Skippy Dies: A Novel

Desks are burning. Chairs are burning. Blackboards are burning. Crosses are burning. Maps of the world, set squares, rugby photographs. Everything you hate is on fire. So why are you crying?

Once upon a time Carl came in a window in the utility room. He had come to kill the Demon. The school was dark but after only a few moments the priest came walking down the hall. Carl followed him to his office. When the priest went in and closed the door, Carl poured petrol over it and up and down the basement. Then he set it on fire.

He waited in the fire just to be sure. The priest opened the door and stared around at the flames. Then he saw Carl, and he nodded like he’d been expecting him. He came out his door, Carl dodged back, but the priest went the other direction, a little way down the hall, and broke the glass of the fire alarm. Then he went back into his office and sat down in his chair. The bell rang, boys came running everywhere and teachers and prefects. Carl went to hide.

That was a hundred years ago, they’ve all gone now. Ever since, Carl has been walking in the smoke. It burns his eyes, it’s dark as night, and every turn he makes just leads him further in. He thought when he killed the Demon something would happen! Lori would appear, Dead Boy would bring him to her! But there is nothing, only smoke. He walks, the flames make him think of the night he first met her, he was a dragon with flames coming from his mouth, burning Morgan Bellamy’s small girly feet –

He stops.

Because he has just realized.

Flames from his mouth.

He’s the one who killed me.

The Demon is not the priest.

The Demon is him.

He looks down at his hands. They are huge scaly claws. When he touches his face it’s like rock.

He is the Demon. He is the one that has to die for the game to be over.

Now he knows, that is why he is crying.

The smoke is everywhere black like the world’s been scribbled out. There’s no way out of here. He’s alone in the black fire. He feels so sad! But the smoke is so soft, it rolls around him like a blanket. So he lies down.

In the distance of his hand his phone rings. It is the World to tell him it’s time to die. But that’s okay, he is remembering other things. He is remembering that first night, when Lori rolled up to him and swept over him like a bright white wave. Even after everything he still has that night, and as the smoke piles up over him, becoming a Door that slowly opens, he holds it tight in his Demon’s hand.

And when it sings to him – so far away, wrapped up in his fingers! – he imagines even after everything it is her voice, a song calling him, calling and calling him, to where she is waiting, into sleep.