Chasing the Dark Read Free

had to be bone.
    â€˜You help me,’ he said. It wasn’t a request.
    I stared at the wound, trying not to puke.
    He made a jab at me with the knife.
    â€˜OK.’ I raised my hands. ‘I’ll r . . . ring . . . for a doctor.’
    â€˜No doctor! Get bandage, medicine, food, money.’
    â€˜I can’t . . . I . . . I live with my aunt . . . she won’t let me touch her stuff.’
    He wasn’t up for a cosy chat about the tough time I was having at Doreen’s and just rattled out the list again. ‘Bandage. Medicine. Food. Money.’
    â€˜OK, OK, I’ll … I’ll do my best.’ I scraped myself off the wall and edged towards the door. ‘Come on, Oz.’
    With a low grunt, the tramp grabbed Oz by the scruff of his neck and waved the knife at his throat. Oz was so surprised he just hung there with his eyes popping out of his head.
    â€˜Go. You come back tonight or I kill dog.’
    â€˜What?’ He was crazy. ‘Let him go! I swear I’ll come back.’
    He jerked the knife under Oz’s collar.
    â€˜All right! I’ll get the stuff. Just don’t hurt him.’
    Oz gave me this look like I’d got to be joking, as I left him dangling and kept walking.
    I stopped. My voice came out in a whimper. ‘I can’t get over the wall.’
    The tramp slipped the knife between his teeth and chucked me a bunch of keys.
    â€˜Door. By greenhouse.’
    He lifted Oz higher and prodded his stomach, like some deranged TV cook testing a Christmas turkey. ‘You don’t bring back keys, I kill dog. You bring police, I kill dog. You tell anyone I here, I come Laurel Cottage and I kill you , Joe Slattery.’

CHAPTER 2
    I stumbled across the garden, slipping and shaking so much I dropped the keys and had to scrabble in the mud to find them. Crashing through the brambles, I scanned the wall and spotted a little wooden door. It was half hidden behind the greenhouse and its paintwork was all blistered and peeling off in strips. Pushing towards it, I tripped and fell against the one-armed statue I’d seen from the tree. Her blank marble eyes stared straight through me. I dodged past her and fumbled for the likeliest key, turned it in the keyhole and lurched into the woods, trying not to look at the empty space beside me where Oz should have been.
    Thankfully George was in the lounge reading the paper and Doreen was clattering about in the kitchen, listeningto the radio. I kicked off my trainers and crept up to my room, which was all done out in cream and white and about as welcoming as a dentist’s surgery. Till then I’d hardly dared set foot in the gleaming en suite bathroom but I tore off my muddy clothes, ran for the shower and let the boiling water pound my face while I tried to work out the chances of getting Oz back alive, why that crazy old tramp didn’t want a doctor, and how come he’d got the keys to that house. According to some test we’d done at school my IQ was up there with the geeks but I couldn’t even take a guess at the answers.
    I pulled on a pair of track pants and a T-shirt, listening to Doreen having a go at George about money. He had his own engineering works but it sounded like business had taken a nose-dive and Doreen wasn’t happy about it, ’specially now they had ‘that slum kid sucking them dry’. I switched channels – back to the horror show playing in that abandoned house – and tried to stop panicking about what I should do. It was a no-brainer. Keep my mouth shut, get the tramp the stuff he wanted and save Oz. I ran through the things he’d asked for. Bandages and medicine – there was sure to be something in the house. Food – Doreen might not miss that, she had cupboards full of it. Cash – not so easy. This was a nightmare. The minute Doreen found out I was a thief she’d chuck