So, yeah. This is my first fanfiction, so please try not to eat me alive. This chapter will probably be the most boring thing under the sun, but we have to get through it. Bear with me.
Oh, yes: I don't come from the UK, so don't expect any of the proper slangs that the Galesworth boys would use. I don't know them.
Disclaimer: I am not Chris Wooding. I do not own Malice or Havoc or any other pieces of his work. I also do not own the characters Henry and Ben, or their mother (however, for my purposes, I named her). All the OCs in this story I own, though. No copyright infringement intended.
The fish-stick sandwich sat, unappetizing, in front of Henry Galesworth. He stared at it, a few large bites taken from it already. He could see the ragged edges where his teeth had cut through the whole-grain bread. His gaze drifted around the table; his brother, Ben, to his right; his mother, Sarah, across from him; her new boyfriend, Paul, positioned next to him. He was glad for the dark wood table that separated him from the rest of them.
"Henry," said Sarah. She was middle-aged and overweight, short in stature. Her brown hair, long and lanky, had an unflattering center part. Her muddy brown gaze was fixed on her youngest son.
"Yes?" he inquired, only pretending to care.
"Eat your sandwich."
Henry grudgingly obliged, picking up his sandwich and taking another bite. He forced himself not to make a face, but he seemed to shrink away from his meal. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ben snicker silently. The sandwich tasted terrible. It was slathered with tomato sauce and Henry could no longer taste the fish. Disgusting.
"Don't make faces, Henry," Sarah said, her voice a monotone. He watched her take another bite of her sandwich. Paul did, too.
Poor guy, Henry thought bitterly, stuck having to eat those God-awful sandwiches. He took another unhappy bite, rolling the pieces of food around over his tongue before forcing himself to swallow. He imagined that he could feel it sliding down his esophagus and falling into his stomach. It didn't make him feel any better.
The family ate in silence. The only sound was them chewing, accompanied by the steady ticking of the clock that rested near the kitchen door. Usually, when Paul wasn't there, Ben and his mother would talk about everything under the sun, but they never drifted far away from Ben's sports teams. Ben, unlike Henry, was deeply involved in his school's extra-curricular activities, making most of their teams. Hockey, soccer, anything that they held try-outs for, Ben aced. Henry, however, was terribly clumsy, seemingly unable to save any passes at all. Sometimes he wondered if he and Ben were actually related. They didn't even look alike, Henry possessing his mother's looks, whereas Ben had the pale brown hair of their father, shining hazel eyes to accompany it.
Tonight, however, they didn't speak. When Paul and Sarah had finished, she spared her sons a glance. "You two finish up, okay? We'll be out." Wherever 'out' was, they didn't specify.
The adults exited the room and soon Henry heard the door swing shut. He violently pushed himself away from the table and Ben looked up. He looked amused. "Going somewhere?" he inquired, pushing himself slowly away from the table, too, and standing.
Henry took an impatient breath. "You know where. It's Wednesday. A new comic came out." The image of the hairless comic-seller flashed behind his eyelids when he blinked. He resisted a shudder.
Ben smiled, reaching for his brother's half-filled plate. "You go get it. I'll put the dishes away."
"Dispose of the sandwiches. You know mum will check to see if we ate them." Henry despised when his mother did that. They weren't children; they could decide when they ate enough of the disgusting fish-stick sandwiches on their own.
The older boy nodded, disappearing into the kitchen with the plates. Henry turned, dashing out of the room and up the stairs, taking the steps two, sometimes three at a time. On the landing, he turned to the left and pushed his way into his room.
It looked like any other boy's room, Henry figured. The walls were a pale blue – powder blue, as Sarah would have described it – with a bed at the far wall, pressed against the window. White curtains fell in front of the windowpane, blocking his view of the street. It was a boring street, showing a small, boring park across from their house. It had no playground, no trees, no nothing. All there was were a few benches and pointless concrete paths weaving through the far too long grass. Posters were taped to the walls of his room, movies stars, sport stars, things like that decorating the shiny papers. A dresser made of pale wood was pressed against the wall, and opposite it rested his desk, devoid of any papers.
Henry crossed over to the desk, rifling through the drawers in its side, pushing aside papers and empty folders until he found it. His fingers brushed across the black wax paper, his gaze glued to an elaborate emblem in red that decorated the cover. An M, surrounded by a hexagon, was in the center. M. Malice.
"Are we going to read or just stand here?" a voice asked, sounding impatient.
Henry's head whipped around and he glared at Ben for a second. "I was getting the comic," he explained, standing up. He held out the copy of Malice for his brother's inspection.
Ben nodded, pulling the comic out of Henry's hand. He strode over to the bed, sitting down on the blue comforter. He broke the seal, gently wiggling the real comic out of its case. On the cover was a boy, mouth open wide, screaming. The word Malice was stretched across the paper like the tip of a claw. Ben smiled, shooting Henry a look.
The boys sat side-by-side, their gazes fixed on the panels of the comic. There was a boy wandering through a dark room, a sphere of light in his hands. His eyes were filled with fear, the pupils wide and searching for light. He was alone, wandering through a chamber. A waterway split the chamber in half, swirling around a pedestal that sported a women's legs, cut off at the shins. Massive blocks had fallen and lay about like boulders, and mixed in among them were unbelievable creatures called gnawls. They were seven feet long and they had long bodies and round sucker pads on each of their toes. Their tails were overlapping, scaly plates that rattled. They reminded Henry of a rattle-snake's tail. Bones lay, abandoned, around the room. The boy moved slowly across the stone floor, and, as he passed through an arch at the other side of the chamber, the picture changed.
Henry and Ben sat there for a long time, pouring over the images that danced across the pages. Suddenly, Henry looked up at his brother, a mischievous smile spread across his face. "Let's say the words."
Ben looked up from the comic, eyes wide. "Are you crazy? No way, I'm not saying those!"
Henry rolled his eyes. "Come on. I know it's not real, you know it's not real… Those aren't real kids in there, Ben. Don't be daft."
But his brother shook his head. "I'm not saying the words."
"Fine," the thirteen year old grumbled, "but you're being stupid. Nothing's going to happen. I'll
Henry stood, striding over to the desk again. He could feel Ben's gaze on him. Chicken, he mumbled mentally as he opened a drawer, pulling out a bag. He turned, tossing the bag to the pale-haired boy who opened it, listening to the sound of the seal on the Ziploc bag breaking. He emptied the contents of the bag on the floor: a black feather, a twig, cat fur and a tear. Ben blinked at him, looking alarmed. "When… when'd you get the time to collect all this?"
Henry smiled. "I've been thinking about it since the last comic came out." He made his way to the door. "Can you get the bowl? I'm getting mum's lighter."
He left quickly before Ben could object and made his way down the hall. Ben was following him, and then, as Henry continued on, made a turn and thundered down the stairs. At the end of the hall was his mother's room. He pushed open the door, painted white, and heard it creek. He stepped inside. The room smelled heavily of smoke and long red curtains forbid the light from spilling into the space. A bed rested in the middle, the headboard pressed against a pale wall. On his mother's dresser sat a packet of cigarettes and her lighter. Henry could see them from across the room.
Striding over to the dresser, Henry snatched up the lighter. He felt it in his hand, the smooth surface resting perfectly in his palm. He hoped that this wasn't a sign that he would end up a smoker, too. He turned, crossing the room and closing the creaking door behind him. He made his way over to his room, thinking, Ben and I are going to do the ritual. We're finally escaping this boring life. He refused to acknowledge the 'what if's. What if Malice wasn't real? What if Tall Jake didn't take them? He exiled those thoughts to the back of his mind as he pushed his door open, closing it behind him.
Ben was sitting on the floor, legs crossed like they always had you do when you were just starting school. The bowl sat before him, a metal mixing bowl. The objects for the ritual rested beside it. Henry shuffled over to the desk, grabbing a pair of scissors, and then sat down opposite his brother.
"The order's important," Henry told him, as if to a small child. "First the black feather, then the twig, then the cat fur, and then the tear." As he spoke, he dumped each objects into the bowl. Ben watched him, pretending to be uninterested, but Henry knew his brother well enough to know that he was really quite intrigued.
He held up the scissors, grabbing a bit of his hair. He clipped off some of it, letting it fall through his fingers and into the bowl. He held out the scissors to Ben, who hesitated. He was thinking, Henry knew. He was thinking about telling him that he was crazy, that it would never work. That he could perform the ritual alone if he was that serious about it. But he didn't. Ben accepted the scissors and clipped a bit off of his already-short hair.
Henry grinned. He'd won. He never won, but he did now. He held the lighter down to the cat hair, watching Ben. His brother wore a grim expression, as if regretting already what he'd done. Henry watched sparks fly from the lighter, catching on the cat hair. It shrivelled, shrinking in on itself. He knew that they had to say the words before the fire died.
Ben sighed, and in unison the boys said, "Tall Jake, take me away."
They were doing it. They were going to get out of their boring lives on their boring street in their boring neighbour in boring old Kettering.
"Tall Jake, take me away."
They'd be going somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. Somewhere that wasn't here.
"Tall Jake, take me away."
There wouldn't be any Sarah to tell them what to do. No parents making the rules. Only kids, teenagers like them.
"Tall Jake, take me away."
Henry heard his voice rising in excitement. He found himself actually wanting to go to Malice. But when he looked to Ben to see if his brother shared his euphoria, he could see the other boy staring at the fire with wide eyes, looking like he was going to be sick.
"Tall Jake, take me away."
One more time, and then it would be done. One more time and then Tall Jake would take them away. But he would take them to Malice. Henry knew from the comics that Malice ate kids like him alive. It was filled with unimaginable dangers. Suddenly boring old Kettering didn't seem so bad.
The words, "Tall Jake, take me away," slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them.
They waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing happened. The boys let out a collective sigh and Ben shot Henry a look. They burst into laughter and Henry heard relief sounding in his laugh. They had been so foolish to believe even for a moment that Tall Jake would actually take them away.
And then the lights went out.
So, yeah. My fanfiction debut. Hoorah.
I'll probably have the second chapter up some time within the next two weeks, but that could just be me being overly ambitious or something. So, don't expect anything fantastic. This actually turned out much longer than average for me. This may never happen again. I have so little faith.