Chapter 5

The good thing about not having to ride with Mrs Loyd, Elliot thought as he rode his bike down the main road that led to the football pitch, his gear shoved crudely in his rucksack, was that he didn’t have to listen to her constant snide remarks about how she was going to take his home away from him. The downside was that he was now forced to ride his bike to football and back. And worst of all, at least on the way there for him and Owen, was it was all pretty much uphill.

“You look like shit?” Jaime said with a sneer as they both kicked their bikes to a stop. It didn’t help that their fat keeper was getting out of an air conned car as he said this.

Owen shoved his middle finger at the large boy after locking his bike up.

“Do you think we should just apologise to my Mum?” Owen asked once he’d caught his breath.

“You’re joking right. This was your idea.” Elliot responded. He’d been all in favour of that very idea. But he’d been overruled. Then he put on a cruel, but accurate impression of his best friend. “I will not apologise to that monster.” He ducked out of the way of the half-hearted punch that was aimed his way by Owen at the impersonation. “Besides, your Mum wouldn’t accept it even if you did apologise.”

So, hot and sweaty, along with resigning to the idea of biking up to this place for the rest of their lives, they both headed inside the stadium.

The changing rooms did nothing to improve their condition, twenty, mostly, deodorant shy teenage boys took care of the smell, and Coach Jones, who suffered with the same condition finished it all off. combined with the smallness of the room, it would not take long for one of them to pass out from the smell. At least the small windows were open, allowing some fresh air in to dilute the stench.

Two things immediately stuck out to Elliot as they entered, the first, was that Coach Jones was not there. Which was odd, as the big man was usually always there to berate them the first and in face every training session after a loss.

The second was that Danny was there, looking, well, weird.

“Hey Danny.” Elliot said as he saw him sitting on one of the benches.

Danny however, simply sat there, gazing off into the distance, apparently both blind and deaf to anyone around him. He looked sick, his skin was almost chalk white, his eyes were extremely bloodshot, and there was dark red patches of what looked like dried bloodstains under his noses and ears.

“What’s wrong with him?” Owen asked as he walked over. “Why’s his skin, you know, all pale and shit.”

Elliot didn’t know, though his mind kept going back to what Mr Reed had told him before he managed to leave his room. The stuff about supernatural forces at work.

Before he could decide on whether to tell Owen about all that stuff though. Coach Jones strode in like he owned the place.

It started just as badly as Elliot had feared. Coach Jones, clearly having not learnt thing from the previous defeat, continued his desire to seemingly get rid of everyone, yelling at them that the defeat was all their fault and that they would have won if only they followed his game plan.

If that had been the end of the lecture, then Elliot would have considered it one of the more mild of Coach Jones lectures.

Unfortunately, Declan Philips, a scrawny kid who also was their captain, then decided to tell Coach Jones, that it was his tactics that were causing their repeated losses.

A silence fell across the changing room. Elliot didn’t say anything. He didn’t particularly like Declan, but he didn’t not agree with him in this instance.

“Give me the band kid.” Coach Jones half growled, half whispered in a way that carried across the room.

Declan looked on the verge of refusing, but after looking around the room and seeing that nobody else was going to join him in this revolt, he took of the captain’s armband and hurled it at Coach Jones’ stupid face.

“Talk shit like that again, Philps. And you’ll lose a lot more than your captaincy.” Coach Jones said, a wicked smile on his face. He then threw the armband at Jamie. “You’ll at least not question my authority.” Coach said, not even looking at their keeper, now captain, fumbled with the armband.

“Yes sir.” Jamie said as he put the armband on and sniggered at the rest of the team, none of whom looked like they liked the choice.

The problem was no-one was going to argue back. Partly due to the fact that they didn’t want to end up like Declan. But mostly because Danny, who was the vice-captain and had a much better claim on taking over the captaincy, was sitting at the far end of the changing rooms, having not said a single word to anyone.

In the time it had taken for Coach Jones to go over how useless they all were, and stamp his own cruel authority over the team, the forecast rain had started. It was the middle of summer, it could have been mistaken for winter. The temperature had dropped so suddenly, and the wind had picked up so much, that they were fighting against it by the time they came onto the now rain drenched pitch.

It took only a few seconds for the entire team to get drenched. Rain lashed at them sitting them like rocks and taking a knocking a few of the smaller players like Owen off balance. The only satisfaction that they all got was Coach Jones failure to light a cigarette like he’d usually do at the start of all their training and matches.

“We can’t train like this.” Owen said as he did his best not to be knocked off balance again.

But he was dead wrong, Coach Jones, sure on by his failure to light his cigarette, took out his fury on them instead, insisting on the usually training despite the weather.

After failing to achieve anything in the drills other than the loss of several good footballs when the wind carried them off. Coach Jones decided what they needed was a game against each other.

It was the categorically, the strangest match that Elliot had played in. Nobody could pass or dribble properly in the gale force winds, and forget crossing entirely. The winning team, Elliot thought as he wiped water out of his eyes for the twentieth time in two minutes, would be the first to get a fluke goal.

The weirdest thing though, was not the sudden and un-forecast storm in late July, it was Danny. He just stood in his position, occasionally moving about a few feet then stopping suddenly. It was like he had short circuited, like he had no idea what he was doing there, or what he was supposed to do now that he was.

“Hey man.” Elliot heard Declan say to his friend as he ran over. “What’s going on?”

Coach Jones was a lot less sympathetic. “Mason off!” There was no remorse or pity at all in his voice.

After Declan had helped Danny manage the first few steps, Danny was able to follow the order and walked trancelike towards the bench, oblivious to the rain. Elliot watched the best he could through the storm.

As the football practice, and simultaneously the storm wound down, and Elliot jogged over to the side of the pitch, he saw him. Mr Reed was standing by his car, a briefcase in his hand.

“What are you doing here?” Elliot asked once he had run over.

“Your Mum told me where you were.” Mr Reed said as he looked around, his eyes scanning the football field like they’d scanned the hotel reception when he’d first arrived. “I wanted to see this kid for myself. You said he played on your team.”

“Yeah.” Elliot said looking around. The rest of the squad were filing back to the carpark where their respective rides were waiting. All except one.

Danny was sitting on the bench, not having moved since he’d been taken off by Coach. It was weird, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still breathing, Elliot would have sworn that Danny was nothing more than a corpse.

“Is that him over there?” Mr Red said with a little more urgency than Elliot would have guested. He pointed at Danny, who continued to stare at the muddy field.

“Yeah. That’s Danny.” Elliot said.

“Right then. Let’s go and have a little prod.” Mr Reed declared. And without waiting for Elliot to say or do anything, he marched with purpose across the carpark to the bench.

For his part, Elliot ran to catch up. He might not be book smart. But even he knew that a stranger interacting with a kid, especially a kid that had only just been recovered from a disappearance like Danny, was going to cause a lot of trouble.

Finally, Elliot caught up and walked in front of the still striding Mr Reed. “Let me talk to him first.” Elliot said as he walked backwards, and then he rushed over to where Danny was sitting stationary. “Hey Danny.”

Danny did nothing, he simply sat still, watching something that only he could see.

“Err I brought someone who could help you.” Elliot said and watched as Mr Reed knelt down so that he was eye to glazed over eye with the boy. “He’s like a doctor.”

Mr Reed stared at Danny, who neither moved, nor even acknowledged that he was being talked too.

“Do you mind if I have a look at you Danny?” Mr Reed said in a gentle voice that took Elliot by surprise.

When they still got no response, Mr Reed took a gentle hold of Danny’s arm and began to run his hand up and down it, staring at the boy all the while.

“No marks on his arms. Means he wasn’t attacked or restrained, not physically anyway. But still, it’s very strange.” Mr Reed mumbled to himself as he took hold of the other arm and began repeating the process.

“What’s strange?” Elliot asked, other than this whole situation that was.

“He’s cold. Like ice cold.” Mr Reed said, and taking hold of Elliot’s wrist, he guided it down to show him what he meant.

Elliot felt like he’d stuck his hand into a freezer when his skin made contact with Danny’s. It was like he hadn’t seen sunlight in years, even though they were currently in the middle of a heatwave according to the news.

For his part, Danny continued to do nothing.

“Danny. Can you hear me? Blink if you can hear me.” Mr Reed said calmly, waiting and gazing into Danny’s brown eyes.

Then, with what seemed like an enormous effort, Danny blinked.

“Yes. Good boy Daniel.” Mr Reed said as he took off his fedora and placed it on the bench next to Danny. “Okay. I’m going to ask you some questions. Blink once for yes, twice for no, and three times if you’re unsure or can’t answer. Are you okay with that Daniel?”

One blink. Yes.

“Okay. Is your name Daniel Mason?” Mr Reed asked. Elliot guessed it was like a lie detector test he saw on the true crime shows he watched with his Mum. Get the question you know the answer too out of the way to set a baseline.

One blink.

“Good. Did you break your arm last Thursday?” Mr Reed said glancing down at the mended arm for a second before returning for a reply.

One blink.

“Do you know how your arm was healed?”

Two blinks. No.

“Did you go to the hospital?”

One blink.

“Did you go home with your parents?”

Three blinks.

Mr Reed paused at this. Elliot was intrigued and also nervous.

“Did you go home after the hospital?”

Two blinks.

“Where did you go Daniel?”

Three blinks.

“Did you leave the hospital with someone that you knew?”

One blink.

“Did you try and escape at any point?”

Two blinks.

“Do you remember anything about what happened to you?”

One blink.

“Was it bad. What happened to you?” This time it was Elliot who asked the question.

A pause. Then one blink.

A tear began to roll down Danny’s cheek at the blink.

“Okay Daniel.” Mr Reed said stroking his beard. “Were you with a man or a woman?”

Three blinks.

“Were they old or young?”

Three blinks.

“Mr Reed.” Elliot said, his attention had been drawn towards the clubhouse where a figure was marching down the path towards them.

Mr Reed nodded, indicating that he’d also noticed and continued. But asked one final question. “Were they human?”

Two blinks.

“What’s going on here?” It was Ms Winter, and she no longer looked like the small plump and kindly woman who made everyone’s drinks and made sure that Elliot got extra portions of snacks whenever he played. Now she looked like an angry hawk as she descended on the three of them.

“Sorry, Ms Winter, I was just showing,” Elliot started, but Mr Reed cut him off, picking up his briefcase dramatically.

“I’m here to pick up Elliot here, Miss.” Mr Reed said straightening himself out to his full height and towering over the small plump woman. “I saw Daniel here and came to offer him a lift, as he was alone.”

“Yeah. He’s staying at the hostel. My Mum’s really busy getting the hotel ready for the summer holidays. So, he came down to do her a favour.” Elliot said, and looked up at Mr Reed. He’d expected gratitude at helping reinforce his story. Or at the very least a neutral look. What he did not expect but saw anyway. Was a look of anger flash across his face. A look that told Elliot to keep his mouth shut.

“Yes.” Mr Reed said, only slightly failing to hide his anger.

“Well. Daniel’s Mum phoned to say that she was late. I said I’d watch him, but I got distracted with the clean-up. Tommy threw up again in the bathroom.” Ms Winter said and sighed to herself, coming down from her protective mode.

“Well, I’m sorry for worrying you.” Mr Reed said as he took Elliot’s shoulder. The grip was a little tighter than was really necessary, but he didn’t complain, not when he’d gotten this man into a potential lot of trouble. “I’ll take this one back, can’t have his Mum worrying. Especially these days.”

And with that, Mr Reed turned Elliot around and force marched him back to the car, not saying a word to him until they were both inside the car, and halfway down the club’s driveway.

“Why,” Mr Reed growled once they were on their way. “In the name of all that is holy, did you tell that woman where I was staying?”

Elliot sat there, not saying anything, instead fumbling with his shin pads.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question, boy.” Mr Reed said, only keeping anger at bay by the merest fraction now.

“I’m sorry.” Elliot said. He didn’t know exactly what the big deal was. But clearly he had screwed up big time with that slip up. He was more concerned with the man’s driving which was becoming more and more erratic.

“Sorry ain’t good enough right now, Elliot.” Mr Reed said, the car continued to speed up, not stopping for corners or traffic lights now.

“But she’s alright.” Elliot said, hoping to try and reassure Mr Reed. If Ms Winter had said boo to a ghost, then he’d be very surprised.

“No. She’s not. Nobody in this town is.” Mr Reed said as he thundered the car down the Main Street. The speedo was now recording almost one-hundred miles per hour now and Elliot clutched the bottom of his seat. “There’s something evil here Elliot. Something attacked your friend. I don’t know what. But until then, everyone in this town is a suspect.”

Elliot didn’t say anything, partly because he didn’t want to distract Mr Reed who blasted past another two stop signs. But mostly because of those words. Then he remembered the last question that had been asked, and the answer that had been given. The thing that had attacked Danny wasn’t human. At least according to Danny.

Finally, Mr Reed applied the brakes, causing Elliot to lurch forwards in his seat as the car swung into the empty hostel carpark.

“Is Danny going to be okay?” Elliot asked finally as a light came on in the hostel.

“I don’t know kid.” Mr Reed replied, sounding a lot more like his previous self than he had on the entire car ride back. “Something is in this town. And I’m going to ask that you leave me in peace to work it out.” Then on the hurt look on Elliot’s face, he finished. “But I will do my best to help your friend Elliot. I mean it.”

Elliot only nodded as the car door opened and he knew instinctively that the interview was over.

It wasn’t until he’d showered and gotten into bed, that he remembered that his bike, was still at the football ground.