Haunted Shadows 1: Sickness Behind Young Eyes Read Online Free Page A

those. You know, those pigs would be slaughtered whether they were on
your plate or not. They were destined for someone’s belly, and that’s that.”
     
    Jeremiah sawed at a piece of sausage
with his knife. He dipped it in the egg yolk and then lifted it to his mouth. I
caught sight of the white sausage gristle and felt my face turn green.
     
    “It’s not that,” I said. “The
slaughter doesn’t bother me, because like you say, it will happen. Meat just
knocks me sick.”
     
    “Humans are carnivorous by nature.
It’s strange that you should be born the opposite. There’s a story behind
this.”
     
    I nodded. “It was something that
happened in one of my foster homes. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
     
    Jeremiah put his knife and for on the
table. “Come on. Just when you were getting interesting you clam up.”
     
    I sensed an opportunity.
     
    “One good turn for another,” I said.
     
    I had him, I knew it. He wanted to
know my story, and I wouldn’t tell him until he gave me some of the information
I wanted. I had seen a chink in the armour and I’d shot an arrow right through
it.
     
    Jeremiah seemed to be turning the
idea over in his head. Should he answer my questions? Or should he choose to
remain an annoying enigma? He picked up his knife and fork again. He stabbed a
piece of bacon and lifted it to his lips.
     
    “No,” he said, before swallowing the
bacon.

 
    6
     
    After breakfast I went back to my
room and showered. I put on my coat, headed downstairs and followed Jeremiah
out of the pub. I had chosen my thick coat with the fur-lined hood but I still
wasn’t prepared for the gust of wind that hit me as soon as I stepped outside.
The sky was starting to lighten now. It looked like a cup of black coffee with
milk being dripped into the middle.
     
    Jeremiah started to walk. He was
quicker than I expected for someone who carried a bit of weight, and his strides
were much bigger than mine.
     
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
     
    “Where do you think?”
     
    I looked at the village in front of
me. It was laid out haphazardly, with the buildings dotted in a strange
formation. It was as though people just built wherever they felt like.
Sometimes the buildings were put next to each other and you’d get four or five
in a row, but often they were all isolated from each other. I got the sense
that the villagers kept themselves to themselves.
     
    A cobbled stone pathway ran through the
village and it also served as the only road, not that many cars drove down it.
It ran in twists and turns from building to building, the only thing I could
see that connected the whole place together. Through its mazy run there was the
pub, a general store and chemist, some houses, a post office, more houses, the
town hall, a church and a graveyard. Given that we wanted to find out about a
fairly recent death, or whether there was one, the town hall seemed a good
choice. There would be a census or some sort of record kept there.
     
    “We could check out the town hall.” I
said.
     
    Jeremiah followed my gaze and saw the
two story building a few hundred metres away. Then his eyes moved passed it.
     
    “It’s too early for that. No-one will
be in. First we’ll go to the graveyard.”
     
    “Seriously?”
     
    “You think they ever bury someone
here without giving them a plot in the graveyard?”
     
    I thought about it. Probably not.
     
    “They could cremate?” I suggested.
     
    “Do you see anything equipped for
cremation? They bury their dead here,” said Jeremiah.
     
    The graveyard was next to the church.
It was a plot of land a few acres long, and it stretched outside the boundaries
of the village. There were rows upon rows of headstones, which seemed like too
many for a village of this size. There could be fifty odd people here, tops, at
any one time. Yet there were hundreds of graves.
     
    “You take the east side and work your
way in, I’ll take the west. We’ll meet in the