Deadly Games (8 page)

With a sudden spurt, he was in Sid's arms and Jenny hurried to join them.

“That was close,” she said. “Too close.”

“I got some matches.” Sid scrabbled in his overcoat pocket as they were plunged back into darkness.

“Maybe the jungle isn't too far away,” said David.

“Why did you say that?” demanded Jenny.

“Say what?” he looked at his sister blankly.

“Jungle. That's what May and Leslie called the old repair yard.”

“So what?” The hostility in David's voice frightened her and Jenny looked searchingly into her twin's eyes, which seemed paler than usual. A dreadful thought entered her mind. Could May and Leslie be inside him? Possessing her brother? As she gazed at him, Jenny thought she saw a mocking glint and again she focused her mind, this time more intently than ever. Immediately, David flinched.

“What are you doing?” asked Sid, confused and afraid.

“You'll see,” Jenny snapped and focused harder.

“Boys and girls,” said David's lips but with someone else's voice. “Come out to play.”

Go
, said Jenny in her mind.
Get back to the pool
.

“The moon does shine – ”

There was a plopping sound, and from her twin's mouth came a balloon, like bubble gum. In the sphere, she saw May's and Leslie's grinning faces. Another joke, she thought, but they won't get away with it. The balloon rose over their heads and drifted down into the dark waters of the pool with a spreading, rippling light. Then it was extinguished.

“I felt funny,” said David. “As if I wasn't here.”

“They were inside you,” said Jenny, utterly exhausted.

“They get up to all kinds of tricks, them two.” Jenny turned on Sid fiercely. “When will you
get it into your head that those children are really testing us out? And that's an understatement. Whatever Mrs Garland did – if she did anything at all – she's been paying for it for a very long time, even after she was dead.”

“I don't think she's chasing them because she's angry or she's going to hurt them,” David said. “She wants them back. Maybe she even wants to protect them from themselves. Do you remember what that kid Ken Davis was like when he was in care? Always testing out everyone at school and always being left on his own as a result.”

“Yes,” said Jenny. “Maybe Mrs Garland wasn't so bad after all, Sid.”

“You've forgotten something,” said Sid. “OK, maybe she didn't shove Alan under a train – maybe he threw himself under it – but how did May and Leslie get to become ghosts, never resting in peace, like? You tell me that.” David and Jenny couldn't, and Sid continued. “You're too young to know what it's like to long for kids of your own. But I yearned for them and it was like I went on the road to find May and Les. I guess that's why they want me so much. They're proper little varmints, they are, but they know how much I love them.” He laughed tenderly, ending in a coughing fit so prolonged that the twins, wet through and shivering, began seriously to worry about him. But Sid emerged, gasping and
wheezing, to say, “Just my luck they were dead – that they were only ghosts. But I'd known it all along in my heart.” He paused. “I guess I was the first person to really care about 'em.”

“What about Mrs Garland?” asked David.

“Her? She didn't give a monkey's for either of them kids. She was paid to look after them, too, and just look what a mess she made of it. And she's still making a mess, isn't she?”

Neither of the twins knew how to reply to Sid, and the tunnel was no place to argue. All they did know was that he saw Mrs Garland as a rival, whether she was dead or not. He had been so long on the road that the barrier between life and death no longer mattered to him. Was he going to die soon? wondered Jenny. Did he want to join them all? Was that why it didn't matter? She saw her brother watching Sid in great concern.

Then something else entered David's mind and he was, as usual, instinctively sure that the terrible thought was in Jenny's mind too. Suppose it wasn't Mrs Garland who had chased Alan under the tube train? Suppose it was May and Leslie who had goaded him towards it?

A loud squeaking interrupted their forbidding thoughts and Gumbo's eyes appeared in the darkness, small, beady and torchlike.

“We won't need matches now,” said David.
“Not with the rat around – if it doesn't run off, that is.” He suddenly felt insecure.

“She'll stay,” replied Sid confidently. “Gumbo's a spirit of good. Knew it straight away when I first came across her. She's part of my journey, she is.”

David and Jenny looked down at the rat gratefully, no longer repelled by its sleek grey body and yellow teeth. Gumbo had saved their lives and they knew they might well have need of it in the future.

But now it was getting impatient, scampering to and fro, its dark eyes lighting up the space around them. Surely Gumbo's eyes couldn't be
that
bright? thought David.

“Gumbo wants us to follow.” Sid was in charge now. “Let's go.”

As they stumbled on behind, Gumbo paused every so often and turned back to them, its eyes flashing.

Jenny looked down at her watch. It was four in the afternoon. She had no idea what they were going to do when they reached the old railway yard. Previous searches had not found May's and Leslie's bodies, but then their would-be rescuers hadn't had the advantage of having the sight. Would they be contacted by Mrs Garland or did they have to wait for May's and Leslie's next attack? If so, there would be another terrifying
battle of wills. Would they be up to it, or were the ghost children wearing them down with each encounter?

A patch of silvery light began to widen at the end of the tunnel until they were no longer dependent on Gumbo's eyes, and as it became brighter David and Jenny suddenly felt the full weight of their exhaustion.

“You look like a drowned rat,” said David.

“Don't insult Gumbo,” snapped Jenny. “And you don't look too good yourself.”

“I hope you two don't catch your deaths.” Sid sounded anxious again.

“Considering how many other people have done just that round here,” replied David irritably, “you're not exactly being tactful, are you, Sid?”

“Got to face facts,” muttered the old man.

“Then you should face them over May and Leslie. They're really dangerous.” Jenny immediately regretted the cruelty of what she had just said, but she was too late. Sid gave a smothered sob and came to an abrupt halt, his hands over his face, his shoulders shaking with racking sobs.

“Now you've done it,” said David to his twin angrily.

“You weren't exactly nice to him either.”

The twins turned back to the old man, despite a squeaking protest from Gumbo, who was still looking at them impatiently. Jenny put her arms
around Sid and said, “Don't be upset – please don't be. I'm sorry they've been so horrible. I think they must be jealous of David and me. In fact, I'm sure they are. Maybe they think you prefer us to them and – ”

“They can't be
all
bad,” Sid interrupted. “They probably got evil after they died – like they're trapped here on earth and they don't want to stay.” Then he paused, trying to be more realistic. “OK, I know what you're going to say – they did bad things when they were alive, too, didn't they?”

“We don't really know,” said David uneasily. “We've only seen them being cruel to Mrs Garland once, and then there was that time they accused her of pushing Alan. Could be you're right – that they're trapped here on earth and need releasing. But I don't know how we're going to be able to do that,” he ended inadequately.

“I've thought about them so much,” said Sid miserably, his sobs dying away. “Those kids I never had.”

“They need your love, Sid,” said Jenny with conviction. “Now more than ever. If you could reach them, talk to them – ”

“You could exorcise them,” finished David.

Sid nodded. “You're good kids, you are.”

“But we mustn't forget that May and Leslie are still dangerous,” warned Jenny. “They still want to
test us out. If not you, then definitely us. Imagine how jealous they must be.”

“So we've got to be careful,” muttered Sid.

“You've
got to reach them,” said David. “They've got to
feel
your love.”

Sid nodded again and they felt relieved, as if an understanding had been reached at last.

But what about Mrs Garland? wondered Jenny. Whose side was she going to be on? And what about their own parents? They must be going frantic by now, wondering what had happened to them. There were so many problems besetting them that Jenny felt she could hardly cope and she knew David felt much the same. But worst of all was the certainty that May and Leslie were waiting for them, ready to play, hoping for another deadly game.

Sid and the twins followed Gumbo out into a silvery twilight with the dull red orb of the winter sun slowly sinking in a chilly, cloud-flecked sky.

Spread around them was a tangle of broken machinery covered in foliage, a vast overgrown network of rusting lines and signals. A large corrugated-iron shed had partly fallen in and overhead gantries had collapsed. A blackbird sang in the wilderness and the fading light shadowed the derelict industrial wasteland, making it resemble a futuristic city on some distant planet. The place had a stark beauty of its own, and Gumbo darted eagerly into the oil-stained undergrowth.

“You think May and Leslie are here?” asked David.

Sid nodded. “I reckon so. I can, like, feel 'em close by.”

“What about Mrs G?” asked Jenny. “Can you feel her?”

Sid shook his head.

“Neither can I,” said David. “But I keep thinking I'm going to smell peppermint any moment.”

“So what are we going to do?” Jenny asked. “We've got less than an hour of daylight left.”

David had an idea. “You know that wooden rod water diviners have? They walk about with it and the rod starts shaking over the spot where the water is. Do you think you could be like that, Sid? That you'd sense where May and Leslie are?”

“It's worth a try,” he said, looking hopeful.

Jenny was proud of her brother. “I think it's a brilliant idea,” she said.

Half an hour later, the idea didn't seem so brilliant. The sun was just a red smear in the sky and the shadows had lengthened so that it was getting hard to see. The moon had risen. “The moon does shine as bright as day,” thought Jenny. Would May and Leslie come out to play if that happened? Certainly it didn't seem that Sid was having much divining luck.

“We'll have to wait,” said David.

“What for?” asked Sid, looking depressed.

“Moonlight,” replied David. He and Jenny exchanged a look.

“Where can we get a good view of the whole yard?” asked Jenny, shivering in her sodden clothes.

“That's the only place.” Sid nodded at a wooden signal box. There was a small tree growing out of its roof.

As they clambered up the rotting stairs, Gumbo scampered into view and sat at the bottom, watching them with beady eyes.

“Glad she's turned up,” said Sid in relief. “I get nervous if I don't know where she is.”

The twins agreed, surprised at how they had come to rely on the rat so much. But now the moon was riding high above the yard, and David and Jenny had the sensation of being watched. The moonlight picked out every blade of grass, each rusting piece of machinery, turning them a livid white as if they were diseased.

The inside of the signal box was almost intact, except for the large hole in the floor that had been made by the young tree. They all three gazed helplessly out of the glassless windows for a long time before anyone spoke.

Then David asked, “What are we looking for?”

“Mischief,” said Sid bleakly.

The twins gave an involuntary shudder, which had nothing to do with how cold they were feeling. The word “mischief”, when connected with May and Leslie, had some very black implications indeed.

The rustling and fluttering grew softly behind them, so softly that neither David nor Jenny noticed it at first.

“What's that?” whispered Sid. “It sounds as if Gumbo's following us up.”

But it wasn't the rat. Instead, the sound was being made by the dry leaves of the tree. They were moving to and fro, rasping gently together.

“Look at that,” whispered Jenny. “There's no wind in here. Why are the leaves rustling like that?”

“I don't know,” said David irritably. “Perhaps it's us – every time we move we start them off.”

“But we're not moving,” she replied. “We're all still – and the leaves are rustling even faster.”

“They're making a funny sound.” Sid's voice trembled. “As if they're whispering, like.”

Jenny could hear the sounds distinctly now, and when she glanced at Sid and David, she knew they were beginning to understand.

“Come out to play,” came the whispering. “Jenny and David – come out to play.”

“They want to kill us,” David said aloud. “They just want to kill us.”

“Then you'll be dead like us,” rustled the blackened leaves in delight.

“Where's Mrs Garland?” asked Jenny with as much authority as she could muster.

There was a chuckling sound in the leaves, followed by a whispering chant:

“Ding, dong, bell,

Pussy's in the well.

Who put her in?

Little May and Les.

Who pulled her out?

No one!”

The whispering was triumphant now.

“What a naughty May and Les was that

To go and drown poor pussy cat,

Who never did them any harm