Pete rolled up with the ladder and clocked the thing down by the ledge of Greg's window.
Greg climbed out and climbed down.
Finally free of his room it was time to get to work.
'Are you going to school today?' said Greg to his mate.
'No way son!' Pete returned hotly. 'Sod that! School is a waste of time. Anyway a wise man once said you learn more from life by playing video games! And that wise man, if you were wondering, is me fifty years in the future!'
'I hear you,' said Greg. 'Are you ready to carry on with the mission?'
Pete said he was ready... but he actually sounded quite nervous. He actually looked quite agitated like he would rather be somewhere else doing something very different.
Greg detected his friends anxious frame but he didn't care. 'Do you remember where the place is?' he continued.
'I think so,' Pete replied. 'It is up the road here, not far to walk not really. I don't know about you, mate, but I seriously think I am going to need to be drunk before we start doing anything serious.'
'No. Not this time,' Greg returned in a serious voice. 'We have got to be sober in all of this business. We have to have crystal clear minds if we hope to get things done. If we try to speak to this Charlotte full drunk she is going to think we are two filthy wasters. But if we keep sober and clean she will just think we are two wasters and we might stand a better chance of getting a word in. We just need to know if anybody is camping in the GOX house, or if she has heard word of a murderer or anything weird. That's all. And when we get the information we can go back home and plan for the next stage - entering the GOX House itself!'
'Well she can certainly talk about seeing weird things especially after she has finished talking to us,' said Pete with a chuckle.
'Stop trying to be funny,' Greg slapped back at his friend. 'What's wrong with you? I worry about you sometimes mate! There could be a damn dead body inside that GOX house and Charlotte is the key to unlocking the secret to this mystery. Right? Do you get get it? Idiot? Now grow up and start acting your age!'
Pete apologised.
'How did you get that cut to your face? It's bleeding you know?' said Pete. 'There is a good flow of blood on your face right now.'
'O that? It's nothing, really. Just a little showdown with a very nice person called Liz... Can you hear the sarcasm in my voice?' said Greg.
'O her? Damn! She is the worst,' Pete returned. A cold shiver ran down his spine the moment Greg spoke her name... Nasty memories started kindling in his brain. 'She beat me blue the other day. Vile creature. A true vulture!'
'She is more like a reptile than a vulture I think,' said Greg.
'O yeah! I suppose you are right,' said Pete thoughtfully. 'A reptile! Sure! Do you know what she did to me the other day at school? She was waiting for me behind the wall, you know the wall behind the canteen? She was hiding there with her mate and when I came along they ambushed me! Liz tore up my shirt and scratched my back. And her friend stepped up and punched me clean in my face. Have you ever seen her friend? What a beast she is! Damn! Very frightening...'
'O! You mean Jen don't you? She looks like a Sasquatch right?'
'That's the one,' said Pete. 'A truly frightening creature! What's it all about, hey Greg? Why do things have to be so damn horrible? Why is school the way it is - full to the brim with reptiles, vultures and Sasquatch? Why can't there just be normal people in the classrooms? Why is it all beasts and bumpkins?'
'Life is an evil game my friend,' Greg returned calmly. 'There are only three ways to play it: Face it and die... Run from it and die... Drink from it and die... It is ALL one vicious circle, mate. Life for the common man is like being strapped to a wagon wheel and being tossed around forever and ever in the mud. Your skin and your limbs eventually start to rot with the wear and start all breaking up. Then when the wheel is done the rope is finally cut away and you roll into a dirty damn ditch all dead and done. Even when I was a kid I knew what life was all about. But ah well! Men like us need a strategy to deal with it - and my strategy is to drink! But not now. We need our wits about us, Pete. Now let us go and find this Charlotte person before it gets late...'
* * *
Finally they were standing outside Charlotte's house.
They had made it at last.
'Okay so this is the plan,' said Greg. 'This woman is not a ghost. She is a human being - that means she is going to have to leave her house at sometime or other. She needs to eat, right? Presumably she has got a job to go to as well? So this is what we are going to do. We are going to hide and we are going to wait. When she finally leaves that door we rush her, collar her, get her into a corner and get her talking!'
'You know we might get arrested for doing this,' said Pete. 'I really don't want to go back to prison, Greg, and DC Maddox has already got us marked...'
'It will be fine,' said Greg. 'Come on Pete! Stop shaking like that! Look at the bigger picture here! We are on a mission - a mission of life and death...'
Pete was beyond reluctant. 'I am sorry Greg but I am going to need a drink... I really am!'
But Greg told him no, reminding him of the importance of maintaining clarity for the sake of the mission.
'We are going to get into trouble for this I know we are,' Pete dribbled on. 'I mean what we are doing now is stalking. It could get us years of prison time! Honestly I don't think I can do it after all. No. I want out! Greg, listen. If you honestly and sincerely believe that there is a dead body in the GOX House then do what I suggested earlier and phone the police about it. That is all you have got to do! This mission of yours is getting to be mad and stupid. I regret giving you that game now. You are letting the game get to you. You sound like a crazy person when you talk about the GOX House! We have travelled ALL around the country looking for this damn house and now we are harassing a totally innocent person... This is a bad business Greg and I don't like it. I have got a real bad feeling stirring in my guts. I don't want this. I don't want to waste my day off of school getting into trouble - I just want to chill and play video games.'
'You do what I tell you or I will punch you!' Greg growled in return. 'Do you hear me? You are in on this mission with me to the end. Yeah. We could get into trouble, of course could. But we have to do this for the better good of the community. And listen! If I get arrested I will tell them that you were my accomplice in all that I did. I will drag you down with me you hear me Pete? You already have a criminal record - if Maddox reels you in for a second round in the station you will be toast. So you do as I tell you, right? There is NO way out of this not for you not for me! We have got to get this done!'
Pete hung his head in defeat.
He had no choice but to go along with Greg's plans.
'Right! Less of the negative talk! Let's get back to business. We are going to need cover,' said Greg. He looked about. There was nothing...
...Apart from this tent obviously belonging to some homeless person...
Just then the zip of the tent came down and the flap went up and too everyone's surprise Vance King stepped out onto the scene.
He was holding a bottle and had vomit on his shirt - he was looking wobbly, mad and sick.
He looked like Vance King basically.
'Watcha lads,' said King as he wobbled about, leaning on the nearby wall for support. 'Fancy a drink with a stray?'
'Watcha got?' Greg replied.
'Double G,' Vance replied with his voice shaking. 'Two doses of G-Juice in one. Good stuff. The best stuff. Takes five seconds for it to hit the brain and the gut.' He offered them a bottle. 'Drink it!' he said. 'And when you do all of those inhibitions forged in the fires of youth will melt away like birds in a dream. You will become eagles... Eagles with the eyes of a child ready to hunt with the wiles of a hyena...'
'No thanks,' said Greg pushing the bottle away. 'Pete and I need to keep our braincells intact - just for today anyway. We are on a mission.'
'That's good to hear! Still trying to break into that GOX house hey?'
'That's right,' said Greg. 'Do you know anything else about this Charlotte person? It is just we are trying to talk to her, see if we can get some information out of her. But she is so mysterious. I don't think I have ever seen her out and about before not in my whole life. She seems to be quite badly housebound. Am I right? Do you think she is sick?'
'She is a strange twig that one - more like a ghost than a human being,' Vance replied. 'If you can get her to talk to you Greg you will be the first of a kind! You will be a very talented man indeed to pull off such a deed.'
'I am worried somebody has been murdered and Charlotte might know something about it,' said Greg. 'There could be a dead body inside the GOX House. I have been playing this weird video game for days now and it hints at such a thing! If it is not a dead body it could be a prisoner or someone who is trapped! I think Charlotte knows something about what is going on and that is why she is hiding away like she does. What do you think Vance? Do you think I sound like a crazy person?'
'Well I am knew to the area,' Vance replied, 'but I do know that and things go on in the streets... And yeah - that GOX House, it really does look like the kind of building where a murder might have taken place... where murders might still go on! For sure! It is a sad lonely old building, the perfect place to hide a stiff. Now I am being freely and fully honest with you lads, I really do think that there could be a dead body in that building. If not today then one day. You might actually find me dead in there especially if I keep on drinking the Double G...'
'You seriously think that?' said Pete, who was now starting to grow very afraid. 'Do you think the GOX House is the kind of place where murders would really go on?'
'Absolutely! It is the perfect place to slay a man and release a soul,' said Vance speaking in a relaxed voice like death and killing was just a typical casual topic for people to talk about. The lads couldn't tell if the man was being serious or if he was just very drunk. 'Quite a few famous killers haunt Fenwick's history,' Vance rambled on. 'They killed in back alleys - they killed in old houses. Frightening stuff!' and then Vance digressed into one of his uncomfortable intoxicated drivel talks: 'You can tell if a man is a killer by looking at his eyes...' he rambled. 'If a man has the eyes of a dog he ain't no killer. Dog's eyes look left and right - they look lost. When a man has dogs eyes then that is a lost man you are looking at. But when the man has the eyes of a cat then well that is when you need to start being careful and watching yourself... when a man has the eyes of a cat he is a hunter and there you might have a possible killer in your midsts. But it is the man with the eyes of a whale you need to be careful of the most - for that is the man who wears the eyes of a killer and he will kill you there and then clean in the street. Beware the eyes of a man with the eyes of a whale. You can tell a lot about a man or a beast by the look in their eyes. Now listen to this: the eyes of the eagle are as pure as snow. Did I ever tell you about the time I was attacked as a child in my pram but a great golden Fenwick eagle?'
'Yes yes! You told us that story,' said Greg. 'You really don't have to tell us it again! Really! Please! Don't do that!'
'Okay lads. Have it your way. But let me tell you one last thing! Eagles are the purest killers on earth. When they kill they have the eyes of a wide eyed babe freshly born...'
'Alright. Let's stop talking about eagles and focus on the task at hand,' said Greg. Greg desperately needed to stop Vance from setting out on another one of his mad alcohol induced tangents. 'Do you think that this Charlotte person might actually be dead?'
Suddenly there was a sound.
It was the clicking of a door handle!
'O wait lads you might just be in luck!' said Vance. 'I think our girl Charlotte is about to poise...'
And Vance was right.
Charlotte was actually leaving her home!
'There she is! Let's get her Pete!' said Greg and the two lads gave chase.
'There she is! Let's get her Pete!' said Greg and the two lads gave chase.
As soon as Charlotte saw the two lads charging towards her she let out a terrible high pitched scream and ran right back inside her house!
She was so fast - one might think her a willow the wisp! She really did appear to be quite spectral in her white dress and armed with her strange speed - maybe she was a ghost after all?
Well whatever, her door was closed and locked against the lads.
But she didn't have time to lock the gates guarding the outer walls so Greg stalked right up to her front door and started thumping on it like a frantic and desperate man. He started shouting through the letterbox as well. These were his words:
'We just want to talk to you about the GOX house! The old house next to yours! What can you tell us about it? Please talk to us! We need your help! We only want a minute of your time!'
Just then five police cars wheeled into view.
Pete had already ran away leaving Greg alone and surrounded.
DC Maddox stepped up out of his car:
'We need to have a word you and I,' he said grimly. 'Let's head back to the station son.'
And before Greg knew it he was being cuffed up and bowed down into the backseat of a police car.
* * *
Back at the police station Greg was put on full blast by both the police and DC Maddox. They had him sat down and cuffed to a chair. Maddox sat at the desk directly in front of Greg a vast and frightening form - a giant built out of bricks of pure darkness.
Maddox started:
'You are growing up to be quite the rascal aren't you Greg,' he said menacingly. 'Harassing a young lady outside of her own home, hey? You know I am going to have to book you for that. It is going to be bad for you, Greg, just giving you a heads up. Prison cells are not what they used to be. Time was two men shared a cell. But things have gotten tight here in Fenwick over the last few years - so much crime and so little space to keep the bad guys penned up. These days we are looking at ten men per cell. Do you fancy sharing a cell with ten men, Greg? That is what your fate is shaping up to be right now if you keep going on with things as you are.'
Greg did the only thing that he could do and that was grovel and beg for mercy.
And grovel he did - for a whole minute grovelling like the defeated dog that he was...
'Please give me a second chance!' he said finally.
'You burned your second chance the last time I had to lock you up,' said Maddox. 'There are no chances left, lad. Seeing how things are I don't think I have any choice. I am going to have to book you...'
'Wait!' Greg snapped - he had a plan to save himself and it was a good one. This is what he said next:
'I can help you find a very dangerous criminal!'
'I can help you find a very dangerous criminal!'
'So you want to add bribing an officer of the law to your list of crimes now, eh Greg?' Maddox replied slyly. 'That will fetch you another couple of years.'
'No wait listen! I know someone you want.'
'Name him.'
'Vance King.'
'You know where to find King?'
'Let me go and I can lead you right to him,' said Greg.
Maddox rolled his pen around in his hand right hand and eyed the other officers in the room.
Finally he nodded his huge bulldog shaped head.
'So you want to make a deal?' he said.
'Vance King is yours - just let me go,' Greg replied.
'Fine. Then we have a deal,' Maddox returned calmly. 'But this is your third and final chance, Greg. Anymore nonsense and I will be forced to lock you up in a small sized cell with ten giant sized killers. Do you hear?'
Greg nodded.
He heard.
He understood.
Vance King was arrested later that day.
Greg, finally free, gradually wandered back home. It was finally evening when he climbed the ladder back up to his bedroom.
Greg was angry...
He was angry with the police he was angry with Charlotte and most of all he was angry with Pete for having abandoned him clean in his hour of need.
Greg snapped open his computer and stamped out this angry message to his friend:
Pete! Damn you! You fed me to the pigs! You are supposed to be my mate! Well whatever! I know your true colours now! Our friendship is done. I will solve this mystery of GOX without you. But I WILL solve it I WILL! And then I will be the hero - and you will be what you have always been... a drunken nobody with nothing. I will win this game. I WILL WIN. O yeah and by the way you are blocked so don't bother responding...TRAITOR!
With those angry words having been fired out Greg settled down in front of his keyboard and snatching hold of his mouse he started to play some more GOX...
To Read GOX part 11 click here.
For more adventures set in the town of Fenwick check out:
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