Vengeance Child by Simon Clark Page B

gone. Archer was alone in a room with stone walls and the car. He took hesitant steps toward it, looking around him as he did so. At any moment he expected his father to appear. Jay had made his dad appear before, even though he had a bullet hole in his face. Jay could make healthy people die. Now he knew the boy could bring people back out of their graves. Archer remembered what really happened now to his father. Dad used to hit Mum. He made her face bleed the day the men came to the house. So I told them where Dad was hiding. I did that. I wanted Dad to be killed. I as good as murdered him myself. No one else knows I did that. I got away with it. But if his father returned? He’d get hold of Archer then enjoy exacting a painful revenge. Archer’s senses began to shut down as he sensed danger approach. This was his way of protecting himself. He detached himself from reality. At that moment he seemed to see himself as if he watched from a distance. There goes little Archer. He’s got stick-thin arms. He’s wearing green pyjamas. If he gets his face punched now, or his throat squeezed, it’s nothing to do with me. I won’t feel it. Because I’m not in Archer’s body.
    Even so, Archer marvelled at the strange place Jay had taken him. The stone vault was several times bigger than a domestic garage. From the ceiling tree roots had grown through to hang down like monster tentacles. The place was full of spider webs. Spiders had even spun white shrouds over the car.
    So why park a car here? He couldn’t even see an entrance to bring the vehicle in. Like me, the car’s a prisoner here. The eight-year-old approached it. Pulpy white bags adorned the tyres. Mushrooms? Archer sniffed. Indeed, an aroma of mushroom tainted the air. Paintwork had turned as dull as old rhino skin. Archer didn’t recognize the model. And why leave it sitting here in the underground vault?
    Now curiosity got the better of Archer. He tried the door handle. For a moment it stuck. However, after a good tug the door opened with a squeal. And, pooh! The car smelt bad inside. Red fungus had grown out of the dashboard like fingertips pushing through the plastic from the other side. Archer slid on to the driving seat behind the wheel. Green gunge covered the windscreen. Spider webs covered the speedometer in a rippling white membrane. Weird. Why had Jay shown him this? An old car buried underground? Who’d be crazy enough to entomb their car? The cold air made him shiver.
    The vehicle shifted on its springs. A suspension that hadn’t moved in years gave a deep groan. To Archer the sound embodied both pain and loneliness.
    â€˜Jay,’ he whispered, ‘get me out of here. I don’t like it.’ But there was no Jay. Only him, frail young Archer with the face of a haggard adult. Creeping shivers advanced up his back. Alarm bells rang deep inside of him. Get out, Archer, they could have been saying. Get out fast. Something’s in here with you.
    Rats, maybe. He looked down at his feet. They were pale blobs in the gloom. If rodents had made their home here they’d attack. He imagined the pain of rat teeth crunching into his bare toes. Although he couldn’t make out any animals he could see that the carpet had been messed with black stuff. He touched it with his toes. It was crusty. A bit like spilt soup that’d dried into carpet pile. Deeper shivers ran through him. Something was badly wrong with this place. Terror folded round him. He panted hard. White mist billowed from his mouth. Despite his growing sense of panic he noticed little details. Like a pen that lay in the black gunge on the carpet. In the compartment that normally held things like cups and sunglasses there were a handful of coins. Dead spiders lay on top of them.
    Wait! The car rocked again on its suspension. Archer froze. He’d not been moving. So why did it move? Holding his breath, he didn’t twitch so much as a