouse whispered. ‘If the pictures don’t match they shoot you,’.

  Jason stared at him, eyes wide. He couldn’t tell if Mouse was joking or not.

  The foremost guard reached Jason and stopped, the tiny helmet camera lens staring at him like a dead glass eye. The bus was silent. Jason heard a tinny voice inside the guard’s helmet.

  ‘You’re new.’ the guard said.

  ‘I am.’

  Mouse knocked his foot and so he added ‘My name is Jason Willow,’ and held his pass higher.

  The guard took the pass and fed it into his machine. Jason held his breath. Dad had sent one of his old passport photographs to have the pass made – his hair was a bit longer now and his spots had cleared up.

  The guard frowned at the photo but then turned around at some shouting from the upper deck.

  ‘I just bloody forgot it, all right. Leave me…’

  A moment later, a skinhead crashed down the metal steps and sprawled across the floor. He struggled to stand but a black boot lashed out from the stairwell straight into his stomach. The boy doubled over and another guard from outside stepped in, grabbed him around the neck and dragged him off the bus.

  Nobody moved. Jason’s interrogator turned back to him. He didn’t seem in the least perturbed by the violence as he handed the pass back.

  ‘Get a new photograph authorised… soon.’

  And that was that. In moments, the guards were out of the bus and the door hissed shut. The shining bollards slid down into the road and the steel gate rolled to one side to allow them into Darkston village

  ***

  The bus rattled through a community that couldn’t have been more different from the decaying streets of Drunken Abbot. It was a perfectly landscaped picture of paved lanes winding between thatched cottages and breaking into small parks and a village square. The whole place rambled down the sunny south sides of two gentle hills.

  On top of one of those hills brooded an ominous black marble gatehouse and on the other, the grey monolith of Silent Hill school.

  ‘How can Brash get away with treating people like this?’ Jason asked. ‘Half of them in a slum and the other in some chocolate box heaven with crazy armed guards to keep them apart?’

  Mouse grunted. ‘Brash has many loyal, well paid friends in high places – they are like a big family, yes? This is how he can have his own little empire in this valley and keep it all secret.’

  Louisa stared out of the window. ‘This is where Brash gives his important people their beautiful homes, luxury food delivered to their door and, best of all, free Drunken Abbot Ale.’

  ‘What, totally free, as much as they like?’ Jason asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Louisa said, keeping to a whisper that did nothing to hide her vitriol, ‘these are Brash’s most valuable tools – his chemists, accountants, lawyers and managers as well as those relocated from… abroad. They know too much to ever leave his service and so he ties them to him in many ways.’

  She turned to face him, leaning closer and dropping her voice. ‘This is what Brash does – he gives people everything they want until he does not need them anymore. You must have nothing to do with him, Jason.’

  Jason struggled to concentrate. He could feel Louisa’s warm breath on his neck as she spoke. She was wearing that light, summery perfume again, sending tendrils of delicate sweetness weaving through his head.

  Mouse nudged him, a little harder than was necessary to get his attention. ‘His people will try to tie you to him as well – the first will probably be the Brash gang. They will offer you protection, training and… other rewards.’

  Jason nodded, sitting back and closing his eyes. Here he was, on his way to a nightmare school in the middle of a high security fantasy village and being told not to trust a middle aged businessman who last night had performed a ten foot back flip and stopped a glass in mid-air and who seemed to be the only person who wanted to tell him about demons that were being summoned into our world and show him how to use the miraculous powers he was about to develop.

  This wasn’t normal.

  ‘We’re here,’ Louisa cut across his thoughts.

  Jason looked up and Silent Hill School filled the windscreen in front of him.

  Chapter 8

  Row upon row of small dark windows stared blindly out from a massive, grey granite wall. The regimented glass only broke ranks once - for a small, iron bound door which opened into a dimly lit tunnel.

  Jason followed Louisa and Mouse as they got up and shuffled down the bus behind the other students. No one spoke – it was as if they were being herded towards the gallows. Thankfully the Skins upstairs seemed in no hurry to leave either and had not even appeared yet.

  Jason stepped off the bus onto flagstones worn smooth by centuries of shambling feet. The yard was immense, stretching for two hundred metres or more across the face of the building. In the centre was a granite dais rising in three square blocks to a platform four metres up. On top there stood a black-wood gallows.

  Jason shivered. Standing still in the cold shadow of Silent Hill, he could smell the stone and almost feel the thousands of tons of granite leaning forward, overwhelming him with its weight of centuries.

  ‘Perhaps a small flower basket would brighten it up a little, yes?’ Mouse suggested, slapping him on the shoulder.

  The spell broken, noise flooded back into Jason’s head. Pupils were everywhere - sitting on the gallows’ steps, milling in front of the walls and door and skulking off into some woods which fell away down the hillside on the f
ar edge of the yard.

  The new arrivals began to trudge towards the single doorway, the Darkston Wick children hurrying away as the Skins finally piled off the bus behind them. Thankfully, the gang members headed straight for the left hand corner of the school and disappeared from view.

  As they approached the dark doorway, the looming granite and press of pupils seemed to fill Jason’s head.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Louisa said, touching his arm. He forced himself to focus on her lovely face and block out the school. He didn’t want her to leave him on his own here – not yet anyway. He just needed a little time to adjust, that was all.

  ‘You do get used to it,’ she said, smiling as Jason forced a nonchalant shrug. ‘It is supposed to make you feel bad – Silent Hill was built a thousand years ago as a House of Correction for those disobeying the sacred laws of the Darkston Abbey monks. If the inmates spoke, they were flogged or worse.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Jason croaked, ‘that helps.’

  Mouse shoved between two groups of younger pupils. ‘Come on, we should get inside before the fun begins out here, I think. Jason would perhaps wish to avoid that on his first day.’

  He forged ahead towards the passage. The door which was thrown back against the wall was almost a foot thick, banded with iron and with a barred watch hole two thirds up. Jason pushed away the image of it being slammed shut and trapping him inside.

  ‘What does he mean – “before the fun begins”?’ Jason asked Louisa.

  She glanced across at the left hand corner and Jason followed her gaze. A couple of Skins had appeared and were lounging against the wall, smoking and watching the crowd. She shook her head and pulled Jason into the tunnel after Mouse.

  ‘He means the swearing and stone throwing when the Brash arrive… perhaps a small fight as it is the first day of term.’

  ‘Better and better.’ Willow mumbled.

  The passage ran for perhaps fifty metres or so and opened into bright sunlight at the far end. It was badly lit by old fluorescent tubes, half of them broken and most of the others flickering intermittently. Doors opened off on both sides about every five metres or so and half way along there were opposing flights of stone steps rising up into more gloom.