The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,62

as if a lifetime of suspicions had just been confirmed. “Yeah, I thought they might have said that. But, well, you see, they were lying, Angelo,” Murmur said. He opened his arms wide and smiled in a way that looked like an apology. “I am your father.”

Zac had been right. The hissing was static from a radio. Specifically, it was static from his granddad’s radio, which sat on the coffee table in the centre of the small living room.

In the flickering glow of the torch, he saw his granddad’s armchair. It faced away from the door, as it had always done, angled so the old man could sit and look out of the window at the world beyond. But the window was gone. In its place was a rectangle of grey bricks, the mortar between them crumbling away.

The light dimmed, but before it did, Zac caught sight of the top of his granddad’s head, visible just above the chair’s high back.

“Granddad?” he said, but the word came out as a croak. “Granddad, it’s me. It’s Zac.”

The old man in the chair did not move. Zac shook some life back into the torch and stepped further into the room.

“This is a trick,” he reminded himself. “This is not real.”

And yet it was so real. Almost too real, as if everything that had happened since the days in this flat were a dream from which he was only now waking, like they’d never moved to the new house, never escaped this grotty little place.

The goldfish bowl sat on the table beside the radio. The water was grey and murky, with green scum on the glass. The fish was no longer zipping through the water, but floating limply near the top instead.

The dead fish made horrible sense. Of course it was dead. It had to be dead. In the other world, the fish had been alive for Zac’s entire life, and that was impossible. Unless the other world was a dream, and this was the real one.

Zac saw his granddad’s hand, withered and frail on the arm of the chair. His fingers were hooked round his little blue and green stress ball. Zac stared at the globe pattern for a moment. He felt a tingle at the back of his head, as if there was something significant about the ball that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Before he could dwell on it too much, the ball slipped from the old man’s fingers. It bounced once on the threadbare carpet, then rolled to a stop by the table. Zac followed it with the torch and carried on staring at it for a few moments, as if the answer to everything was written across its surface, if only he could see it.

He took another step forward and his granddad was revealed in profile. The old man looked even more ancient than usual. His grey hair had come out in clumps, leaving only a few wispy remnants behind. His skin seemed too tight for his face, but puckered and wrinkled at the same time, like an overripe fruit left out to rot.

Phillip’s eyes were closed. His chest was still. Zac didn’t expect any answer when he whispered, “Granddad?” into the dark. But he got one.

“Zac?”

The old man’s voice was dry and brittle. It came out without help from his parched, unmoving lips.

“I’m here, Granddad,” Zac said, but he hung back, unable to go to the old man’s side. This isn’t real, he told himself, but the voice in his head had lost all its conviction.

Phillip’s eyes opened, revealing pupils that had turned milky and white. They gazed unseeing at the ceiling. “Why did you leave me, Zac?” he croaked. “Why did you leave me on my own?”

“I didn’t,” Zac said. “I didn’t leave you. I mean... not like this.”

“I waited for you, Zac. Why didn’t you come back?”

Zac knelt by his grandfather’s chair. The old man’s skin felt like dry leaves as Zac took hold of his hand. “I did come back, Granddad. I am back. I’m here.”

Phillip’s head nodded slowly. His mouth flapped open and closed. “Stay with me, Zac,” he wheezed. “Please don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t leave you again,” Zac promised. “I’ll stay with you.”

“For ever.”

Zac tightened his grip on the withered hand. “For ever.”

Angelo stared at the chubby demon in the ill-fitting clothes. He seemed to wilt beneath the boy’s gaze.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Murmur asked. “I just told you I’m your father.”

“No, you’re not,” Angelo said. “That’s not