Skulk by Rosie Best

Author:Rosie Best [Best, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Saracen squatted on Hammersmith Road with a pawn shop on one side and a porn shop on the other. For a pub it was a thin, cramped-looking building. It had once had glossy black fake-Tudor beams painted on it, but the paint was flaking away. All the windows were shut up, sealed over with those grey metal shutters the council put up to stop people actually using derelict buildings for illicit activities like living. Peeling posters dotted the walls and there was a strong stench of urine and musty sweat around the doorway. I couldn’t pick up any of the skittery spider-scent I’d smelled on Angel through the general funk.

I hugged the edge of the pavement to the end of the street and slipped down the alley behind the shops. Gravelly dirt crunched under my paws as I made my way past the back doors of the shops, under vans, between towering rubbish bins and in and out of a maze of old bits of fencing. A door creaked open as I passed, throwing a warm spike of yellow light across my face. I froze as a shape moved into the light. It was a human, carrying a large bag that rustled... and then the scent hit me, the most delicious salty, fatty, bready smell, with a far distant echo of slippery, glass-eyed things.

Fish and chips. My stomach rumbled. I was about to sneak up to the bin, to see if I could break into that bag when the man had dumped it, but then a barking shout broke me out of my trance. The man snatched up a stick and ran at me, slashing it through the air in my direction.

“Garn! Get out! Vermin!” he yelled. I cringed away, and he stopped coming after me. He put the bag into a plastic wheeley bin and slammed the lid down. I turned tail and ran on along the alley, before he came at me with that stick, and tried to ignore the awakened rumblings in my belly.

It suddenly occurred to me as I slipped in and out of the shadows that I didn’t know if I’d be able to figure out which of the buildings was the Saracen from the back. The dim brickwork all looked the same and more than one of the buildings had its windows covered over. If it had been a working pub, I probably could’ve picked it out a mile away – but now that I was looking for traces of alcohol, I started finding it in every bin I passed, splashed up against fences and even pooled underneath an old car. The warm tang of it was everywhere. I passed a homeless man, huddled in about four different coats, cuddling a bottle as if it were a child. When he saw me he muttered something in what I thought might be Spanish, but didn’t move to chase me away.

In the end, it was easy to spot the back door to the Saracen.

I just followed the smell of death.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.