Uprising

Chapter Forty-Six

Dec lay curled up in a foetal position in his bed with the covers pulled up over his head. He wondered whether he could suffocate like this.

He hoped so.

It was impossible to stop the replay looping through his mind as he relived the scenes he’d witnessed earlier that day. The ambulance crew wheeling the gurney out into Lavender Close. Kate’s still body covered by a white sheet. Her mother howling with grief. The whole fucking street out gawping, half of them already prodding their mobiles to text their family members at work about the latest gossip that would keep them morbidly entertained for days and weeks to come. He’d wanted to punch them, ram their phones down their fucking throats.

He’d watched as the gurney was loaded into the back of the ambulance.

Still she hadn’t stirred.

Then they’d closed the doors and driven away. With tears streaming down his face he’d sprinted back into the house, crashed into his room and hurled himself into bed. Never to come out. This was it. The end of everything.

It was all his fault. If he hadn’t tried to play the smart guy, the man of the world, with those cursed ecstasy pills. If he’d just been himself, ordinary old Dec Maddon.

Then Kate would still be alive.

He’d lain here in bed all through the day, rocking from side to side and sobbing on his pillow, only a few snatches of fitful sleep offering any respite from the torture.

Through his pain he’d heard the sounds of the street outside, cars coming and going, voices. The familiar engine note of his ma’s Renault Clio pulling up on the driveway after five o’clock when she got back from work. Mrs Jackson from number twenty calling across to her, ‘Have you heard?’ His ma’s cry of horror as she was told the news, and then a lot of talking in low voices that he hadn’t been able to make out.

He’d sunk back into his torpor, not responding when his mum had come to his room five minutes later to see how he was.

For once she didn’t scream at him for lying in bed with his shoes on. He heard the door shut and her soft steps walk away. Some time later the diesel clatter of the Transit told him his da and brother Cormac were home. More raised voices downstairs, followed by an unnatural hush all through the house.

Now it was dark in the room. A lot of time had passed and with its passage Dec’s emotions were changing. Instead of a crippling, paralysing depression, he could feel a white hot tide of rage building up inside. Instead of losing the will to live, now he was suddenly tingling with energy, his mind tightening into focus until he could think of only one thing.

He leapt out of bed and burst out of his room. Raced past Cormac’s door and up to the end of the hall, where the door to his parents’ room was open. He stepped in, already feeling bad about what he was going to do. Hanging over the head of his folks’

bed was a heavy brass crucifix. He strode up to it, reached up his hand to it, then drew back with a pang of guilt.

I’m just borrowing it, he thought. And they’re not even that religious anyway.

He grabbed it off the wall and weighed it in his hand. It felt good. Like a weapon. His mind filled with visions of himself confronting those monsters. Grabbing one and plunging the blunt end of the metal into its heart. He imagined how it would scream and shrivel up and fall around his feet like crisps of burnt paper. Then he’d kick it into a cloud of ash and move on to the next bastard vampire in the line. Send them all to hell, where they belonged.

He thrust the crucifix like a dagger into his belt, feeling suddenly invulnerable.

Gripped with wild fury, he charged down the stairs three at a time and almost crashed into his ma, who was coming up with a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits.

‘Thought you might be wanting—’ she began.

‘I’m going out. Need to borrow the Clio. Okay?’

Her startled gaze landed on the crucifix in his belt. ‘What are you doing with that thing?’

‘Off to kill some vampires.’

‘What?’

‘See you, Ma.’ He bounded down the rest of the stairs. Through the living room doorway he could see his da and Cormac slumped in front of the TV. Their long faces told him right away that they knew about Kate. Cormac was muttering something and shaking his head as he cracked open a can of lager and foam spat over his jeans. They both looked up as Dec went dashing past, making for the front door.

‘You all right, son?’ his da called out, voice full of worry. Dec barely heard him as he snatched his mother’s car keys off the hook by the door.

Mrs Maddon came thudding down the stairs after her son. ‘You listen to me, now…’

‘Bye, Ma.’

‘Liam, talk to him!’ she yelled at her husband. ‘Cormac!’

But Dec was already out the door. He leapt in the Clio, reversed down the drive with a squeal of tyres and sped away down Lavender Close.

He knew exactly where he was going.