‘Well, you did a pretty bad job of it then.’
And then the scale of what he’d said rushed at me all at once.
‘You’ve trapped other ghosts. They’re in here, aren’t they? Around us. On the shelves. That’s why it’s called the storage room.’
He hung his head and I knew I was right.
‘Do they know? Like I do?’
‘No. I haven’t spoken to them since they got caught. I couldn’t bear it. They all …’ He gulped. ‘They all went quiet eventually. They’ve been in there for years. He says they’re in a state of stasis – like, when they’re conscious, but barely. A sort of hibernation?’ He almost looked hopeful.
My thoughts scrambled over each other, writhing like rats. ‘How does he make you do it, Scanlon? What happens if you don’t hunt? Does he starve you? Chain you up outside? Are you forced into it every time?’
Please say yes, I thought desperately. We can still be friends if you say yes.
‘No,’ he said eventually, in a small voice. ‘He does none of those things.’
Little by little, it clicked into place. I felt my throat tighten. ‘He doesn’t have to force you, does he? You don’t ever say no. You … go along with it. Out of your own free will. Because …’
After months of not seeing things for what they were, now it was all I could do. The unbearable truth was everywhere, all at once.
‘Because you want to hunt us. Because … you’re lonely. And once we’ve seen you, and trusted you, and called you a friend – that’s the best part of it all for you, isn’t it?’
Scanlon looked like a cowering dog, waiting to be kicked.
‘And even though you know what will happen, you always go along with Crawler’s plans. Oh, you might try to fight it, at first,’ I said quickly, not fooled by that flash of protest on his face, ‘but not for long. That was why you didn’t keep ignoring me. Why you came without Crawler. Why …’ my voice broke, ‘we went to the tree house all those times. You like it when we trust you. You want us to. You love being needed.’
As soon as I said it, I knew I was right. Scanlon had told me he’d never been to school. So he had no chance of making friends – not ones that were alive anyway. Even if, by sheer fluke, he did come across anyone who wanted to be his buddy, I couldn’t see him inviting anyone back to this dump. Plus – let’s call a spade a spade – he was dirty, he smelt, he wasn’t much of a talker, had yellow teeth and weird clothes and … that face. So different, I thought, with a complicated mix of disgust and pity, to the glossily confident children who’d trampled through my house all summer. Those kids weren’t the type to give him a second look, unless it was to double-check he wasn’t standing too close to them.
‘Dead kids are the only friends you’ll ever have,’ I said.
‘You’ve got it,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Well done. Full marks to you.’
Scanlon peered carefully through the holes in my can and stared for a moment at my face.
He gave a grim nod. ‘Told you,’ he said.
There was the heavy thud of footsteps somewhere.
‘But why, Scanlon? Why hunt ghosts at all? Why trap them in cans and stick them on a shelf for years on end? What’s the point?’
The door to the awful room slammed open. I plummeted through the air in one dizzying quick motion, as if Scanlon was trying to hide me behind his back.
‘You’re not talking to it, are you, Scanlon?’ Crawler sounded as smeared and lurching as the light bulb overhead. ‘We’ve talked about this. Don’t chat to it, don’t sympathise. You can dismantle the friendship now. You’ve done your job.’
‘I was j-just—’ Scanlon stammered.
‘Scanlon, what have I always told you?’
Scanlon muttered something.
‘Louder, please,’ said Crawler.
‘Don’t mistake them for humans,’ said Scanlon.
‘Exactly. Put it away.’
My can wobbled, then went still.
He’s put me on the top shelf, I thought. Like a dirty secret. Next to all the others.
I pressed my eyes up to my peephole and saw Scanlon curl up on the mattress, still fully dressed in his filthy jeans and T-shirt. No wonder he smelt. No wonder he always moved so stiffly during the day, if that was his bed.
Then Crawler flicked the switch, and everything went dark.
TIME LIMPED ON. While I sat in my tuna can, staring at the walls, Scanlon was kept busy all day and long into the night, running errands for Crawler. Although it was hard to tell one hour from the next, there seemed to be a rough pattern to our days.
When Scanlon got up, bleary-eyed, and stumbled out of the room in response to Crawler shouting his name from elsewhere, that was morning. When he limped in hours later, yawning, and crashed out on the mattress, that was evening. The intervals between, when he’d run in and fetch a bottle of poison or dusty book from the shelves, those were daytime.
Occasionally, and only if Crawler wasn’t shouting for him, Scanlon would reach tiredly for a battered old laptop he kept next to his mattress. I guessed this was Skool Tools time.
And apart from the odd, shamefaced glance in my direction, Scanlon largely acted as if I wasn’t there at all. It was as if his terrible confession had never happened. Or rather, as if it had happened and he’d rather bury himself in busyness than make eye contact with the latest dead person he’d betrayed.
My feelings about it all were complicated. I knew he expected me to hate him. But I couldn’t. He was too pitiful for that. You can’t hate a rat for scavenging through a bin for scraps. Neither could I blame a motherless, lonely boy for conning ghosts into friendship, even though he knew what would happen to them if he did. No. I couldn’t
