The Identical Boy Read online

  'What happened in the daydream?'

  Sam thought, and he thought, but it wouldn't come. 'I don't know. I just think I was in his house and I think it wasn't a good thing.'

  ‘Well, have you ever been in his house?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Well that’s that. The brain is a funny thing. Let's play a game,' the boy suggested, standing and heading over to the pile of board games in the corner. 'Ludo? Scrabble? Not Monopoly, Monopoly takes too long.'

  A sudden thought struck Sam. 'Did you go to Mark's house without me?'

  Sam’s friend didn’t stop or turn around; he just kept looking through the different board games.

  ‘Well? You never went to Mark’s without me, did you?’

  The boy turned to him, his face hidden by shadow, although the room was brightly lit.

  'Of course not. Let's play this.' The boy sat and began to lay out the Scrabble board.

  Sam opened his mouth to say something else, but then couldn’t remember what it could be. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that a bully was gone, and Sam had a friend. A better than best friend.

  'You keep score. I hate keeping score,' said Sam.

  'Okay,' said the boy.

  ~Chapter Seventeen~

  School was strange for a while. For a few days at least. The spectre of Mark hung over the building like a dark blanket. It was the hot topic of conversation for pupils and teachers alike.

  ‘I hear it was his Dad, come back at last. A screw loose, you see. Killed Mark with his bare hands whilst off his face on drugs and booze and other things and then took the body with him.’

  ‘Well, this is what happens when you let gypsies camp out on Brewers Field. I said it should never have been allowed, but did anyone listen to me?’

  ‘Maybe he killed himself.’

  ‘What, pulled off his own head?’

  ‘Oh, that’s not even true. Mary, who knows his sister a bit, said they found him hanging by his neck. Oh, and his tongue had been pulled through a slit in his neck, so it hung like a meat tie. Gross, right?’

  ‘Probably a homeless person, broke in looking for something to steal. Took the body to try and cover up what happened.’

  And on, and on. Every scrap of information was seized upon and chewed over feverishly. Not that there were many scraps. The police said little and the press uncovered less. Within a week, with no fresh pieces to toss around, the conversation moved on.

  Most of the children were relieved that Mark was gone, and felt no reason to pretend otherwise, no matter how gory his manner of dispatch had apparently been. The cruel King was dead.

  Kath had taken over Mark’s old gang. There had been some dissension in the ranks, but her fists had swiftly answered all concerns. Although stern, she didn’t have the same single-minded drive and cruel streak as Mark, and the other children of the school were much happier with her in charge.

  Finney became her number two, with Varinder once again stuck as third banana.

  Often, on his way back home after the school bell rang, Sam found himself taking the long way home, so he would pass Mark’s house. Occasionally he’d turn up to find a police car outside, but more often than not, it just looked like an ordinary house. You’d never know that something gruesome had happened just behind the bricks.

  Once he saw Mark’s sister leave. She didn’t look like Mark; she had much finer features. Sam didn’t get the impression that she was all that distraught about things. Then again, what must it have been like for her to live with a creature like Mark? Sam assumed Mark had made her life Hell on a daily basis. Maybe she was a little glad he was gone, too. He’d followed her for a while as she left the house, without knowing why. When she’d reached her destination, a friend’s house, Sam turned back and headed for home.

  On this particular day, Sam was sat on a wall opposite Mark’s house, eating an apple.

  ‘Hey, nerd.’

  Ally dropped her bag on the ground and hopped up onto the wall beside Sam, lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply, before blowing out expert smoke rings. She winked at Sam. ‘Practice makes perfect.’

  ‘Smoking is bad for you,’ replied Sam.

  ‘Yup, and that’s just one of its cooler attributes.’ She passed the cigarette to Sam, who paused, then took the thing gingerly in hand.

  ‘Peer pressure, peer pressure!’ Ally chanted.

  Sam placed it between his lips and inhaled. The series of hacking coughs that followed almost caused him to fall off the wall.

  Ally laughed and retrieved her smoke. ‘Let that be a lesson to you, kid.’ She inhaled long and deep, and let the grey smoke seep lazily from her mouth and nostrils.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘I suppose school must be an easier ride since….’ She gestured towards Mark’s house.

  ‘Yes. For a lot of people.’

  Ally nodded. ‘I mean, it’s not nice, don’t get me wrong, but that kid sure was a rotten apple.’

  ‘The most rotten ever.’

  ‘You know, if it had to happen to anyone….’ She shrugged, leaving the rest unsaid.

  Sam nodded. ‘I dreamt … I sort of dreamt, or imagined, that I was in his house. I saw him screaming. Silent screaming. And. Well. Yeah. I’ve never actually been in there, though.’

  Ally leaned back and regarded Sam, a single eyebrow raised. Sam shrank back a little.

  ‘You have a serious dark side, boy. If you were a few years older I would be crushing on you something fierce.’ Ally flicked the ciggie stub into the road with studied nonchalance, where a curious bird picked at it with its beak a couple of times, before flapping away.

  They stayed on that wall for several more minutes, before Sam said he had better get home for tea. Not too far away, something watched them. Something hidden by the tall grasses of the overgrown field.

  ~Chapter Eighteen~

  The weeks slipped by and the weather began to turn unseasonably cold. Sam found that he kept forgetting all about Mark, which was odd. Odder than odd, and perhaps odder even than that. Then he would be sat at the dinner table, and his Dad would bring up the fact that the police were still failing to find any sort of a suspect, and Mark would pop back into his conscious memory. How could he have forgotten that? He tried hard to hold onto the memory each time it resurfaced, but soon enough Mark faded out again and Sam got on with the vital business of playing with his best friend.

  'Come on!' Sam hissed, as he leaned from the window and grabbed hold of the tree branch that seemed to reach out to greet him.

  It was late and his parents had gone to bed. Sam and his friend had waited for an hour after they heard the pair close their bedroom door, before dressing silently and opening the window. They’d clambered out into the tree and Sam's heart cannoned with the taboo excitement of sneaking out after dark.

  Sam dropped onto the ground where the boy was already waiting. Street lamps illuminated the path, left and right, empty streets calling them forth. Crying out that it was time to run and be wild.

  As one, they turned right and ran from the house, jumping and whooping and living. Lights would flick on here and there as they screamed past strangers’ homes, but they were already out of sight by the time any annoyed, sleepy eyes peered out from behind parted curtains.

  As he ran and ran, the cold forced its way down Sam's throat, but he didn't care; they were the wild things and this was their domain.

  The streets looked alien at night. Like a stage suddenly devoid of actors. Sam was seeing the familiar with new eyes. Seeing the place he’d called home his whole life at a time of day that made it feel off, unnatural, illicit, alien. No one was out here—he certainly shouldn’t be—to see the streets so bare and at peace. It was a ghost world, and he and his best friend were the only ghouls in town.

  That night they ran until their legs gave way and caused them to fall to the ground, flat out and exhausted, laughing with unrestrained joy at how alive they were.

  They didn’t
pause for long, for the night was short and it would soon leave them behind. Sam leapt to his feet as soon as he was able and gestured for his friend to follow.

  And they ran once again.

  Without realising he was even heading in that direction, Sam found himself climbing the fence and entering Oldcoat Field. It was the overgrown area where he and his very best and only friend had so recently had their victory over Mark the bully. Mark the dead bully. And so the memory flooded back again and the itching of the mostly forgotten daydream.

  'Do you remember what we did to Mark here?' asked Sam.

  'Who?' the boy replied.

  'Mark! The bully. We really scared him.'

  The boy walked ahead, pulling fists full of ragged vegetation from the earth, then tossing it into the air where the wind claimed it as its plaything, blowing it this way and that.

  ‘When I think about him, I feel as though … as though I’m guilty of something.’

  Sam’s friend threw more grass into the air and spun as it tumbled around him.

  ‘Do you know what happened to him?’

  'I don't think I like your babysitter,' said the boy.

  'What?' replied Sam, snapping out of his thoughts. 'What's wrong with Ally? I like her.'

  ‘She thinks she's your friend.'

  'She is my friend. Sort of.'

  The boy stopped and turned to Sam. 'I'm your friend, aren’t I? I came here for you because that's what you wanted. I suppose I could always go away if you don’t want me anymore.' The boy turned and ran for the fence, leaping it as though the distance was nothing and sprinting down the road beyond. Sam did his best to give chase, scrabbling with rushed difficulty over the fence.

  'Hey, wait for me!' Sam called, desperately trying to catch up, but as he looked around he saw it was already too late. He was alone. Alone in the middle of the dark, dark night and trespassing onto streets that should be sleeping.

  Sam was no longer a wild thing; he was alone again. Alone meant sad, meant vulnerable, meant ignored. He didn’t want to be alone again. Didn’t want to feel scared, scared like he did right now.

  ‘Please! Come back! Come back!’

  But no one and nothing answered his calls. Sam ran blindly into the empty night, but it was useless. Finally he collapsed to the ground, his fingers digging into the soil.

  Half an hour later, he scaled the tree outside his window and climbed quietly back into his bedroom. He turned on the light, and even checked the large trunk at the foot of his bed, but he wasn’t there.

  Sam’s friend had gone.

  ~Chapter Nineteen~

  Everything would be all right in the morning. That was what Sam told himself as he climbed into bed and hugged his knees tight to his chest so that he lay in a crunch. Friends argued, and friends fell out. But friends got over these things. Best friends did. Harsh words and actions, then the next day it was like nothing bad or horrible had ever happened. The board was wiped clean, and only fun and laughter and togetherness was important.

  This would be true even more in this case. Because they weren’t just friends, or best friends, they were one person. Two halves. Sam could no longer imagine himself without the boy. He wouldn’t have to. His friend would not leave him. Abandon him to his old life again.

  He would come back.

  Back.

  Back.

  In the morning Sam would sit up in bed, rubbing the hard sleep from his eyes, and see his friend standing over him, ready to play. Sam knew it. He knew it.

  And so Sam slept. At first he didn’t think he’d be able to, so alive and frantic was his mind, like a small child trying to sleep before Christmas. But, before he knew it, exhaustion wrapped its arms around him and he slid into a black sleep.

  ***

  It was morning. Sam sat up in bed and rubbed the hard sleep from his eyes.

  There was no one else in the room.

  ***

  That day, school seemed to last forever.

  So his friend hadn’t been there when he woke up, so what? That didn’t mean anything. It just meant he’d taken a little longer to get back home from wherever he’d gone; that was all. It didn’t mean he wasn’t coming back at all.

  Sam felt almost silly for doubting his best friend—doubting the unbreakable bond between them. He knew that, as sure as ice was cold, when he got back home he’d find his friend sat on his bedroom floor, taking out the board and laying it flat so the two could play Scrabble.

  Of course, of course, of course.

  In each class, Sam

  sat staring at the slow hands crawling their way around the clock face, trying to push the day forward by the sheer force of his will. When the bell for home time finally rang out, it sounded to Sam like a chorus of angels. He bolted from the class, knocking others aside, and didn’t hear their cries and curses of complaint.

  Out he ran: out, out, out into the yard and through the gates.

  The world passed by as a smear around him. A blur. Sam felt as though he could do the 100 Metres sprint in six seconds.

  He reached home in record time and threw the door open.

  ‘I’m back! I’m back from school, did you miss me?’

  Sam took the stairs three at a time; gravity almost seemed to loosen its grip on him slightly, assisting him on his journey.

  Down the corridor he sprinted, towards his closed bedroom door. He stopped for a second, fingers curled around the handle, his eyes seeming to pulse in their sockets due to the effort of racing home.

  What if….

  What if….

  What if….

  No. He will be there. If I believe it and want it, my friend will be there.

  The handle screeched as he turned it and pushed the door open.

  All was quiet. All was still. Sam’s heart beat, beat, beat.

  He stepped into the room. There was no Scrabble board waiting. Only an absence greeted him.

  Sam was alone.

  ~Chapter Twenty~

  Sam didn’t dream that night. That night Sam went Between. To the place he had found his friend. Between Awake and Asleep. Perhaps he went there of his own accord.

  Perhaps not.

  He opened his eyes to find himself in the house that looked just like his own house, but wasn’t his own house at all. The silence pushed in at him, demanded to be heard.

  ‘Hello? Are you here? Are you back here again?’

  Sam wandered from room to room, but each was emptier than the last—until the final room wasn’t a room at all, but a space that was very much the absence of a room. Sam left and went outside. The forest was waiting for him.

  ‘Are you in the forest? Please come back home.’

  Sam asked the trees if they knew where his friend was, but they ignored him and spoke quietly amongst themselves in a language of rustling leaves and creaking branches. Sam found the tallest tree in the forest, the tallest tree that his friend had climbed down from when he met him here last. He called up at the furthest branches, begging for the boy to appear. He did not. Sam attempted to climb the tree, to see for himself if he was there, but the tree wouldn’t let him. It twisted its trunk this way and that like a rag, then shook chunks of its bark loose so that Sam tumbled to the ground.

  So Sam wandered aimlessly, growing emptier with each step. He passed the bones of a burnt-out bus, in the husk of which now lived a snake that only wanted to speak of times past and old glories: ‘But of course, that was many skins ago now.’

  Sam walked on.

  ‘I’m sorry we had cross words. Please come back.’

  The trees gave way to mountains, and Sam climbed the steep slopes on hands and knees as the childish winds did their best to pull and shove him this way and that, to make him loosen his grip and tumble to the sharp rocks far below.

  At the top of the mountain stood an English town, full of ordinary terraced houses, corner shops, pubs, and betting shops. Sam went from door to door, to ask if anyone who lived in the town knew where his friend might
be. Most of the doors remained closed, no matter how loudly he knocked. The few that opened were of no use. They only contained children like himself, who didn’t understand where they were, or ghosts, who wanted to tell him about how they died.

  Sam walked on.

  He passed a front garden shrouded in darkness, with a gate that increased in size if you were took steps towards it.

  ‘Please, you’re my only friend.’

  He walked so far that, in the end, he found himself back in the forest again, and the trees shook their branches as they laughed with glee.

  Sam stopped and curled up on the soil as the trees mocked him. He was tired and alone, and had no intention of ever moving again.

  What was he, without his friend? He was just Sam. Lonely and strange and Sam and alone alone alone. He didn’t want to be that again. Couldn’t be that again. The aloneness was too lonely and the empty too full. The trees shook and creaked and laughed.

  Sam closed his eyes and wished for everything to just disappear.

  ‘You cannot wish away this forest,’ said a deep, emotionless voice. Sam opened his eyes to see a strange man stood before him. He was tall. Very, very tall indeed and dressed all in black. His head was hairless and lacked a face of any kind.

  ‘Who’re you,’ asked Sam.

  ‘I am me,’ the Tall Man replied. ‘This is my forest. Why would you wish it away?’

  ‘It’s laughing at me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is your forest? You own it?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Yes. This forest. This dirt. The mountains, the buildings. Everything Between. I am the Lord of this place.’

  ‘You run this whole place?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I run nothing. I watch, I help, I ignore. It is not my place to force my will upon the creatures that run here.’

  ‘I’m looking for my friend. He’s from here,’ Sam told the Tall Man. ‘Can you help me find him?’

  The Tall Man tilted his faceless head to one side. ‘And what form did this friend take? Human? Monster? Ghost?’