Golden boy (standard:horror, 1607 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Feb 04 2010	Views/Reads: 3419/2025	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A new football sensation is destined for stardom, but not if a disgruntled fan gets his way.

As he watched the football results in an electrical retailer's window,
he saw that the only goal scored in the Denwick-Whitelaw match was 
scored by Tristan Simian, Swedish striker. It didn't surprise him one 
iota. Tristan played for Denwick in the third division, and at his 
current firing rate, his team were heading for the top of the league. 
They were fourth. It wouldn't have surprised him if talent scouts had 
already got their eye on him. 

Peter Conrad hated him. The team he supported with a passion, Penhallow
town were languishing in the lower half of the table in the same 
division, and when the two teams met, he watched on with despair as 
Denwick's golden boy ran rings around the Penhallow men and netted a 
few winners. This time, however, things were different. Penhallow were 
as close as they had ever been to silverware. They were in the 
semi-final of the FA Cup, much to people's surprise, and were playing 
Denwick, whom he knew had gotten that far because of Tristan. There was 
one more league match before the following weekend which was when they 
played each other. Denwick were bound to play golden boy, and Peter 
couldn't face the prospect of his team being knocked out by him. He 
knew he couldn't allow it. 

Peter was 36, and lived across the road from his parents. Their inward
satisfaction at his announcement that he was leaving home at 34, was 
dampened somewhat by the fact that he simply moved into a block of 
bedsits opposite. He was a student, studying international relations 
and politics, in his second year. When he wasn't debating South 
Africa's economic climate or New Zealand's carbon emissions, he was 
following his beloved Penhallow town, attending every home game, and 
cutting out newspaper and magazine articles and photographs which 
featured them. 

Golden boy was now a serious threat, not just to the team, but to him.
As he walked away from the window, he wondered how he could stop him. 
What could he do to stop him from playing? Find Tristan's address, have 
a little ‘word'? tell him to feign illness? Threaten to hurt his 
friends and family? No, stop him playing altogether. End his football 
career. What was more important, Penhallow winning their first trophy, 
or ending golden boy's career? Peter smiled a humourless smile as he 
turned a corner. 

Through his acquaintances at the university, and his own investigations,
he managed to find golden boy's home address, and saw that it was 47 
miles away in Camborne. He didn't have a set plan. All he knew was that 
before the teams met each other, Tristan's career had to end. Denwick 
were playing Mountberry in their next game, so that would be the 
perfect time to enter his house and wait for him to come back. He 
didn't know if he lived with anybody or not, as golden boy was only 19, 
was a swift, lithe figure, had long dulled blonde hair which he kept 
back with a band, and always pleaded with the referee whenever 
reprimanded. With clasped hands and pleading eyes, he had sometimes had 
decisions reversed. 

The three days Peter had before the game were filled with apprehension
and doubt. Sometimes he had second thoughts. Maybe he won't be played, 
maybe he'll get injured, maybe he just won't score. Yet, on the day of 
the Camborne match, he found himself on a train, and walking along 
pathways and lanes to find golden boy's house, and when he found it, 
surrounded by conifers, he saw that the main entrance had an intercom 
at the side of large, creosoted doors that automatically swung back 
when activated by the owner. Going in that way was out. He decided to 
use the intercom to see if anybody was in. He would simply say if Derek 
Miller was home, that way he would be told that he'd got the wrong 
house. After the third press of the button, there was no answer. With 
the house on a narrow tarmaced road, with similar houses also 
surrounded by greenery, he looked around and saw that nobody was 
around, and nor could they be in a position to see him. They could, 
however, suddenly appear from either road direction, so Peter knew he 
had to act fast, and scaled the fence beside the entrance, which wasn't 
too difficult. He fell in a bed of white roses. 

Standing up and gathering his bearings, he decided to walk around the
back, but found his way blocked by a gateway. All he had to do was 
reach through and unhook the latch, which he did, and soon found 
himself on a backyard lawn, looking across at an open shed. He was sure 
he could find a better weapon than the bike chain he'd brought along 


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