Monstrous Devices by Damien Love

Author:Damien Love
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2018-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

XIV.

SOMETHING IN THE DARK

HURRYING BACK IN the last failing light, Alex could hear Morecambe cursing and fretting under his breath. He struggled to keep up with the man, who seemed unconcerned about leaving him behind.

A new sensation gnawed Alex’s stomach. The early evening was bitterly cold, but he was sweating, a sick, sticky, hot-cold sweat. The thought of having lost the robot, never seeing it again, never touching it again, played over and over in his mind, a loop he couldn’t break out of. A feeling of fevered pain. A new kind of fear. Snow nipped his eyes. The gathering darkness pressed in.

At the gate, Morecambe slowed, approaching the looming house cautiously, increasingly nervous. He turned from side to side, gun flicking desperately this way and that. Once inside, he scrambled at the locks and slumped against the door. Then he straightened in alarm. Without turning on the lights, he strode urgently past Alex, toward the kitchen.

A single lamp glowed weakly, making the gloom around it even darker. Morecambe stood in the shadowy corner looking back and forth from the back door to the closed doorway beside it. Sweat glistened greasily on his forehead.

“It must have been him,” he said, speaking to himself. His hands worked wetly at the shotgun. Pulling at the bowtie around his neck, he seemed equally scared and excited.

“Stupid boy,” he said, voice suddenly sharp. “What were you thinking? Burying it in the snow? You think this is a child’s game? A treasure hunt? I could . . . We could have had it to ourselves.”

“What?” Alex felt stung. He had never been so tired, but on the far edge of his fatigue, something was dimly nagging at him, if he only had the energy to focus on it. Morecambe’s actions threw him. In all the effort it had taken to get here, he hadn’t tried to imagine what Harry might be like. But he would never have pictured this. The man had a perplexing coldness. Alex’s grief over his grandfather was hot, constant, but the old man’s friend had barely flinched at the news. He was far more concerned about the tin robot. Then again, Alex knew the toy was part of something bigger. Maybe Morecambe had his reasons.

“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left it out there. I didn’t know what—” Alex sagged, legs failing. He collapsed onto a chair. “I don’t feel well. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“No,” Morecambe rubbed his nose itchily with the back of his wrist. “You don’t. Well, you’ll see soon enough. He’ll be here soon, I suppose.”

“Shouldn’t we go?” Alex said, half rising. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“No.” Morecambe raised the gun, almost pointing it at Alex. “Stupid boy. You stay. We stay.”

Confused, angry in a weary way, Alex bent forward, putting his forehead to the table. He felt dreadful. Various pools of pain and fear ran together, spreading to ache in his joints. It was fully dark outside now.

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