Mandy And The Missing: A Deadly Deception

By L R Buxton

Scottish college student Mandy Murray is still reeling from the discovery that the people of Southampton, thanks to the act of sabotage committed by the unhinged Jennyfer De Villiers, can turn themselves invisible at will, and become 'The Missing'. Increasingly under siege, both whilst working with youngsters in her studies and trying to help her fellow students in the union, she goes to watch a local band perform and is surprisingly captivated by one band, led by an enigmatic frontman with personal issues of his own.

With the wry, eloquent, but somewhat shady Lucas - who is nominally in charge of capturing The Missing - showing her little attention, and apparently more concerned with what Jennyfer may be doing than her own wellbeing, Mandy uses this opportunity to bond again with the housemates she was feeling alienated from - however when she discovers that two of them are taking their attraction to the next level her confidence is knocked. Even her attempts to help a bullied girl from campus seem as doomed to fail as her friendships.

Mandy's attempts to help others put her in even graver peril in this adventure, where it becomes clear to her that people are not quite as they seem and their words cannot always be trusted. When she is lured to Southampton Common in the books finale, she will find herself facing the ultimate threat from those whom she trusts as well as those she mistrusts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L R Buxton
• Release date: Jan 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370199365

L R Buxton

I am a writer from the Midlands (born in Worcester) with a liking for classic farce, contemporary fantasy and psychological thrillers.I went to university in Southampton, which fuelled my ideas for the "Mandy And The Missing" series.Among my influences (from both the printed word and on-screen entertainment) I would count classic (1963-1989) Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Ultraviolet (the TV series), JRR Tolkien, Tom Sharpe and Fritz Leiber. I also enjoy biogs of famous actors, musicians and authors.For my hobbies I enjoy motorsport, football, debate, politics, socialising, visiting interesting cathedrals and places of interest, and going to music gigs and literary festivals.

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Mandy and the Missing: A Deadly Deception

Copyright 2016 Laurence Buxton

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for your cooperation.

Dedicated to the memory of Rosalie Buxton.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 A Surprise Reunion

Chapter 2 Hidden Agendas

Chapter 3 Man Or Martian?

Chapter 4 Back To Earth

Chapter 5 Bolts From The Blue

Chapter 6 Disillusionment

Chapter 7 False Tracks

Chapter 8 Secret Meetings

Chapter 9 Seeking Redemption

Chapter 10 Some Surprise Revelations

Epilogue

About The Author and Other Books

Prologue

Honey don't DO that!

Shocked, and glancing behind her in the cramped pre-school corridor, her blonde ponytail flicking out playfully as she did so, Honey reacted to the barked order from the new teacher lady.

You can't stop me! she cried defiantly, and ran out of the doorway with a laugh. She was just enjoying herself. And this Mandymand was weird. She'd been nice earlier, til Jack, Vijay and Katie had started laughing and set her off. Why was she being mean to her? It wasn't fair...

She heard the sharp, angry voice again, even louder this time. Honey! Yer a chancer...

Honey turned back, this time more apprehensively, and stared at the teacher with the slicked-back blonde hair and her scowling face. For a moment she wondered if Mum and Dad would hear about this, and shout. But then Honey, who'd thought she'd really get into trouble this time, squealed with laughter. Mandymand had just had a toy thrown into her back, and almost jumped out of her skin.

Right, 'oo threw that? said Mandymand, trying hard to keep her cool amid the high-pitched howls of merriment. Honey could hear her angry voice as she stormed back inside, with a final panicky glance toward Honey. Vijay – VIJAY!

It wasn't just Vijay, thought Honey – there were a lot of girls who'd wanted him to do it. Katie was one of them, but not just Katie – they all did. But somehow she didn't feel like they were anymore on her side than they were on Mandymand's.

Honey had laughed at Mandymand because they'd all laughed at her. But she didn't want to play with them though. They were loud and they'd pushed her and said nasty things when she'd tried to make friends with them, and they were stupid. They had been ever since she'd started going to school a few weeks ago. Her elder sister, Lucy, had been right, what she'd said at dinner last night when she'd been clearing the dinner things. She wished she were here now...

She continued to gaze for a while at her school, ignoring the chaotic sounds coming from within. It was set alongside a thick set of straggly trees, was all blocky and ugly, and reflected the way she felt when she was in there : awkward and uncomfy. She got all queasy just by looking at it when Mum dropped her off in the mornings – and when Mandymand or when of the older teachers got cross she felt even more so.

Honey wandered further away from the front door, off toward the two foot high, white-topped blue fencing that ran round the perimeter of the playground. A surprisingly cold wind briefly hit her, going right through her white top and taking away the late summer heat from her in an instant. She shivered. She looked out once again at the vast, sweeping expanse of the fields beyond it, where she so wanted to sit and just be on her own, so silly people weren't coming over all the time telling her not to wander off, but she knew they'd never allow that.

Now she felt bad about giggling at Mandymand. She actually liked her, with that funny accent, and actually she thought the others really had been a bit nasty to her all last lesson, laughing and things. They were always being mean to her. Mandy'd been getting angry, but she hadn't wanted to, and it was sort of funny when she did that...

She's not coming... came a dry, odd voice from beside her.

Honey turned round with a start. But there was no-one there! That was funny. And she felt that weird tingly feeling behind her neck when she didn't like something.

Who...? Where are you? said, with her typical curiosity. There wasn't even anywhere for them to hide. It sounded like a woman, but it couldn't be... where had she gone?

I'm here came the response, with a hard-edge. Are you blind?

Honey furrowed her brow. She could hear the voice straight ahead of her – it sounded weird, not very friendly, and there was nowhere to hide. How was this woman doing this?

Then... then... how are you hiding like that?

My secret... came the woman's voice, now just a chilling whisper. The woman had an odd way of speaking, like she was from far away, not local. But she didn't understand how she was hiding – or why...

Honey felt very frightened. She didn’t know what was going on, and it was wrong. She looked round for Mandy. I... I want to go inside...

No, I don't think you're going to go back in came the response, now from behind her – this invisible girl had got between her and the school. She felt something tight and cold hold on her arm, and knew instinctively it must have been this woman's hand.

Fear rose to panic in Honey. She wished Mummy were here, and felt her breath catch in her throat. Let go of me!

But something strong – it felt like the woman's other hand - held her around the throat... She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Mandymand, thought Honey helplessly... I want... Mandymand...

Then fainted.

Chapter 1

A Surprise Reunion.

The next day the reports of the attack on the pre-school girl Honey Martin were on all the local news bulletins around the Hampshire area. And sitting watching the 9am TV report on his tablet was Carey O'Connor, bleary-eyed after a night of little sleep and a lot of Jack Daniels.

Carey was sitting on a bench in one of Southampton's central parks, with the off-white pillar of the General Gordon monument towering over him, a far cry from where he'd grown up and lived with his Dad in Fratton. He took the lab-made shades off, rubbed his eyes, and replaced them, and grimly remembered a time when wearing sunglasses was about looking cool and stopping the glare getting in your eyes. Not any more...

He gave a cynical tut. Oh well – to work. Carey hit the play button, and ensured his earphones were sitting in his ears properly.

The headlines in the Hampshire area this morning... Police are still looking for witnesses to an attack on a young girl at Gregory's Pre-School in Southampton yesterday. The girl, aged 4, was rendered unconscious in the unprovoked incident, but was unable to get even a general glimpse of her attacker...

Carey shuddered slightly at the words of the middle-aged, stuffy reporter, but equally at the thoughts he had about his own role in the attack on this little girl, which had left her unconscious, half-suffocated and in a state of shock – how he, Lucas and that strange, irritating blonde-haired girl with the faint Scots accent had failed to stop their laboratory colleague Jennyfer from poisoning the town's water supply, meaning that now virtually everybody could make themselves invisible, if they wished.

And now not only did Carey suspect that Jennyfer, who had already turned invisible, was behind this latest attack – and if he disliked her before he hated her now, and dreaded to think what he would do to her if he came near his little girl – but he also had seen evidence with his own eyes that other people were starting to turn into the Missing too.

A bee buzzed lazily toward his face, but he waved it away with a gnarled and hairy hand. The park was pretty enough at this time of year – he remembered how he'd felt amazed when he'd moved here from Portsmouth at the pleasant places you could just hang out – but pleasure wasn't something he was feeling a lot of right now. He didn't particularly want to be here, but he didn't want to be playing happy families, either. Come to think of it he didn't want to be at home on his own, playing the so-called bachelor. Or even just working at the lab – he didn't feel he could look anyone in the eye right now. What the hell did he want?

*

It's out-rageous came the enunciated (and rather annoying) cry.

Slumped in her moth-eaten, uncomfortable chair, an exhausted Mandy Murray raised her head from her hands, wondering if she'd made the biggest mistake of her life joining the Union.

Her phone had just vibrated on the desktop, and she really wanted to check it. But Annie's strident squawk dissuaded her, and she elected to wait until she'd finished answering – or rather listening to – her query. As if she needed this – after the horrible business with Honey at the school the other day, this was just a complete waste of her time, particularly as the person wasting her time was her least favourite student in the entire college.

Why had she bothered? She had taken the role at the Union, as she had always intended to do, in an attempt to connect to students all across the campus and make lives better for them – and it had been a source of rare joy to her when she heard her application had been successful. But the girl sitting opposite her, Annie Sabowski, was one exception she could have made to helping her fellow students, and her drawn-out complaint against her flatmate was trying the Scots girl's limited amount of patience badly, particularly in light of the horrible attack on Honey yesterday. The only extending towards Annie she wanted to do was to grab hold of her slender neck with both hands...

Annie was four foot six, no more, as slight as a china doll and with curly blond hair that could have belonged on a figurine. But despite being so tiny this girl had already become the college's biggest pain in the ass, from the moment she'd given Mandy and Blossom verbals in her first lecture. With her constant cutting comments in class she could take away the little fun she'd been having in her teaching studies lately, and this wasn't proving to be any more pleasant an experience. She exchanged glances with an inappropriately-amused looking Malkit, and turned back to the poisonous pint-sized pygmy.

She tried not to sound as drained as she felt, after a particularly traumatic week. So what exactly has this Lindy done to you?

Have you not been listening? came the arch response, with a roll of the eyes and raise of the eyebrows. God's sake... the girl's been making gay advances to me. Can do without it when all we've done is show her kindness...

But Mandy waved a hand in a mixture of impatience and to get her to backtrack. She really hadn't been listening, no, though the comment Annie had just made had certainly got her attention. Gay advances? She repeated, to a discernible chuckle from Malkit.

Annie sounded frustrated. Yeah. I mean, like yesterday morning, yeah..., at which point she exchanged glances with her amused-looking friends, ...there I am getting changed in the bathroom and she's ACT-ually looking in! Trying to start a conversation – as if. And I'm there in my UNDerwear and she's obviously FASCinated and...

Mandy made a clearly-audible groan, and lowered her head again, while Annie chewed her gum and rolled her eyes. She had hoped that she would be dealing with some sensible queries, as Malkit had led her to believe when he'd interviewed her for the post. But she felt misled. And Annie, of all people, was never going to have anything sensible to say in a million years.

So – alright, alright! Hold on a second. What exactly do you expect me to do about it?

Well you're on the Union. I'd have thought you'd have some knowledge of what to do if someone is literally sexually harassing someone...

And you've – you've got a witness to this? asked Mandy, glancing concernedly at Annie's three female housemates standing behind her tormentor, looking both bored and contemptuous.

Even that brought a gasp of astonishment, and another flash of those perfect white teeth which Annie had been telling everyone in class had just been done at great expense, and a chorus of titters came from her three friends behind her. As IF! You think she's not cunning enough to wait til everyone else was out before taking her chance? She stood, hands on hips, gazing out of the window with a faraway look. 'Spose you WANT me to get attacked. And end up in a police station, giving a statement! Well I'd make sure this place got mentioned, and how little they care. I'd have thought the college wouldn't want to just look the other WAY...

Alright, alright! Mandy exclaimed, alarmed at the mention of the police and finally losing the remains of the little patience she had. To think she'd gone to