The Invasion of Crooked Oak Read online

  First published in 2020 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2020

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2020 Dan Smith

  The moral right of Dan Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-80090-002-8

  Awesome reader, this is for you

  Contents

  1. Something Strange

  2. Carpenter's Field

  3. Eyes of the Dead

  4. Freaky Weird

  5. A Stab of Fear

  6. In the Shadows

  7. A Terrible Discovery

  8. Too Late

  9. Ambush

  10. Escape

  11. Screams in the Night

  12. The Infected

  13. All Together

  14. Aftermath

  CHAPTER 1

  Something Strange

  Pete Brundle and his best friend Krish were looking at their phones in the dinner hall, ignoring the commotion around them. They weren’t supposed to use phones at school, but there was another weird story on their favourite website, The Mystery Shed. The story was about a town in Australia that had been over run by spiders. There was even a video, so it was too good to miss.

  “That’s awesome,” Pete said. “I wish something like that would happen in Crooked Oak. This village is so boring. Nothing ever—”

  BAM!

  Someone slammed into them, and Krish’s new phone went flying. It hit the floor with a CRACK! and spun under the nearest table.

  Krish dropped down and scooted after it. Pete turned to see their friend Nancy Finney standing behind him. She was the smartest kid in Year Eight. Short and skinny with hair the colour of autumn leaves, Nancy had pale blue eyes and a spattering of freckles on her cheeks.

  “What did you do that for?” Pete said, frowning.

  “Sorry,” Nancy said. “That big idiot pushed me.”

  “Who are you calling an idiot?” Tyson Bridges said. He was in the year above them and twice as big as everyone else in school.

  “I’m calling you an idiot,” Nancy said, looking up at him. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

  Tyson balled his meaty hands into fists. “You’re that kid whose mum works at the fracking site, aren’t you?” he said. “On Carpenter’s Field. It’s out of bounds now, and we can’t play there any more. My dad says your mum’s a traitor for working there and that everyone in the village hates her.”

  “Leave Nancy alone,” Pete told Tyson, and stood up. “The fracking site has been closed down now, haven’t you heard? And you do know her dad’s the Head Teacher?”

  “So?” Tyson glared at Pete. “One more reason to hate her.”

  “Well …” Pete tilted his head. “He’s right over there.”

  Tyson narrowed his eyes at Mr Finney standing by the dinner hall entrance. Tyson’s hands relaxed and he leaned close to Nancy as he said, “I’ll be watching you.”

  Tyson stalked away, and Nancy went to collect her dinner.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” she said as she came back to the table and sat down on the opposite bench.

  “No problemo,” Pete replied. He brushed a strand of blond hair away from his forehead, then shovelled half a roast potato into his mouth.

  Krish was checking his phone, muttering that his mum would kill him if it was broken.

  “Do you guys want to hear something really weird?” Nancy said.

  “Like what?” Krish asked, and glanced up at her.

  Nancy sighed and put her hand to her mouth as if she didn’t want to say it. “It’s my mum and dad,” she began. “I mean … there’s something strange about them.”

  “Strange?” Krish pushed his glasses up his nose, making his dark brown eyes look enormous. This was his serious mode.

  “Yeah, they’ve changed,” Nancy went on. “It’s like they’re not really my parents.”

  “In what way?” Krish asked, looking interested.

  “Well, you know when someone’s mouth smiles but their eyes don’t? They’re like that. No emotion.” Nancy stared at the lunch congealing on her plate. “This probably sounds stupid, but when I told Mum I got an A in my Maths test yesterday, she hardly said a word. Normally she makes a big fuss.”

  “Is that it?” Krish asked. He sounded unimpressed, and Pete knew why. Krish got a B in that test, and he hated being the second smartest kid in their class. His mum and dad expected him to be top in everything, no excuses. Krish said he had a “Tiger Mum, Indian Style”, and he was right – Pete had met her.

  “No, that’s not it,” Nancy said. “Mum and Dad have started keeping the curtains closed all the time, even when it’s sunny outside. And they keep going out at strange times during the night.”

  “Doesn’t sound that weird,” Krish said. “My mum keeps the blinds closed all day. She says it stops the photos on the wall from fading.”

  Pete nudged Krish to shut up, then gave Nancy a supportive look. “When did it start?” Pete asked her.

  Nancy thought for a moment. “A few days ago, maybe? Not long after the fracking site was shut down.” Her face lit up as if she’d suddenly remembered something. “Yeah,” Nancy added. “Dad took Mum down there to pick up some files, and they were acting weird when they got back.”

  Their Geography teacher had given them a lesson about Hydraulic Fracturing, or “fracking” as everyone was calling it, when the site at Carpenter’s Field had first opened. Mr Craven had explained how the people from the gas company would drill into the ground, pump in water, sand and chemicals, then suck it all back out again. That would release gas to power central heating systems and cookers and other things.

  But everyone in the village had been furious about the idea. They’d said fracking could cause small earthquakes. They’d also said that the chemicals used were highly poisonous and could get into the drinking water. It had been all anyone in Crooked Oak had talked about for months. Loads of protests had taken place outside Carpenter’s Field. People with banners, shouting and getting angry.

  Pete wasn’t listening to Nancy any more. He was thinking about how he and Krish and Nancy used to spend time building camps in the woods around Carpenter’s Field – before it’d been fenced off. But now that the fracking site had suddenly been shut down, Pete wondered if they’d get the field back soon. No one really seemed to know what was going on with it.

  “I used to love playing in Carpenter’s Field,” Pete said. “Remember how we used to catch those tiny fish in the beck?”

  “Sticklebacks,” Nancy said. “I remember. And my mum wasn’t doing the drilling – she just worked at the fracking site because she needed a job. She was in the office. And anyway—”

  “It’s all right,” Pete said. “We know it’s not your fault.”

  “I wish everyone else did,” Nancy said as she pushed a piece of soggy broccoli around her plate. “People like Tyson Bridges keep saying my mum’s a traitor.”

  “Ignore them,” Pete told her.

  They sat in silence for a while, picking at their food, until Nancy said, “So what do you think? About my mum and dad?”

  Krish shrugged. “Doesn’t sound that weird to me.”

  But Pete wasn’t so sure. He’d always liked Mr Finney, but when Pete looked back now
and saw the Head Teacher staring right at them, he couldn’t help feeling creeped out.

  There was a strange, dead look in Mr Finney’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Carpenter's Field

  At the end of school, Pete and Krish went to get their bikes, while Nancy went to her music lesson.

  “I reckon Nancy’s mum and dad are vampires,” Pete said to Krish. “They went down to the fracking place to get some files and got bitten.”

  Krish rolled his eyes. “You’re obsessed with vampires! You need to read more instead of playing video games and watching horror films all the time.”

  “But it makes sense,” Pete insisted. “They keep the curtains closed, so they must be scared of daylight. And they keep going out at night.”

  “They’re not vampires, Pete,” Krish said.

  They unlocked their bikes and wheeled them to the school gates.

  “Do you have to get home straight away?” Pete asked.

  “Why?” Krish asked.

  “Come with me.”

  Pete and Krish pedalled out of school, through the village and along Ridley Lane. The wind was cold on their faces as they rode between the high hedges on each side of the lane.

  “We’re going to Carpenter’s Field?” Krish asked as he worked hard to keep up with Pete. “What for?”

  “I just want to have a look,” Pete said.

  When they reached Carpenter’s Field, the boys stopped. The enormous field was surrounded by a tall hedge and there were woods in the distance. Crows flew in circles above the golden treetops, cawing in the afternoon autumn air.

  The field had been a special place as long as Pete could remember. Generations of kids from Crooked Oak had built camps here. Everyone used to come and play football, and hide and seek. They’d netted sticklebacks in the stream and swung over it on the old frayed rope.

  But a few months ago, the gas company had put a chain link fence around it all, double the height of the boys, topped with barbed wire. The only way in was through a locked gate. They had torn up the ground to build a well pad – a huge rectangle of concrete. And the site was filled with rows of enormous metal shipping containers and portable offices. Trucks had been coming and going along Ridley Lane for weeks.

  Pete hadn’t seen the fracking site since it was first built. He hadn’t been able to go to the protests because Mum was having one of her chronic back pain attacks. He spent most of his time looking after her when he wasn’t at school.

  “It looks different now,” Pete said. “Something’s changed.”

  “It’s the drill tower,” Krish said. “They came a couple of weeks ago and put that building round it. No one knows why.”

  In the middle of the site was a large metal building painted red. “BioMesa” was written across the side of it in big white letters. A tall drilling tower rose from the centre of it, like a complicated mesh of scaffolding.

  “And now it’s all closed down,” Krish said.

  “It’s so quiet.” Pete shuddered. “It’s creepy.” It was cold, and his breath came out in clouds.

  A magpie suddenly chattered in the branches of a conker tree behind them, on the other side of the lane. Krish jumped and gave Pete a sheepish look.

  “So if they’re not vampires, what are they?” Pete asked, and felt a shiver of nervous excitement. “Nancy said her mum and dad started acting weird after they’d been here to collect papers or something. And why did they put in that new building, then close it all down? It’s definitely a mystery.”

  “Is it?” Krish took a pack of gum from his pocket. “Do you remember that story on The Mystery Shed about the woman who thought her daughter was an imposter – a stranger pretending to be her daughter?”

  “The one in America?” Pete said.

  “Yeah. Turned out the woman had something called Capgras Syndrome. A condition that makes people think their family are imposters.” Krish popped a piece of gum into his mouth and threw the pack to Pete. “So maybe Nancy has Capgras Syndrome.”

  Pete fumbled as he tried to catch the gum and it dropped into a puddle. “Sorry,” he said, and pulled a face. “Wait. You think she’s imagining it?”

  “She could be,” Krish said.

  “But Nancy said her mum and dad keep all the curtains closed during the day. And they’ve got no emotions.”

  Krish shrugged. “That doesn’t mean they’re not her mum and dad. Or that they’re vampires.”

  “OK, but maybe there’s something else wrong with them,” Pete said. “Come on, this is what we’ve always wanted. Crooked Oak is so boring, nothing ever happens, but now we’ve got a mystery. I mean, even if it’s not a mystery, at least we can have fun investigating. Think about it.”

  “All right.” Krish ran a hand through his black spiky hair. “I’ll think about it. And you owe me some gum.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Eyes of the Dead

  When Pete arrived home, his mum was in the sitting room.

  “Good day at school?” she asked.

  “Uh huh,” Pete replied. “Your back still bad?”

  “Oh, it’ll get better.” His mum struggled to her feet and limped into the kitchen. “It just takes a while.”

  It had always just been Pete and his mum at home. His dad died before Pete was old enough to remember him. There were photos of Dad on the windowsill in the living room, but the man in the pictures might as well have been a complete stranger.

  “I’ll get tea,” Pete said. “You just sit down and rest your back.” It made him sad to see his mum struggling so much.

  Pete made beans on toast, and they ate it at the kitchen table.

  “Thanks, love, you’re such a gem.” Mum managed half a piece of toast and a few forks of beans before she pushed the plate away. “I’m so sick of this pain. A group of villagers is touring the Carpenter’s Field fracking site this evening. They’re going to talk about what will happen now it’s closed, and I really wanted to go but …” Mum sighed. “I just don’t think I can make it.”

  “I’m glad you’re not going,” Pete said. “That place is creepy.”

  After tea, Mum took her tablets and went to bed saying her back was too painful to sit and watch TV. Pete finished his homework in his bedroom, then fired up his clunky old laptop instead of playing video games.

  Slumped in his beanbag, Pete looked up as much as he could about fracking, and anything he could find about Carpenter’s Field. After that, he searched The Mystery Shed for something similar to Nancy’s story. The only video Pete found was the one Krish had mentioned about Capgras Syndrome, but Nancy seemed so normal. So sane. Pete just couldn’t bring himself to believe that Nancy was imagining it all.

  *

  Pete was up early the next day for his paper round. Mum couldn’t work when her back was bad, so it was his way of earning some extra money to help out. Pete checked on her, made her a cup of tea, then biked to King’s Corner Shop while stuffing down a piece of buttered toast. Mr King always cheered Pete up with his friendly smile and his corny joke of the day.

  “Morning,” Pete called as the bell jangled over the shop door.

  Pete had been doing the paper round for Mr King for almost a year, and they knew each other well. Normally it was difficult to get Mr King to stop talking, but this morning he stood silently in the shadow behind the counter.

  It was then that Pete realised how dark it was inside the shop. There weren’t any lights on at all. And there was a strange but familiar musty smell.

  “Umm,” Pete said, remembering what Nancy had told him about her parents sitting in the dark. “Paper round?”

  Instead of giving Pete his usual chirpy smile, Mr King pointed at the bag on the counter and said, “All there.” His voice was lower than usual.

  “Right.” Pete walked up to the counter and caught sight of Mr King’s eyes. They were blank. No expression at all. They were exactly how Pete imagined the eyes of the dead would be.

  “How’s your mum?” Mr King as
ked, but there was no emotion in his voice. It sounded like he didn’t care one jot about Pete’s mum.

  “Um … fine.” Pete paused. “Are you … all right, Mr King?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Mr King replied. His soft words were like cold fingers sliding down Pete’s spine.

  Pete snatched the satchel of newspapers, then backed away and made his escape into the fresh air.

  He jumped on his bike and scanned the centre of the village as he rode away. There were two people getting into a car on the other side of the green, and a man walking his dog, but it seemed quieter than usual. Pete began to ride around the village delivering newspapers and noticed that a lot of curtains were closed and there were fewer people in the streets heading to work. He had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Crooked Oak.

  Something felt different.

  CHAPTER 4

  Freaky Weird

  “There’s something going on,” Pete said as soon as he sat down next to Krish in form time. “Mr King was acting weird this morning. Like freaky weird. And the village is really quiet. It creeped me out doing my paper round.”

  “Sure you’re not just imagining it?” Krish asked. “After everything Nancy said yesterday, maybe you’re—”

  “Imagining it? No way,” Pete said. “I’m telling you, Mr King was acting strange.”

  When Nancy came in and joined them, she looked pale and tired. And scared.

  “What’s the matter?” Pete asked. “Is it your mum and dad?”

  Nancy nodded. “They’re getting worse. I don’t think I’ve seen them eat anything for at least two days. They drink water, but they don’t eat, and they keep the curtains drawn so it’s always dark. My dad’s normally really stingy when it comes to putting the heating on, but now it’s on full blast, so it’s roasting. I’m walking about in a T shirt, but they’re wearing jumpers and coats!” Nancy stopped babbling and put her head in her hands. “I’m scared. Something’s happened to them, and I don’t know what to do.”