We moved close to the side of the house, keeping low, and peeked round the corner to make sure no one was there. The front door was open, light glaring out. It wasn’t a problem: they’d got Jojo, and he’d be all they were interested in.
We scooted past the front door, and veered left at the far corner of the house.
“Wall!” Stephi whispered, and we hopped over it again, completing the figure of eight, and avoided kicking the square planters over in the dash to the dark side of the barn, the way Jojo went when we saw him last.
When we hit the shadows of the last home stretch, Stephi yanked my arm and pulled me hard to the side, and down behind some old oil drums. Ahead, a ghostly white figure flapped in the night breeze—a long, plain nightdress and a fire-halo with the moon behind her head.
“I know you’re there,” Cassie shouted at us, then to the side, “Where’s that fucking dog?”
Instead of the dog, one of the kids brought her a torch. The beam lashed through the air like Darth Vader warming up for sabre fight. “Gimme that fucking thing here,” she yelled, “and go get ‘Casso.”
Stephi tugged my arm, pulling me lower. She was wriggling away. “Come on,” she said, her voice an urgent whisper. “Come on!”
By the side of the barn, down where the corrugated metal reached the ground, was a dull blue glow among the weeds. I imagined this was where past runners have claimed Cassie’s old man was buried. If that didn’t make them run faster, nothing would.
The oil drums flickered with the torch beam and Cassie yelled, “Get round the back you fuckwits. They’re here somewhere. They’re fucking here.”
We were…then we weren’t.
Stephi wriggled through the hole and I didn’t intend hanging about to apologise to Mad Cassie for disturbing her beauty sleep. I followed Stephi into the hole.
My back burned from rubbing against the concrete beam across the top of the hole, and my shirt snagged and ripped, but nails were more welcome than dog’s teeth, and got through the hole as fast as I could.
Stephi was already on her feet, on the other side, looking pale in the ultra violet glow from above. The stench in there, inside the barn, it was so thick it burned. Stephi’s eyes were watering, her hand to her mouth and nose.
The place reeked of vinegar—sharp, tart and acidy, cutting into our throats with every breath. Large vats stood in rows—metal vats with hinged lids, most of them, so high you’d need to stand on a platform to look inside. Pipes and tubes dangled over the sides of some of them, chains hung from pulleys and rollers on the roof, and over on the walls, more pipes and tubes hung from what I guessed were metal and wooden presses.
“Jesus,” I said, “what the hell is this place?”
7 Feb 2008
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