Graceful Abaddon

Loveable Creatures (10)

Chapter Nine: Breakfast with the Hockocks

Abbey spun around, heart struck with terror, expecting Hockock ...

But it wasn't him.

Instead, there stood a small, dark-haired boy, watching her from the doorway. He took her in with marked incomprehension, as if he'd expected the room to be empty. His skin, Abbey noted with surprise, was a distinctive dark brown, not in any way resembling Hockock's tanned Mediterranean looks. In fact, the boy looked totally aboriginal. He can't have been Hockock's natural son.

This is what first struck Abbey as she looked him over. Then she noticed the utter meekness of his body, his tiny arms and bony ankles. His shoulders were emaciated, collar bone starkly visible atop the drooping neck-line of a Manchester United jersey. His entire frame from shoulder to hips was unhealthily narrow, and his face was slightly twisted as if someone had punched him hard between the eyes, permanently disfiguring the nose. Abbey couldn't help but gawk at the unnatural shape of his nose: the nasal bone was pushed right into his face; to Abbey, it seemed impossible he could still breathe through his nostrils.

While she looked at him, the boy stared back, blank and silent, visibly uncertain.

Finally, Abbey smiled at him. "Hi," she said. "My name's Abbey. What's your name?"

The child still didn't speak. He narrowed his eyes at her, then they darted quickly around the room. Looking at her once more, mouth slightly agape, he started slowly backing away, out of doorway and into the hall.

Her muscles beginning to relax again, now that the ringing of the thrust door had faded, Abbey sat down on her bed, continuing to watch the boy. He kept backing away in the slow way a curious toddler retreats from a smiling stranger, until the doorway blocked her view of him. After this, running footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Abbey remained sitting on the bed, wondering what to make of the boy. And then, at last, the realization - the memory of last night's fear - came flooding back to her. Oh, thank God, she thought. He does exist. Thank you, thank you, thank you, God. That, at least, was something Leathe and Hockock were not lying about.

Thinking about this, even in spite of the other, obviously weird stuff that had happened during the night, Abbey smiled. Then, feeling relief coursing through her chest and arms and back, she chuckled. Indeed, she tried to encourage the chuckle further - to let it become a good, proper laugh, knowing that she needed it. But her body, or her mind, or some combination of the two, wasn't ready for that quite yet.

Still though, the boy was real. Clearly very shy, but she preferred that to the opposite any day. And, thank God, he really did exist. Her imagination, at least on this count, had been overly paranoid. I mean, of course it was, she thought to herself. And how much more would turn out to just be the crazy fancies of her mind?

She got up off the bed, pulled some thin grey tracksuit bottoms over her PJs, then she left the bedroom. She still dreaded the prospect of seeing Mr Hockock again, after what she'd seen earlier that morning. But she had, since then, been trying to convince herself he can't have thought much of the whole thing really. Like, what could he have possibly thought she was doing? She had no idea he was out there. She was just enjoying the view out the window, being unable to sleep. And then when he unexpectedly popped up, she had tried to hide to avoid seeing him and making him feel awkward. It wasn't like she was spying on him or anything.

And, her mind interjected, it's not like she was the one being weird in the first place. He was the one walking around without any pants on, talking to himself at four in the morning. He was the one who should be embarrassed to see her.