Free Eldren: The Book of the Dark by William Meikle Page B

song or two. That should quiet them down a bit...you know how much they hate my old hippy stuff.”
    Brian had always had pretensions to being a musician since his own school days. When he realized that he couldn’t make his fingers move fast enough to pass as a rock guitarist he fell back on his first-learned tunes. From there he progressed through American Country rock, through blues and back to his present preoccupation, Scottish folk music.
    He usually spent his Wednesday nights giving lessons to pupils but lately there had been getting to be fewer actual lessons in technique, most of the pupils having already caught up with his primitive style. Most often nowadays his time was spent teaching the youngsters new songs and preparing for his big event.
    A four-piece folk group, including Brian, were practicing for their first live appearance at a local folk club in two weeks time. It would be a rush but he now thought that they would be ready in time.
    “Oh and Margaret”, he called after her as she turned away. “Is there any chance of a drink after work tomorrow? There’s some things I need to talk to you about.”
    He never got a reply, for at that moment waves of high-pitched screams echoed down the corridor.
    For a long heartbeat they looked at each other before Margaret sprinted out of the room, closely followed by Brian.
     
    ~-o0O0o-~
     
    The boiler room was full of small gaping faces; all arranged in tight circles around two figures in the center. Two chairs had been overturned and between them lay a young boy bleeding from a neck wound.
    “Blood,” thought Brian, “ That’s blood .”
    Standing beside the rapidly growing pool was Tony Dickie, obviously the source of the screams. His face was bright red and he breathed in great gasps of air, looking set for a fresh bout.
    Brian decided that it was time to do something, anything, so long as he got their attention away from the blood.
    “For Christ’s sake get an ambulance somebody...and Margaret, get these kids out of here. Tony, you go with Miss Brodie here.”
    The boy looked into space, oblivious to everything except the blood.
    “Tony!” More forcibly this time, causing the boy to turn towards him, blue eyes wide in fear.
    “Come on son, it’s all right, Ian will be okay, just go along with Margaret.”
    The boy’s head shook violently from side to side. As Brian reached out to take his arm he bolted under the grasping arms of Margaret Brodie and off down the corridor, receding footfalls followed by the slamming of the heavy wooden door down at the far end.
    Margaret made to follow, but Brian stopped her.
    “Leave him be just now, we need to do something with Ian here, he’s losing an awful lot of blood. Go and call an ambulance.”
    He tried hard to remember what little first aid knowledge he had. Were you supposed to move someone suffering from a neck wound? He knelt on the ground oblivious to the fact that the knee of his trousers was now in a pool of blood.
    Looking up, he noticed that the boiler room was now empty and that Margaret was coming back down the small flight of steps.
    “The ambulance is on its way, but they say that it could be ten minutes or so depending on the traffic. Is there anything we can do before that?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe we should lift his head up or something. Anyway, we can’t just leave him lying there. Go and get a pillow or cushion or something and we’ll try putting it under his head.”
    While Margaret was gone Brian looked around for clues as to what the boys had been doing and wondered if it had been an accident. He knew that Ian had been the scapegoat, but he couldn’t believe that twelve year olds would willfully injure one of their classmates in this way.
    He realized that he would have to find Tony Dickie if he was to find out what had happened in this room. He knew the rest of the kids well enough to realize that they would clam up immediately and deny all knowledge of anything that had