Afterwalkers Read online

  “Hey!” protested Jamie. “I don’t snore!”

  “Yeah, right!”

  Usually this kind of exchange would trigger a prolonged argument, but Sarge intervened before they could get going, nudging the van off down a slip road and pulling up on to a petrol station forecourt.

  “Need to fill up the tank,” he reported. “Want anything from the shop?”

  “Get us a coffee, will you?” asked Liam. “And better get the lumberjack here another Coke.”

  As Sarge opened his door and stepped down on to the rainy forecourt, a gust of icy wind carried the sickly tang of petrol fumes inside the van. Jamie coughed thickly.

  “Thought you said you’d got over that cold of yours,” said Liam, his eyes narrowing.

  “I did.”

  “Yeah, it sounds like it. Reckon we might need someone to take a look at that.”

  “Leave it out, Liam,” Jamie said grumpily. “I’m all right.”

  Liam grinned. “Sure you are. My little brother, the twelve-year-old tough guy.”

  Years of living with his brother meant Jamie knew what was coming, but as usual he wasn’t quick enough or strong enough to stop Liam wrapping an arm around his neck in a headlock and ruffling his hair. The two of them were still wrestling when Sarge reappeared in the shop doorway carrying a brown paper bag, muttering darkly to himself as he crossed the forecourt. With a final, taunting flick of Jamie’s ear, Liam pushed his brother away. Sarge climbed up into the driver’s seat, handing Liam the brown paper bag and slamming the door shut.

  “Problem?” Liam asked innocently.

  Sarge frowned as he examined his receipt. “The price these companies charge working men and women to fill up their petrol tanks,” he complained. “It’s more than a disgrace. It’s robbery.”

  “Write to your MP about it,” suggested Liam, lifting the lid off his coffee and blowing on the steaming liquid.

  “What, a politician?” Sarge crowed with laughter. “They’re the worst crooks of the lot!”

  He turned the key in the ignition and drove the van off the forecourt. The outline of a city appeared on the horizon; motorway lanes swelled with early-morning commuters on their way to work. Even with the three of them up front in the van there was a chill in the air, and Jamie was grateful for the stale, sticky breath of the heater on his face. The speedometer shivered around the 40mph mark on the dashboard. Sarge observed speed limits religiously, rarely venturing out of the slow lane of the motorway. He always complained that Liam drove too fast, and rarely let him behind the wheel. For Sarge speed limits were like red lights, and the boundaries of his own temper. There were some lines you just didn’t cross, not unless you were looking for an accident.

  The rain intensified as the van turned off the motorway and plunged into the heart of the city, following a winding path across roundabouts and down backstreets, through railway arches and the shadow of tower blocks, until Jamie was utterly lost. Eventually the van cut through a bleak housing estate and came out beside a scrapyard ringed by high fences topped with CCTV cameras and spiteful coils of barbed wire. Liam jumped down at the front gate and pushed it open, waving the van inside the yard.

  Mathers’s Scrapyard was a metal cemetery filled with mangled, rusty corpses. Iron mausoleums rose into the sky, flanked by towering walls of black tyres. Washing machines lay on their sides, their round mouths open with surprise. Tall yellow cranes stood idly in the rain, their magnets switched off and their steel claws at rest. Over by the far wall a dark green 4×4 was parked in front of a Portakabin. Unlike the rest of the vehicles in the yard, the 4×4 was gleaming and new.

  As the removal van came to a stop in a muddy puddle, a man in grey overalls and a yellow high-vis vest appeared in the doorway of the Portakabin. He was the same age as Sarge but a full head taller: a giant of a man, with a thick beard and thinning, sandy hair. His mouth was twisted into a constant smirk, as though he’d heard a nasty rumour but wasn’t going to share it.

  “Morning, Sarge,” he called out in a deep voice. “I see you brought the weather with you.”

  “It’s always raining here, Mathers,” replied Sarge, stepping down into the mud. “Can’t blame me for that.”

  They nodded coolly at each other. As Jamie followed his dad out of the van he could feel Mathers inspecting him, mentally weighing and valuing him as though he were another heap of scrap. It was only when he saw Liam that Mathers’s face broke into a grin.

  “Good to see you again, lad,” he said. “You keeping well?”

  “Can’t complain,” Liam replied nonchalantly.

  “Bet you do though, don’t you? You still training, champ?”

  “When I can.”

  “Looks like it, too,” said Mathers, admiringly. “I could set you up with a fight or two. Make some good money out of it.”

  “Won’t be necessary,” Sarge said sharply. “When this boy puts boxing gloves on it’s to step into a proper ring, not get involved in some back-alley brawl.”

  “Fair’s fair,” Mathers replied, unaffected. “No harm in asking though, eh? It’s all business. Let’s see what you’ve brought me, then.”

  At a nod from his father, Jamie slid open the bolt on the removal van doors and opened them up. There was no furniture inside, no taped-up cardboard boxes filled with clothing and books and DVDs, only a dark tangle of copper wiring tied together in large rings. Sarge was a removal man of a very particular kind: he removed people’s possessions without their permission and sold them to other people. Other people might have called this theft, but to Sarge it was just a way of earning a living. He saw thieves and criminals everywhere he looked except in the mirror. Recently he had specialized in stealing iron and other metals – from skips and sculptures to church bells and copper wire; from plaques and statues to street signs and hot and cold taps. Whether it was steel or nickel, lead or aluminium, all metal was precious as far as Sarge was concerned. Together with Liam and Jamie he criss-crossed the country, filling up the van’s ravenous belly as they went: like treasure hunters, Wild West prospectors sifting for gold.

  The previous night they had descended upon a disused railway siding, Jamie left to watch through the mesh of a wire fence as his father and brother scrambled down the grass embankment and scurried along the tracks. He hated it when they stole from the railways. It wasn’t just the ominous rumble of the trains, or the ever-present threat of the police. To unearth the valuable copper cable from the side of the tracks Sarge and Liam had to dig it up, risking electrocution with every swing of the pickaxe. Jamie trembled in the cold, waiting for an explosion of sparks to light up the railway line, the signal that something had gone terribly wrong. Thankfully this time the night remained silent, and Jamie’s shoulders sagged with relief when he saw his dad and his brother clambering back up the embankment. They were struggling to drag up the strips of copper behind them, but there were broad smiles on their faces. It had been a bumper haul.

  Mathers let out a low whistle as he examined the copper, and smiled at Sarge. “Jackpot,” he said. “Where did you find this?”

  “We found it,” replied Sarge, straight-faced.

  “Just as long as you didn’t ‘find’ it on the railway like the last lot I sold for you,” Mathers told him. “There are some serious characters in the scrap metal business these days, and they’re getting territorial – word is the railways are now off-limits.”

  “Serious characters?” said Sarge. “Do you see me smiling?”

  “Very rarely.”

  “Then stop worrying and let’s get on with this, eh?”

  They set about unloading their treasure, putting on thick gloves and hauling the heavy coils down from the van and across the yard to a skip inside a warehouse. It was tough work in the cold and the rain, and Jamie was soon lagging behind the others. He wished that Sarge hadn’t lied to Mathers – of course they had found t
he wire on the railway, where else could they have stolen such a large amount? Sometimes it felt as though his dad couldn’t do even the smallest and simplest things honestly.

  When they were done Mathers took Sarge into the Portakabin to settle up payment, leaving Jamie and Liam waiting in the rain outside.

  “This place is a dump,” muttered Liam, zipping up his tracksuit top. “Don’t know why Sarge makes us come here.”

  “Isn’t Mathers his friend?” asked Jamie.

  Liam nodded. “Best friend in the world.” He snorted. “And he can’t stand the sight of him, neither.”

  A gust of wind careered across the yard, hurling handfuls of rain into their faces. With a pained glance up at the sky, Liam retreated back inside the removal van. Jamie pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt and wandered away across the puddle-strewn earth. He didn’t care that it was raining – he wasn’t going to return to the van until he absolutely had to.

  In front of him a car was lying prone in the grip of a crane’s claw, its windows shattered and chassis buckled. Closing his eyes, Jamie had a quick, guilty vision of his family’s van in its place, its tyres punctured and rotten and its engine frozen with rust. If the van stopped working maybe Sarge wouldn’t have the money to buy a new one; maybe they’d have to stop travelling. It was the only way it would happen – there was more chance of Jamie winning the lottery than there was of Sarge settling down and getting a legitimate job. Jamie could daydream all he liked about a normal life with school and friends and a place to live, but his dad ran a family business and that was that. There would never be a “last job” for Sarge, not until he died or the police caught up with him. And he was adamant that the latter would never happen.

  A low growl brought Jamie sharply back to the scrapyard. He wheeled round to find a large black dog glaring at him. It barked savagely, revealing a set of sharp, yellow teeth. Jamie backed away. In the distance he heard the van door slam and Liam call out his name. The dog’s muscles tensed, preparing to spring. Jamie turned to run, only to catch his foot in a trailing cable and go sprawling into the mud. He threw up his arms as the dog lunged at him, saliva spraying from its jaws.

  As Jamie let out a terrified shriek, a pair of strong hands grabbed him and dragged him away through the mud.

  “Calm down, Jamie!” Liam shouted. “It’s OK! It’s on a chain!”

  Jamie scrambled to his feet. His brother was right: the dog was tethered to an iron post by a short chain attached to its collar. But it was too late now. Behind them the door to the Portakabin flew open and Sarge came stalking across the yard, Mathers at his shoulder.

  “Down, Smiler!” the scrap dealer bellowed. “Easy, boy!”

  The dog ignored him, straining at its chain as it snarled at Jamie. Sarge looked almost as angry.

  “Can I not leave you for five minutes?” he snapped at Jamie. “We’re trying to do some business here!”

  “It’s all right, Sarge,” Mathers said, with a hint of amusement. “It’s my fault; I should have warned the boy about Smiler. He’s a brute when you cross him but as long as he’s tied up it’s all bark. A bit like your old man, eh?”

  He searched Jamie’s features in vain for a response.

  “Hello?” Mathers pretended to knock on Jamie’s head. “Anyone in?”

  Jamie stared mutely at him.

  “Nope,” sighed Mathers. “No one home.”

  “Leave him alone.”

  Liam stepped in the gap between Jamie and Mathers, staring up at the giant scrap dealer.

  “Take a breath, son,” Mathers said, in a tone that was still friendly – just. “I’m only joking with the lad.”

  “He’s not laughing,” said Liam. “Can’t be that funny.”

  “Jesus! The lad’s got no mother but two fathers.” Mathers smirked. “Very modern arrangement.”

  “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Sarge.

  Mathers held up his hands quickly. “At ease, gentlemen!” he laughed. “We’ve done good business here. Let’s not spoil it.” His voice dropped pointedly. “You wouldn’t be wanting me to take Smiler off his chain now, would you?”

  All of a sudden the dog was the only thing moving in the scrapyard, save the constant drizzle of the rain. Everybody else was dangerously still.

  “All right,” said Sarge finally. “It’s been a late night and a long drive. We’ll say no more about it.”

  He took Liam by the shoulder and steered him firmly back towards the van. Jamie followed close behind, eager to put as much distance between himself and Smiler as possible. He had settled into the front seat when a knock at the window made him jump. Mathers was standing by the driver’s window. He gestured at Sarge to wind it down.

  “Forgot to mention,” he said. “Someone’s been asking for you.”

  Sarge raised a craggy eyebrow. “That a fact?”

  “Aye. Roxanne, it was.”

  “The Spider-Woman herself! What does she want?”

  Mathers shrugged. “How should I know? It was you she wanted, not me. I told her I’d pass the message on anyway.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be grateful,” said Sarge. “See you around.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  Mathers stepped back as Sarge turned the key in the ignition. As the van backed up and turned around, Jamie caught a glimpse of the scrap dealer in the wing mirror. He had unchained Smiler and was standing by the side of his green 4×4. For the first time that morning the smirk had vanished from Mathers’s face, and he watched them leave with a stony expression.

  They left the rain in the city behind them, the removal van creeping through a fuming tangle of motorway traffic as it headed north-west. Grey clouds gave way to a stark white sky as they neared the coast. The roads became steadily quieter and narrower. By early afternoon the van was plotting a solitary path through the countryside, surrounded by miles of barren fields. The flatness of the landscape made Jamie feel strangely vulnerable, and he found himself wishing they had stayed in the damp bustle and roar of the city.

  Sarge drove the route from memory, not bothering to consult any maps. Years of navigating back roads late at night had left him with an unerring sense of direction, and he boasted that he knew the fastest route between any two towns in the country. To Sarge road signs were written in their own special language, and he carefully went about deciphering their jumble of letters and numbers like a wartime code breaker, as though the A342 and B2401 spelled out some special message just for him. He was always keeping half an ear out for traffic reports on the radio – news of a tailback or an accident at a certain junction would instantly see him mapping out a new course in his mind.

  They were making for a town called Alderston, where apparently the mysterious Spider-Woman would be waiting for them. Sarge refused to say any more than that, replying to Jamie’s questions with a grunt. With the copper wire sold and money in his back pocket Sarge should have been pleased, but the tense exchange with Mathers had taken the shine off his mood. Not that he was ever really happy. Sarge seemed to steal out of habit more than anything else. Even after a success like last night’s, he barely made enough money to cover the petrol costs. He never bought anything for himself, staying in the same clothes for weeks on end.

  All of their lives were stuck in the same slow gear. They never settled in one place long enough to interest the local police, so they never got comfortable. Jamie hadn’t been to school for longer than a term since he was a little boy, but if there were social workers looking for him they never caught up with them. The family kept moving, like a shark swimming through the ocean, careful to keep one step ahead of that early-morning knock at the door, the outline of a blue uniform in the window. Every day they climbed up into the van and carried further along a bleak, endless circuit of industrial estates, warehouses and railway sidings.

  Sarge glanced testily ov
er at Liam, who was hunched over his mobile, scrolling down the screen. Liam was the only one of them who had a phone – their dad didn’t approve of them, and Jamie had never bothered to ask for one. The only people he ever spoke to were sitting next to him in the van.

  “Give that thing a rest, will you?” said Sarge.

  “What?” Liam shot back, without looking up. “I’m checking the United score from last night.”

  “You kids and your bloody phones,” complained Sarge. “You’re so busy texting and tweeting the first thing that comes into your head that you don’t stop to think about the consequences. Mark my words, there are people out there who are watching everywhere you go and everything you say. It’s easier for a copper to track you on that thing than it is to follow this van.”

  “You know what you sound like?” said Liam. “One of them conspiracy theory nutjobs who thinks aliens caused 9/11. Where’s your tinfoil hat?”

  “Don’t push it, son.”

  Liam sighed. “I’ve lost the signal now, any road,” he said, slipping his phone back into his tracksuit pocket. “Satisfied?”

  Sarge grunted, and the van fell into a moody silence. Jamie knew it was his fault his dad was angry. Why had he let Mathers’s dog scare him like that? Why couldn’t he have seen it was on the chain? Jamie wanted to help Sarge like Liam did, but he always seemed to mess it up. He’d drop a roll of cable brushing a spider from his glove, or his mind would wander whilst he was on lookout and he’d miss the signal to head back to the van. Every time something like that happened Sarge would shake his head and mutter about Jamie being “his mother’s son”. Jamie’s mum had died from cancer when he was a baby, and the little things he knew about her he’d had to get from Liam – whenever the topic came up Sarge’s mouth slammed shut like a safe door. But Jamie knew enough to see that in the twilight world where they lived, it was better to be like Liam was: strong, tough, brave. Not a coward, or a daydreamer, or a mother’s son.

  As Jamie stared glumly out of the window he saw that the road had narrowed to a single car’s width. Where the tarmac ended either side of the van, the land sloped down sharply into two narrow gullies. Looking ahead, Jamie saw that the snaking road bulged out at regular intervals, forming little islands where cars could pass one another or wait until the next stretch of road was clear.