Free Pinprick by Matthew Cash Page B

hadn’t really spoken to before, but even more so to a member of the opposite sex.
    Over the weeks they started speaking more, mostly to complement each other’s work. Recently, they had to do a series of six pieces depicting their favourite books, films, musicians or anything hobby based. Matt had done some wonderfully gruesome work in pencil, pastels and charcoal. Her favourite of his six was inspired by horror books and metal cd covers. It depicted a little wooden boat on a very rocky, rough sea. A solitary lantern hung above a single golden bell, its light illuminating enough of a tall black-robed figure that stood on deck. The figure had a huge scythe in one hand and a skeletal finger pointed with the other. Above written in swirls as if the wind was blowing sea spray was the question, ‘What is this that stands before me?’
    When she asked him about it his freckled cheeks flushed with colour.
    “It’s a Black Sabbath lyric,” he mumbled.
    “Well I love it,” she told him, “But I don’t have a clue who Black Sabbath are.”
    “Their original singer was Ozzy Osbourne. You must’ve heard of him? He’s like rock royalty.”
    His face lit up when she told him she knew him from the programme The Osbournes but she didn’t pay it much attention apart from when his kids, particularly Jack, were on.
    That was when they started talking on a regular basis, she discovered that even though he was shy and was obviously uncomfortable about the possibility of bullying, he was very witty and a really nice person. They started swapping mix CDs of their favourite songs after a few weeks. He hadn’t really converted her into liking metal music but she did like a lot of the punk stuff he’d put on the CDs.
    He also introduced her to horror books. She’d never really read any particular genre but after seeing another of his art pieces she was intrigued. Fat Matt Willis’ second piece in the class project was a painting of a red fuzzy haired clown holding a bunch of balloons. The clown had a leering, sinister smile on its painted face and it’s eyes were sparkling silver ball bearings. There was a glint of pointed teeth in its smiling mouth. Each of the balloons were claret red and dripped as if filled with blood, faces half revealed in the light’s reflection on their shiny surface. A few drops of blood dripped from the bouquet of balloons, staining the clown’s otherwise pristine white gloved hand. Written as if in bloody smears were the words “We all float”. It was her first introduction to horror, one of the world’s famous horror authors and one of the author’s infamous characters.
    She kept all of this inside, hidden like the box in the attic; not forgotten, but kept safe for when she was alone to examine their contents. One of the reasons she was so desperate to get back up to the attic was so she could retrieve Uncle Shane’s story. She wanted to show Matt when they went back to school. She had a feeling he would think it was really cool and appreciate it as much as she did.
    Jennifer picked up the large bundle of exercise books that contained Shane’s Finding Heaven . They were bound together with elastic bands and were in remarkable condition considering they were twenty years old. She dropped them on the landing, climbed down after them as quickly as she could, gathered them up again and closed her bedroom door behind her.

Chapter Six
    4th September 1986
     
    I keep having dreams about my friends, some are nightmares, and some aren’t. I think the ones that aren’t are the worst. It’s like my mind is torturing me for something I might or might not have done and I’m beginning to hope I never find out the truth.
    Last night’s dream was about Malcolm. The first time I met Malcolm properly was on my first day at Cordell’s Meat Packing. It was a shit job, boring, smelly and repetitive with zero chance of promotion but the pay wasn’t too bad and it took school leavers and pretty much anyone with