The Cull

By Jon Jacks

An infection must be curbed – even in a school

It starts off with just one; a hit and run.
Next it’s a car crash, with no survivors.
Then the school bus is completely obliterated on a level crossing.
Then there’s a fire...
Each time, it either involves someone who upset Jasmine, or Jasmine and her friends miraculously survive.
Jasmine reckons it’s her guardian angel Gariel that’s protecting her.
But Gariel is increasingly insistent that Jasmine has to find and hand him a book he needs.
Problem is, Jasmine doesn’t know which book he means – and the longer she takes to find it, the more the school seems to be in danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Jacks
• Release date: Jul 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301247301

Jon Jacks

While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

Book preview

The Cull

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things – The Last Train

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – Seecrets – The Wicker Slippers

Text copyright© 2013 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

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Blessed are the first one-hundred and fifty-three. For they are the very first Jasmines, who will spread their branches, take root, and suffuse the world in the glorious scent of Truth.

The Book Of Jasmine

Chapter 1

‘Sure I said I hoped she’d die! But that didn’t mean I actually wanted her to die!’

I couldn’t believe it.

Nobody could believe it.

Mary Salford was dead.

And somehow her friends seem to think I’m somehow responsible. And all because we’d had an argument yesterday.

Hey, if having an argument with Mary made me a possible suspect for murder, that made half the school potential suspects!

‘It’s a figure of speech, Liz, that’s all. You know what a figure of speech is, right? Like, Get out of my face!’

Jeez!

Haven’t these girls got anything better to do than pester me about this?

I mean, we’re all shocked, right?

Even I didn’t hate Mary that much that I wanted her dead!

You don’t, do you? When you say, I hope you die, you’re just angry; that’s all!

You’re not really contemplating murder!

Besides, just how do these numbskulls figure I managed to get Mary to step out into the road in front of an oncoming car?

‘She was upset!’ Liz screams back in my face.

Obviously, Liz doesn’t understand everyday expressions like ‘Get out of my face!’.

‘Mary wasn’t thinking straight! That’s why she wandered out into the road!’

Wow, so that’s it?

That’s how Mary’s friends think I’m responsible for her death?

Not because they think I somehow pushed her out into the road.

Not because they think I was secretly driving the car that sent her flying back onto her own lawn.

No no; they think I’m responsible because I’d upset her so much she was walking around in a daze!

‘Since when was Mary upset by what anyone said to her, Liz? And if being upset was a reason to wander out in front of a passing car, I think Mary would have an awful lot of deaths on her hands, wouldn’t she?’

Mary was Miss Sarcasm par excellence.

She could hit you bang centre where it hurt most. Hit you with a comment dripping with acid. One that would burn away at your very core for days afterwards.

Like, ‘Hey, Jaz; is that your idea of makeup. Or have you just taken up professional boxing?’

Yeah, that’s what our argument had been about.

So, Rest In Peace, Mary.

It will certainly be a lot more peaceful around here without you.

*

How did I get into an argument about makeup?

It sounds like I’ve got one heck of a short fuse, right?

But look, Mary had been ribbing me for ages about a number of things, right?

That’s how she does – well, how she used to do it.

She had that knack of knowing just which parts of you to tweak. And she’d know it no matter who she was talking to.

A tweak here. A tweak there.

A push of this button. Then that button.

Pulling this nerve. Putting this nerve on edge.

It was an enviable skill, I’ll give her that.

She was testing your tolerance. Seeing how much you could stand before you cracked.

If you were really stupid, you’d take it to a physical level.

Big mistake.

You’d be flat out on the floor before you knew it.

Me, I stuck to the snappy come back.

She respected that.

Saw it as a game.

A game she’d always flatter herself that she’d won whenever you finally parted.

*

Truth is, Mary’s comment about the makeup had really stung.

How come?

Well, I’d be the first to admit I’m not the most attractive girl around.

But, you know, I always try and do my best with what I’ve got. As you do.

Every ‘miracle’ beauty product that’s advertised, I’m a sucker for.

It’s crazy, I know. I should know better.

But, see, I don’t go letting anybody fool me that being attractive isn’t important.

Sure, I’d like to buy into the theory. The theory that there’s no great advantage in being attractive.

If everybody bought into the theory, that would be just great, wouldn’t it?

Experience tells me, though, that no one’s buying into it.

Not unless, of course, you’re already stunningly gorgeous. In which case, when you’re twittering away that being attractive’s no great shakes, it’s up there with some rich prat making out money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Then you get those poor things right out at the other end of the scale. Those who seem to be under the delusion that if they just keep repeating the mantra, well, everyone will start to believe them, won’t they?

If only, eh?

Thing is, if they really believe what they’re saying is true, what’s the problem?

The guys they fancy will be the ones no one else wants anyway, right?

Me, I reckon life runs a whole lot smoother for you if you’re blessed in the looks department.

Does stating the obvious make me a bad person?

In many people’s eyes, it probably does.

In my eyes it makes me a bad person.

There are intelligent kids out there who suffer heartache and worse simply because of their looks.

Then there are others who just breeze through life purely because they’ve got great bone structure.

Course, I’m not saying this is an ideal state of affairs!

It’s ridiculous.

It’s unfair.

But that’s how it is.

So get over it.

It isn’t helping anyone to try and pretend it isn’t really like that.

Because it means no one’s facing up to the facts.

Me, I’ll admit right up front that most of my own personal suffering comes from lusting after guys who, to be honest, are way out of my league.

And, of course, they wouldn’t be out of my league if I was even half-decent looking.

So for me, when it comes to light reading, it’s the magazine articles on clever makeup shading. Brightening up your hair with tints. Getting the dress that makes the most of some curves and hides the others.

All invaluable stuff.

Then again, it was thanks to one of these articles that I ended up with a face way too heavy on the blue eye-shadow and yellow blusher.

Yeah, what was I thinking, right?

Mary, you’d got me dead to rights on that one.

Oops, sorry; it’s just a figure of speech, okay?

*

‘Jaz! Jaz!’

It’s one of the kids from the lower years; Josie, Jolie, or something like that.

What’s she want?

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re wanted in the headmistress’s office. I think the police are there!’

The police?

You’re kidding me!

Crap!

Surely the police don’t think I had anything to do with Mary’s death?

What the heck’s Liz been telling them?

*

Chapter 2

‘Now Jasmine, I need you to be perfectly honest with me on this; did you have an argument with Liz and her friends when classes ended for the lunch break?’

Miss Pollitt says it all calm and nicely. The tone she’d use if she were asking a five-year-old if she’d seen a nasty man hanging around the playground.

Me, I’ve been sat in an oversized chair placed directly in front of her desk.

You know, like I’m some poor guy who’s just about to be told his firm’s downsizing. He’s surplus to requirements. They’re going to have to let him go.

To add to all the scenarios my mind’s conjuring up here, there’s