Watchers Chapter Two

Watchers

Chapter Two

From the back seat of the car, Ciana just kept shaking her head. “Why here, again?”

Her mum, who was trying to concentrate on the road and the satnav, replied, “You know why! Your dad has a new position in his company, which meant moving. It just so happened the houses around here are going really cheaply, and we’re not far from the new factory.”

Ciana glanced out of the window, watching the houses go by. “I’m not surprised they’re so cheap,” she muttered. Each house that whizzed past looked abandoned. Some houses still had cars in the driveway, but the lawns were overgrown. It was weird.

“Please, just give it a chance,” her mum whispered.

“Oh cool!” RJ, Ciana’s little brother, called. “Look!”

“What?” Ciana sneered. There was nothing cool about this town, it was all weird.

RJ turned on the seat and stared out of the rear window, his arms pushing down the mountain of possessions that filled the boot. “There was an old building, with a load of the walls missing and there was a cemetery.”

Ciana rolled her eyes and shuddered, “Really cool.” She leant through to the front, “Please do not tell me that I left all my friends and our house to live here, where a cemetery is the town highlight!”

“Ciana,” Rhianne sighed with an aggressive undertone. “It’s a lovely town and a really nice house. We haven’t seen any of this place yet, just please give it a rest!”

Ciana sat back, arms crossed and sullen. She looked at her brother who was still facing out the back, he smiled and waved. She turned to see their dad, Ryan, driving the rent-a-van behind. She grimaced and faced front, popping her headphones in she turned the music on her phone up full whack.

Five minutes later the car pulled onto a drive of another derelict house, and Rhianne switched off the engine. 

Ciana pulled out her headphones and stared out the window, bemused at the house that sat in front of her. She was angry that they moved, and she was angry that they did it all in hardly anytime at all. But, most of all she was angry because most of her stuff had been thrift-ed away like she had died rather and wasn't moving with them. “I still don’t see why we had to giveaway my bed!”

Rhianne had grown tired of trying the softly, softly approach. There was only so much attitude she could take and she'd been on the receiving end of Ciana's moods for weeks. “Because the house came fully furnished. They’re re-development houses, where they’re trying to build the town up. Something to do with people moving further into the cities meant those that lived here were slowly dying through old-age and no one new was moving into the area. We’re part of the redevelopment.”

“Right.” Ciana climbed out of the car.

“Welcome!” A voice shouted, cheerily.

Ciana jumped and nearly fell back into the car.

The creepy little man had appeared from nowhere and was now staring into the car with a wide-eyed expression, and an over-sized and ugly grin. His hair was a mix of browns and greys, all brushed heavily to one side.

“Welcome!” He said again, and continued to smile. Not once did he blink, nor did his lips meet over his huge teeth.

“Hi?” Rhianne called equally as cheery, as she shut her door.

“Good morning!” He clapped his hands almost doing a little jig on the spot. He looked at each of them. “I’m Malcolm, head of the LittleBridge committee. I’m here to welcome you, and show you around your new home.”

“I think you did that three times,” Ciana muttered under her breath.

Malcolm turned his head, his expression not changing, and watched as Ryan jumped out of the van. “What’s this, welcoming committee?” Ryan laughed to himself.

Rhianne smiled, and through gritted teeth said, “Yes.”

Ryan grimaced, “Oh.”

Ciana couldn’t stop staring at Malcolm and his perfect hair. It was almost like a lego hairpiece; it was so glossy. Even his skin was so smooth and shiny, it could have been plastic.

“Now you are all here, welcome!” He led Rhianne and Ryan towards the house. “This is all yours, and we hope you will be very happy.”

RJ ran off ahead to go and check out the house, while Ciana stayed on the driveway. She leant against the car and looked at the street they were now living in. “Third Avenue,” she muttered to herself. “Not even a proper street name, just a number. And it’s so quiet. Great!”

Each of the houses all looked the same, and there were at least twenty in this road. Each of them were all uninhabited, she could tell. The silence of the street was suddenly cut through by a group of crows flying overhead. They flew towards the house directly opposite her new home, and settled in the trees that sat behind. The trees were so big, they towered over the house and Ciana could see each bird staring down at her.

“Stupid birds!” She growled, “Better not wake me in the mornings!” She noticed one of the curtains move in the house. She took a few steps closer, stepping onto the road.

“So, what do you think?” Malcolm appeared by her side, making her jump again.

“S…Sorry?” She stuttered, trying to hide the fact that he majorly creeped her out.

“About the house?” He grinned, and tilted his head as he looked at her.

“Erm, it seems…nice.”

“Good,” his smile grew wider, which seemed impossible. “You’re going to love it around here. And, there are plenty of friends waiting for you at the school.”

“Yeah,” Ciana regarded him strangely, and backed towards the house.

Malcolm followed her. “So, you must be Ciana?" 

"Yup," she grinned awkwardly. 

“Ciana Crie?” His smile was still there, and she was trying to tell if he was mocking her.

“Yes,” she huffed. She had already endured years of teasing over her name, and she knew she would have to go through it all again at this new school. Years of people saying, “Have you seen Ciana Crie?” and before anyone could answer the response would be, “Well, do you wanna?”

“Did you have anything you want to ask?”

She wanted to know why he smiled like he was a maniac, but she couldn’t. “Who else lives in this street?”

“No one.”

“So no one lives in any of these houses?”

“No,” his smile didn’t falter.

“Oh, maybe it was that flock of birds that made the curtain move.”

Malcolm's eyes flicked towarrds the house, and he nodded, "I would have thought so."

“It’s a murder,” RJ said, he too appeared behind her.

“What?” Ciana gasped.

“A flock of crows, it’s called a murder.”

Malcolm bent down and ruffled RJ’s hair, “Aren’t you a smart fellow?”

RJ nodded and Ciana sneered, “Yeah, a regular Stephen Hawking.”

“Cici,” Rhianne called from inside.

Ciana hated her name and her nicknames given by all, but her grandfather had chosen her name twenty years ago. Her grandfather was a vicar in the town where they used to live, but he had died long before Ciana was born. There was never a reason given as to why she should have that name, it was just forced upon her. But, Cici made her feel like a handbag-dog. “What?”

“Help your brother get stuff out of the car please?”

She rolled her eyes and followed RJ to the car.

“I will be seeing you around,” Malcolm waved.

Ciana turned to wave goodbye but he was gone, vanished into thin air. “Weirdo!”

“Who?” RJ asked.

“Malcolm, he’s just weird.”

“Your weird,” he replied.

“Shut it, Freak!”

RJ ran towards the house shouting, “Mum, Ciana called…”

Pulling the things from the boot, Ciana couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. She looked back to the house where the curtain had moved, just waiting to see a face or some kind of life. But there was nothing.