Scared to Death--Ten Sinister Stories by the Master of the Macabre Read online

  And then, one day, Bob Kirby disappeared. He had last been seen driving east on the A14 in a stolen car, and rumour had it that he had upped sticks and moved to London. This was strange, as he had no friends or relatives there. Bob had no friends anywhere. Some people whispered that he had been stopped by the police on the way, beaten up and left in a ditch – but this was just wishful thinking. He had gone because he had decided to go. And the only thing that mattered was that, with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t come back.

  His place, however, had been quickly taken. Harry Faulkner had been Bob’s lieutenant, his second-in-command and the first to do whatever Bob wanted. When old Mr Rossiter’s house was burgled and his war medals stolen, it was Harry who had put his elbow through the back window. He was pale and unhealthy-looking, with tufts of greasy, fair hair, cut short, and a stye that had taken up permanent residence in the corner of his eye. His teeth were amazingly uneven and he had lost two of them in a fight nine years earlier when he was barely eleven. He had been excluded from school more often than he had been in it and he too had been served with an ASBO. His name appeared frequently on the lists passed between the police and social workers. He lived with his single mother, who drank, and a mongrel dog that limped around the wreck of the garden and cowered when Harry came home.

  He had chosen Jason Steel to be his own right-hand man – something that had made Jason enormously proud, particularly as he was only fifteen and, despite his best efforts, still had no police record. As soon as Harry took him under his wing, Jason promptly gave up attending school, something his teachers couldn’t understand because, despite appearances, he was actually fairly bright. Those appearances included a shaven head, hostile eyes and nicotine-stained fingers. Jason was scrawny and small for his age, hollowed out by the life he had chosen. He didn’t sleep enough, eat enough or look after his personal hygiene in any meaningful way. He was just happy to be with Harry. That was his tragedy. He couldn’t see how pathetic that made him.

  The two of them spent their days doing very little. They seldom got up before ten or eleven in the morning, ate large, unhealthy breakfasts and were outside The King’s Arms by one. Here they would meet up with Den, Frankie, Jo-Jo, PK and Ashley – the other members of the gang. Of course, the barman wasn’t supposed to serve them drinks. But Harry Faulkner was old enough to buy alcohol and the rest of them looked it, so why argue? Keep the boys happy and your windows might stay unbroken. That was the philosophy around here.

  In the afternoon, the seven of them might go shopping in Ipswich … or shoplifting, rather, for they seldom paid for anything. Sometimes Harry and Jason would head off alone. They liked going to the cinema. One of them would buy a ticket and let the other in through the fire door. They took drugs, of course. So far they had stayed off the heavy stuff; both of them were afraid – although neither of them would have admitted it. But they smoked weed and passed hours in a semi-conscious state. For all seven gang members, this wasn’t so very different from their normal state. They had found a way of making the day pass without their noticing. If they were bored, they didn’t know it. And if they knew it, they didn’t admit it. They were happy being together. What else did they need?

  But Harry and Jason were on their own the day they came upon the BMW.

  It was parked just round the corner from The King’s Arms, sitting in an empty street as if it had simply dropped out of the sky. What was an expensive car like this doing on the Kenworth Estate anyway? It looked brand-new, although its number plate showed that it was actually three years old. A BMW X5, metallic silver with alloy wheels, sports trim leather interior and electric sunroof, parked there looking as if it should be in some swanky showroom.

  Incredible.

  “Where d’you think that came from?” Harry asked. He had a squeaky voice, the result of all his smoking, and he almost purposefully brutalized every word. “Whe’ d’ya fink tha’ caym frum…?”

  “I dunno, Haz,” Jason replied. He was already wondering what Harry would do. Run a key down the paintwork, certainly. And perhaps more.

  “How much d’you think it’s worth?”

  “I got no idea.” In fact, Jason guessed its value would be more than thirty thousand pounds. The latest X5 went for more than thirty-five-thousand pounds new. He’d read that in a magazine. But it was always better to keep his mouth shut when he was with Harry. Being too clever with someone like that could be bad for your wellbeing.

  “Who’d park something like that round here?” Harry looked across the surrounding wasteland, back towards the pub and across the estate. There was nobody in sight. It was a cold day and drizzling. The winter months were drawing in.

  “What you gonna do, Haz?”

  Harry hadn’t decided yet, but Jason could see all sorts of possibilities travelling across his eyes like prizes in a game show. The cuddly toy, the flat screen TV, the luxury car…

  “Let’s get another drink,” Jason went on. It was three o’clock and the pub would be closed by now, but there was something about the BMW that made him want to move on. It shouldn’t have been there. It was weird. And there was something else…

  “Nah. Wait a minute.” Harry was still deep in thought. “That’s a nice car,” he said. “And it’s here. And there’s nobody about.”

  “Who’d leave a car like that out here?” Jason asked, almost exactly echoing what Harry had said a few moments before.

  “Let’s take a closer look.”

  “You think it’s safe?” Jason wasn’t sure why he’d said that.

  “You think that little diddy car is going to get up and bite you?” Harry giggled. “It’s safe!”

  The two of them went up to the X5. It had tinted windows. The bodywork was gleaming. Inside, the brilliantly polished dashboard made Jason think of a sleeping tiger. He wanted to hear the growl of the engine, to feel the power that would come as the dials and gauges lit up. He pressed his face against the glass and that was when he saw it, just sitting there on the front seat.

  The electric key fob.

  The single piece of kit which, without even being slid into the ignition, would allow the car to start.

  Harry had seen it too. “You see that?” he whispered.

  “Yeah, Haz.”

  “They left the key in the car.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Haz.”

  “What you talking about, Jace? They left the bloody key in the car.” Harry took another look around. “And there’s no one here.”

  It was true. The drizzle was bouncing off the tarmac, sweeping across the grim, uneven grass, hanging between the electricity pylons. It was keeping people indoors.

  Harry took hold of the door handle and pressed. It was going to be locked. It had to be. But no. He felt it click and the whole thing swung open – just like that.

  Even then, Jason thought that it must be a trick, that an alarm would go off and a dozen policemen would appear out of nowhere, pouncing on them and dragging them off to the nearest Young Offenders’ Institution. But no policemen came. There was just the soft clunk of the catch disengaging and then they were looking inside a car that they couldn’t have afforded if they’d both worked twenty-four hours a day for an entire year.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Harry whispered.

  “You bet,” Jason replied, although part of him wondered whether Harry ever thought very much at all.

  “Let’s do it!”

  They were inside the car before they knew it. And then came the wonderful moment when the doors closed and everything outside simply disappeared and the two of them were out of the drizzle, lost in the world of the car, surrounded by luxury and the latest technology. Harry had taken the driving seat, of course. Both of them knew how to drive, but Jason also knew his place. He was the passenger. Harry was the one who would be taking them for this ride.

  “Wow!” Harry breathed the single word and giggled.

  “Awesome!” Jason agreed.

  Harry pushed the eng
ine start button and it fired instantly.

  Jason heard the soft splutter and felt the vibrations. Never in his life had he sat in a car like this. He couldn’t stop himself smiling. Just a few hours before he had been lying in his bed with its dirty, wrinkled sheets, wondering how he would spend the rest of the day. And now this! “Let’s get out of here, Haz,” he said. He wanted to move. He wanted to leave the estate before the car’s owner appeared and dragged them out. And there was still that something else, nagging at the corner of his mind. A silver-grey BMW. It had a significance. But what was it?

  The car had six gears. Harry whipped it into first and pressed on the accelerator – and at once they surged forward. Nought to sixty in eight seconds. That was what this car could do, and even if Harry didn’t quite manage it this time, they were halfway down the road before either of them had quite realized what had happened.

  “This is unbelievable!” Jason shouted.

  “This is cool!” Harry squealed.

  The King’s Arms had become a speck in the rear-view mirror. A minute later, the estate had vanished from sight. Harry was clinging onto the steering wheel as if he were afraid of being left behind. To look at him, you would have thought it was the car that was driving him rather than the other way round. Jason drummed his hands against the dashboard. For the moment, sheer excitement had swept away all his doubts.

  Second gear, third gear, fourth … the faster they went, the more confident Harry became. They raced down a series of lanes and before they knew it they had come to a T-junction and the A1071 stretched across in front of them, leading either to Sudbury in the east or to Ipswich in the west. Suddenly there was more traffic. A police car whizzed past across them without slowing down, and the sight of it reminded Jason that this was a serious business. They had just stolen a thirty-thousand-pound car. This would mean more than an ASBO if they were caught. This could mean jail.

  “Where to, my man?” Harry asked. He sometimes talked in an American accent when he was really excited. He had picked it up from watching cop shows on TV.

  “I don’t care,” Jason replied. The truth was, he couldn’t think of anywhere he wanted to go.

  “Norwich?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Or London…”

  “How much petrol we got?” It was the first sensible thing Jason had said. When the car ran out of petrol, they would have to dump it. Neither of them had enough money to fill the tank, and anyway, driving into a garage would be too risky.

  “We got a full tank,” Harry replied. He sniggered. “Let’s have a day at the seaside!”

  “The seaside!” Jason crowed. It was his way of agreeing.

  Harry slammed his foot down and they shot onto the main road, bringing a blare of protest from a VW that had to swerve to avoid them. They had turned left, heading for Ipswich and the Suffolk coast. Almost at once they were doing seventy miles per hour. Grinning, Harry edged the speed up to eighty. Jason knew that Harry was being stupid. They had already spotted one police car, and speeding would only bring attention to them. But as usual he kept his thoughts to himself.

  And anyway, he had something else on his mind. It was the mention of London that had done it. He had remembered what it was about the BMW that had struck a chord. Of course. How could he have forgotten? Bob Kirby. Romeo. The gang leader who had disappeared. He had last been seen heading for London in a stolen car and – maybe it was just a rumour – but hadn’t someone told him that the car was a BMW X5? It was a coincidence. It had to be. But even so, it was a little bit strange.

  He turned his attention to the inside of the car. He had to admit, he had never been surrounded by so much luxury, from the double-stitched leather of the seats to the sleek, wooden panels around the dashboard, which had been polished until they gleamed.

  “Hey – this is cool!” Harry muttered.

  The BMW had a sat nav. Of course, that would be standard in an expensive car like this, but this one had risen out of the dashboard like something in a James Bond film, twice as wide and more sophisticated than any sat nav system either of them had ever seen. What was strange was that it seemed to have activated itself automatically. Neither of the boys had touched anything.

  “Put in our destination,” Harry commanded.

  “I don’t know our destination,” Jason said.

  “Well, think of one.”

  “How about Aldeburgh?” Jason remembered that it was a town on the Suffolk coast.

  “Yeah. Aldeburgh.” Harry frowned.

  Jason typed in the letters and pressed the button to start the guidance. At once the screen lit up to show an arrow pointing towards a cartoon roundabout, which, according to the numbers floating below, they would reach in a hundred yards.

  A moment later, a voice emerged from the speaker system. “At – the – roundabout – take – the – second – exit.”

  Harry and Jason looked at each other, then burst out laughing. They had heard sat navs plenty of times. But this car’s seemed to be equipped with the most extraordinary voice. It was like an old woman, shrill and high-pitched, not just telling them where to go but almost nagging them. The system was surely faulty. It had to be. No BMW-owner would want to drive with a voice like that.

  The two of them were so amused that they almost drove straight into the roundabout even though the counter was clearly signalling its approach: thirty yards, twenty yards, ten yards … at the last moment, Harry spun the wheel and they cut in front of an ambulance and veered from one lane to another. Seconds later they had exited and were following the A14 towards Felixstowe, with two miles to go until the next turn-off. By now Jason was wondering if Harry would let him have a go behind the wheel. He had never been in a car as powerful as this. He would have liked to feel his own foot pressing down on the accelerator. But he doubted it would happen. Harry was never very generous about anything and he liked to remind Jason of his place: number two. Jason stretched himself out in the comfortable passenger seat. Harry would probably slash the leather when they dumped the car. He might even decide to set it on fire.

  “Left – turn – ahead.” The ridiculous old woman’s voice cut in again.

  “Left turn ahead!” Harry mimicked the sound with a high-pitched falsetto of his own, and laughed.

  “You think it’s broken, Haz?” Jason asked.

  “Turn – left – onto – the – A – twelve.” It was almost as if the machine had heard him and wanted to contradict him. And sure enough, there was the signpost. The A12 to Lowestoft, the coastal road that would take them past Woodbridge and Orford and on to Aldeburgh.

  Harry made the turn, then fished in his pocket and took out a packet of ten cigarettes. He offered one to Jason and they both lit up, using the BMW’s lighter. Although Jason wouldn’t have dared admit it, he didn’t like smoking. He hated the smell – and it gave him a sore throat. But generally, what Harry did, he did. Soon the inside of the car was filled with grey smoke. Jason turned on the air-conditioning and allowed the electronically chilled air to rush in.

  “At – the – next – roundabout – take – the – third – exit.”

  “Let’s turn this off, Haz,” Jason said. Without waiting for an answer, he reached forward and pressed the button. The screen went black. They continued in silence.

  It took them another forty minutes to reach Aldeburgh, a pretty coastal town with a shingle beach that stretched from one end to the other. Jason had chosen it because he had been here once when he was very young, before he met Bob Kirby or Harry or any of the other gang members. It had been a long time ago, but he still remembered the fishing boats, moored on the beach, the brightly coloured houses, wonderful fish and chips. It was a rich town now, full of Londoners with second homes. Maybe that was why Harry had agreed to come here. Loads of houses, empty from Monday to Friday. They had stolen a car. Why not break in somewhere while they were about it?

  They parked the BMW in a car park at the far end of the town, next to an old windmill, then walked
back down the main street, Harry tossing the key in his hand as if he had owned the car all his life. After the excitement of the theft and the buzz of the ride, they were both thirsty – and Aldeburgh had plenty of pubs. They set off to find one.

  About halfway down the street, they passed a flower shop. Again, it was something that Jason wouldn’t have dreamed of admitting, but he quite liked plants. There had been a time, before he dropped out of school, when he had thought about working in a garden centre or even training to be a landscape gardener. His biology teacher had encouraged him and had fought on his behalf the first time he was excluded. Of course, she had given up on him in the end. Everyone had. But there were times when he felt a certain emptiness, a sense that things could have been different. Looking at the plants arranged on trestle tables in the street, he felt like that now.

  There was an elderly man with white hair and spectacles, presumably the shop owner, packing away for the night. He was delicately loading plants onto a wooden tray and Jason recognized immediately what he had been selling. The plants were a pale green with strange leaves shaped almost like mouths … for that indeed was what they were. Venus flytraps. Jason even remembered their Latin name, Dionaea muscipula. In a way, the plants were little miracles. There was nothing else quite like them on the planet. They were carnivorous. The leaves were covered with tiny, sensitive hairs, and when an insect flew in, they would spring shut, forming an air-tight chamber. That would be it for the insect. There was no way out. Over the next five to twelve days, the creature would be dissolved and digested. That was how the plant fed. And even the most brilliant scientists weren’t sure exactly how the trap worked.