He automatically took another step forward, as though he were being pulled by some invisible chain. It was only when his foot came down on something soft and yielding that he stopped. “Oh, are you kidding me? Gross!”
“What is it? Badger shit?”
Jude started wiping his trainer on the weeds, knocking loose a layer of moss and revealing dark brown mud beneath. Lying in the undergrowth was what looked like a dead squirrel. Its midsection was split open and worms thrashed in its guts. The blood had dried, but tiny silver bones were visible. A faint, unpleasant odour drifted from the corpse, enough to turn Jude’s stomach. “It’s a dead squirrel, I think.”
Ashley wrinkled her nose. “That’s comforting. Maybe we should say a few words out of respect. Hey, now that I think of it, if I die before you, I don’t want music at my funeral, okay? I want a beatboxer.” She put a fist against her mouth and started putting out a beat. It was one of her many talents, and every few seconds, she stopped to spit a few lyrics. “Lily Barnes has got an STD. She’ll suck your dad’s dick and do it for free. Ricky Dalca is a Romanian bitch, too scared to follow if you run into a ditch.”
Jude chuckled. “If you get famous, promise me you’ll release that track.”
Ashley pop-and-locked, her body writhing as if it had no bones. Although it sometimes grew annoying, Jude had to marvel at his friend’s dancing skills. He found it difficult just to touch his toes.
Ashley stopped dancing and grinned at him. “After the diss track I’d lay down on Lily Barnes, she would never show her face again. That shithole family of hers will disown her.”
Jude stepped over the dead squirrel and approached the farmhouse. He still couldn’t take his eyes off the old building. It was large, and it beggared belief that such a place could go abandoned and unnoticed for so long. Especially when there were families nearby living in tiny houses and dinky flats. Jude couldn’t imagine living in a place like this, with so much space.
“I want to go inside,” he said.
Ashley shook her head and took several steps back. “No way. You go in there and the roof’ll come down on your head.”
“There isn’t a roof. And I don’t think the building is suddenly going to fall down after so many years. Come on, who knows what we might find. There might be antiques.”
“Antiques? Are you serious? The place doesn’t even have four walls. It’s empty. Abandoned. Dangerous.”
Jude walked towards the farmhouse. “The mage feared no danger, for his faith in the almighty gods would keep him safe.”
“The mage has lost the plot.”
He ignored Ashley’s protests and carried on, knowing she would eventually follow him. They always backed each other up, and it had got them this far in life, so why change a winning formula? One down, two down, they always said. When trouble found them, they faced it together and shared the consequences.
The unpleasant odour Jude had detected around the dead squirrel was worse as he approached the farmhouse. It was a sickly odour, like opening a fridge to week-old chicken. It wasn’t unbearable, but it filled Jude with a mild sense of dread about what he might find inside. More dead squirrels? It was enough to make him turn back.
“Wait up,” said Ashley, and she hurried up behind him just as he approached a gap in the wall where a front door might once have been. “Can we get out of here after this?” she begged him. “This place gives me the creeps. And it stinks.”
“Yeah, okay. Ricky and Lily should have gone by now. We’ll have to climb our way back up the slope somehow, but at least they didn’t follow us.”
Ashley huffed. “Bunch of pussies, the lot of them.”
“Yeah.”
Jude headed up a couple of old brick steps that were still in place. The mortar had cracked, and they formed an uneven V shape rather than a flat surface. All the same, they took his weight as he stepped on them and entered the doorway.
Inside the farmhouse, it was even darker than out in the ditch. The roof trusses cast a grid-shaped shadow over the stony floor, and in several places, the ancient tiles had cracked. Weeds and vines grew through the gaps.
Ashley stepped in behind Jude and grunted. “See? There’s nothing here.”
Jude was disappointed. His overactive imagination had promised forgotten treasures – old trinkets and history made manifest – but all he found was a crumbling brick room with a broken stone floor. The only thing of note was an old brick fireplace with a length of old timber running across its top. At some point, it might have been a living room. Now it was empty.
Jude continued forward.
“What are you doing?” asked Ashley. “This place isn’t safe. We should just leave it be. God, how can you stand the smell?”
“Just let me check one more room, okay? There’s a door here.” And there was. The wooden door was hanging from the opposite wall at an odd angle, still attached to a pair of ancient hinges. Most of the frame had rotted, but there was a room beyond. Jude couldn’t help but walk towards it. Ashley continued complaining, but, as always, she went with him.
Jude put a hand against the edge of the door and felt it move. When he pulled on it, it was stiff, wedged against the stone floor. The understairs cupboard in his house was the same way, so he knew what to do. He placed a hand against the top edge of the door and pushed, tightening up the hinges. Then, when he pulled again, the door moved easier. It dragged across the stone floor and made an unpleasant sound.
Jude hurried into the next room, hoping to find something more interesting than in the last. Like the room preceding it, it was made from brick and tile. It was empty except
