Dead Man at the Door

By Anthony Masters

Every night Gary wakes sweating with fear. Every night the dreams come.

Gary does not know what the dreams mean. Who is the stranger who hammers at the door? Who is the baby whose cries can be heard? He and his family are newcomers to the Isle of Wight, but Gary is soon to find his life inextricably bound up with both the island and the supernatural.

'Masters evidently believes in giving his...readers more than thrills and spills' - Sunday Telegraph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781448210237

Anthony Masters

Anthony Masters was renowned as an adult novelist, short story writer and biographer, but was best known for his fiction for young people. Many of his novels carry deep insights into social problems, which he experienced over four decades by helping the socially excluded. He ran soup kitchens for drug addicts and campaigned for the civic rights of gypsies and other ethnic minorities. Masters is also known for his eclectic range of non-fiction titles, ranging from the biographies of such diverse personalities as the British secret service chief immortalized by Ian Fleming in his James Bond books (The Man Who Was M: the Life of Maxwell Knight). His children's fiction included teenage novels and the ground breaking Weird World series of young adult horror, published by Bloomsbury. He also worked with children both in schools and at art festivals. Anthony Masters died in 2003.

Book preview

Dead Man at the Door

Anthony Masters

To Rosemary Canter, my agent and friend,

with much love and affection

Also to Chris, Robin and the students

of Cowes High School

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

A Note on the Author

One

Gary shifted restlessly in his bed. Somewhere, swimming in his consciousness, was the knowledge that the waking dream was coming. It was relentless and he knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. However terrifying the blurred experience was going to be, he was going to be in the thick of it. Then his body stilled, and he accepted that dream-time was here. Slowly, silently, he rose out of bed, opened the door and began to walk softly down the stairs.

In the half-light the garage looked much bigger than it really was, with its high, steel-girded roof and oil-dark walls. The builders had moved in a couple of weeks ago and all the old partitioning had been taken down. A new concrete floor had already been laid and was temporarily covered with polythene sheeting. It was this sheeting that held Gary transfixed in rising terror; for no reason at all it was rippling and moving, as if someone was walking across towards him. He couldn’t hear any footsteps, but he could see the polythene flapping, waving – reluctantly allowing something to tread its billowing surface. For a few minutes it was still, but then it moved again, and the sound of a blustering wind assaulted Gary’s ears. There was no rise or fall, just a sudden, inexplicable rattling sound.

Gary’s eyes darted to the steel shutter that led into the narrow Victorian street outside, but it was firmly closed. The terror became icicles in his heart. Hurriedly he turned to leave, back towards the half-open door that led into the yard by his father’s shop, but then he heard them – quick slapping footsteps, resounding now in the cavernous space. They were urgent, commanding, desperate. He raced to the door, and it shut with a slam. Then the footsteps stopped, and when Gary turned the polythene was no longer rustling. The inside of the garage was completely still. There was not the slightest sound anywhere.

Instinctively Gary knew that he mustn’t move, and he stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe. It seemed that he stood there for ever. Then he went rigid with shock as, again without warning, the banging on the steel shutter started once more. It was horribly insistent, yet somehow he knew that there was no one outside. Half sobbing, Gary turned to kick at the unyielding door into the yard. As he did so he could feel the polythene fluttering again.

‘Oi!’

‘What do you want?’

‘A chat.’

‘It’s going-home time.’

‘I’ll not keep you long.’ There was an attractive quality to the boy despite his menacing attitude, as if he couldn’t quite hide the fact that he had a special kind of warmth. Taller than Gary, but thin and wiry, he just stood there, staring unsmilingly at him, continuously pushing his long dark hair out of his eyes. Gary was sure he hadn’t seen him before, but although his parents had been living on the Isle of Wight for about a year now, he hadn’t made that many friends in the enormous school, and most of the students were strangers to him. Like this one.

‘I’ve got to get back.’ Gary felt slightly trapped, but at the same time he wondered if he was going to make a friend at last.

‘Aren’t you Baxter’s kid?’ said the boy, ignoring his half-hearted excuse.

‘What if I am?’ responded Gary defensively. He didn’t like being patronized.

‘The bloke who owns the do-it-yourself shop.’

‘Handiwork,’ said Gary, a little more confidently.

‘Yeah – that’s it. That’s the place.’ He paused and then spoke quickly. ‘Isn’t he – aren’t you expanding, like?’ The boy ran his hands through his hair impatiently and although Gary found his forcefulness irritating, at the same time his interest was appealing.

‘Yes,’ said Gary, pleased that the boy had noticed. He was very proud of his father’s ambitious plans, however much his mother nagged and prophesied doom. ‘We’re becoming a supermarket.’

‘They say you’re taking over Jackson’s Garage.’

‘We’ve bought it.’

‘And that’s where the supermarket’s going to be, is it?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘I’d – we’d hoped you were going to knock it down.’ The boy was suddenly oddly hesitant.

‘We were.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Then the bank wouldn’t lend the money for a new building. So we’re linking up the shop with the garage. Converting it.’ Why was the boy so interested? Gary just couldn’t make it out.

‘You’re an ovener, aren’t you?’

Gary nodded dismally. That was the Isle of Wight term for a newcomer.

‘You wouldn’t know our ways then.’

‘What ways?’

‘There’s – places on the island you don’t go to. Like Black Gull Chine.’

‘What happens there?’

‘The Watchers.’

‘Who are they?’ Gary was puzzled.

‘Ghosts of drowned seamen. You can feel them watching you. Even the anglers don’t go there.’

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with –’

‘And then there’s Jackson’s Garage.’

‘What?’

‘It should be razed to the ground.’

‘But why?’

‘It’s a bad place.’

How did he know? What did he know? Could the boy have some idea of what he had been dreaming about? About what he had seen? For he was not sure if his dreams were real, or if the reality he had felt was a dream. All he knew was that once he had woken up in the cold cave of a garage, thumping at the door which he thought wouldn’t open. And then it did – quite easily.

‘I don’t get you.’

‘There’re stories about it.’

‘What stories?’

‘I don’t know.’ The boy was instantly shifty. ‘You tell your dad. Us lot want it pulled down.’

‘Who’s us lot?’

‘Islanders.’

‘I’ve never heard anyone say that before.’

‘You’re hearing it now.’

‘My dad wouldn’t be interested,’ said Gary firmly.

‘Wouldn’t he now?’ The menace was back in the boy’s voice. ‘Wouldn’t he just?’

‘It’s too late,’ said Gary. ‘The builders are in.’

‘You tell your dad to watch out.’

‘What for?’

‘Someone might set fire to it. Burn it down. Your dad would get insurance money. He’d be all right.’

‘You threatening me?’

‘No. Just warning.’

‘Push off then,’ said Gary, walking away.

‘Don’t you talk to me like that.’ The boy grabbed his shoulder and spun him round. Gary swung his bag at him and missed. There was a tense moment of silence. Then the boy walked away.

‘What’s your name?’ yelled Gary, anxious to identify his assailant.

‘Ted,’ he called back.

‘You keep away from us.’

‘I can’t promise anything,’ Ted replied as he wandered out of the playground. Gary watched him go with a strange mixture of feelings. He was afraid and curious at the same time. He was also very anxious, for the dream – if that’s what it was – was occurring with alarming regularity.

*

Gary decided not to tell his parents about his confrontation with Ted, but they probably wouldn’t have listened anyway for they were far too preoccupied with sniping at each other. Ever since they had arrived on the Isle of Wight, the pressures on them had been intense. The small town of Benport was clannish, inward-looking and unwelcoming to oveners. But Bill Baxter, who had previously and unhappily been a paint rep in South London, was determined to make a success of his fresh independent start. Despite local prophets of doom, Handiwork flourished in the cramped premises of a former greengrocer, whilst the Baxters lived in an equally cramped flat over the shop.

Buying the garage and turning his business into a supermarket had not only taken up the last of the Baxters’ savings but had required a substantial bank loan as well. All this had led to frequent quarrelling between Bill and May Baxter, and the arguments had become all too familiar to their only child Gary. Now they were at it, hammer and tongs, over a computer system that his father wanted to install to deal with the accounts.

‘It makes sense,’ he was yelling at his wife. ‘Can’t you see it makes sense?’

‘No I can’t. It doesn’t make sense at all. Nothing you do makes sense –’

The argument dragged on; Gary munched his way through a doughnut and tried to switch off. He would go up to his room soon and do his homework. That would be a relief. He was fed up with his parents’ rows and frightened by their increasing regularity. He loved them both very much and hated to see them tearing each other apart. They had had him