Thirteen Days of Midnight by Leo Hunt Read Free Book Online Page B

draft stopper. I shouldn’t have let him sleep up here the other night. It set a dangerous precedent.
    “Get downstairs,” I tell him, but he refuses to budge.
    The chill I noticed yesterday is back, creeping into my toes. The relief I felt when I got home last night has vanished completely, replaced by a queasy sense of doom. I know I haven’t seen the last of those men. I need to check the kitchen. I take the stairs as quietly as I can and push the door open softly, using the finger of one hand.
    Someone made me breakfast again. I stare at it, stomach churning. The mystery chef is back. The spread is less fancy this time: slices of processed turkey and a glass of mango juice. The meat has been arranged in a dainty fan across the blue plate. The air inside the kitchen is nearly subzero. I swear there’s frost on the glass of juice and the kitchen windows. I refuse to believe this is happening. I grab the plate of turkey strips and fling it as hard as I can into the wall. It smashes in a cascade of blue shards and flopping slices of meat. I feel calmer. I stride into the hallway, grab the cordless phone, and dial nine three times.
    “Hello? Police, please. I want to report a break-in. Number seven Wormwood Drive.”
    “Is this an emergency?” asks the operator.
    “I think there might still be someone in the house.”
    “You think the burglar may still be on the property?”
    “Please just send someone over,” I say. “I’m afraid.”
    I hang up the phone and then walk back into the kitchen, scanning every corner twice over. I go over to the cutlery drawer and pull out my trusty skewer. I climb the stairs as quietly as I can, check the bathroom, my bedroom, Mum’s room, where she’s sleeping, curtains drawn, body knotted up in her duvet. As I’m closing the door to her bedroom, I hear a small, sly movement, definitely coming from the kitchen. Ham is still lying outside my room. I know he heard the noise as well. I motion for him to follow me, but he doesn’t move. My skin is crawling with fear, my arms and legs itching and prickling like I’m covered in invisible insects. Every step of the stairs seems to take an age, every tiny creak of wood under my tread sounds as loud as a cannon blast.
    I cross the hallway before I can think better of it, and throw the kitchen door open.
    Blotch-Face is kneeling down, doing something on the floor. I realize, with a growing sense of unreality, that he’s cleaning up the fragments of the plate I smashed, sweeping with a brush and dustpan. He turns to look at me. His face is long and greasy. The blotches are more like pustules; he’s got worse skin than anyone at Dunbarrow High. We look at each other, him holding a brush, me clutching a skewer.
    There’s a cough to my left.
    The skinhead is sitting at the kitchen table, staring at me. I nearly choke with horror. He must be able to move without making a sound. I grip the skewer so hard my knuckles glow white. He’s smoking a roll-up, leaning his thick arms on the table.
    “If you move one muscle, I’m going to stab you,” I tell him, voice steady. “I mean it. The police are on their way.”
    He just shrugs, says nothing. Takes another drag on his cigarette.
    “I’ve called
the
police,
” I tell him, voice starting to waver.
    “I must confess,” Blotch-Face begins, standing up, “I am confused.”
    “What are you doing in here?” I ask. “This is my house!”
    “A thousand apologies, sir,” Blotch-Face replies, bowing slightly. He’s got the clear voice of a news anchor. “Have we caused some sort of offense? You appear to be . . . aggravated.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Bloody hell,” says the skinhead.
    “I am the Vassal,” says Blotch-Face, “a guide when the way is dark.”
    “What?”
    “This is my colleague, the Judge,” continues Blotch-Face, waving his hand at the skinhead.
    “All right, boss,” the skinhead says.
    “Who are you?” I ask again. The skinhead looks nothing like any judge