Devil You Know by Cathy MacPhail Read Free Book Online Page A

still stuck.
    Baz turned to us, puzzled, with a ‘What are you just standing there for?’ look on his face. “Come on boys, is nobody gonny help here?”
    I glanced around. The street was deserted. There was a long line of boarded-up shops and premises on this block, some with derelict flats above them. Why was this guy going into this warehouse? It looked abandoned. And I decided he must work here, or he owns it. That’s what I genuinely thought. Yet another voice was warning me to stay back. The guy’s a junkie. You could tell by the greyness of his skin, and the black circles under his eyes.
    “Come on then!” Baz said again.
    I think it was the mood we were in. We’d tricked the Young Bow and now we were up for anything, wanting more. We all crouched down beside him and began hauling at the shutter door.
    The guy grinned at us again, and I thought those oh-so-blue eyes of his had a coldness in them. With that tooth missing he reminded me of Long John Silver, you know that pirate out of
Treasure Island
? Kneeling there on the ground with this vacant smile on his face that didn’t seem like a smile at all. What he said next made him sound even more like a pirate. “If you help me get in you can take a share in the loot.”
    The loot? What did he mean,
the loot
?
    Gary got to his feet. He was shaking his head. “I know this guy. Al Butler,” he whispered. “Bad news.”
    I stood up too, and looked all around, sure someone must be spying on us. But this one block seemed to be out of sight of everything. The sky was heavy and dark. The wind whipped past us again. It gave me a funny feeling.
We’re not doing anything wrong
, I told myself, yet even at the time I remember thinking:
If we’re doing nothing wrong, why do I feel guilty
?

Fifteen
    We all helped in the end, even Gary, and we hauled and dragged at the edge of the steel till it bit into my fingers.
    “Right, after three. Everybody pull together,” this Al Butler said, and with one supreme effort we pulled. At last I could feel the steel rising, an inch at a time, until it suddenly flew from our hands and rolled to the top with a metallic clang. The noise made us all jump and look around, sure someone must have heard it. But no one came. There was no one to hear any sound.
    Al Butler stepped inside the darkness of the warehouse and beckoned us to follow. None of us did. He swung round, spread out his arms, as if he was opening Ali Baba’s treasure cave. I was almost waiting for him to say ‘Abracadabra’. Instead he said, “Come on boys. One good turn deserves another.” He took another step further inside and it was as if the gloom swallowed him up.
    “I think we should just go,” Gary said. But he didn’t move.
    “We could just go in for a look,” Baz said, and I could see he really wanted to know what was inside. I did too.
    “The place is derelict, what would be the harm in looking?” I didn’t want to go against Baz, but I didn’t want to annoy Gary either.
    “There must be something in there, if he wants in so badly,” Gary said. That just seemed to make Baz more determined.
    “Oh come on. Who’s for going in, just for a minute? Double dare you!” No one answered him. “Oh well, I’m going. I’m not scared.”
    “Me neither,” Mickey said, and he was the bold one who stepped inafter Al Butler. He turned back to us. “Aw come on, what’s the harm?” And then he too disappeared into the gloom. It was as if they had gone through some black hole.
    “Where are they going?” I asked. “Into the Twilight Zone?”
    “Mickey?” Claude called out. There was no answer. Claude took a few steps inside. He called Mickey’s name again, and still there was no answer. “Is anybody there?” he asked in a spooky voice. That made us giggle. And then out of the darkness, Mickey ran forward with a roar, his arms spread wide. Claude, taken completely by surprise, stepped back too quickly, and tumbled over a pile of boxes lying on the