The Stuff of Nightmares
Read The Stuff of Nightmares Online
Authors: Malorie Blackman
Contents
About the Book
It begins with a ride on a train
.
But where it ends is on a precipice of horror – dangling on the border between life and death.
It’s a moment when Kyle discovers he’s not the only one in his class who knows about fear.
Not the only one who has nightmares.
And now, as Death stalks the carriages, it’s a moment when nightmares become real.
Nightmares of wars, and a world devastated by chemical weapons. Of a body being slowly stolen, bit by bit. Of monstrous actions and monstrous creatures from old myths. Of jealousy, obsession and a stalker outside your window. Nightmares of everything imaginable.
What will it take for Kyle to finally face his greatest fear?
Pacy, compelling and seriously creepy, don’t read this chilling novel late at night!
Not suitable for younger readers.
For Neil and Lizzy, with love
1
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT
running. Something … well, if you don’t get it, you won’t get it. Every time my foot smacks the pavement, it’s like an echo of my heartbeat slamming inside me, telling me that ‘I’m here, I’m now, I’m
alive
’. I don’t jog – jogging is for posers showing off their latest designer gear. No, I
run
. Tunnels like the one down by the canal and dark places are best. Places where I can’t see my shadow chasing me or tantalizing me by running ahead. In tunnels and dark places there are no shadows, no ghosts. There’s only me.
This morning was just right, mid spring cool rather than early spring cold, and the air tasted of the new and fresh instead of the usual diesel and dog poo, so I decided to run through the park, which was kind of a mistake, ’cause it wasn’t long before I wasn’t alone as I ran.
He
crept into my head, where he wasn’t welcome. Sometimes, if …
when
I inadvertently let my guard down, he does that.
I picked up the pace until I was sprinting just as hard as I could. But I couldn’t escape. Instead I found
myself
running into the past, into a memory of him and Mum – into the very thing that scared me the most.
This morning’s memory was the beginning of it all, for me at least. And it started just over a year ago with, of all things, a jar of strawberry jam. A new one. Unopened. I remember everything about that day. It was a sunny, late winter morning and unseasonably warm. Out of our kitchen window I could see a few pale pink blossoms already decorating the tree in the middle of our garden. (Don’t bother asking me what kind of tree. I haven’t got a clue. I’m not a tree hugger.) Dad and I were sitting at the table eating croissants. Mum was making me a cup of coffee while her croissants sat on the table, getting cold.
‘Mum, is there any more jam?’ I asked.
Without a word, Mum went over to the cupboard and retrieved a jar of reduced-sugar strawberry jam. Hand wrapped round the lid, she tried and tried to untwist it. After at least ten seconds of Dad and me watching her, she gave up.
‘Fitz, could you open this for me please?’ she asked.
Dad took the jar, an indulgent smile playing across his face. ‘Useless or what?’ He shook his head. ‘Londie, what would you do without me?’
It was nothing Dad hadn’t said before, but I’ll never forget the way Mum looked at him, an intense stare that at first rested on him, then lanced into him, then burned straight through him.
‘Fitz, if I didn’t have you, I’d buy a jar opener.’
‘You probably wouldn’t be able to work that either,’ said Dad.
He turned to wink at me so he missed the
nothing
look Mum gave him. I can’t describe it any other way. It was a look full of nothing at all. Just enough nothing to make me frown, but not enough for me to realize what was going to happen. Take it from me, when you have two people living and sharing a life together and one gives the other that nothing look, it means something. It means one hell of a lot.
I ran that far into the memory before I turned round and ran out of it again. I raced for home, concentrating on the precise placement of each foot. No cracks in the pavement, no slab edges, no litter of any kind to be allowed under my feet.
Concentrate, Kyle. Think of nothing. That way you won’t think of something you shouldn’t
. I sprinted so fast that my breath was too far behind to catch up with me. I reached my front gate with my heart rocketing inside me. And it felt
good
! Bent over, my hands on my knees, I looked up at our house as I gulped down oxygen. Not much of a run today. Only about four kilometres. And my time was crap too. Just under half an hour. I could do much better than that. I
would
have done much better than that if Dad hadn’t crept into my head. Again. He’s been doing that a lot lately.
I try to run for half an hour each morning, and at least three times that long at weekends. The moment I wake up, I pull on my sweats and my trainers and tiptoe downstairs to head out the door before
Mum
can catch me. She doesn’t like me running so early in the morning. She doesn’t like me running. But what else should I do? Stay home with her and play happy families? Yeah, right. Running before most people even have their breakfast calms me down for the rest of the day. I still make it home in time for a shower and a quick bowl of cereal in my room, so what’s the big deal? Running fills me with anticipation, like I’m running
towards
something or
for
something. Like all I have to do is run just that little bit faster, stretch out my hand just that little bit further to grab whatever is just outside my grasp, and then my life will be transformed. That’s the word:
transformed
.
The only time my life makes any kind of sense is when I’m running.
Only, this morning, it didn’t do its usual trick.
So now here I am on the train platform with my classmates and I swear, if my legs could take off without me, they would. I’m jittery and twitchy, I can’t keep still. Six kilometres is usually my minimum distance and I really feel it when I don’t do the minimum. I want to crawl out of my skin and
run
. That’s what I do best. Running. Alone. No Mum in my thoughts – those days are over. And, more importantly, no Dad. Even now, even after all this time, just thinking about my dad makes me feel hollow inside, like an empty gift-wrapped box.
‘You’re very quiet,’ said my mate Steve, nudging me. Hard.
I rubbed my upper arm to get the blood circulating
again
. Steve was only slightly shorter than me and wore his hair just about collar length in thin dreads. He had to be the coolest boy in the class, probably because he wasn’t the least bit interested in appearing cool. All I know is he didn’t lack for girls buzzing round him – that was for sure.
‘Well?’ Steve prompted.
‘I was thinking about my dad,’ I admitted quietly. Steve was the only one in the class who knew what’d really happened to my dad. He was the only one I’d told, after making him swear seven different oaths not to tell anyone and promising to break his legs if he ever did.
‘I wouldn’t bother thinking about him if I were you,’ said Steve. ‘He’s not worth it.’
I shrugged noncommittally. It was all right for him. Steve’s dad doted on him, hanging on his every word and celebrating his every action. How could Steve possibly imagine the gap I felt inside about my dad? Steve and his dad had what I’d always longed for. I would’ve gladly settled for just half of what they had. The emptiness inside began to feed on me. Time to change the subject.
‘What’s that train doing?’
I leaned forward over the train platform to peer down the line. The train was like an obscene snake, slinking along the track some way back. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. And the windows at the front were like eyes regarding all of us on the platform.
‘Kyle, step back before you get your fool head
knocked
off,’ Miss Wells, our form teacher, called out.
‘Miss, let him stick his head out then!’ Naima called out. The girls she was standing with all started laughing. If there was one girl I couldn’t stand in our class, then Naima was it.
‘Bite me, Naima!’ I called out.
‘You wish, Kyle! You wish!’ Naima winked.
Once again her crew started laughing. Kendra’s donkey-bray laugh was unmistakable. One of them, Roberta (or Robby, as she liked to be known), just smiled at me, a smile of almost apologetic sympathy rather than amusement. If I wasn’t so sure that Roberta would say no, I’d ask her out ’cause she’s a babe. Not Naima though. Naima’s totally toxic. She’s too busy loving herself to care about anyone or anything else. Her friends only hung around her because they were terrified that if they turned round, Naima would stab them in the back. It was a shame too ’cause Naima was quite pretty on the outside. She had auburn hair cut short and wild and kinda funky, and her big green eyes were framed by some of the longest brown lashes I’d ever seen. She smiled readily, but more often than not it had a sneering edge to it that was all hers. Like I said, on the outside she was a winner. Shame what was inside didn’t match. She should’ve been more like Roberta or another girl in our class, Elena. With them, what you saw was what you got.
After scowling at Naima, I stepped back as Miss Wells had ordered. At the speed the train was going, it
couldn
’t have knocked the head off a pint of lager, but I wasn’t in the mood for one of Miss Wells’s lectures. A chill Spring wind had picked up since my earlier run. The wind was travelling in the same direction as the train but moving considerably faster, and it kept ripping at my face, which didn’t help my mood. I was trying to wrap my head around why I wasn’t more excited about our forthcoming trip. After all, for me a trip to the city was about as rare as Action Man poo. Now that we were together again, Mum never, and I mean
never
, left our small town. She shopped locally or used the Internet to order furniture and the like from the websites of bigger department stores nationwide.
‘Miss Wells, can we all move up the platform so we can sit in the first carriage?’ asked Perry.
Miss Wells looked at the train, which
still
hadn’t reached us, before turning back to Perry. She shrugged, and I knew what was coming.