The Nasties by Mark Hurst

Author:Mark Hurst
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mark Hurst
Published: 2017-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING and Aunt Val was getting ready to go to the shops. She liked to dress up a bit on the weekends and take the bus to Guildford with her friends, and the earlier she could get away the better. The first bus could be picked up at eight-thirty from the end of the street and so when she bustled out of the house Mathilda was still in bed.

Mathilda hadn’t been sleeping well since the attack. Her dreams were vivid and horrible. In them Charlie was taken and killed along with the other children, whilst she was frozen to the spot, unable to help. In others it was like she was inside the body of Esther (which was horrible anyway), shockingly handing over Sophie to a dribbling beast which tore her to pieces in front of her eyes.

It was only in the morning, as light began to appear along the edges of her curtains and the birds began to sing their first songs, that she was able to fall into a light, troubled sleep. So when the doorbell rang stridently, the sharp tone bouncing up the stairs, her first reaction was to bury her head still further under her duvet and hope it would go away.

The bell rang again, followed by the creak of the letterbox opening and Charlie’s voice calling, ‘Mathilda – are you there?’ She had no option but to pull herself out of bed and stagger sleepily down the stairs to the door.

When she opened it she was surprised to see not only Charlie, but Bash and a lady who could only be his mum, all standing together in the porch. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and tightened her dressing gown around her, smiling uncertainly. ‘Can we come in then?’ asked Bash.

Cathy watched Mathilda curl her long legs underneath her on the sofa. She thought she was very pretty and looked a lot older than fourteen, but they all did these days. Considering what they were discussing, she also seemed very composed. She had hardly raised an eyebrow when Bash had suggested that she go to the school and retrieve her bow. She only intervened to explain how she could get in despite it being a weekend.

‘It’s a stroke of luck,’ said Mathilda. ‘The school is having some work done and I know the builders are in there over the weekends. I should be able to sneak in and I know where Mr Jones keeps the keys to the gym equipment. He trusts me to close it up after practice.’

Her face took on a slightly guilty cast, but in truth she was excited by the prospect of getting her bow and also having the chance to shoot it at something more interesting than straw targets. The thought of being a hunter, a hero – like that girl in The Hunger Games – was not without some appeal.

‘You should stay here,’ she said. ‘My aunt will be out all day and it will be less conspicuous if it is just me creeping around.

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