The Crowsbrook Demons

Chapter 6

The next morning, just before morning break, Jez ploughed down the crowded stairwell that led from the chemistry lab, scattering barely awake Year Sevens to the left and right of her. She paused briefly to glare at Mickey Amble and his mates as the empty Coke can they were using as an impromptu football flew past her head, before she headed toward the common room to recoup. She felt a familiar whack on her shoulder. It seemed slightly less forceful than usual.

"Sam," she said, without bothering to turn around. "How are things, me old duck?"

"How are things?" Sam looked at her as if she had asked him if he'd had breakfast with Shakespeare. "Were you late this morning? I didn't see you on the bus."

"Yeah," said Jez. "I overslept." Because I'm still sleep deprived from having a hysterical meltdown in the cottage of new-blood-in-the-village woman, who talks to dead people, and not in a sort of weird I-miss-my-dead-husband way. Yeah, right. "I went straight to the chemistry lab. Why? Did I miss something good?"

Sam looked serious.

"No. No, you didn't miss anything good. You missed something big, though. You don't have any classes with Marina Butterworth, do you?"

"Bat-head Butterworth?" said Jez, rolling her eyes. "No."

"You have to chill out, Jez," said Sam. "She was murdered last night. Down by the Foxglove Pond." He paused and swallowed. "So was Gareth."

Jez felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the corridor. She turned to look at Sam. He wasn't smiling, and he wasn't the kind of person to joke about something like this, either.

"Seriously?" She felt the blood drain from her face. "Holy fuck."

"Seriously. Official line is: be careful, don't talk to strangers, be indoors before dark, keep on the lookout for anything strange. The rumour mill is in fucking overdrive, though. Two dead Goth kids? Oh, my God—it was a double suicide. It was a murder-suicide. It was Marilyn Manson. One of them was a vampire... I need a damn cigarette." He took a deep breath. "One of Russell Norris's tedious snotty mates who's cousin's friend's dad's a police officer says that the bodies were such a mess that policemen who'd been on the force for thirty years were throwing up. Although, if they've been on the force for thirty years in this town, they probably haven't had to process much more than four burglaries a year and the odd speeding ticket, so it's not surprising."

Jez looked at Sam. He was staring straight ahead; his jaw was tight and his lips were pressed together.

"I'm sorry," said Jez. She didn't know what else to say. It was hard to take in. Gareth and Marina. Murdered. Gone. Just like that.

She felt a lump rising in her throat.

"That's fucked up," she managed.

"Yes," said Sam again. "Yes. It is incredibly fucked up."

They were silent for a moment.

"Some little shit," Sam continued, through clenched teeth, "was wandering around the corridors this morning saying that when they found them, they'd pretty much been turned inside out and burned with acid. Who the fuck makes shit like that up?"

"I don't—" said Jez, "I don't know. I don't know, Sam. I don't know what to say."

"You know what? Don't say anything," said Sam. "I need not to be here. Let's face it: Gareth may have been a bloody awful poet, but he was..." He trailed off and swallowed hard. "You know what?" he went on. "He did actually like Marina. Didn't think she was just some freaky Goth kinkster that he could cop off with for shits and giggles. I hope he fucking told her that. He'd been whining about it for long enough. I hope he told her before—"