Creature of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

time
since that trick had worked on me.
    I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen,
watching Dennis climb in and out through the dog flap.
My ma had left her bag on the back of a chair and when
Dennis was outside I robbed a fiver out of her purse. The
next time he went out I took three fags from her packet
and put them in my own. I didn't like her brand, but I
was too poor to be choosy.
    'Take the dog out with you,' I said to Dennis.
    'Bimbo!' said Dennis. 'Come on, Bimbo!'
    But the dog wouldn't go. I couldn't find any string
so I cut one of the dishcloths into strips and knotted
them together and tied it around its neck. My ma called
me a vandal when she seen what I done but she was a bit
pleased as well, to see Dennis playing with the dog. She
was happier now, anyway. She always was when she'd
had an old cry for herself. But she still hadn't forgotten
about it.
    'You should have come down,' she said. 'They're all
really nice. The Dooleys gave me a lift home and waited
for me while I did my shopping. They're gone home to
have their dinner now but their young lad said he might
call down later to see you.'
    'Oh, good,' I said, but I think my ma missed the
sarcasm.
    'He's sixteen. His name's Colman. Quiet lad. Not
like some.'
    I went outside and looked at the Skoda again. It
gave me a lift to see the wheel I changed. It looked a bit
too clean compared to the others, but you'd have to look
hard to notice it. I moved away quickly in case my ma
seen me looking at it and got suspicious.
    I didn't know what to do with myself. I was wired
to the moon, ready to take off but stuck here for at least
twelve more hours. I wanted another fag but I knew I'd
want them more during the drive in the night and it
would be better to save them. I resisted for about ten
minutes, then gave in and had one anyway.
    What did anybody do around here? What did my
ma expect me to do when she dragged me down here?
Run around in the fields picking daisies?
    I went over to the sheds and poked around in them
for a while. There were piles of junk in the smaller ones,
mostly old farm stuff, completely knackered and useless.
But there was a saw and an axe that looked like they
were newer and they gave me an idea. There was a big
stack of logs in the hayshed; just tree trunks, really,
maybe four metres long. There was a pile of firewood at
one end of them, but there wasn't much in it and the way
my ma piled it on the fire it wouldn't last long. I didn't
particularly want any more of her 'man about the house'
shite, but I really fancied myself swinging that axe.
    So after I'd had my dinner I got it out and took it
into the hayshed. There was a chopping block at the
front, a big thick slice out of a fat old tree, and I dragged
one of the logs over and propped it across it. It didn't
want to stay. Kept rolling off whenever I hit it. I wedged
it with my breeze block but it still wasn't solid. The
whole log jumped sideways every time I took a swing at
it, and I spent more time picking it up and putting it
back than I did cutting it. But in the end I got it secured
and settled in to chopping.
    It was harder than you'd think, though. For one
thing you need to keep hitting it in the same place, which
isn't as easy as it looks, and for another the axe didn't
really bite into the wood the way I thought it would. It
bruised it and flattened it, and now and then a chunk
would fly out in a random direction, but I hadn't even
got through one section of the log before I had to stop
for a breather.
    I turned round and seen my ma watching me. She
smiled and opened her mouth but I knew what was
going to come out of it and I said: 'Just shut it, all right?
Before you start. Just leave me alone to get on with it!'
    I didn't wait for an answer, just turned and picked
up the axe again and started to swing like a madman at
the wood. Bits flew all over the place, smacking me on
the shins and the arms. I hacked and hacked until my
heart was pounding like a road hammer, and when