Raggy Maggie

To Mum and Dad.

For believing, even when I didn’t, and for

having confidence when I had none.

Oh, and for all the food and money.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

PROLOGUE

TWENTY-THREE DAYS EARLIER…

Chapter One I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS

Chapter Two BILLY GIBB

Chapter Three FAMILIAR FACES

Chapter Four TAG, YOU’RE IT

Chapter Five SOMEWHERE ELSE

Chapter Six TEA FOR THREE

Chapter Seven THE GAME BEGINS

Chapter Eight SHADOWS OF THE LOST

Chapter Nine SWALLOWED WHOLE

Chapter Ten CADDIE CADDIE HA-HA

Chapter Eleven CREAMING IT

Chapter Twelve THE CLIMB

Chapter Thirteen THE RED ROOM

Chapter Fourteen COMPLETE SURRENDER

Chapter Fifteen THE CHASE

Chapter Sixteen HOME SWEET HOME

Chapter Seventeen DOLL’S HOUSE

Chapter Eighteen SUDDEN DEATH

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

What had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.

But not this. Never this.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands. They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection, relentless and unstoppable.

I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was tearing through the fence, its claws slicing through the wrought-iron bars as if they were cardboard. My breath fogged the glass and the monster vanished behind a cloud of condensation. By the time the pane cleared the thing would be inside the hospital. It would be up the stairs in moments. Everyone in here was as good as dead.

The distant thunder of gunfire ricocheted from somewhere near the village centre. A scream followed – short and sharp, then suddenly silenced. There were no more gunshots after that, just the triumphant roar of something sickening and grotesque.

I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.

‘It’s the same everywhere,’ she whispered.

I nodded slowly. ‘The town as well?’

She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait…You really mean everywhere, don’t you?’

Her only reply was a single nod of her head.

‘Liar!’ I snapped. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening.

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.’

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’

The old television set gave a faint clunk as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People dying.

Hell on Earth.

‘That’s New York,’ she said.

Click. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.’

Click.

‘I’m…I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’

It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like he’d told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

Chapter One I DON’T LIKE MONDAYS

Iawoke with a start, clutching at my covers, my skin slippery with sweat. It was the dream again. The long, dimly lit corridor. The locked door. The clop-ssshk of strange, unknown footsteps chasing me, then the soft giggle as I was dragged down into the darkness. The same story, night after night after night.

As always, the details of the dream quickly began to fade. I usually remembered the bigger things – the lights in the corridor going off; the grey, shapeless figure battering against the windows; even the voices on the other side of the locked door. It was the little details that got lost. I always remembered the voices whispering to me, but I could never recall a single word of what they actually said. Hopefully it wasn’t anything important.

I lay there for several minutes, slowly letting myself come round. There’d be no getting back to sleep, but lazing in bed for a few hours would be better than nothing.

Assuming I had a few hours. I had no idea what time it was. It was dark outside, but that didn’t help at all. It was early January, and dark until almost half past eight these days.

From the corner of my eye I could make out the red glow of my radio alarm clock. I couldn’t bring myself to turn and look at it. If I did then I might discover I had to get out of bed, and that was something I wasn’t ready to do. Not yet.

There were noises downstairs. That had to be bad news. The rattling of plates meant Mum was up, and the burning smell meant she was making breakfast. It would soon be time.

I shuddered at the thought of what awaited me today, and snuggled down into my covers. Despite the dream, right at that moment I felt completely safe and secure – something I hadn’t felt in a fortnight now. I pulled the duvet up to my chin, wanting to prolong the sense of security for as long as I could.

It had been less than two weeks since Christmas Day. Less than two weeks since “The Incident”. Since then, I’d been constantly on edge, always expecting something to come jumping out of the shadows, or crashing through my bedroom window.

But there had been nothing. No monsters. No journeys to other worlds. No cryptic messages from long-lost relatives. Nothing.

As the days passed, the sense of dread faded a little, only to be replaced by a new creeping terror. Another nightmare had been drawing steadily closer, and now it loomed on the horizon. Something that promised to be almost as bad as Christmas Day had been. Something horrible.

‘Kyle,’ Mum shouted from the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s time to get up.’

I groaned into my pillow, knowing there was no way of escaping my fate. Knowing without doubt that the time had finally come.

Raising my head, I looked in the direction of my bedroom door. Through the gloom I could make out a grey shape hanging there, its long, thin arms flapping loosely down by its sides.

My shirt. Mum had ironed it. That confirmed things. The holidays were officially over.

It was time to go back to school.

Mum was scraping the black bits off a slice of toast when I shuffled into the kitchen, tucking my shirt into the itchy grey trousers of my uniform. She had quite a fight on her hands – the toast seemed to be nothing but black bits.

‘I made you toast,’ she said, ‘but it might be a bit…crispy.’

I caught sight of another few slices of burned bread and headed for the food cupboard. ‘I’ll just have cornflakes.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Mum shrugged, but I could tell she was secretly relieved. She let the toast drop into the bin, then turned to face me. I could feel her watching my every move as I poured myself the final dregs from the cornflakes box and sloshed them with the last of the milk.

She waited until I had crammed the first spoonful into my mouth before she started to speak.

‘Excited about going back?’

I couldn’t reply, so I just shrugged.

‘It’ll be fun,’ she smiled. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house and mixing again. You’ve hardly set foot outside the door since…’ The sentence was left hanging there. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she repeated, at last.

Mum didn’t like talking about what had happened. I’d tried to bring it up in the days after Christmas, but she’d always changed the subject. Now I didn’t even bother to mention it, because I couldn’t stand the awkward silences it created.

‘We’ve got a visitor this afternoon,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Little Lilly from down the road. I’m babysitting.’

‘Little Lilly who?’ I asked, through a mouthful of cereal.

‘Lilly Gibb. She’s three. Angela’s little one.’

That didn’t help. I didn’t even know who Angela was. ‘What does she look like?’ I asked.

‘You’ve seen her before. Little girl. Blonde hair,’ Mum said. ‘Isn’t her brother in your class? Billy, I think.’

‘Billy Gibb’s sister’s called Lilly?’ I snorted. ‘Billy and Lilly. Very imaginative.’

Mum’s smile was thin-lipped. ‘Not everyone has your imagination.’

She wasn’t wrong there. I doubted anyone had an imagination quite like mine. Lucky for them.

‘She won’t be here for long, will she?’ I asked. I couldn’t be bothered with a little kid running around the house.

‘Just an hour or so after you get home,’ she said. I must’ve pulled a face or something, because she followed up with: ‘I know, honey, but…well, the money’ll come in handy.’

I nodded and adjusted my face into something resembling a smile. ‘It’s fine,’ I said, then I stuffed some more cornflakes into my mouth to stop me saying anything else.

I chewed in silence for a few moments. Mum was watching me. I could tell by the way she was breathing she was building up to saying something.

‘You know you can’t tell anyone?’ she finally said.

I swallowed down the soggy milky mush. ‘About babysitting Lilly Gibb?’

‘No, about what happened. About any of it.’

‘I was kidding,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘Right. Because they wouldn’t understand,’ she continued. ‘It’d cause…problems.’

‘You mean they’d think I was mental.’

She smiled. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t think…’ Her voice cracked and her head suddenly dropped. When she looked up again she was ten years older. ‘It’s over now, sweetheart,’ she whispered. ‘You can put it behind you. We all can.’

I nodded in what I hoped would be a reassuring way. Inside, though, I knew she was wrong. ‘It begins.’ That’s what had been written on the card my dad had left for me.

Whatever was happening, it was far from over. Christmas had just been the start. I didn’t know what danger awaited me. I didn’t know what horrors I was going to face. I just knew something was going to happen, and I had a horrible suspicion it was going to happen soon.

‘Have fun!’ chirped Mum from the kitchen, as I pulled my red school jumper over my head, slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out into the hall. I got there in time to see a bundle of junk mail spew through the letterbox and spatter on to the mat.

‘Will do. Post’s here,’ I replied, kneeling to pick it up. ‘I’ll put it on the side.’ I flicked through the envelopes, looking for anything with my name on the front. There was nothing. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

As I moved to stand up, my gaze drew level with the letterbox. Two chubby fingers held it propped open. A pair of eyes stared in at me through the gap.

‘Um…hey, Hector,’ I said, recognising our postman from his grey eyebrows and wrinkled, weather-beaten skin. He watched me, unblinking. ‘You OK?’ I continued. ‘What…what are you doing?’

His gaze continued to bore into me, making me uncomfortable. Hector could be a bit quirky sometimes – that was part of what made him so popular on the street – but even for him, this was extra weird.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low and lifeless, lacking its usual colour: ‘Peek-a-boo,’ he muttered. ‘I see you.’

Slowly, without another word, he let the letterbox creak back down into place. A second later, I heard him break into his familiar whistle as he walked back along the garden path.

Unsure of what had just happened, I stayed where I was – kneeling on the floor – until the whistling had faded into the distance. Hector’s weirdness shouldn’t have bothered me, but for some reason my heart was pumping like it was about to break out of my chest.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Mum. Her voice made me jump upright in fright. I turned and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway, her hands on the hips of her pale brown dressing gown. ‘You’ll miss the bus. You’re going to be late for school.’

Mum was right. I was late for my first lesson, English, though not by much. The fact I arrived only two minutes after class had started didn’t seem to matter to Mr Preston, though. He was lounging in his chair with his hands behind his head when I stumbled my way into his classroom.

‘Well, well, speak of the devil,’ tutted the teacher, swivelling his seat to face me. ‘We were just discussing you, Mr Alexander.’

I glanced at the neatly spaced rows of not-so-friendly faces sitting in front of me and felt my cheeks redden with embarrassment.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I offered, making a move towards the one empty desk in the class.

‘Not so fast there,’ Mr Preston said. His chair gave a squeak as he leaned forwards and stood up. His fingers brushed the polished surface of the motorbike helmet that sat, in pride of place, on his desk, then he shuffled lazily across to the blackboard.

Mr Preston is into motorbikes in a big way. I know this because he spends at least one whole lesson a week talking in excruciating detail about his own motorcycle. Once he joked that he loves the bike more than he loves his wife.

At least, I think he was joking.

The rest of the class and I watched as he chalked the words ‘What I Did in the Holidays’ on to the board.

‘To break us in gently, we were about to discuss what we did during the Christmas break,’ he explained, turning to face me. ‘Since you’re already up on your feet, perhaps you’d do us the honour of going first?

Chapter Two BILLY GIBB

My cheeks felt like they were burning. I don’t like talking in front of people. I reckon if I’m ever forced to choose between speaking in public and having my fingernails torn out with pliers, I’ll have to give both options some really serious thought.

‘I didn’t do much,’ I shrugged, hoping that would be enough to get me off the hook. Of course, it wasn’t.

‘You didn’t do much?’ Mr Preston smirked. He half sat, half leaned on his desk, both hands now in his pockets. ‘Surely you can give us a bit more to go on than that?’

My mind raced. What could I say to get this over and done with quickly? I had to be careful not to reveal anything about Christmas Day itself, but I had to tell him something.

‘I…met a friend. A girl friend. I mean not a…Just a friend. Who’s a girl.’

As one, the class erupted into a chorus of ‘Ooohs’.

‘Who was it, your gran?’ called a voice from the back of the class. I recognised it as Billy Gibb. I’d know those smug tones anywhere.

Billy had a lot of muscle, but not much going on between the ears. He’d been kept back for two years in primary school, and so was much older – and bigger – than anyone else in class. The first time he had been forced to repeat the year on account of having had too many days off. And then, two years after that, he’d been kept back again. On account of being thick.

‘Quieten down,’ Mr Preston warned, giving the entire class one of his glares. As silence fell, he turned back to me. ‘I’m not sure if I want to hear the details or not,’ he frowned, ‘but carry on.’

I hesitated, boxing off in my head all the things I didn’t dare reveal about Ameena, the girl who had saved my life. I realised quite quickly that what was left wasn’t very interesting at all.

‘Nothing to tell, really,’ I said. ‘Just met her at Christmas.’

‘Where’d you meet her?’ demanded one of the other boys sitting near Billy.

Another pause. Telling them she’d saved me from being strangled to death on my front doorstep wasn’t really an option, even if it was the truth.

Christmas Day felt more and more like some distant, half-remembered nightmare. It had been no dream, though. It had happened. All of it.

I was alone in the house when he’d appeared, crashing through the living-room window in a shower of broken glass. Mr Mumbles had been my childhood imaginary friend. He’d been my funny little buddy, accompanying me everywhere I went. As I grew up I forgot all about him. Turned out he wasn’t happy about that.

When he came back he was different. Bigger. Stronger. His body and face twisted and disfigured. This time round he wasn’t interested in being friends. He had one goal and one goal only.

Killing me.

He would’ve managed too, had it not been for Ameena. She had appeared like an avenging angel, charging out of the darkness, swinging wildly with a baseball bat. She drove him back, buying us time to get away.

She’d stayed with me for most of the day, helping me when no one else could. How many times did she save my life? Twice? Three times? I couldn’t even remember.

Without her I never would have beaten Mr Mumbles. I owed her everything – my life, Mum’s, Nan’s. We all would have died had it not been for Ameena.

But I couldn’t tell the class that.

‘Earth to Kyle. Earth to Kyle.’

I blinked back into the present. Mr Preston was standing there, waving a hand slowly in front of my face. I could feel all eyes in the room on me. Somewhere off to the left, someone let out a low snigger.

‘Just bumped into her outside my house,’ I said. ‘We…we hung out for a bit.’

‘What was her name then?’ asked someone else.

‘Ameena,’ I replied. My mouth was going dry. I felt like I was being interrogated by the Secret Service.

‘What kind of name’s that?’

‘A made-up one by the sounds of things,’ sneered Billy. He and his neighbour cackled and exchanged a high-five. I glanced up at Mr Preston imploringly, but he wasn’t ready to let me off the hook just yet.

‘And where is she now?’ he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching. ‘This new friend of yours?’

I was free to answer truthfully this time. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her again after that.’

Mr Preston took his hands out of his pockets and waved them as if he was conducting an orchestra. ‘Ready, everyone? One, two, three…’

On cue, the whole class joined together in one collective ‘Awwww!’

‘Fascinating stuff, Mr Alexander, truly fascinating,’ said Mr Preston sarcastically. ‘Now sit down, and please – for your sake as well as mine – don’t be late again.’

I shuffled sideways along the slow-moving line, holding my breath when I passed the soggy mound of cabbage that seemed to be crawling up and out of the plastic tub it lurked in.

Turkey burgers – I could hardly believe it. The first day back to school after the Christmas holidays and the canteen was serving turkey burgers. Someone somewhere had decided this was the perfect choice for the first-day-back menu. Incredible.

‘You not meeting your new bird for lunch then?’ I heard someone shout.

Billy Gibb had barged into the queue a few places ahead of me. He was staring at me now, waiting for some kind of response. I just shook my head and looked down at my cracked wooden tray. I didn’t need this. Not today.

I could spend all day describing the things that made Billy such an unpleasant person to be around. I could talk about his stupid, wispy facial hair. I could mention the way his nostrils were always flared and curving upwards, as if a dog had taken a crap on his top lip and his nose was doing its best to crawl away. I could even go on about his smell – fifty per cent stale cigarette smoke, fifty per cent even staler sweat, one hundred per cent revolting.

Really, though, what bothered me most was his personality. Or, to put it more accurately, his total lack of one.

‘She must’ve been a right dog to fancy you,’ he continued, trying to goad me into a fight. I wasn’t going to rise to it. I was better than that. Plus, he could kick my head in with one leg tied behind his back.

I heard him and a few of his mates jeering at me as I picked up my tray and walked away, but I tried not to listen. The healthy-eating counter didn’t have a queue – the healthy-eating counter never had a queue – so I could hopefully get served there and have my lunch eaten before he’d even ordered his.

The dinner lady on duty had her back to me as I approached. I waited patiently at the counter. I didn’t dare say anything, in case the shock of having a customer in this part of the canteen killed her stone dead.

After almost a minute, when she still showed no sign of turning in my direction, I gave a low, gentle cough.

That seemed to do the trick. With her two-sizes-too-small nylon uniform almost bursting at the seams, she at last shuffled round to look at me. Well, not exactly look. As she turned, I could see she was holding a chipped and dirty plate in front of her, completely hiding her face.

‘Um…hi,’ I began, assuming she’d move the plate when I started speaking. ‘Have you got anything that’s quite healthy, but not too healthy?’ The plate didn’t move. Maybe this was what being stuck on the healthy-eating counter all day did to you.

‘Like, do you do low-fat hot dogs or something? Or veggie burgers, but with, like, a little bit of meat in them?’

She just stood there, not responding, the plate not moving. I glanced across at the rest of the canteen. Everyone was going about their own business – ordering lunches, scoffing food, stuffing chips up smaller kids’ noses. No one was paying me or Plate Face the slightest bit of attention.

‘Er…hello?’ I tried. ‘Can you hear me?’

A low breath escaped her lips, like the ominous rumblings of a once dormant volcano. Slowly, she leaned her head a little to the right, as she tilted the plate slightly to the left. A single eye peered at me from around the cracked crockery’s edge.

‘Peek-a-boo,’ she whispered. ‘I seeeee you.’

The plate slipped from her fingers. A roar of delight went up from the kids in the canteen as the crockery shattered loudly on the patterned linoleum floor.

‘Nice work killing the dinner lady,’ grinned Billy, punctuating the sentence by punching me hard on the arm.

‘I didn’t kill her,’ I told him, pulling my schoolbag higher up on to my shoulder and quickening my pace along the science corridor. ‘She fainted.’

She had fainted. The second the plate had shattered on the ground, she’d kind of slumped down, like a puppet whose strings had all snapped. Complete pandemonium had followed, with the teachers all trying to help her up, and the pupils all falling over each other to take photos on their mobiles.

Most of the kids had been laughing, or chattering excitedly. Not me. There was something unsettling about the way the dinner lady had behaved. And what she’d said to me – she’d spoken the same words as Hector the postman had spoken this morning. Something was happening, I knew, but what that something was I had no idea.