Writing for Fun
My Best Friend - Pete Norman
April 2014
Arnold's eyes fluttered open, dazzled by the light and completely disorientated.
In the same instant Damien awoke, but his brain accelerated from 0 – 60 in a mere fraction of a second.
Arnold was just about to lever himself upright when Damien put his finger to his lips to silence him. Arnold dutifully settled back, remaining motionless while Damien strained his ears, filtering through the background mush for the sound – just the one sound – but he could not make out anything whatsoever out of the ordinary out there. However he knew something was not right because the voice had spoken to him in his sleep, had spoken just one terse and urgent word: 'Danger!'
Over the years he had learned not to ignore the voice – it had rarely ever let him down – but right now he needed something more specific.
'What danger?' he hissed.
'Footsteps.'
'Whose footsteps?'
The voice hesitated for a moment and then came back with, 'Lockhart and . . .'
'And?'
' . . . and . . . another.'
Arnold was terrified. He glanced at the door; it was strong but it would not be able resist Lockhart and the 'another' if they chose to force their way in. Even Damien, strong as he was, would not be able to stop them.
Damien was his best friend . . . his only friend in the world. Without Damien he would be completely alone. He would surely go mad.
Arnold was different; he had always been different. He had never known his mother; she had sacrificed her own life to bring him into this world. He had hardly known his father, who somehow blamed his child for the loss of his wife and could find little warmth and compassion for the perpetrator of the matricide. Even at the moment of registering the birth he could not summon the energy to think of a suitable name; instead he named his son Arnold, after himself.
Arnold had a miserable childhood, locked in that cold mausoleum of a house with only his uncaring father for company. He was never permitted to have friends or freedom and with his complete absence of social skills, even within the relative sanctuary of school, he was always the outcast, always on the outside of any group of his peers. Every day, rather than endure the loneliness of the playground, he would flee to the dingy warmth of Waldorf Gould's Second-hand Book Emporium where he would spend his lunch-times scouring the shelves, squatting in an ancient leather chair in a secluded corner, seeking companionship in the dusty tomes.
But however terrible he considered his life to be, when his father deserted him, collapsing with a powerful heart seizure on the eve of Arnold's twelfth birthday, nothing in his most disturbed dreams could possibly have prepared him for the nightmare to come.
Social Services placed Arnold with the Ratcliffes.
Edna Ratcliffe was a small mousy woman who was pleasant enough in her own quiet little way, but totally ineffectual; she lived her life in the shadow of her giant of a husband Brian Ratcliffe who, to Arnold, was nothing short of the re-incarnation of the Devil. Arnold began to frequent the bookshop more and more, on his way home from school and at weekends, in an attempt to avoid the abusive and unwelcome ministrations of his foster father. He ventured deeper and deeper into the shelves where, in the womblike gloom of the furthest corner, where the imaginative, esoteric and occult literature was slowly being consumed by decades of dust, he discovered Damien.
Damien was a breath of fresh air in his life: stimulating, dependable, comfortable – only in his company did Arnold truly come alive. Together with Damien he had explored books which could only exist in the shadowy, twisted corners of a deranged mind, but with Damien beside him he felt safe and together they had ventured into dangerous and profane places from which there was no hope of return.
It was Damien who had challenged the religious propaganda which the RE teacher Mr Taylor expounded forcefully every Thursday afternoon. How, Damien had reasoned, could a loving God, a caring God, an all powerful God, allow a boy's mother to desert him just when he needed her most; how could he allow a boy's father to abandon him while he was still so young. How could he allow scum like Ratcliffe to live and to inflict him on a vulnerable child.
It was Damien who had introduced him to the book which had changed his life forever, the book which Arnold stole, the book which he had stuffed down the back of his trousers and carried with a casual smile out of the shop. His heart had almost stopped – just like his father's – when the small bell jangled above his head as the door opened, but he need not have worried, the unsuspecting Waldorf Gould had scarcely wasted a glance in his direction, his mess of unkempt hair dangled over his eyes and his chin remained pressed against the yellow spotted bow tie as he studied his latest acquisitions through thick, heavy lenses.
The book was called 'The Secret Art of Necromancy' and over the next few weeks Arnold and Damien had devoured it; page by page; cover to cover; over and over again until the words became old friends, until the more exciting passages could almost be recited verbatim. Damien fought to master the necessary skills until, finally, he was able to hear the voices inside his head, the voices of the disembodied, long passed on from the corporeal world but somehow too committed to leave the spiritual domain. Damien learnt to communicate at will with the darkest forces in the universe, to exercise a certain degree of control over them . . . but beside him, Arnold was powerless, incompetent and he relied upon his friend's power implicitly.
It was Damien who had summoned the catastrophic and terminal brake failure on the green Vauxhall Astra, the pride and joy of the Religious Education teacher, Mr Taylor.
It was Damien who had called up the spirits to dislodge the feet of Arnold's foster father, Brian Ratcliffe, at the top of the stairs. The headlong downwards plunge, under the full weight of his muscular frame, had snapped his thick neck like a twig in a gale.
It was Damien who had conjured up the table lamp which had struck the back of the Social Worker's head when he had dared to suggest to the bemused Edna Ratcliffe that they might consider moving Arnold to somewhere . . . more appropriate.
Arnold cringed as the footsteps outside the door grew louder, more menacing. The slow and heavy booted footfall was without doubt that of the thug Lockhart, but the sound that struck terror into Arnold's mind was the almost inaudible Hushpuppy whisper of the another beside him.
Damien tugged out a small bag, shaking the contents over the floor. All the more popular books suggested that in good practice such objects should be ritually stylised, but from experience he knew that it was more how you used them than what they actually were; that in the hands of the expert even the most insignificant object is capable of invoking devastating power.
A pencil snapped in half with the lead point broken off, a playing card – the Ace of Spades – with the corner folded over, a spent matchstick, a two pence piece and a short piece of string had always been more than sufficient for him.
Damien rolled back his eyes and, with fingers deft and expert, he arranged and rearranged the precious objects in a random blur until he could feel a surge of power jolt through his fingertips. The voices murmured in his head in a swirling confusion, but Damien channelled his will through the scattered tokens and pressed firmly for control.
The footsteps stopped outside the door. A large and unfriendly face filled the inspection hatch.
The key slid into the lock, the other keys jingling noisily on the ring as the heavy mechanism clunked open. The diminutive man in the white coat slipped into the room while the enormous bulk of Lockhart in his blue uniform filled the door, preventing any chance of escape.
The doctor's suede shoes sank into the padded surface of the floor, his hand pressed against the padded wall for support. He looked down with practised indifference at the solitary occupant of the room kneeling before him, his arms crossed and securely fastened around his back, his eyes fixed with a defiant glare.
The doctor's voice, though appearing soft and light, was somehow heavy with authority. 'May I speak with Arnold please, Damien.'
Damien snarled, 'I don't know if he wants to speak to you.'
He dropped his head onto his chest and paused for a moment. When he turned back up his eyes were wide, his body was trembling.
Arnold stammered, 'Yes, doctor?'