Free The Dark Inside by Rupert Wallis Page A

up, but he was blinking too quickly to see. And then he felt hands grabbing the opposite end of the shotgun.
    Webster ripped the gun free. Tottered backwards. And the shock of it cleared his head.
    Swanney was standing there in front of him, his bloody smile falling away as Webster levelled the gun at his chest.
    A window opened along the street. Somebody shouted and cut the silence in half and, when Webster half looked, it set Swanney loose. He turned and ran, disappearing round the corner.
    There was a squeal of brakes.
    A dull thump.
    The sound of an engine idling.
    Webster edged around the corner. Swanney was lying face down on the pavement, his waist perfectly in line with the kerb, a dark puddle forming quickly around his head, or what was left of it,
the back of its sphere missing, like a rotten windfall apple scooped out to its core. The headlights of the car shone straight down the road.
    The engine wobbled and died.
    The driver’s door opened.
    And somebody leant out and retched.
    Webster retreated back around the corner and walked on quickly, the gun hidden beneath his greatcoat. His skin was hot, his lungs full of sparks. And gradually the night air slipped inside his
chest and cooled him.
    As he wound a path back to the car, he stopped every now and then. But there was nobody following him. He was sure of it. Because there was nobody reflected in the shop windows or the wing
mirrors of cars as he passed them by. Yet he knew Billy had to be somewhere. Billy, who had found him, and locked him in the wagon cage like an animal.
    And then Webster began to worry about the boy.
    When he was close, he stopped in the adjoining street and listened carefully, but all he heard was the silence. He rounded the corner, the shotgun tight against his hip beneath
the greatcoat.
    Street lamps dipped their necks like swans.
    He saw houses, in a row, on either side. Set back from the street. With paths dissecting tiny gardens, which lead up to each front door.
    James was not waiting by the car.
    Webster walked on, straight past it, when he saw the slashed tyres slumped against the kerb like snowmelt. James’s duffel bag of clothes was sitting on the front seat, his black suit
draped on top. But Webster did not waver. He was light inside. Like a ghost. Or something made of paper. Somewhere in the dark a dog was barking and the sound of it chimed in the marrow of his
bones.
    The crunch of his boots on the pavement became hypnotic. For a moment, it took him somewhere else. Back into the past. Into a desert shimmer. He heard shouting. Mortar fire. Gunshots. The
barking of dogs. He felt the sun and the dust on his face from a foreign land. He could smell sweat and boot polish and webbing and sun-kissed rock. The gun filled out forgotten parts of his hand
as he gripped it tighter and tighter.
    He stopped, his breathing hard in his ears.
    A growl was rolling towards him.
    A large black dog tore out of the dark. Tongue trailing. Claws hissing on the pavement.
    But Webster was not scared. He brought up the shotgun and fired once into the chest of the creature as it leapt for him.
    It yelped. Landed across the tops of his boots. The warm weight of it lodged against his shins.
    A bedroom light came on across the road, followed by others. Curtains twitched. Webster stepped over the dog and kept moving. The end of the street swallowed him up as people came out of their
houses and crowded round the dead black dog, stepping back from the blood as it pooled out over the pavement.

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    When Billy saw Webster raise the shotgun and shoot the dog dead, he knew that Swanney was not going to appear and help him.
    As Webster kept walking towards the end of the street, Billy dragged James away, slipping down an alley where large steel bins were piled high with black plastic bags. At the far end, he
followed the cobbles round to the left and found himself on a narrow path that wound round between high-walled buildings and then opened up into a