Blood Water

CHAPTER 16

‘Headmaster,’ said Mrs Rees as she spotted Mr Titus in the hall. ‘Could I have a word please?’

‘Of course.’ From her expression it was clear that she needed to talk in private, so the headmaster took her off to the other side of the hall, away from the remaining pupils. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I didn’t want to tell you this in front of the students because it’s quite… distressing, but… Nigel is dead.’

Titus knew instantly that she wasn’t joking: there was a horrible earnestness in her eyes. But there was clearly more bad news to come.

‘I think it might have been something this odd doctor fellow did to him. He came in with a pupil and his brother earlier, behaving very oddly. All of a sudden, after speaking to this man, Nigel became very sick, and I’m worried that the doctor had something to do with it.’

‘Good Lord. Where is this man now?’

‘He’s in the boys’ toilets near the staff room. He looks extremely ill.’

‘And what did you do with… with Nigel?’ The headmaster glanced around at the pupils, who were still chatting idly; he wondered how his day could possibly get any worse.

‘He’s still in the staff room but he’s— Oh God, it’s horrible!’

‘We should call the police. Not that they’d be much good at the moment but… we’d better call them anyway.’ Titus went over to Waites and told him he would be in his office if there were any problems, then left with Mrs Rees.

As he closed his office door, he noticed that Mrs Rees had a rather strange expression on her face.

‘Are you quite all right, Emily?’

‘Yes, of course, headmaster,’ she said as she moved closer.

James had been watching Mrs Rees since they’d left the staff room; now he decided to follow her to the headmaster’s office to try and eavesdrop on their conversation. Something about her behaviour hadn’t been quite right, and although he knew he was probably being paranoid, he had to have peace of mind. He approached the door of the office and put his ear to it. The voices were muffled, but he could tell that something was wrong. After a second or two he heard Titus’s voice raised, then a shuffling and footsteps, then Mrs Rees, more placating than panicked. He tried in vain to make out the words. Then he remembered that the office window looked out onto the grounds. If he went out into the rain he might be able to look in and see what was going on.

Retracing his steps, he went past the stairs and ducked outside through the double doors, straight into the unrelenting downpour. Almost immediately his clothes were drenched once more. He tried keeping to the side of the building, but there was no cover anywhere. Soon he was trudging through a water-logged flowerbed just outside the headmaster’s office. He peeked carefully through the window, ready to whip his head back should the occupants turn round. At first all he could see was Mrs Rees’s back, moving in a strange fashion; then, as more of the room was revealed, he realized that she was hugging the headmaster, a fierce, determined expression on her face. Mr Titus looked more confused than scared, wondering what on earth had come over her and trying to detach her without causing offence. Then, as James wondered what he should do – stay and watch or go and find the others – he saw something odd in the small washroom that was attached to the headmaster’s office…

The creature would have infected Emily Rees if she hadn’t knocked herself out. But as it wriggled onto her body, it had decided that it needed someone stronger; someone who could help it find the answers it sought. It needed something – something it had been seeking for a long time – and it was sure the key to it was in this school somewhere… But where? It had slid away from the teacher’s inert body and oozed up to the basin, squeezing itself back into the pipe. It had heard voices mention a headmaster. In Phoenix’s mind it had come across this word too. It referred to someone in charge, in control. And from Phoenix it also knew the location of this individual’s office.

James made up his mind: he ran back round into the building, then along to the headmaster’s office. He burst in to find Mrs Rees crying on the shoulder of the headmaster, who was consoling her as best he could.

‘James?’ he asked when he saw the boy.

‘It’s in there… in the basin!’ James pointed to the small washroom.

‘What is?’ the head asked, detaching himself from Mrs Rees.

‘The thing! The specimen from the study centre!’

‘The what?’

‘It can’t be,’ Mrs Rees insisted. ‘It’s inside me. It attacked me. Oh God, what’s going to happen to me?’

‘But…’ James was confused. ‘But it can’t be. You wouldn’t be in control of yourself if it was.’

‘But it was on me, in the staff toilets. I could feel it on my face before I passed out.’

‘I saw it through the window,’ James insisted. ‘It’s in there.’

‘What’s in there?’ Titus asked, sounding like he was losing patience with the whole matter. He went into the washroom, switched on the light and looked around. ‘Well?’ he asked, turning back to James. ‘There’s nothing—’

At that moment it dropped from the skylight above them, partly because its target was in exactly the right spot but also because the light had startled it. It dropped onto Titus’s face and slipped effortlessly into his mouth before he could do anything about it. He began thrashing about and making choking sounds, staring wide-eyed at the other two, imploring them for help.

Sean was wondering where James had got to and was about to ask Waites, when the teacher went over to talk to three remaining pupils, who were huddled around a mobile phone, reading a text message.

‘Listen, guys, you’d better go home now,’ he told them.

‘But it’s pouring, sir!’ the boy said. ‘We can’t go out there.’

‘Yeah. Besides, me and Steve live out of town,’ said one of the two girls, ‘and Emma’s still waiting for her dad to get here. Mr Titus said we had to stay here because it wasn’t safe to go outside.’

‘Yes, well, we have a situation here now that means you’d be better off taking your chances outside. Is there a friend’s house you can go to until you can get lifts home?’

‘We could go to Stacey’s – she lives in town and said we could go there if we couldn’t get home.’

‘Fine,’ Waites said. ‘Go to—’

His last words were cut off by a loud and horrifying scream. He quickly shared a knowing and anxious look with Sean, then turned back to the three startled pupils and said: ‘Go! Now!’

‘What the hell was that? What’s—?’

‘Just go,’ Waites ordered.

They scooped up their bags and coats and headed for the exit, exchanging confused and frightened glances. Waites and Sean rushed out into the main hallway, then down the corridor towards where they thought the scream had come from. There was no one around, but Sean had the distinct feeling that something awful was very close by, possibly watching them at that moment. Then came a loud bang, like a heavy object being knocked over, and they turned in the direction of the headmaster’s office.

Suddenly everything went quiet again. They looked at each other before proceeding, neither really knowing what to expect. Could James be in there with Mr Titus and Mrs Rees? Sean wondered. He didn’t like to think what might have happened. As they approached the door, they heard what sounded like scratching on the other side, then saw the handle being twisted.

The door burst open and a very pale-looking Mrs Rees lurched towards them. They parted to avoid her, and watched in shock as she crashed into the window behind them. Neither Sean nor Mr Waites knew what to do; they just stared as she turned round, crying with fear and shaking her head in disbelief.

‘It’s in him now… Oh God.’ Then she turned and ran down the corridor towards reception.

At first Sean and Waites were too stunned to move. They looked back at the office door, which was still ajar. Through the gap they could see only a sliver of window and the rain beating down outside.

‘Come on,’ Waites said. ‘There’s two of us. We can do this.’

‘She said “him”,’ Sean muttered as though to himself. ‘Did she mean Titus or… James… ? Where is he?’

‘I don’t know… But we have to stop this thing… somehow.’ Waites carefully reached out and pushed the door open, trying not to make a sound. They could see papers, books and stationery strewn around; on the floor were shards of glass and a mound of dirt where a photograph frame had smashed and a plant had been knocked over. It was only when they were over the threshold that they caught sight of James standing over Titus’s body in the far corner.

Oh no, Sean thought. Please… No…