The New Uncanny by Etgar Keret, Ramsey Campbell, Hanif Kureishi, Christopher Priest, Jane Rogers, A.S. Byatt, Matthew Holness, Adam Marek Read Free Book Online Page A

exposing the stained wooden handle inside. I stuffed the belly with junk and threw Possum through the broken doorway, out into the yard beyond. Then I sucked the blood from my fingers, picked up my bag and left the cabin.

    I stood as close to the flames as I could bear, hoping that my clothes would retain the smell of smoke. Christie shovelled in another heap of rubbish, momentarily stifling the blaze. I opened my bag and pulled out Possum’s head, which I’d severed from his body with a spade while Christie had ransacked the last of my bedroom cupboards.
    ‘Season’s greetings,’ I said, tossing it across the grass towards him. ‘Too late for a demonstration.’
    ‘You should let me fix it,’ he said. ‘I like fixing things.’
    I lifted up the headless body of the stuffed dog and threw it on the bonfire. Smoke curled around the bent, twisted nails wrenched incompletely from its neck as a sharp, sulphurous odour burned my nostrils. Flames snapped loudly against the coarse, brown fur as Christie held up the decapitated head and laughed.
    ‘A broken toy,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
    ‘Soon as I saw it I thought of you,’ I replied, which made him laugh even more. I lit us both cigarettes while Christie perched what remained of Possum on an old wooden stool. He placed his cigarette inside the mouth and begged another for himself. When we’d finished, he lifted up the head ceremoniously and dropped it on the bonfire, along with my watch, smiling to himself as he jammed them deep into the blazing compost with his pitchfork.
    ‘How will you spend the rest of Christmas day?’ he asked.
    ‘Exercising,’ I replied.
    ‘Exorcising?’
    ‘Past the school, if you must know.’
    ‘The school.’ Christie’s face was a mischievous grin. ‘I taught you there once.’
    ‘I know. You died while reading us a story.’
    ‘I came in especially, the day after that business with the fox. To teach you all a lesson.’
    I watched Possum’s face blacken and bubble, collapsing gradually into soft clear rivers of molten wax.
    ‘Now that was a game to remember,’ Christie continued. ‘The looks on your faces. You should have seen them.’
    ‘I’ll be out all day,’ I said, zipping up my coat.
    ‘Children talk such rubbish.’ The flames began to rise again as he turned over a pile of burning rags. ‘When there’s no one around to reassure them.’
    The eyes fell out together, exposing two pallid-looking sockets. Soon, these, too, would disappear.

    I had meant to purchase my return ticket, but realised upon reaching the station that there would be no trains leaving until the following day. I wandered for an hour or so until I summoned up enough courage to enter one of the few pubs that were open. There I stomached a strong whiskey and some fatty sandwiches as the sun went down, before heading out once more, away from insufferable partygoers, into the darkness of the surrounding streets.
    I gazed into people’s houses through open blinds as I passed. The gaudy house-fronts, plastered with coloured lights and cheap decorations, one after another, left me feeling lost, so I sought darker avenues as I fled the town centre in the direction of my old school.
    The ground through the adjacent lane was slippery, as if many people had been rushing along it during the day, and I found myself slowing involuntarily and glancing across at the disparate group of buildings that made up the school. A single lamp lit the area of the playground, exposing the large painted face that marked the area where Christie had chased us, full of life having feigned his sudden heart attack. Someone, I assumed a janitor, was watching television in a small hut on the far side of the concrete field. I stopped for a moment to stare at the small alley in which I had sat alone many times during my final year, attempting to make sense of all that had happened to me. When I heard something enter the lane behind me, I moved on, quickening my