Graveyard Shift by Chris Westwood Read Free Book Online

need to sleep and I don’t know how,” the boy murmured, rubbing his eyes.
    â€œWe’re lost,” said his sister. “We’re locked in and can’t get out.”
    â€œAnd you,” I said to the burned man. “Were you in the building too? How come there’s no mention of you in the newspaper?”
    â€œBen?”
    Miss Whittaker again, still a murmur, even farther away.
    A distant sound of stifled laughter. The gasp of twenty-four students catching their breath.
    Across the room, the threesome began slowly backing up to the door. “Help us,” they said, all three together. “Help us sleep.”
    â€œBut how? Tell me how. I don’t know how!”
    Uncontrollable tears filled my eyes, throwing everything in front of me out of focus. I took a step around the desk, meaning to follow them. The sudden pressure of a hand on my shoulder brought me back.
    â€œIt’s all right,” Miss Whittaker was saying. “Whatever you saw isn’t there now. Come with me.”
    She took my arm, guiding me past the desk to the door. I couldn’t look at the others as we passed.
    I didn’t need to, either. I knew they were staring at me in openmouthed wonder.
    Sniffing back tears, I wiped my eyes with a forearm and followed Miss Whittaker out.
    â€œThis way, Ben, this way.”
    She ushered me out to the dim corridor, her hand still holding my arm.
    â€œWe’ll get you to the nurse,” she said.
    â€œI don’t need a nurse.”
    â€œLet her have a look at you all the same, just to be sure.” Poking her head back inside the classroom, she said, “Now, children, no noise. Matthew, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”
    As she closed the door, I glanced inside the room. The man and the children were gone. She’d been right about that, even if she hadn’t seen them herself.
    There was a dark patch on the varnished floor more or less where they’d been sitting. Ashes, maybe, or a fragment of burned clothing. Or maybe only a scuff mark caused by the friction of chair legs scraping back and forth over it all down the years.

T hrough the closed door of the nurse’s bright but small office, I could hear them whispering out in the corridor.
    Miss Whittaker said it must be first-day nerves, a little migraine perhaps. She said I seemed to be highly strung.
    The nurse, dark-haired with a thin, unsmiling face, shone lights in my eyes and checked my throat and took my temperature. Temperature was a tad high, she said, but otherwise I was well enough to go home.
    She scribbled something in a notebook, gave me an aspirin with water, and sent me on my way. It was a waste of time, and I didn’t dare imagine what the others thought of me after what had happened back in the classroom.
    But I knew what I’d seen.
    Â 
    Before going home I cut around from Middleton Road onto Henryd Street. If anyone had asked why I’d gone there, I wouldn’t have known how to answer, except to say I needed to.
    Above the fence that had been erected to protect the remains of the building, I could only make out the very top of the roof. Blackened and slimy, with smoke still rising faintly above it, it looked ready to crumble apart. The air still hung heavy with the stench of soot.
    A TV antenna was still in place up there, warped out of shape by the heat. A raven perched on one of its conductors, staring straight down at me.
    It sat there a minute or so, not moving. Then something disturbed it — the slam of a car door up the street. The bird took off above the rooftops, heading for London Fields.
    Around the side of the block, the top of the fire escape was just visible. It had blistered and broken loose and now hung slack against the wall like a busted limb.
    I turned toward home. I didn’t feel like looking anymore, and I didn’t know what I’d expected to find. It must’ve been the thought that Mitch and Molly might