The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

    A lady in the shop, with glasses and a bun on the back of her hair, pinned a big round yellow badge on my coat lapel. She asked me if I liked books and wished me happy Christmas. There was a miniature book stuck in the centre of the badge, the size of a postage stamp. It opened, with pages like a real book. Above this was the message: Better books are Better!

    It was a really good freebie. I hadn't seen one like that before.

    Dad took my badge off when he saw it, and slapped it down on the counter. The lady with the bun glared at him.

    Dad (or Jim if we're into parent-speak), was getting himself all worked up again. Mumbling about me being an easy target, a sucker for it all.

    He bought a hi-fi magazine on the way out of the shop, and there was a freebie stuck to the cover with a bit of Sellotape. A Hi-fi Casebook pencil sharpener. It was clever. A little plastic compact disc with the sharpener on the other side of the spindle hole. On the way home he never lifted his head out of his precious hi-fi magazine once! Typical. He's just as much of a consumer-head as everyone else!

    He wouldn't let me whistle on the bus, but when we got off at Brixton Hill I tried to get the Key-Finder to work.

    So I whistled. I whistled at it, whistled in it, practically took the thing apart. Nothing.

    Dad got mad, which was really ironic considering all the fuss he'd been making about the thing, said he'd a mind to go all the way back to Soho and give the man his batteries back.

    I wasn't that bothered. After all, it had been free, it looked pretty and I could still put my keys on it if I wanted to.

    But I had another idea, another use for it.

    'Are you going to chuck it?' asked Dad as we turned into our drive, past the dustbins.

    I shook my head.

    Dad stopped and turned on his heels. A single finger was lifted.

    I'm warning you, are you listening, young lady? You leave Dylan alone, he's got a hard enough life as it is trying to survive in the Brixton Hill gardens with all that other nonsense you've fixed on the poor little devil's collar!'

    I just smiled, politely, and then shoved the key tag deep into ray coat pocket. Dad could be such a pain.

    Dylan was scratching himself on the porch mat as we walked up the path.

    The front door opened. Mum (or Mary) stood in the doorway.

    She didn't look good. I sighed.

    Dad (or Jim) was making caustic comments in the living-room about how the Christmas booze seemed to be prematurely lowering its level. The surface line in the large bottle of Gordon's, which sat on the Habitat trolley, was certainly nearing the bottom.

    Even I noticed that.

    But then again, Mum was depressed.

    I spent my time out in the kitchen trying to make the key tag work, but it wouldn't give out so much as a peep. Dylan had struggled into the kitchen too.

    Mum and Dad were rowing again and Dylan wanted to get out of their way.

    I didn't blame him.

    Dad was making the usual fuss about how she had to pull herself together, she'd a family (and him) to look after, just because Edith's number had come up we didn't have to spend the entire Christmas in mourning.

    Then he threatened to re-convert the grannie-flat which we'd had built next to the garden shed. He'd always threatened to make it into an outdoor aquarium.

    Ah well.

    And my new freebie didn't work.

    Dylan purred smugly down at me from the top of the boiler. His head was lowered from the weight of his great collection of Cat Consumables. Mum called him our 'Consumer Kitty'.

    I attached the key tag to his collar along with the other freebies:

    his Katto-Kipper personalized name disc

    plastic Burger King bun

    miniature Coca-Cola bottle

    Holiday Inn room tag

    MHI luggage label

    Kellogg's Munchkin Man

    and a Dr Who Energizer ring which wrapped around his neck.

    That had been a special 'give-away' at the Arndale Shopping Centre in Croydon; he liked that best of all.

    Dylan opened his sleepy eyes and stretched his paws and shook his new toy. Then, with a loud miaow, probably a 'thank you', he made for the kitchen door. His freebies crashed into the cat flap on his way out.

    In the living-room they were still rowing.

    Dad's voice was getting really loud.

    Outside came the rumble of an approaching car. I suddenly had a bad feeling.

    I heard Mum's glass smash at almost the same time as we heard the screech of brakes out in the front road.

    There was an awful short tangled wail. The kind of sound cats make when they scrap. Then silence.

    I heard Dad yell, 'Oh my God, no!' Dad can be 50 dramatic.

    Yesterday was miserable: black and solemn.

    Dad blamed me. He was really mad. But it was good of him to dig Dylan a nice neat grave out in the back garden.

    He kept muttering about how there had been far too much on his collar, and how the whistling keyring had been the final straw. Just slowed him down, so when he'd run across the street he was an easy target.

    Mum told him to shut up, that he'd upset 'the child'.

    'The child' indeed. I just ignored her.

    We put Dylan in the soft soil where Mum had planted the Hobson's Garden Centre roses, just in front of the grannie-flat.

    We buried him with full honours, all his toys intact. I'd wanted the key-ring back, just as a souvenir, but Mum was almost sick when Dad tried to find it. It was like picking a favourite strawberry out of a collapsed flan.

    She called me a funny word. I didn't know what it meant, but I didn't like the sound of it at all.

    A ghoul?

    You can go off parents.

    Sleep was very difficult that night, in fact everything was a funny blur. The air in my bedroom seemed thick and it was difficult even to breathe.

    I opened the dormer window and looked down into the garden.

    It was dark and cold, but winter clear outside.

    A grey cloud passed over, and the grass in front of the grannie-flat reflected moonglow once more.

    The garden shone.

    A newly heaped pile of topsoil marked the spot. I had scratched Dylan's name on a coke can, and fixed it in the ground, a temporary tombstone.

    The TV offer peacock wind-chime which hung within the window-frame sang softly as a gentle wind got up.