The Death House Read Online Free PDF Page A

He worked away a lot.’ Tom’s only been in the house a few hours but already he’s closing down. Locking before away. Taking his cue from the rest of us and keeping it inside.
    ‘I liked that film,’ Louis says. ‘But I can’t help wondering why they showed it to us.’
    ‘Vampires are cool,’ Will says. ‘And the dog was cool, too. But I didn’t like the part where that one bit the man’s head right through his skull.’
    ‘But a film about a bunch of teenagers who live for ever. Lost Boys ,’ Louis muses. ‘Where something inside makes them turn into monsters. I wonder about Matron sometimes. She’s either got a very sick sense of humour or absolutely no sense of irony.’
    ‘Ha, yeah.’ Will laughs but it’s clear he doesn’t understand what irony means.
    ‘We can all live together in God,’ Ashley says. ‘That’s the true life everlasting.’
    ‘Is he always like this?’ Tom’s disdain is clear. He may be the new boy but Ashley is forever the outsider.
    ‘Sadly, yes.’ Louis settles down under his covers, rustles of starch competing with the renewed whispering.
    ‘You okay, Toby?’ Will watches me in the gloom. ‘You’re very quiet. I thought you’d want to watch the film and meet the new girl.’
    ‘I’m just tired.’
    ‘You’re always tired. You sleep most of the day.’ His breath hitches. ‘You’re not—’
    ‘No.’ I don’t let him finish his question. ‘I’m not sick.’
    ‘Good,’ Will says. He picks at his blanket. ‘I wouldn’t like that.’
    Something in his tone makes my heart squeeze in on itself, tight and hard.
    ‘Goodnight, Will,’ is all I say in return. Eventually we fall into a sleepy silence, even Ashley, and the breathing in the room slows. Another day is gone. Evaporated away from us. I close my eyes.

 
    F i ve
    It’s nearly two hours after Matron has done the final rounds when I hear the smothered belch of the lift starting its rumbling journey down through the core of the house. I knew it would come tonight, and part of me wants to hide my head under my pillow until it’s done, but my feet are itching to get up and my insides are tangled in knots around the dark ball in the pit of my stomach. I have to see it. Watching is better than lying here, just listening. The chill air prickles my skin as I creep over to the door and open it. The other boys don’t stir. Tom snores, but the rest are silent.
    On the landing my heart beats so hard I can feel it throbbing in my neck. The lift has come to a stop upstairs and the soft whoosh of the large metal doors, their modernity so out of place here, is a sigh in the night. I creep up to the next half-landing and press myself into the dark shadows that cling to the wall. I stay very still. I can’t see the lift from where I am, but the nurses will have to pass by on the next floor when they go back to it. I wait, and then the quiet squeak of old wheels turning puncture the night. Ellory is leaving Dorm 7 for the last time and he’s not awake to know it. Perhaps he knew it when he went to bed. Maybe he thought he had one more day. It’s hard to imagine not having one more day.
    Soft white shoes come into view, plimsolls under white scrubs, as the nurses from the sanatorium wheel the bed towards the lift. I can’t see Ellory but I know it’s him. No one else is sick. Not like he’s been. The nurses don’t rush, maintaining a steady, calm pace. Ellory isn’t going anywhere and neither is the sanatorium. These are different nurses from those who look after us during the day. I’ve seen them enough times now to know. Angels of death who only appear in the night to collect sleeping, sick children. Sometimes I think of the sanatorium as some awful creature that feeds on us. In some ways, that’s preferable to the empty unknown. In my small window on the action above, the bed is wheeled by, but I don’t move. I know the routine and they’re not finished yet. A minute or so later, two more sets of feet