The Crowsbrook Demons

Chapter 2

The bus shuddered to a halt in the quiet village square. Jez shouldered her dark-green army surplus bag with the doodles on it, clutched her file full of biology notes to her chest like a breastplate, and stepped out of the cloud of other people's smoke and bubble-gum fumes into near silence. The bus gave a mechanical grunt and hiss and grumbled off up Smith's Hill. The shouts and squeals of the other kids getting off the bus were the only sounds in the darkening October evening. A woman in a navy-blue wax jacket and wellingtons walked a dog that was mostly collie past the village primary school. Jez glared at it all with contempt.

Dead, she thought. It's totally dead here. Like a bubble sealed off from the real world. She gave the woman with the dog a withering glance. It was Rose Pound, who ran the village shop with her husband, Jake. I bet she's never read The Origin of Species, thought Jez, and immediately felt guilty. Rose was all right.

She started the five-and-a-half-minute walk from the bus stop to the house she shared with her dad on Green Lane, one of a row of six old farmworkers' cottages that backed onto a field and a whole lot of nothing. Half a minute might not seem like much, but when you were trying to grab your books, your lunch and your lab coat while tying back your still-wet hair and throwing enough powder on your nose to stop anyone from commenting on the glare until you got to school, it made all the difference. She walked past the Nag's Head, a small country pub that someone in the eighties had painted rose pink. Past the village school that Jez had attended until she was eleven. She had read everything in its tiny library, which was kept in a cupboard by Mrs. Hadley, who had grey hair set in unnatural corkscrews, and lived in Bewley, the next village over. Past the bus shelter, with the proclamations of the village kids hollering in chalk and markers from its walls: "Andy M is a TOOL," "Emily is a Slag," "I luv Jamie IDT INDT," and the ancient proclamation "Sherry loves Bazza 1984" muttering from the corner like a nostalgic great-aunt. Past Mrs. Bastable's cottage, with her ill-tempered Jack Russell rattling around inside it like a noisy canine pinball. Past Miss Forge's cottage, almost hidden in a forest of carefully cultivated rose bushes, done blooming for several months now. Past the Eatons' cottage. Past the Birkins' house.

In less than one year, Jez would be out of there. No more listening to fart contests on the bus, thank God. She was going to an actual city, to live somewhere with people in it she hadn't known since, you know, birth. With live music that wasn't just Paul Barlow and whatever musicians he was talking to that month playing hair metal covers in the Red Dragon pub in Arden. She glared at the trees and the neat gardens, consumed with hate.

She was so deep in her reverie that she didn't hear the footsteps behind her.

She felt a sudden hard smack on her shoulder that almost threw her off balance, and whirled round snarling, ready to do battle. She saw a guy who looked about her own age; he was tall and thin, with untidy reddish hair that defied the efforts of both product and gravity. Jez's rage turned into a frustrated sigh.

"Jesus, Sam," she said. "Don't do that."

"You need to pay more attention. You can't move to the big city and walk around off in your head the whole time."

"Won't be a problem. If I'm in the city, I won't be thinking about how much I hate living in a shithole where nothing ever happens and where eight out of every ten people you meet are related. Also, what's the worst that can happen here? I'm not going to get mugged by Mrs. Bastable's Jack Russell."

"He's an ornery little bastard."

"I could totally take him." She kicked grumpily at a pebble in front of her, sending it into a shallow puddle with a splash.

"Where were you on the bus?"

"Upstairs. Had a small transaction to conduct with Barlow. Procurement of fine herbs for relaxation and health. Why the hell are you so miserable?" Sam pulled a squashed packet of cigarettes out of his bag and lit one expertly. "One thing that struck me today: maths may aggravate my eczema, but for you, my dear, I was willing to risk my complexion, and if my calculations are correct, it is, as of today, less than one year until you will be leaving the bosom of the arse-end of the colon of nowhere for rainier climes, all being well, no?"