Blood Crazy Read Online Free

culprit could be—
    â€˜John! You are dead! You’d better clean this lot up before mum sees it.’
    No reply. Jesus … Maybe beneath that home-work-loving line-toeing fifteen-year-old there was a rebel after all.
    Five minutes later I dropped my empty bowl in the sink and, still crunching a massive mouthful of cornflakes, I went upstairs.
    Upstairs the house was tidy and quiet.
    I changed into my slob-around jeans. Then I decided to roust John and mention the fact that if he wanted to live until lunchtime he would have to clean up the mess in the kitchen.
    I pushed open the door.
    And I saw something that stopped my breath.
    My brother’s bedroom had ceased to exist.
    Oh, the four walls and window were still there. But the stuff that made it my brother’s bedroom wasn’t.
    The bed had gone. The wardrobes, furniture and all the posters of Greek temples and Egyptian statues had gone with it. Instead, inthe middle of the floor, nearly touching the ceiling light, was a pyramid.
    I stood there and actually laughed out loud.
    What I saw was impossible. I laughed again. But this time it was forced. I began to feel cold. Like someone was slowly dipping me into a mountain lake.
    Someone had been in here, taken the furniture and then smashed all my brother’s possessions. Because that pyramid was built out of books, computer games, childhood toys, holiday souvenirs, comics … Everything that John had ever been given, collected, saved for, bought. Every fucking thing.
    Jesus Christ.
    That bastard … Slatter.
    As I stood there I could see things in my mind’s eye. Slatter looking through the bedroom window, bluebird tattoos at either side of his eyes, a grin hacking open his ape face. Then climbing in to smash the place to smithereens.
    Tug Slatter had done this. I believed that. But what on earth had he done with the bed and furniture? Where was my brother? He’d have been asleep in here.
    I saw it. But a big chunk of me did not believe it.
    I didn’t move. I just looked. My chest aching, my breathing sounding strange in my ears.
    The bastard had been thorough. Far, far more thorough than when he’d done the job on my pick-up with the fruit of his own backside.
    Books hadn’t just been ripped in two. Every page had been torn to pieces the size of postage stamps. John’s computer – he’d loved the thing, he actually polished it – had been reduced to bits the size of my thumbnail.
    Shaking my head, mind-kicked, I began picking through the pyramid. Examining a fraction of computer game or a shred of one of John’s precious history books. There was his video of the first man on the moon. As I touched it, it fell from the pyramid to expose more of John’s treasures. His pirate chest money box, more computer games. A torn mask. A model car. A …
    My fingers stopped above the mask.
    John never owned a mask.
    But here was a life-size mask. It had partly open eyes. Life-like hair. A nose …
    I pushed my hand into the pyramid to pull at the mask. It wouldn’t come. It had been fixed to something solid.
    As I pulled somebody shoved the room. It spun so fast around me I could hardly see the walls and window flashing by. Only the mask stayed in focus.
    Made from grey rubbery stuff, it was torn from mouth to ear, opening up a cheek like a parcel, exposing a row of teeth messed with red. The eyes reflected the light shining into the room, making it look as if they were alive. Or had been once.
    I remember looking at the thing and seeing a mask.
    But I hear myself shouting:
    â€˜John! John! John!’
    Then I was in the street. My throat burning like I’d drunk bleach. I was still shouting. This time for help.
    It was like a dream – you shout but no one hears.
    Lawn Avenue was empty. The trees shifted slightly in the morning breeze – and I stood there and screamed to a world with stone ears that my brother lay dead in his bedroom. His face