 
STRANGEWORLD: THE MORTIFERA A. L. BROOKS

STRANGEWORLD

THE MORTIFERA

Copyright © 2015 A. L. BROOKS

No part of this publication may in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other means be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or be broadcast or transmitted without the prior permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

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_______________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THIS book is for Jenny and Lance Brooks. Better known to me as mum and dad. Thanks for bringing me into this world and thanks for making life such an adventure. You took me from Kitwe to Lake Malawi, Darwin to Milingimbi, Land's End to Loch Ness, Kailua to Haleakala, Colombo to Hong Kong, Pagadian to Baguio, Hua Hin to Nongkai, Uluru to Nourlangie, Vientiane to Pakse, Swisher to Medicine Bow. And it all started for me in one little VW Beetle across Africa.

~ ~ ~

A special thanks to Sharon and Tom. Thanks for putting up with this writing obsession of mine. It's not easy for you two when my head is off in the clouds most of the time but hopefully it'll all pay off one day. Thanks to Sharon also for your help in the technical side of things—lap top, PC and internet functions. (I'm still a bit stone-age when it comes to some of these things.)

A special mention to Elisa and Ashley (my sister and brother) for being my closest friends as we grew up as Third Culture kids. Every couple of years mum and dad took us off to some new country or place where we had to make friends all over again. It wasn't always easy and I wasn't always the easiest big brother to live with but you two were my constant companions and I really loved that you two were part of that adventure.

Thanks to my "proof readers" James Thomson, Ben Watt, Mary Anne Butler (who knew my writing strengths years before I did), and Bronwyn Mehan. (Any unintended grammatical glitches, if they remain, or any other error, are mine.) Thanks also to the Northern Territory Writer's Centre for being there over the years when I've needed advice. And thanks to Michael Foster for giving me my initial break.

One final mention to my father. You were the first person to read this book but sadly you passed into the great universe beyond before you could see it published. You weren't perfect dad (no-one is) but you really were one of a kind, something I have only really began to understand since you've been gone. Your lust for life, your humble nature, and how you could be comfortable playing footy or cricket one minute and then be dressed up as a pirate in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore the next. Thanks for being my dad. You always encouraged me in whatever I wanted to pursue and for that I will be eternally grateful. I won't say Rest In Peace because I know Earth and the universe are far too tantalising to be lying down missing it all. So, have fun traveling and exploring all those fantastic worlds out there...

Thanks to all

A. L. Brooks

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT STRANGEWORLD: THE MORTIFERA

STRANGEWORLD: THE MORTIFERA was originally published back in 2012 with independent Australian publisher Dragonfall Press, available in both print and eBook format. In 2013 Dragonfall Press succumbed to financial pressures and folded which meant that my brief time as a published author was over.

Since then I have concentrated on sending my glorious masterpiece out to other publishers. But the traditional publishing route can be a long, drawn out process, usually involving waiting around for months for a reply. Publishers also want authors to jump through a hundred hoops before they'll even entertain looking at your work. So I've decided I won't wait any longer for a publisher to make up their mind. Thus, here I am going down the self-publishing path.

To the people who bought Strangeworld: The Mortifera the first time round with your hard earned cash: there has been the odd change to the story. But nothing major. I have deleted some segments, cut and pasted other bits, or added some new bits. Fundamentally the plot is exactly how it was when you read it.

Thanks to all of you who took a chance on it. And thanks to those who'll take a chance on it in the future. I'm glad to have you all along for the ride.

Thank you,

A. L. BROOKS

PS – Remember dear reader, if you think this book is alright or even if you think it's sort of brilliant, please feel free to leave a review.

A Note On The Text:

Keep in mind that this is a tale seen from the point of view of an 18 year old lad who doesn't quite have full command over his story-telling skills. The occasional change in tense from past to present is a deliberate technique on my part to convey this. I have also played with grammar here and there for the same reason.

Happy Reading...

Also by

A. L. B R O O K S

CLOUDFYRE FALLING

a dark fairy tale

Something is killing all living things on Cloudfyre.

Will Gargaron the giant have enough time to uncover the mystery before his world is lost?

____________________________________

THE SHAPESHIFTERS

Arrabel Grean goes on the run from the Royal Lancers after she beheads the Hampton Baroness.

But having fled to the Dread Forests she is found by the Bonekeepers.

Will they hand her over to authorities? Or do they have something else in mind for her?

____________________________________

COMING IN 2016

• EPHEMERYS

COMING IN 2017

• STRANGEWORLD: DAWN OF SHADOWS

If you love monsters, magic and adventure then don't miss these ripping tales!

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT STRANGEWORLD: THE MORTIFERA

ALSO BY A.L. BROOKS

PART ONE: THE MONSTER

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

THE BLOODBATH

THE HAUNTING

WALKING TREE

THE HOBGOBLIN

THE MADMAN

THE WARCHEST

BLOOD TRAIL

THE HORROR

THE REVELATION

THE BUCCA

THE DARK RIVER

THE SECRET

THE CRIMSON WRATH

THE MISSING

THE MONSTER

PART TWO: THE DOORWAY

THE REANIMATED

THE DEMONS

THE REGRESSION

THE BURNING

THE APES

THE MEETING

THE STAKEOUT

THE VISITOR

THE NIGHTSTALKER

DOOMSDAY EVE

THE DOORWAY

PART THREE: STRANGEWORLD

THE SAVAGE GARDEN

CHESSBURN

THE APPOINTMENT

THE CHARON

THE PROPHECY

BEAST AT THE GATE

THE VANISHED

THE TERMINATED

BLACK WEDNESDAY

DEAD MAN'S DRAW

GHOUL'S RETURN

RACE PREPARATIONS

THE SCROLL

THE CREEPING DEATH

THE LAZARUS WEED

RETURN TO FORGOTTEN

PART FOUR: THE BEHEMOTHS

THE CHASE

THE GOMM

THE LONG DRIVE

LUSAKAH

THE ESCAPE

THE KITWEI PLAINS

NDOLA

THE CRONES

TREK TO KALALUSHI

THE AMBUSH

KHEMMERAT

THE GUARDIANS

THE SKY DOG

THE CODE BREAKER

THE BLUE STONE

THE SCRAMBLE

HELL'S EDGE

END OF DAYS

STRANGEWORLD Q&A

STRANGEWORLD

THE MORTIFERA

To the residents of a remote Cornish village, their medieval archway is nothing more than a quaint monument that serves as one of the main regional tourist attractions. But when a mysterious creature begins slaughtering people, Jake Crassly discovers something bizarre: the archway hides a secret doorway.

As the killings continue, Jake, like most, believes it's the work of a feral cat. But rumours spread that it could be something far more ominous. A creature unlike anything that has ever walked the earth.

In the midst of growing village panic, Jake sets about trying to unravel the secret behind the doorway. In his quest to find a key, he comes across the desiccated face of an ancient witch.

A face that might just prove crucial to unravelling the doorway's bizarre mystery.

And when Jake, with the assistance of his step-sister, Emily, finally unlocks the door and steps through, he discovers that everything he knew about his village has been turned upside-down.

But here he and Emily learn about the origin of the monster, and almost too late, they realise the doorway must be shut.

Now the race is on. They have five days to get home. Five days to decipher the riddle of the doorway. And five days to work out how to shut the door for good.

If they don't, then their village, and everyone they know, is doomed.

_________________________________________

~ PART ONE ~

THE MONSTER

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

1

AS FAR as I remember it, the killings kicked off in July with the bloody massacre on the Harris farm. Two dozen corpses had been mysteriously strewn around the barley fields. Their guts had been ripped out. Blood ran like a river. Organs steamed in the summer sun. No-one had any clue as to who or what the fuck had killed them. Rumour had it that the Darcy's hounds had been on the rampage again. But the dead were all half-ton heifers. And by all signs, they'd been tossed about as effortlessly as a grizzly bear run rampant through a scout camp. So that didn't make any sense.

All I know is, I saw it. The aftermath, I mean. On my way back from Plymouth. Right there where the B5748 skirts the southern border of Harris's farm. And to put it plainly, it still stands as one the most bizarre things I've ever seen. It's not every day you drive by a dozen massacred cows and two folk with their throats gashed open. And there might've been a bunch of dead cops too if we hadn't stopped in time.

Like complete and utter twats, the police had parked their van in the middle of the road. Maybe it was an attempt to hide the scene from the public. Or maybe the police were in the process of setting up some sort of road block. Whatever the fuck they were doing, it's just lucky old Muldoon's got some reflexes left in his aging bones. Because he managed to brake and yank the double-decker Spitfire coach into the lay-by before we slammed into the van.

The evasive action sent us out of our seats of course. I was sitting next to Emily Sanders at the time. Cornwall's most pretentious, arrogant, moron. Actually, I'd go as far as to say she's the UK's most pretentious, arrogant, moron. I'm allowed to say that because she's my step sister. And I was only sitting next to her because the Plymouth train was late into Brandywine and we were last to22 board the coach. But like me, she's not immune to basic physics. If you've got mass on top of velocity and you throw in rapid deceleration and add a bunch of twats who aren't wearing seat belts... well it adds up to one pretty big fuck up.

So, as the Spitfire skidded off the7 roadway we flew from our seats like dead pigs off a meat truck. First impact was against the back-rests in front of us (that really hurt), and when Morton wheeled the old bus into the lay-by, we flung out across the aisle.

That time of year, being the start of summer, the bus was full of tourists. So it probably looked pretty spectacular: this wave of holiday makers, mixed with a handful of Cornish locals, surging wildly across the coach. And when it was all good and done, when the coach finally came to a standstill, I found myself buried under legs and arms and bits and pieces of old gits who would've been on their mummy's tit around the time Hitler swallowed his sleeping pill. And to add insult to it all, Emily had her face crammed against my groin.

She screwed up her eyes when she realised it. She made this pathetic sound too, like, 'Eewk!' Like she'd landed in a steaming pile of dog eggs.

Hadn't exactly been a picnic for me either. Finding her nose jammed against my bollocks. I would've told her too but by the time I'd untangled myself and climbed to my feet I saw it: the white Citroen hatchback and the dead folk and all those slaughtered cows.

2

There's a gravel road that leads through the1 hedge there on that particular stretch of the B5784. The gravel road winds up onto the Harris property. The Citroen was wedged half beneath the hedge, and the windscreen was smashed in. You could see the driver and passenger stuck in there. I wondered why the police weren't rushing to haul them out but I hadn't noticed how still they were. And if I strained my eyes a bit I realised their heads were lolled back and their throats looked gashed open and there was a ton of drying blood pushed out the ruptured door jam.

It was then I took in the cows scattered about the hill like pillows with the stuffing wrenched out of them.

With them and the poor sods in that car, it was a pretty horrific scene.

It was just as well some of the old bods on the16 coach were still scrabbling round looking for their glasses and hair-pieces, because a lot of them didn't witness any of that shit. But those who did, those who copped an eye-full, well they went about fainting or they simply sat there in stunned silence.

Anyway, so that's how summer kicked off. With the cows. And the folk in that Citroen.

For me, that was the first sign of the monster.

3

It wasn't long after this that we heard the rumours, of course. That some strange beast was stalking the region. Until then, I thought like most others had, that the Darcy's hounds had ripped through Harris's herd. I certainly wasn't expecting anything otherworldly.

Burnchess village lies on the Hidden Sea Coast, round about three miles west of Lambeth and eight miles south-east of Horsefall. Amongst the numerous medieval ruins that dot the landscape around our way, we have our very own stone circle, the remains of a cliffside castle, and, of course, Burnchess's signature landmark: the Burnchess Archway, the medieval entrance to our village, the monument featured on most postcards and the front covers of calendars. We have about a thousand people who live in the village permanently. We have a central market place where local farmers sell fresh produce. Where local artists sell pottery or landscape paintings, where writers sell books of poetry. We have a small fishing industry, but our main source of revenue comes from tourists. All in all, Burnchess is a fairly peaceful spot. The biggest arguments come from those on the village council who whine about such critical issues as to whether or not cyclists ought to be allowed on village streets. Other than a big storm that shook our village back in the 1950's, other than a big cat that ate a few people a few short years ago, nothing much happens down our way.

That's why it was difficult to comprehend the dead cows and the dead people in that car. And that's why when we finally reached Burnchess, I was puzzled by the talk of some mysterious creature stalking the region.

It was old Mister Hogshead who I first heard mentioned it. He was there at the Barley Mill coach terminal, seated in the Hare Of The Dog charabanc, awaiting the day's load of hotel guests to arrive from Brandywine. I spotted him as we motored out of the Seven Ghosts woodland and rolled down Coddington Lane toward the mill. I spotted him as the tourists on the coach suddenly seemed to forget we'd ever witnessed the dead cows and the dead people as they scrambled for photos and selfies and footage of the famous Archway.

I sighed and sat there as patiently as I could with my arms folded and my headphones on and my music turned up. Listening to José González's Killing For Love. Emily was busy waving at her mum, Louise Sanders, who stood beneath the eaves of the mill, waving back at us like an idiot as the Spitfire crossed the parking lot and pulled up in the coach lane.

As we came down the stairwell, Louise was right there in our faces, tears in her eyes, gripping Emily in a big fat hug, moaning into her shoulder, 'Oh, Emmy, I've missed you sooo much.'

I could've emptied my stomach contents on their shoes but I let them get on with it. Louise called, 'You too, Jake, welcome home!' (I could just make it out over the drumming music in my headphones), but you knew it was fake with that God-awful voice of hers. I mean, she wouldn't have cared less if I was wearing concrete boots at the bottom of the lake.

I nodded at Hogshead as he moved in to help Inn guests with their luggage; Muldoon and bus conductor Charlton Jones were busy hauling it all from the hold and dumping it onto the pavers. But I didn't hang around. I grabbed my bag and got on my way, noticing then that Charlton Jones was looking at me strange. I was halfway to the top of Castle Grove when I glanced back and he was still looking at me strange.

I didn't speak to Hogshead until about ten minutes later when I eventually reached the Hare Of The Dog. By then he'd already rolled past in the charabanc, Louise and Emily seated beside him, and the long carriage behind them loaded up with tourists. Scuppers, Emily's doe eyed, floppy eared, Cavalier, had sat there barking at me. By the time I reached the Inn, Louise had herded all her guests indoors, leaving old Mr Hogshead with the luggage.

I mean, okay, that's Hogshead's job, but Louise is more than aware he's got a damn heart condition. That he's got one leg two inches shorter than the other. That he's got slight elephantiasis of the testicles, which brings on a rash on hots days and gives off a pretty ripe stink. But her priority is always her guests so Hogshead's always left with the heavy lifting.

'Nice of her to leave you with all the work as usual,' I told him as I approached. I pitched in for a couple of minutes, jumping into the charabanc, passing suit cases and bags down to him. Hogshead's Clydesdales, Coral and Seabush, stood there snorting and flicking their ears. I noticed Seabush had a fairly full shit-bag dangling below her arse. It gave off pretty rank odour.

Hogshead probably couldn't smell it. He's probably used to it. He was chuffed with my assistance though, I think. Bit hard to tell actually because he kept saying, 'Thanks, Jake lad, you don't have to, you know. I'll be royt from here, I expect.'

But I didn't pull up till we were done. Then as he began the task of dragging all those cases and bags indoors, well, that's when he said it. He was standing there watching me, the pub sign swinging in the salty breeze two or three metres above his head and I was about to ask if he was alright when he put down his cases and he says, 'Jake, listen. Oy must warn ya about summat. Summat that's been going on here of late. This past week, oy seen summat mighty weird out there in the wilds. Summat most unnatural. There be some unholy beast stalking our village. And this very mornin' they're sayin' Harris found 'is herd all chopped ta bits. So, I need to tell yer, yer moynd the country lanes this season, won't yer, lad? Moynd where yer stray. Summat nasty is out there, summat hungry and evil. I got a bad feelin' about it. You hearin' what oym sayin'?'

He waited for me to nod, to let him know I'd heard him, I guess. Then he pulled the morning paper from his back pocket. 'If yer don't believe me lad, this moyt convince yer.'

I took it and unfolded it and was pretty wide-eyed when I saw the front cover. Under a heading that read Burnchess Terrorised By Unknown Monster, there sat a grainy colour photo showing off some kind of animal clambering over someone's car. (It was hard not thinking of those sods in that Citroen when I saw it, to tell you the truth.) And the animal was huge.

Still, the light in the photo was pretty ordinary. That animal could've been anything. Even the car... I mean, both of them could've been nothing but toys. Miniatures, like.

The accompanying article told of a bizarre account about Farmer Morton. It pretty much went like this: midnight the previous Friday, Farmer Morton's heading home from the Wrotting Worm pub. He gets halfway home when some "giant goblin" comes out of the darkness. He manages to wrestle out his mobile phone and takes a quick snap of the creature before the monster turns on him. If it hadn't for Amazon, Morton's female Clydesdale, belting away at lightning speed, he swears he would've been gobbled up.

Horseshit, was what I thought when I read that. But I didn't say it to Hogshead of course.

Because he was still looking at me dead serious like. And he says, 'Like I said lad, I got a bad feelin' about this. So, yer moynd where yer stray this summer, alroyt?'

I nodded again and with that he hefted up his suitcases and hobbled away indoors.

4

I didn't know what to make of his comments, really. I actually wondered if the old prick was going a bit senile. So I didn't really take too much heed of it all. Not right then. As for Morton, well Morton was a twat who was always up to some sort of scheme. And the knobs down at the Burnchess Gazette were simply in the business of selling papers and if some sensationalist piece of shit was going to help their quarterly bottom line then what the hell did they care?

I pushed through the Inn doors and found myself buried in the throng of all the newly arrived guests. I couldn't even move to begin with. Even after I said, 'Excuse me,' like a hundred times, none of them old gits got out of my way. Beyond them all, beyond the foyer, I could see a handful of punters at the bar; that subdued pre-lunch crowd who sip half pints and flick through the morning papers or sit around chatting about the weather. No doubt with that shit going down at Harris's, there was more than just the weather on their lips that morning. Meanwhile, Louise stood at the front of her horde, giving her Welcome to Burnchess speech, while her underlings checked-in her guests. And I still couldn't get through.

In the end I simply shoved my way into the throng, dragging my bag behind me. I kept saying 'Excuse me,' you know, to be polite and all. But I needn't have bothered because all I got was impatient looks and the like.

Eventually I made it to the stairwell, where I slung my bag over my shoulder and trudged up to my room on the fourth floor, happy to be away from that mothball riddled lot. Being stuck with them on the coach had been bad enough.

The stairwell creaked as I went. And the old walls seemed to shift and moan. I'd almost forgotten those sounds after being away at school. When the Inn's making noises like that you can see why some folk say the place is haunted. And with what I'd witnessed at the Harris farm that morning, the noises seemed far more ominous than normal.

The Inn was used as a mortuary during the war. And there's an old rumour that a medieval crypt lies beneath it. So, by rights the place should be haunted. But it's been home all my life (at least it was in the days before I got shipped off to boarding school six years back) and I've never known it to be.

About four or five hundred years ago when it was first built, the royals who inhabited the Burnchess castle used the Inn as overflow accommodation if they were hosting some swanky wedding ceremony or an annual fox hunt. And there was this family, the Belvoirs (apparently you pronounce it Beavers), lived there afterwards for like seven generations until they all mysteriously died out one deep, dark winter. Some people reckon they pissed off the witches in a local dispute, and late one rainy night the witches battered down their doors and stormed the Inn and wrenched out their beating hearts where they slept.

After that, the building lay abandoned for a hundred years. No one dared come near the place for fear it was cursed, and apparently the last of the Belvoirs lay dead there all that time, undisturbed in their beds until my Great Great grandad Maddox purchased the residence for a pittance in the mid-1800s. His first job was to lug out the desiccated corpses of the Belvoir clan, eighteen in all. Every one of them uncovered from layers of dust and every one of them found with their faces mysteriously removed.

After that, Great Great Grandad Maddox turned the place into an upmarket seaside hotel, and he and Great Great Grandma Myrtle catered for the rich and the well-to-do who travelled from as far away as Birmingham or London during the summer holidays to swill endless amounts of Pimm's or Plymouth Gin.

Nowadays it's just one of any number of guest houses in old Burnchess town. It was operated by my mother for twenty years before all that nightmare to do with her cancer. Back then when she first took it over, a thick strangled rug of green and purple ivy covered its outside walls. And that's no different nowadays. But it was Mum who strung the row of hanging baskets filled with lobelias and marigolds along the front windows. And the pub sign hanging from the second2 floor was erected by Grandad Maddox in the 1970s after he changed the Inn's name from the Mermaid's Teat to The Hare Of The Dog.

5

It was dark as a tomb in6 my bedroom when I pushed the door open that day. And musty as a crypt. I dumped my bag, drew the curtains aside and pushed the window out. Delicious reflected sunlight lit my room and the curtains fluttered with fresh ocean air. Cookie, Mum's tortoiseshell moggie, came in to greet me, knotting herself about my legs, meowing and purring, her tail curling about my knee. I picked her up, cradling her belly-up, scratching her along the spine like I've done since she was five weeks old. She gave me this contented look that seemed to say, So, now that you're back, I expect nothing but the best Atlantic salmon for my dinner. Every night. No exceptions. Or I'll claw your eyes out.

I dropped her onto the bed and she sprung effortlessly to the window sill where she could eye the gulls and the sparrows. I stood there for a moment, staring out across the village toward the clock tower and the old ruined village wall, all the way to the deep shadow of the giant stone maze a couple miles west. And no matter what, I still couldn't shift that crazy scene on Harris' farm out of my mind.

I hitched off my headphones and heard Louise and Emily chatting as they climbed the stairs, before moving along the landing and stepping into Emily's room. I moved over and shut my bedroom door.

It's always bugged me that Emily's bedroom's dead next to mine. With all the guest rooms that she and Louise could've moved into downstairs. But after Mum died, dad invited them to come live with us and Emily was given my old play room. I'd even suggested she and Louise sleep in the attic. There's rats up there of course but lots of space. Louise is4 now in with dad, (which is Mum's old bedroom), and that room lies down the hall past the kitchen and bathroom. Beyond that, on the eastern side of the building, lies the upstairs lounge room with its panoramic window overlooking the Village Green8 and the cliffs of the Drop Off and the blue coastal waters stretching round toward Clover Bay and the fishing town of Lambeth—which on a clear day you can just make out on the horizon. But sadly, that's about the extent of our "house". There are no other bedrooms. So like it or lump it, every time we've been back from school, I've had to put up with Emily being right there next door to me.

As usual, I put it out of my mind and I got about unpacking my stuff. As I upended the contents of my bag onto the floor I could hear the muted voices of Emily and Louise talking next door. I wasn't exactly bothered with what they were going on about until I heard my name mentioned. At that point I put my ear to the wall and heard Emily busy recounting the scene of the car crash and the slaughtered bovines. She kept asking Louise if she knew what on earth was going on. Louise sounded aghast. Like this was all news to her. And she kept getting Emily to repeat it all, as if what Emily was saying was utterly inconceivable.

Anyway, I ignored them. And sat there contemplating the pile of boarding school refuse that'd just tumbled from my bag. The Xbox games I'd bought in Plymouth and dirty clothes and socks and old crisp packets and sweets wrappers and some pens and my iPad and my sneakers. And yet, like Emily I guess, I still couldn't get those people in that car out of my mind.

Were they really dead?

Surely not. I must've read that scene all wrong, that's all. They were nothing more than police mannequins. Nothing more than a crash simulation, a training exercise.

As I'm trying to convince myself of this, I catch sight of the photo of Mum on the lamp stand beside my bed. I'd snapped that image when I was about ten. Mum and Dad and me had tucked into fish and chips on the beach in Loue. I think it's the most beautiful photo of Mum. She's sitting there on a rug in the sand, her legs curled behind her, her hair dangling over one shoulder, the side of her face caught in the sun. She holds this smile. A look of innocence and happiness. I've always thought it magical.

Once again that black knife of regret and sadness cut through my chest. I shook my head. I seem forever able to torture myself with how her life ended. A lump rose high in my throat... I swallowed and looked about my quiet room.

Dead bovines aside, here I was. Home again. Only it didn't feel like home anymore. It was filled with all the crap from my childhood—the wardrobe still stuffed with teddy bears and skateboards and action figurines and old cricket bats and Lego in ice-cream containers. My favourite books (Where The Wild Things Are, the Spiderwick Chronicles, my Harry Potter collection) sitting there neglected in the bookshelf. And all my old model aeroplanes (the Comets and DC3s, the Lancaster Bombers and Beau Fighters) which I used to hang by string from the ceiling to make them look like they were flying; and the model cars (the Austins, the Humbers, the Chevys) that I'd take to breakfast and zoom around the table while Mum was eating her cornflakes—all now just gathering dust on top of the utilities chest across the room.

Strange how somewhere along the way I woke up and realised girls and beer were far more stimulating than gluing plastic bits of shit together.

Yet here it all still was... All my childhood toys, waiting for someone who wasn't going to love them anymore. And none of it like home now, none of it like it'd ever been mine; like it all belonged to a young brown-haired boy I no longer knew; a boy who still had his mother and the old life. It was as if that skinny kid who'd stepped out of this room six years ago to go away to boarding school had vanished and somehow, in the meantime, I'd stepped into his place.

I still had Dad of course. He'd been looking forward to having me back so we could spend time together, get to know each other again now that school was out of the way. But... truth was, things just weren't the same between me and him anymore. Not with Mum gone. A peculiar sort of distance had crept between us. It meant I didn't want to hang around Burnchess any longer than I had to. I think maybe Dad expected me to go off to Plymouth Uni. Or go somewhere to study something. But that wasn't going to happen. Not yet anyway. My plan was to pick up a summer job to boost my cash reserves and buy an airfare out of there. Me and Mark had this idea about jetting off to Vietnam or Cambodia or Thailand somewhere.

And yet, as I sat there and contemplated all this, with Heartbeats by José González drifting from my headphones, the thing that kept creeping back into my mind was that crash on the Brandywine road... I just kept seeing it. The couple in that Citroen with their throats gashed open. And the dead cattle scattered across Farmer Harris' fields. I suddenly felt I needed to tell somebody about it before my chest burst.

I grabbed my phone and texted Mark, 'Whr R U? Need 2 tell u sumthing.'

6

Mark O'Rourke was slurping Sludgeshakes inside Mrs Kellaher's Lost Worlds Café up on Poppy Lane. He was plonked in our favourite booth by the floor-to-ceiling windows. The place clambered with a shitload of tourists and their booming conversation made the place sound like a fucking monkey house. But I almost didn't go in because I saw who Mark was sitting with.

Kate.

Kate Parsons.

Okay, so I've known Kate all my life. We've pretty much been best mates since we were born. We've been nude together. I've even got a photograph to prove it: three years old and the both of us were crammed in the wash tub at her mum's place. The thing about Kate is this: after all these years, I'd finally gone and done the stupidest thing I could ever have done and fallen in love with her. Sounds harmless enough, doesn't it? Except for one problem. She'd gone and fallen in love with Corey Waterson. World's greatest tosser.

Something I'd handled quite well, of course. By becoming insanely fucking jealous. To such an extent that I couldn't stand seeing them cuddling and smooching and holding hands. It made me want to punch Corey in the face. Mark told me there was nothing I could do but ignore them. So, I'd avoided them in the lunch hall at school, avoided them in the boarding house at dinner time, stopped checking Kate's Facebook and Twitter posts. Not easy but I'd managed it. I'd even opted to return to Burnchess a few days after Kate and Mark so I didn't have to hear Kate drone on about her new boyfriend. (Of course, that meant I'd ended up travelling with Emily. I mean, that's a pretty big compromise, if you ask me.)

Thing is, seeing her there in the café made me realise I didn't want to be anywhere near her. I mean, if I heard her mention Wankerson even once my head was going to fucking rupture.

So, I turned to leave; I'd catch up with Mark later.

But then I hear Kate call out. 'Jake! We're over here.'

Like I hadn't seen them, like I was some kind of idiot.

I sighed, turned around and crossed the café and Kate eyes me the whole way, like she thinks something funny's going on.

I reached the booth and sat down, saying, 'Hi guys.' I could hardly look Kate in the eye. I mean, normally there'd be cheeky banter between me and her, some innocent flirting. Or I'd have squeezed her knee under the table or something, pinched her arm, messed up her hair.

There was none of it that day, I can tell you.

Mark offered his knuckles as I sat and we fist-bumped. He sat there under his huge afro, slugging back his shake. He was in his purple Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. It looked like he hadn't bothered shaving since leaving school four days back. Some of the kids at school called him Sloth. Not because he's a lazy prick, but because he's pretty laid back and easy going. I mean, you wouldn't call him lazy if you saw how much he puts into his drawings and paintings and shit. His dream is to work as a monster designer on fantasy games. Or as some artist in the movie business. He's had a handful of artwork published in magazines. His GCSE's and A Levels probably took a bit of a knock because of his dedication (or obsession) with his art but, who knows, maybe it'll pay off some day. At least he's got that shit. My GCSE's and A Levels took a knock because all I wrote on my exam papers was COREY WANKERSON IS A COMPLETE TWAT!

Mark's dad hasn't lived there for like twenty-five years but he's originally from Papua New Guinea. A town called Lae. He met Mark's mum over there and they got married and moved back to England. That means Mark's lived all his life in the UK. He's been out to PNG a handful of times though. He tells a story about this one time he was over there and some family members got him to slaughter this wild pig with just his bare hands and a knife. It was some sort of initiation rite. That's where the pig tusk comes from, the one on a strip of leather he wears around his neck.

Mark says, 'So, what's this stuff you want to tell me?'

I take a breath and get ready to blurt it all out. But I'm conscious of someone overhearing. I look around. There're people in the booth behind me. I try leaning forward. But someone from the table across from us is looking at me.

Kate's staring at me. Frowning. I look at her and say, 'what?'

She says, 'You're acting really weird, you know that?'

I say, 'Weird?' and give her a look like she's the weird one. I mean, she's the one going out with the world's biggest tosser.

So now she folds her arms and says, 'Actually, you've been acting weird for the past two weeks.' Then she bites her bottom lip and says, 'You know, if I had to put my thumb on it, I'd go so far as to say you've even been avoiding me.'

'Avoiding you?' I laugh at that. I say, 'Are you serious?' I watch her face like she's totally deluded or something.

She just keeps eyeing me.

I'm thinking, alright then, I'll just let it all out, tell her exactly what I think of her boyfriend, tell her that I don't care if he's Plymouth College's greatest athlete, that he's a complete fucking knobhead. Plain and simple.

But I don't. I bite my tongue. Last thing I want is to put a rift between me and her, start some stupid argument. Mark cuts in and once more he says, 'Brutha, what's this thing you want to tell me?'

I sigh. I swallow. I speak quietly and say, 'Okay, something happened on the coach drive from Brandywine. Something totally bizarre.'

They both watched me, intrigued. I looked around again. I was feeling nervous just talking about it. Kate says, 'So, what was it?'

I took a moment to answer. I looked around once more, paranoid someone was going to overhear me. 'Okay, I saw... holy shit... you're not gonna believe it. I still don't believe it. There were two people. Like, I think they were both dead.'

Kate frowned. 'What? Dead? Honestly? Where?'

'In a white Citroen. On the Brandywine road outside the Harris farm. I just can't get it out of my head.'

They both eyed me closely. Kate's like, 'You're saying there were actual dead people?'

'Yeah, actual people. I'm serious.'

'Traffic accident?' Mark said.

'No. I don't know. I mean, Harris's cows were dead too.'

Mark frowned. 'Harris's cows?'

'Yeah, they were slaughtered and scattered across the barley field.'

'Slaughtered?'

'Yeah. All over the barley crop. Their bellies were all torn open and everything.'

'That is weird,' Mark said.

'No,' Kate said, 'That's downright frightening.'

Special K (Mrs Linda Alice Kellaher, to those who don't know her), owner/operator of the Lost Worlds Café, came over and I ordered a Sludgeshake. She asked me how I was, was it good to have exams out of the way, was I going off to uni? Good, yes and no I told her and she went away. I said to Kate and Mark, 'It was hideous. Those poor sods in the car... they were both still sitting there in their seats. Honestly I can't wipe it out of my mind.'

Kate took my hand. 'Oh Jake, it must've been ghastly.'

I swallowed. 'It was ghastly. It was awful.'

'Did you recognise them?' Kate wanted to know. 'Were they from the village?'

I swallowed. 'Don't know. Too hard to tell. If I had to guess I'd say the car was a rental. Most likely they were tourists.' It made me shudder. You come away on holiday, you take some photos, enjoy the food, send a post card, and before you know it, BAM! your throat's torn open and you're dead.

'Do you suppose they were rubber-necking?' Mark asked. 'They saw the dead cows and shot off the road?'

I shook my head, visualising them sitting there. Their throats all red and bloodied. 'I don't know, Mark. I don't know. I mean, it looked like they'd been attacked. Like whatever got those cows got them too.'

'Attacked?' Kate said alarmed, trying to keep her voice down. 'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'What could've attacked them?'

Well, after considering what old Hogshead had told me about some wild beast getting around, after that bullshit about Morton in the paper, I couldn't help thinking about the force of nature that hit our region a few years back. 'You guys remember the Grey Death?'

The chatter of patrons and the tinkling of cutlery filled the air as both Kate and Mark looked at me, speechless.

Five years back, everyone in Britain had heard of the Grey Death: the grey African panther that'd escaped its enclosure at the Chingola Wildlife Reserve. It ended up using the local population as scratching posts. I mean, it just shredded people. Someone called it the Grey Death because you never saw it approach. Just a blur in the moonlight before you were wearing your intestines around your ankles. Authorities took two months to trap it. And they only snared it after some overzealous fool managed to catch it in some stake pit and jammed a stick of dynamite down its throat and blew five hundred new arseholes through it.

'The Grey Death?' Kate asked like she'd misheard me.

I shrugged. 'Yeah.'

She just stared at me, like the thought chilled her. She looked at Mark and then gazed into the street. As if it could've been out there right then, somewhere in amongst the tourists, watching, waiting. 'God, I hope not.'

Mark leaned back in the booth, hands behind his head. 'Oh well, you can bet them knobs from Chingola will have it rounded up soon enough. They're not gonna want a repeat of last time.'

Outside, the pedestrians, the occasional cyclist, the farmers in their ox carts bringing produce to the market, moved up and down Castle Grove. All of them seemingly unconcerned, ignorant, while some murderous creature lay out there beyond the village, in the countryside, hiding, waiting.

'It reminds me,' Mark said eventually, softly, gravely. 'I saw something weird... Just two days ago at the woolsheds.'

Kate and I both watched him. 'You saw something?' I asked.

'Yeah.'

I was flabbergasted. Why the hell hadn't he said anything?

He leaned forward and spoke low so no-one else could overhear. 'Okay, so I'm out jogging, right? And I'm near the woolsheds, and I can't say for sure what it was exactly, but there was this bizarre thing. Right there inside one of the abandoned woolsheds.'

Me and Kate are astounded. 'The woolsheds?' Kate says.

'Yep.'

'What the hell was it?'

Mark leans forward again, dead serious. 'Don't tell anyone, okay? But as far as I can tell, and it looked horrific, it was Cruddy Smith. Dead naked. Porking Betty Harris.' He held his breath for a second before he cracked up laughing, spilling the dregs of his shake. 'I swear to God it was hideous!'

I blinked at him. Still holding my breath. Still all nervous and shit about possibly hearing some firsthand story about a real life monster and here he was cackling away like a fucking idiot.

I just stared at him. Kate too. She slapped his arm, saying, 'Mark, you bloody fibber, you frightened the life out of me!'

I just felt like slapping his head.

My sludgeshake turned up. I sat back and took a deep breath. I just kept seeing those people stuck in that Citroen. Their throats hacked open. And the dead cattle. I shook it from my head. I slurped down a soothing mouthful of my shake. Mark was still smiling to himself. It pissed me off. But he didn't seem to give a shit.

A few moments later, he's like, 'Hey, check this out.'

We followed his pointing finger and there's this old prick pushing his way desperately through pedestrians.

'Isn't that old Mr Retter?' asked Kate curiously.

It was. And there he went barging his way through people, into the Unloved Wares second-hand shop, yelling something into the store before turning and lurching feverishly across Castle Grove, stumbling toward the Lost Worlds Café. He comes crashing through the door and if he hadn't reached out at the last second to grab hold of the door frame he would've fallen flat on his face. As it was, he stood there at a comical angle, screeching, 'The great Bucca is on Biffon's piggery carving every living soul to shreds! Run for your lives!' And with that he promptly vomited up his breakfast.

THE BLOODBATH

1

VICTOR BIFFON'S piggery lies a mile or two west of Burnchess Village at the eastern end of a long stretch of cliffs known locally as the Howling. They're called the Howling because they say during summer storms you can see the wailing ghosts of shipwreck victims trudging shoreward across the jagged waves. Which is a load of horseshit because I was out there once during a storm and the only howling I heard came from my own lungs when I twisted my ankle in a damn rabbit hole.

From Castle Grove, the quickest route by foot to Biffon's piggery is along the grassy path that leaves the village through the old crumbled wall at the south-west corner and winds through the Bellowed Heath. About a quarter-mile in, it's overgrown with thick knotted brambles and, if it's summer, all sorts of bugs'll spring from the vegetation. (One year a couple of earwigs took a liking to Mark's bollocks as we rode our bikes through there and they wouldn't let go until he put a match to them. The earwigs, that is. Not his bollocks.)

When you reach the far end of the heath you come across a squat stone wall (left over from medieval days) that runs beneath a line of heavy oaks out to the edge of the cliffs. There you'll find an old iron farm gate and access to the ramblers' trails winding west to the Howling. This wall marks the eastern boundary to Biffon's property.

2

Me and Mark were down there about fifteen minutes after old Retter had painted the café floor with his stomach porridge. I mean, I was intrigued enough by what I'd already seen that morning, enough to wonder if there was some connection with the bovines, enough to go down and see this phenomenon for myself. But after Retter had come in screaming, Emily had entered the café and she bee-lined for Kate and commenced a verbal bombardment about slaughtered cows and murdered pigs.

With Emily there, I didn't need another excuse to leave the cafe.

As expected, when me and Mark reached the ancient wall we were greeted with a rather grizzly scene: a hundred pigs strewn far and wide across Biffon's damp southern field.

'Fucking hell,' Mark said. 'You seeing this shit, Jake?'

I was pretty much speechless. The scene was epic. I sort of found it hard to take in.

The cause of death seemed fairly obvious. Intestinal rupturing. That much was easy to conclude with the amount of guts and organs yanked from bellies and flung everywhere. Exactly who or what had killed them though remained the big question.

Like the crime scene at Harris' place the coppers were in attendance. These ones though were primarily from the Burnchess branch. My old man—Detective Inspector Charlie Crassly—stood at centre of proceedings, decked out proudly in his navy-blue uniform with his Clayton & Dunn shoes polished so damn well they glinted in the sunlight. He gripped a notebook in hand and was interviewing that big, ugly, red-headed oaf, Farmer Vic Biffon.

Nearby, Detective Sergeant Wendy Finch, also with pen and notepad, looked to be jotting details of the scene, her short blonde ponytail sticking from the back of her police cap. In the background crouched Detective Chief Inspector Ted Sutton, forensic pathologist for the entire Burnchess, Horsefall and Lambeth regions. His hefty camera was stuck to his face as he took happy snaps of the murdered oinkers.

Behind all of this sat Vic Biffon's solemn cottage and his grotty sheds and rusting tractors... And looming there like a sleeping giant was the south-eastern corner of Hell's Edge. (Known also as Hel's Maze, named after Helmut Dyson, the love struck twat who built the giant stone labyrinth back in 1473 to honour his new bride who, two weeks after the maze's completion, ran off with the stable hand.)

3

Me and Mark perched ourselves on the wall. We weren't the only onlookers either. It was fairly obvious word had spread about the village. A whole bunch of village folk and tourists had come down to satisfy their curiosity. Some of them were already turning away, the scene too much to take.

But me and Mark just sat there, utterly absorbed by it all. 'Okay, this is officially nuts,' I said. 'First Harris's cows, now this.' I shook my head in complete disbelief. 'I'm starting to think maybe we've got two rogue cats running round out there this time. The Grey Death on its own never managed this much carnage.'

Mark didn't respond. Not straight away at least. I looked over at him. Sparrows chirped in the trees, gulls squealed along the cliffs and a warm breeze rustled through the leaves above us.

'What do you think?' I said. 'You think a single cat could do all this?'

'Maybe. But like you said, the Grey Death never clocked up so many kills in one day, did it?'

'So, what's doing it then?'

'A bigger cat?' he suggested.

'A bigger cat?'

'Yeah, well the Grey Death was a panther, wasn't it. So maybe we've got something like a lion or tiger on the loose.'

'Seems excessive though, don't you think. A single cat killing all these pigs just for kicks.'

'Two bigger cats then.'

I shrugged. 'Okay. Maybe.'

We were quiet for a time, simply sitting there watching the police go about their investigations.

Then Mark says, 'I just had another thought.'

'Go on, let's hear it.'

He was quiet for a moment and then he said, 'What about that shit we saw last summer?'

I frowned. 'What shit?'

'In the Greenhouse Of Horrors. You remember?'

My skin went cold. I didn't answer. Neither of us spoke for a while. Eventually Mark looked across at me. 'You remember it?'

I nodded but was still lost for words. I'd spent most of the year trying to forget it. Now it seemed to come flooding back like a thumping wave.

4

There's this cottage on the howling. A windswept little black-tarred cottage inhabited by a pair of witches who are rife with a whole array of diseases and who practice Voodoo and who put hexes on people and who kidnap folk in the dead of night to thieve pieces of people's brains to cultivate them and grow them into Doppelgangers. A pair of witches who should've been thrown into Breathless Lake at birth with stones roped to their ankles.

At least, that's what people say, how some of the more paranoid stories go.

They're just the Charweed sisters. Reclusive hermits who don't really participate in any village activities or charity events and you never see them at the market or at any of the village grocery shops. But they probably don't need to come into town. They probably grow all their own produce in that greenhouse of theirs. And it's just because they're a little eccentric, a little bit distant, that people haven't warmed to them. People are afraid of stuff they don't understand, aren't they, so naturally those weird stories evolve and persist.

So, anyway, like I said, the Charweeds have this greenhouse. It's situated out the back of their cottage. People say it's full of strange exotic plants, like giant Venus flytraps. For years me and Mark had wanted to see it for ourselves. But we'd always been too frightened. Except last year, we stole a couple of his dad's beers and got some courage up after downing two or three of them. Then we'd snuck out there. And we crawled through brambles and got scratched up and disturbed a million red moths. But what we witnessed when we finally reached the greenhouse... well, it was far more than just carnivorous plants.

There were mutilated animals. Shit loads of mutilated animals. Hares and foxes and chickens and octopus and pheasants. Their body parts had been jammed into blood-smeared buckets and crammed into wooden crates. And the Charweed girls were in there sewing dismembered limbs and heads onto dead carcasses.

It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen.

But then that thing happened. The thing that has haunted me for over a year.

There was this critter lying on a long, blood soaked, wooden block. One of the Charweed girls' horrific creations. It had a fox head sewn to the body of an octopus. But right before our eyes it just seemed to come to life. At the time, Mark gripped my arm and he's like, 'Holy shit, Jake, look at that!' Because all of a sudden it's squirming about and howling and in the next instant it comes wriggling at us like a mad thing, gnashing its fangs with blood gushing from its jowls and it slammed into the glass wall, snarling and spitting, nothing but that glass wall separating us. And then the gaunt, white skinned, Charweed girls were standing there watching us and well shit, we screamed and took off and have never been back.

5

So, the day me and Mark are standing at Biffon's piggery, staring at all those dead oinkers, I just shake my head. 'Mark, that was a meat puppet designed to scare the fuck out of us.'

I'd had a year convincing myself of that.

He shrugs. 'Yep, maybe. But what if it wasn't?'

I scoffed. 'Mark, it was a meat puppet.'

He said nothing. I looked at him. 'It was a meat puppet,' I tell him again. 'All those animals in that greenhouse were dead.'

'How'd they make it rush at us then?'

'It was suspended on a pulley.'

'There wasn't a pulley. I remember.'

'Some invisible cable.'

'Jake, there was no invisible cable.'

I frowned out at him. 'Mark, we've been over this. You can't tell me you still think that thing was alive.'

'I'm just putting it out there again,' he said. 'I mean, say that somehow those Charweeds found a way to bring things back to life.'

'Bring things back to life? Are you off your trolley? Mate, I don't know if you've heard, but you can't bring shit back to life once it's dead. Okay? The thing was a meat puppet. If you're a recluse and you don't want people snooping about, then you come up with some weird fucked up ways to scare people away. Okay?'

'Yeah, I know, I get it. But let's just say, hypothetically, that the Charweed girls managed to unlock the mysteries of death. Yeah? And that little monster we saw, well, what if it was just the beginning? Like maybe that was just an experiment, a prototype, before they moved onto bigger things?'

'Really?' I laughed. 'This is what's been ticking over in your brain?'

'Yeah.'

I sigh. I won't even answer him.

'I'll tell you what I'm thinking. They could've stitched the head of a dead a wolf to a really big beast like a Hockmarsh octopus?'

I laughed. 'A wolf's head to a Hockmarsh octopus? Fuck off.'

'Hey, why not?'

'Where the hell would they have found a bloody wolf's head, Mark? Last time I looked, Mrs. Chipton doesn't exactly sell any wolf's heads down the pound shop.'

'Jake, I'm just saying hypothetically, okay? I'm just saying that, if they did, they could've let it loose on these pigs.'

I blinked at him. Sometimes his imagination is something to behold. Great for his art, yes, but not for trying to put meaning to a field of murdered pigs. 'Right, so in your mind, that's makes far more sense than having another big game cat on our hands, does it?'

He shrugged. 'Not exactly. But we were wondering what sort of creature could just come along and kill all these pigs, weren't we?'

'Oh, so naturally you assume it's some big fucking Frankenstein creature.' I smiled. 'That makes sense to you, does it?'

'Well, if it was some big hungry cat then why didn't it just eat them?'

'Don't know. Maybe the pigs looked at it funny and it took offense.' I watch him. 'I mean, tell me, why didn't your wolf octopus eat them?'

'Biffon set his dogs on the Charweeds remember,' Mark said. 'Last Spring. He hates them.'

'So do most people in Burnchess but you don't see folk trying to run them out of town.'

'No, but maybe the sisters are getting pay back on Biffon.'

'With a hybrid octopus wolf creature?'

'I was just saying, hypothetically.'

'It's science fiction, Mark. In a day or two we'll have people from Chingola putting out a media statement saying one of their game cats escaped and how we all better remain indoors while their handlers round it up. Then a few days after that, the thing'll be caught and we'll be seeing nice colour images of it all over the news while it's hauled back to its pen.'

'Alright then,' Mark said, 'tell me this. If the witch sisters had nothing to do with these dead pigs, then why are they over there watching?'

6

I hadn't even noticed the Charweed girls. But I saw them now, standing side by side beyond the opposite wall. It's not often they're out in public. And generally when they are you can't help staring. Because they look like something from a fucking horror movie. Because they look like ghouls. With their white milky skin and their gaunt features and their dark sunken eyes and their black dresses and their greasy black hair. They're rumoured to be in their twenties. But they both look far older than that.

For some reason, a chill went through me as I watched them. But I forced a shrug. 'They're nothing more than concerned citizens,' I told Mark. 'Like the rest of us.'

'You think?'

'Yep.' But I couldn't help thinking of Harris's bovines dead on that hill. And that couple in the Citroen with their throats torn out. And now all these dead pigs... And I hated myself for it, but I found myself contemplating that fucking little meat puppet. How it had moved and squealed and come charging at us. I mean, it was still a complete mystery, because whether or not I wanted to admit it out loud, I knew in my heart there'd been no puppet strings that day, no cable, no pulley.

Still... I knew there had to be a rational explanation. There always is.

THE HAUNTING

1

THAT NIGHT I was squeezed in at the dining table near the rear windows of the Hare Of The Dog's main bar. Dad likes to have this family get-together whenever me and Emily return from school. Usually it's our first night back. And it's not an occasion I'm keen on nowadays, but I do it for dad.

That night, the food was worth it alone. The Hare Of The Dog's famous roasted lamb hogget. A scrumptious leg of lamb marinated in a sauce that combines honey, anchovies, rosemary and white-wine-vinegar, before it's thrown in the wood fired oven for an hour or two to let the sides of it go all crunchy. And there were the signature roasted potatoes and pumpkin, and peas, and mint sauce and steaming gravy to compliment it. I would've left the table far sooner if it'd been anything else.

The place was pretty packed that night. Most had come to see the Axekillers (the female troop from Horsefall) strum lively Celtic tunes from banjos and guitars and violins. The punters were either dancing or singing or falling down drunk. Outside, the Village Green with its turf cricket pitch, and the darkening edge of the Drop Off, basked under the long summer twilight. (Thinking back, the Charweed sisters were probably already out there, watching me through the windows. Waiting.)

As usual, Dad and Louise sat like Siamese twins joined at the shoulder (which always makes me want to vomit). Dad was out of his uniform and I was trying to trough through my meal so I could get out of there.

But between forkfuls of meat, Dad was saying he hoped we'd had a good trip back from Plymouth and how strange it was to think we'd now both finished school, and what plans we had and stuff. 'Oh, and sorry I wasn't there to greet you pair when you arrived back this morning. But I'm sure you've heard, things have been rather strange these past couple of days and as such I've been rather rushed off my feet.'

Gravy ran down his chin. Louise smudged it off with a napkin like he's a fucking imbecile who can't do that shit for himself.

See, that's the sort of thing that gets my goat. Her fussing and carry-on. And still, after these last couple of years since Mum passed on, I honestly don't know what Dad sees in her. I've heard him tell people she's funny and affectionate, that she's caring and understanding, and it blows my mind because they're traits I've never seen in her—although, Mark tells me it's because I don't want to. But just having her there, sitting with us, Dad allowing her do things like that, treating him like a two year old... it's almost enough to make me spoon out my eyeballs.

They met each other almost two and a half years back. Over in Horsefall. (Only a few short months after my dear old mum succumbed to old Mr Deadblack. That being my term for cancer. And in Mum's case, it was a multi-headed bugger called Soft Tissue Sarcoma.) Louise'd been working part time at Fallen Angels Family Services and me and Dad had been going there a couple of times a month to talk through Mum's passing with a group of other poor sods who were going through the same shit. Turns out Dad and Louise knew each other from their university days when they'd allegedly been pretty good mates and stuff.

Well, good mates or not, I knew from day one she was just a gold-digging hag. But dad seemed chuffed in her company. Not sure why. Apart from anything else, Louise's got a fat arse and small cans, but I assumed Dad was just on the rebound; you know, filling the gap Mum'd left. Someone to fill his bed on lonely nights. I told myself he'd come to his senses soon enough. Have his fun with her, then throw her out. No such luck. A year after 'finding' each other they started having dinner, started sweet talking each other on the phone.

Then came that morning when Dad told me they were going to start seeing each other. Like proper. Permanently. That was a knife through my spine. I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. Through every orifice. Like Krakatoa.

Eight short months after that, he invited her to move into the Inn. As far as I'm concerned that's when her and Emily hit pay dirt. Up until then they'd been sharing a rundown two bedroom flat on Drummond Street in Horsefall. Emily'd been attending Horsefall High, that retarded school where seventy percent of students drop out before their final year, and where twenty-five percent top themselves even if they don't. Louise had been working two jobs—Fallen Angel's part time secretary, and checkout-hag at the Farmer's Door Supermart (that stinking discount grocery store with the out-of-date stock and the weevils wriggling through the produce).

But once they leached their way into our lives they never looked back. Why would you when you'd suddenly washed up on easy street? Why would you when you'd effectively hijacked a dead woman's home? Because that's whose place it is, The Hare Of The Dog. That's who grew up in the old Inn. Not them. Not Dad. But Mum. And you can bet your last quid they wouldn't have jumped in her casket so fucking quick.

2

'I'd say by now you're probably aware of the attack on Farmer Morton last Friday night,' Dad went on. 'Well, I just wanted to say that if indeed we do have something running around out there—'

'Like the Grey Death?' I cut in.

He considered this. 'Well, yes, exactly. Good example, Jake. If we've got something like the Grey Death on our hands then yes, the village as a whole should be very mindful of the potential danger. I've put out a public warning, which includes measures to notify tourists of the Morton attack and the ongoing public threat that this animal poses. All sightseeing is to be carried out in organised groups. No solo outings. I've also instructed our village tour operators that groups be accompanied by more than one guide.' He rest his elbows on the table top and interlaced his fingers. 'The very fact that Farmer Morton was attacked tells us this animal has little fear of humans.'

'So, I guess you'd know about the car crash at the Harris farm?' Emily asked. 'Does that have some connection?'

'Well, we're currently working through the details with Superintendent Tennant and our counterparts in Horsefall. At this stage it's too early to tell. But yes, there's a possible connection there.'

'What about Biffon's pigs?' I asked, picturing a wolf-octopus thing ripping through the piggery.

'Same again. We're working through details but it's too early to tell. What I'd like to stress though is this: it's highly likely this animal will strike again. But if we can limit its opportunity, then all the better.' He smiled once more. 'Which is why I'm asking you both to exercise extreme caution this summer and be mindful where you stray.'

'Yes,' Louise stressed, 'always in twos, never alone.'

I said to her, 'Would you like us to hold hands as well?'

'There's no need to be smart,' she quipped, looking offended.

'No need to be patronising, either,' I told her with a smile.

'Jake, please,' Dad said calmly with this look in his eye that said, Not now.

3

I gulped down another gobful of crunchy potatoes, slurped beer. It's times like those meals where certain things are highlighted brighter than a baboon's arse. Namely, how Dad used to act around my mum. I swear he seemed happier back then. More relaxed. More fun. Less worried about the damn p's and q's. These days he seems preoccupied with pacifying the Louise-beast. Like we've all got to do that. Keep her happy, pay her compliments, wipe her arse. Dad tells me I should try to see the good in people, the positive things. But there's really nothing about Louise I find positive at all.

Well, okay look, I tell a lie. There's one thing. One small thing. After Mum passed, Dad struggled through a nightmare period where he was near inconsolable. He'd tried being strong for me but one day he just broke down and completely withdrew into himself. One day he never turned up for work and I'd found him just staring into space. He didn't respond when I asked if he was alright. He ended up having several weeks away from the office. And even then, if you spoke to him, he'd drift off in the middle of a sentence and just sit with his mouth open. Some nights he'd leave the Inn on foot and be gone till dawn. It worried me because I thought he planned to drop himself off one of the cliffs. The thing was, he was losing his fucking mind. So that's when me and him started going to counselling. And that's when he met Louise. It pains me to say it, but it was she who actually dragged him back into the sunlight.

'Look,' I said, 'we've heard all about this killer cat, Dad. Don't worry. I don't plan on ending up in its belly.'

He nodded, offered a smile. 'All the same, Jake, the way things are, I'd recommend that any fishing excursions you've planned be put on hold. Especially to Breathless Lake, not unless you're part of a large group.' He smiled apologetically. 'I know you and Mark are keen on your fishing, mate, but it'd make your old man happy if you would just lay off for a while. Okay? At least until this animal is captured or shot dead.'

'That also means no excursions, bike rides, hikes, any outdoor pursuits on your own outside the village,' Louise added, looking deadeye at me. Not at Emily who's also keen on the outdoor activities, but me. If Dad wasn't there I fancy I'd have told her what cliff she could pole vault off and where she could ram that pole when she was done.

I shrugged. 'Like I said, I don't plan on ending up in its belly.'

4

Roundabout eight o'clock I left the Happy Family gathering. I did it for two reasons, I guess. Firstly, Emily started boasting about her 'glorious win' at the Cryptic Club Championships, telling dad that if she hadn't been part of the team they actually would've lost the whole damn thing and blah blah fucking blah. It was like tooth extraction listening to it again and again. I'd had to put up with it the entire train ride from Plymouth to Brandywine. And so what? They say she's pretty good. She's won numerous college awards these last couple of years. The Brainyack Medal. The Regional Gold Star for problem solving. And all the other damn awards you could poke a stick at. But whoopie shit. Doesn't mean I want to fucking sit there keep on hearing about it. I was out of my seat as soon as I'd thanked dad for dinner.

I headed straight to the bar where my second reason for leaving the table waited.

Hayley Ruckerson.

5

Me and Hayley used to muck around together when we were kids. That was back in the days before we all got shipped off for better educations in the larger towns: I got sent to Plymouth College while Hayley got posted to Saint Teresa's—what Mark calls Vaj Central; the wet-dream-waiting-to-happen all-girls school over in Elmsmore Mill. After that, the only times me and Hayley ever caught up was during school holidays. As friends. Never anything more. Except, that is, for last summer.

Kate'd been away on some athletics camp. Matter of fact Kate had been away most of last summer, travelling to athletics meets all across the shire—thinking about it now, that's probably when she and Wankerson hooked up. Don't get me started on it.

Anyway, me and Mark were over at the Sealuggers on Hastings Street one night, soaking up a couple of beers and shooting pool. We were there for about half an hour or so when Hayley and her friend Amber Calgarett showed up. The four of us got chatting over a few drinks and Mark challenged them to pool. We ended up knocking balls around and sinking more suds than is considered healthy and before we knew what the hell we were doing, me and Hayley were entwined on the dance floor snogging for England.

A couple of days later we took a bike ride through Hell's Edge. Alone, just her and me zipping through those twisting empty stone18 corridors. Trying to get ourselves lost. Racing each other. Squirting each other with our water bottles. It made sense because the mercury was pushing 30 degrees C that day. Hayley even stripped out of her chequered shirt and underneath she had this scorching blue and white striped bikini. I barely rode straight after that, not knowing where to look and all.

Eventually we found this spot of shade by one of the walls and we sat there alone sharing lemonade. I watched her guzzling it lusciously, watched her lips and the sweat glistening on her throat, watched the sunlight twinkling through her shoulder length auburn hair, watching drips of sweet lemonade dribble down her neck. We'd been flirting like horny rabbits since that night at the Sealuggers. And the grind-wheels of sexual-tension had been seriously pushed to breaking point. But we sat and chatted and she swished a ladybug from my shoulder. It brought her face so close to mine a wisp of her hair stuck to the stubble on my cheek. She'd picked it off delicately with her fingernails, her eyes on mine, her lips inches from my chin, her breasts hot as ovens against my ribs. I could smell the sweat and perfume and sunscreen on her skin.

She smiled, I watched her teeth lingering behind her lips. For a moment she was going to say something. She hesitated, then eventually said, 'You know, you've got the most beautiful honey-coloured eyes,' and before I knew what was happening we were snogging.

6

That night in the Hare Of The Dog, after finishing up my lamb hogget, I found Hayley at the bar with her hair tied back in a short ponytail. She was dressed in blue jeans and dark jacket. I approached her with my hands in my pockets, self-conscious like and when I reached her she was like, 'Hi, Jake.'

I said, 'Hi, Hayley,' and there was this awkward silence. So, I said, 'Wotta ya drinkin'?'

We ordered a beer and a cider and then we stood there watching the band. Hayley tapped her thigh. I don't know if she was bored or if she was just keeping the beat. Maybe she was bored and keeping the beat. I kept trying to think of something to say. Because neither of us was saying anything. I even thought maybe she had a boyfriend and she didn't know how to tell me. I thought maybe she'd just accepted my invitation for a drink just to be nice. 'So how've you been?' I asked.

'Yeah, good,' she said.

'That's good.' I sighed and rolled my eyes. I couldn't think of anything else to say. This was going to be hard work.

'Good to have school out the way though,' she said.

'I know what you mean,' and then out of desperation to fill the silence between us, I said, 'Is St Teresa's really full of lesbians?'

I'd meant it to sound funny and amusing but I think it came out sort of creepy because she just frowned at me like I'd slapped her.

I couldn't look her in the eye. I felt mortified. I was in a complete tail spin. I said, 'St Teresa's... what I mean is... well, Mark says it's...' A hot flush gripped me. I swallowed. I wanted a sinkhole to swallow me. 'Mark says it's full of, you know, lesbians. That's all.'

'Lesbians?' she says. 'Oh yeah, even the male teachers at St Teresa's are going in for sex changes so they won't feel left out.'

Strange thing is, that's what broke the ice. We both laughed. After that I didn't feel such a twat. We found a table that'd just been vacated and we chatted for a good hour or so. We hadn't seen each other since last holidays so in the end there was a bit to chat about. And the drink helped lubricate our tongues of course. She was telling me plans about what she wanted to do, how she was keen to do some travelling but that her parents were hoping she'd jump straight into some uni degree. She asked what my plans were. I told her travelling was on my immediate radar as well. But uni could wait. 'Me and Mark are planning a trip to Thailand or somewhere.' I had some money saved I told her but planned to pick up a bit of work over summer to help supplement the cash reserves. Besides, Mark had promised to help his dad deliver fruit machines over the next month or two during the busy summer period. So we weren't going anywhere just yet.

'A bunch of my girlfriends—and no they're not lesbians,' she said, 'are heading to Spain in a week or two. Originally I was going to go with them. You know, girls living it up in Ibiza and that sort of thing. But I haven't the money and, well there might be a job going with the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. So, I'm being boring and responsible while they all go off and have fun.'

'I think Ibiza's overrated anyway,' I told her, hoping to make her feel a bit better about her choice. I drained the rest of my beer and held up my empty pint. 'Another drink?'

She smiled. 'Go on then.'

I returned with another cider for her and a beer for me and there's a peculiar look in her eyes. I sit down, wondering if something's wrong. She says, 'Hey Jake, can you remember last holidays when you mentioned you were into bizarre antiques?'

I frowned and took a swig of beer. Trying to cast my mind back... I do recall telling her some bullshit about liking antiques simply because she'd said her mum had a collection of weird ones and I thought if I told her I liked them, well there might be a chance she'd ask me back to her place to show me, and then... well, one thing might lead to another... 'Oh. Yeah.' I took another sip of beer. 'Yeah, totally into them. Why do you ask?'

'Well,' she said. 'If you'd like to see it, I've got something I'd really like to show you.'

I eyed her and she eyed me. 'Alright then,' I said with a shrug and a smile, like wondering what it was.

'Okay, but not here,' she said. 'Outside. Are you game?'

7

We stood alone in the summer twilight beyond the cricket pitch on the far side of the Village Green. Out near the Drop Off. Not too close though—you don't want to stray too close to those cliffs. It's a four hundred foot fall14 into the sea from there. There's an old picket fence that runs along the top of the cliffs but it's not much of a barrier. It just lets people know where the edge is. Since 1950 a total of twenty five people have stumbled off those cliffs but the main threat isn't just tripping over the edge, it's the fact that the Drop Off is notoriously unstable. The cliffs there have been crumbling for centuries and some folk believe that ultimately they'll end up eating away the village Green and eventually swallow the entire village. A few years back the council was so concerned by the erosion they set up a fund to stabilise the area. Thing is, what they're worried about is the idea of catastrophic collapse. A scenario that'd see the entire land mass break away and have Burnchess Village dragged into the ocean. The summer before last it was like at five percent probability.

Hayley eyed me intently. She even looked a little drunk. We'd seen off three or four pints by then so maybe she was. 'Okay, Jake, what I'm going to show you, well, I think it might blow your mind. But you have to promise to keep it secret.'

I thought this was all some sort of drunken foreplay, you know, like she was going to show me her tits or something. I mean, that's how a bloke thinks sometimes. But instead she reached inside her jacket and took out this thing... And she hid it behind her back so quick I didn't even get a look at it. 'Do I have your word?' she asked. 'That you'll keep it a secret?'

I nodded. 'Yeah.' I still didn't have a clue what she was talking about. I still thought maybe the antique thing was nothing more than a trick to get me out here so we could snog or something. I wouldn't have objected if she'd just grabbed me and pushed her tongue down my throat.

'Promise?'

I laughed. 'Yeah, I promise.'

She grinned. 'Good. Now, before you ask, I don't know how it works. Just look through it. You'll see the world like you've never seen it before. And you must promise never to tell anyone. If my mum found out, she'll kill me.'

I laughed, curious. 'Really? Well, in that case I better double promise.'

'Good.'

I could hear the dull thump of music from the Inn. Could hear the soft rumble of the surf hidden beyond the deep, deep cliffs. There was even the eerie wail of distant rooks, the hoot of a far off owl... There was no one else around. Just me and Hayley and the ocean breeze.

Now she held this thing out to me. And the moment I saw it I sucked in a nervous breath. Because it was fucking ghastly. It looked like some poor sod's face. I'm not joking. Like some poor sod's face had been sliced away from some poor sod's head. And desiccated. I didn't even want to touch it. 'What... what the hell is that?'

Hayley laughed drunkenly, but incredulous like, as if confused by my response. 'It's just a mask, Jake.'

'A mask?' I looked at it a little closer. There was a large moon that night and the summer sunlight hadn't yet faded entirely from the sky but the light was dim enough to make viewing of the item difficult. It had three eyes, I could see that much. At least, three wrinkled slits where eyes might once have been. And its lips and nostrils were all sort of shrivelled and cracked. Its forehead and cheeks were tattooed in strange little diagrams. Like cave drawings; stick figures and bizarre looking creatures.

'My grandmother picked it up in Africa back in the seventies. It's some sort of tribal ornament. Made from elephant skin.'

I frowned. 'Elephant skin?'

'Yes.'

'It looks like someone's face.'

'I know.'

It just seemed odd she wanted to show me this bizarre thing. I wasn't even into antiques really. I wish I had've been more truthful about that. 'And you want me to put it on?'

'Yeah.'

I smiled. 'Why?'

She laughed and rolled her eyes. 'Cos you'll be really amazed. Honestly, Jake.'

'You do it first,' I heard myself telling her. I felt so suspicious. I don't know why. I think I was still feeling jittery about seeing those dead pigs and dead cows and wotnot.

Hayley sighed. 'Okay, look,' and as easy as that she put the thing to her face. She held it there and looked about. At the moon, across the Green to the village. 'Wow,' I heard her muffled voice say in awe. 'This always amazes me. It's truly like looking into another world. Seriously, Jake, you've got to try this.'

She actually did have me intrigued a bit. Even though part of me thought she was playing some sort of joke. Like when someone puts boot polish around the eyepiece of a telescope.

Anyway, she takes it off her face and hands it to me and says in this lustful voice, 'See, it doesn't bite. Your turn.'

8

When I took it from her grip it felt wrinkly, even hairy in parts. I eyed it closely, turning it over, studying it. I held it before my face without actually putting it on, trying to see if I could glimpse anything through the eye slits.

She laughed. 'Oh, just put it on for Pete's sake.'

Well, eventually I did. But suddenly Hayley gasps and she's like, 'Oh, my God, Jake, what's behind you?!'

I removed the mask and looked at her. Her eyes were boggling. She was looking at something beyond my shoulder.

I smiled. This was a wind up, surely. But her hand was smacked over her gob, she was still eyeing something behind me, and she began to step backwards.

I blinked and turned around...

9

Something was certainly there. A pair of shadows. Crouched in the dark on the lip of the Drop Off. Big white eyes watching us. I couldn't say what they were. They stood side by side and ever so still with silken black hair flowing on the wind.

Hayley snatched back the mask and hissed, 'Come on, Jake, let's get out of here!'

I didn't want to make any sudden movements. But at the same time I didn't exactly wish to hang around. As we made to run, the shadows rushed at us.

Like the meat puppet thing, it was fantastically perplexing. Whatever they were, they moved like an oil slick, slithering through the grass so quick that by the time we turned to bolt, it was too late.

They reached us and rose up and stood right there at our faces, glaring at us with bulging, spectral eyeballs.

I almost lost my breath when I saw who they were.

The scrawny Charweed girls.

10

Hayley screeched and shoved through them and bolted away across the Village Green. I tried the same tactic but found I couldn't. Somehow my legs were suddenly rooted to the earth. I couldn't have run even if I'd wanted. I was completely paralysed.

The Charweed sisters stood in silence, watching me. They were no more than a foot away. Staring at me. They stunk of garlic and worms and sausage meat.

I kept saying, 'Wotta ya want? Wotta ya want?' But they didn't answer me and suddenly there's this icy wind whipping my hair about and chilling my skin. And I look around because the sky is suddenly lit up like dawn and there are wild grey storm clouds swirling about like dog vomit in a bucket. And now I see giant lizards roaming about the Green. And huge flying creatures.

I suddenly wonder if the stories about the Charweed witches putting hexes on people isn't all bullshit after all. And I suddenly can't help recalling Mark when he said the Charweeds were getting payback on Biffon by killing his pigs. 'What have I done to you?' I say desperately. 'What have I done to you?'

But they don't listen. They don't answer. Instead I watch as their hair goes from black to white and it spirals and whips about in the wind like loose flaps of skin, as if alive. And then they begin to chant.

'Jake, Jake, do not scream,

Or chase the mask to realms unseen.

Jake, Jake, fear the Flood,

Before the Strangler drinks your blood.'

An excruciating pain filled my chest. It was like my heart was being ripped through my ribs. I dropped to my knees, clutching my breast bone. I wanted to scream but found I could barely breathe. The Charweeds kept singing into my face, leering at me, lips drawn back showing off dirty brown teeth, their breath as stinky as mud and manure, their hair still writhing about like a snake pit.

'Jake, Jake, beyond the Gate,

The forces there decide your fate.

Jake, Jake, run along home,

Before the beast tears out your bones.'

I made a mighty effort to stagger to my feet. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. It felt as though the weight of a lorry had been lumped on my shoulders. I keeled face-first into the grass. After that I couldn't move.

11

I remember later just sitting there, scatterbrained, gazing about. The moon'd moved quite a way across the sky. A velvet midnight breeze raked its delicate fingers across the tips of the grass, as if hissing at me ever so quietly. I was apparently still on the Village Green. That much seemed obvious. Because I could see the village way over there and just over my shoulder the picket fence along the edge of the Drop Off. I scratched the back of my head. I breathed in the fresh salty sea air. For some reason I felt a sense of relief.

Eventually, I climbed to my feet, and staggered. I found my balance and drew in another full breath. 'Holy shit,' I mumbled. 'What the hell happened?' I rubbed my face... I couldn't remember the Charweeds. Just Hayley... Hayley and that mask.

But then...

I turned and eyed the cliffs. I half-expected someone to be standing there. Who? Don't know. Just thought I'd see someone there watching me. But all I saw was the dark lip of the precipice. Beyond that, nothing but the silent black abyss where night and ocean meshed and the sound of the never-ending waves rumbling into the cliffs. They seemed to murmur, We're gonna thump and claw until we drag these cliffs down.

I drew in a deep breath and gazed toward the Hare Of The Dog. The lights were still on. There was still music playing. People were in the beer garden. I took some heart from all this for some reason. And with my legs feeling wooden and clumpy I began to walk back to the Inn.

As I went I could hear rooks and bats, or whatever the hell they were. And that peculiar twittering sound... It was like nothing I'd ever heard. Like a wolf howl. But in staccato. One moment so high-pitched it was virtually inaudible. And the next deep and guttural. It seemed to be coming from the direction of either the old barley mill terminal, or the livery and stables nestled against the fringe of the Seven Ghosts woodland.

I turned and searched along the Village Green toward the top of the village. And what I saw made me freeze on the spot.

I don't know what I was seeing. I thought the Charweeds must have done something to me. Because some monstrous hulking figure stood up there beside the Mill. I mean, it was just a silhouette, I couldn't tell what it was. But whatever it was, it was huge, standing half the height of the Mill building—that would've put it at over fifteen foot from head to toe.

My skin went ice-cold. Every instinct screamed at me to flee. And when I heard that broken howl again, I finally broke out of my paralysis and bolted like hell for the Inn.

12

It came after me. I knew that pretty quickly. Because I could hear it. Its huge thundering paws and its grizzly breath.

And I ran as quick as I could, the wind scoring my ears, and my breath coming in short, sharp gulps. I could hear the dull thud of my sneakers on the grass. But it was right there behind me... no more than three or four metres back. I felt a great impulse to look around, to see what it was. But I didn't need anything slowing me down.

I charged toward the beer garden, I could see the people there, enjoying the evening, having a smoke, sipping drinks. And they all turned to see what the matter was when I started hollering, 'Heeeelp! Fuckin help me! Please!'

Typical fucking people! None of them rushed out to my aid. Not one of them. They just stared at me stupidly. And I could hear the ragged breath of the thing right there at my neck. Its spitty, ragged breath. And its clumping hooves. And I knew any second now I'd be gaffed backwards by mighty talons, and my guts yanked free like Harris's cows.

That's when I saw the patrons beginning to laugh. That's when I heard the creature begin to bark.

I frowned and tipped my head over my shoulder and not some feverish monstrosity. But Scuppers, Emily's fucking dog. Bounding along on my heel.

I slowed to a halt just outside the beer garden, panting, looking about. I honestly expected to see some horrible creature come tearing out of the darkness. But there was nothing there except Scuppers, barking like mad, his white tail flailing about excitedly like this was all some game.

'Watch those Cavaliers, mate,' someone called out. 'They'll tear your bollocks off if you give them half the chance!' and that was followed by drunken laughter from every prick standing out there.

13

I ignored them. I pushed my way into the main bar, relieved to be indoors and out of the night. Scuppers trailed me inside. I jumped when Emily's suddenly in my face, snapping at me, 'Jake, how many times have I told you not to take Scuppers out near the Drop Off?!'

I ignored her. I glanced back at those sods out there in the beer garden. They were still laughing. 'Emily,' I said as she strode away in a huff, Scuppers scooped into her arms. 'Emily, did you see Hayley? Did she come back here?'

But Emily didn't bother answering.

I pushed through patrons. I felt hemmed in. The noise from the Axekillers felt like it was turning my skull inside out.

I weaved my way across the bar, rowdy punters in my way, some of them yelling, 'Here he is! Jakey boy! Let us buy you a drink, lad!' But I ignored them, found the stairs and pulled my way out of the horde. The noise lessened as I climbed floors. And became a dull thud by the time I reached my room. When I shut the door there was nothing but a stark empty silence. I could hear the wind rattling the window. Cookie, lying on my bed, opened an eye as I stumbled in. She chirped, stretched out her legs, rolled onto her side and went back to sleep.

I took my phone out. There were three unanswered calls. All from Hayley. I thumbed her name and pressed the call button, put the phone to my ear, waiting, tapping my fingers on the bedside table.

She answered with, 'Jake, bloody hell, I've been trying to call you, are you okay?'

I was so relieved to hear her voice. I rubbed sweat off my forehead. 'Yeah, I'm fine. What about you? Where are you?'

'I'm home. I'm so sorry about leaving you. I just saw those two witches and got spooked. I just ran. I was terrified.' She laughed nervously. 'I'm so sorry, Jake, you must hate me.'

'No. Honestly. I'm just happy to hear you're okay.'

'What happened? Did you run? Did you get away? What the hell did they want?'

'I don't know. I couldn't tell you.' I laughed out of relief. But swallowed as I remembered that thing I'd seen standing by the mill. The thought made me dizzy. 'Look, Hayley, I really gotta lie down. I just needed to know you were alright.'

'Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for calling.' She laughed again. 'I'm so sorry about leaving you, Jake. I feel terrible. Can I call you tomorrow?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Course. I'd love you to.'

'Good. Okay. I'll talk to you then.

'Lock your doors.'

'Pardon?'

'Lock your doors. You know, just in case. The Charweeds, you know.'

'Oh, okay. I do anyway. Bye.'

WALKING TREE

1

I WOKE several times that night. I kept dreaming the Charweeds were in my room. I kept dreaming of dead cows and dead pigs. I had this one dream where I approached that Citroen and when I got to the window I peered in and saw a handful of fox-octopus critters eating up that dead couple. I jumped awake when I saw the damn Charweed sisters eyeballing me from the back seat.

At 6am next morning I lay there eyeing the window. Cookie sat at the end of my bed, gently kneading my duvet with her claws, purring, eyeing me through tranquil, half-shut eyes. I stretched out my arm, offered her my hand. She moved forward. Turned her neck into my fingers then sat and purred as I massaged her fur. I just lay there for like ages, feeling restless but tired. My head was still a complete whirl with all the shit I'd seen yesterday.

The phone rang, making me jump. I'd hoped it was Kate. Or Hayley. When I reached over and picked it up I saw it was Mark.

'So we gonna do a spot of fishing or what?' he says.

'Thought you were helping your old man.'

'Don't kick off till next week. So grab your rods. I'll meet ya down at Reaper's Beach.'

2

Fishing's become a bit of a return-to-Burnchess custom with me and Mark. First few days back from school we'll grab our lines and scoot over to Breathless Lake or Harrowsgrim Stream in the hunt for freshwater fish like Carp or Chub or Bream. Or else we'll catch the bus to Kennington Reservoir and try our luck there.

Much closer though is Burnchess' own Reaper's Beach which trails the base of the Howling for about ten miles. Good spot for shore casting if you're chasing Wrasse or Flounder or Pollock.

Other than that, there's not much else of interest down that way.

I'd say Reaper's like the beaches on Spain's Costa Del Sol, filled with luscious topless girls rubbing lotion over each other. But it's not. Reapers Beach is one long stretch of pebbles and stones and driftwood and it's almost always deserted—except of course for the groups of seals you occasionally see splashing about the surf. And the closest thing we get to luscious topless girls down there are loners with their metal detectors beachcombing for treasure. Admittedly, you'll get couples heading out to the Hangman Islands for daytrips but they're not topless. And most day-trippers to the islands tend to jump on the ferries seven miles east11 at Clover Bay.

3

I texted Hayley to let her know I'd catch up with her later then I grabbed my pushbike from the shed at the back of the Inn. Dad keeps the lawnmower and the hedge trimmer and the shovels and the golf bags in that shed. I would've taken one of the trail bikes but they were out of fuel—probably the way me and Mark left them last holidays. I wheeled the bike outside and shut the door. I stood there momentarily gazing across the Green toward the spot where Hayley had showed me that bizarre mask last night.

Burnchess Cricket Club Groundsman Grat Arnold pushed his roller up and down the cricket pitch. A handful of tourists were taking a morning stroll in the sunshine, wind gusts off the cliffs flipping their hair. Seagulls gathered in large groups in the grass. A dad and his young son kicked a football. I gazed up at the mill. Nothing but another bus load of tourists arriving for their holidays. It seemed like just a regular day in old Burnchess town, as if nothing odd had played out in my life just a few short hours ago.

Taking Castle Grove I rode down toward Reaper's Beach, rolling by the Ring Of Letifer, our very own stone circle, smack in village centre. I had to mind the tourists snapping their photos. But all up, there weren't many people about. Mainly farmers and the like lugging produce to the market in their ox carts. And some early morning joggers. And Monkey Smith on his milk round in his old electric cart. And old Mister Murray (in his 70's, I believe) on his paper run. Quite a pleasant morning really. Peaceful. Sun was out. A cool sea breeze playing with leaves on the cobbles. The air was fresh and salty and the call of seagulls could be heard across town and sparrows chirped and flitted in the trees.

I began to wonder if any of that shit really happened yesterday.

4

I found Mark and we took the dirt trail through the Bellowed Heath and reached the access path that meanders steeply down the Witch's Gash, a narrow cleft in the cliff face. We stood surveying the beach and the surf. Puffins, gulls and falcons soared on the ocean gusts. You could clearly see the Hangman Islands out there basking beyond the reef.

We picked our way down the loose scree and gravel. It's treacherous and you've really got to watch your step or else you'll likely sprawl on the stones and tumble down headfirst. When we were kids we saw this bloke die there. It gave me nightmares for years after but what happened was he lost his footing and came cartwheeling by at a hundred miles an hour. We thought he was hamming it up. Like, Hey Mum, look at me, no hands. But at the bottom he hit rocks and cracked his skull open like an egg; we sort of got he wasn't messing around when half his brain splashed out. The most ironic thing about that incident was the bloke's name: Irvine Fall. Can you fucking believe that?

Half way down me and Mark reached the area where the path levels out along a grassy shelf and we stood watching seals dive around the surf. Neither of us moved any further. We stood there a while holding our fishing rods and tackle box, checking out the conditions. 'Tide's up a bit,' I pointed out, the wind tearing at us. Though Mark's afro stood against the coastal gusts like a flood levy.

It was only then as we assessed the day's conditions that I recalled dad's little chat last night at the dinner table. About me going fishing while some animal was getting about killing things. But if there was somewhere I ought be safe from a deadly cat, I wagered, it'd be water.

'How was your date with Hayley?' Mark asked.

'Went okay.' I'd told him nothing about the mask.

'You tell her you're in love with Kate.'

'No.' I frowned. 'Why? Why would I tell her that? Besides, I'm not in love with Kate anyway.'

'Really? Okay. So did you tell Hayley you're just using her to make Kate jealous?'

'Where do you come up with this shit?' Yet, if I'm honest, he was probably right. But I didn't want to think about it in that way. 'Anyway,' I said, 'we gonna do this or not?'

I went to move off but Mark didn't budge. I turned and eyed him. 'What's up? We catching ourselves some fish today?'

He shrugged. 'Just... just watching the surf for a minute, that's all.'

I frowned and followed his eyes to the waves. They frothed and seethed and there was a hazy sea mist hanging over the shoreline. The seals were having the time of their lives down there, splashing about, or lazing around on the stony beach.

'Don't tell me,' I said. 'You're afraid some giant octopus is gonna drag you out to sea.'

He said nothing. Just held this grave look.

'Come on, mate,' I said, 'what's up? You're acting weird.'

He shrugged. 'Dunno. I just saw something strange last night, that's all. It's spooked me a bit.'

5

Mark and his dad live on the western edge of Burnchess Village. They've got a cottage which backs onto the weed strewn, cobblestone lane that trails the ruined village wall. Their cottage is more bachelor pad than a functioning household. Guitars and old vinyl records lie around. Clothes hang off the backs of chairs. Dishes don't see suds for two or three days at a time. And the couch covers look like they haven't been through a wash cycle since Mark's mum walked out all those years ago.

There's a car shed out the back with a greasy lawnmower and an old train set with a scale model Deltic engine gathering grime. And a torn punching bag droops like a drunkard in one corner. Shovels and hand saws hang from rusty cobwebbed hooks. There's no room for Mr O'Rourke's old Ford Cortina. But he wouldn't be able to park it there anyway—due to the village's "no heavy vehicle policy" he's forced to park his car near the Mill. The rule doesn't extend to the Blue Wasp though. That's the dusty dune buggy that has pride of place along one wall.

The shed doors don't exist nowadays. Not since their hinges rusted off when we were about ten and the wood put to good use on bonfire night. In their place, in the sprouting weeds and patchy yellow grass, there's an old plastic table and a couple of chairs where Mark's dad'll relax in the evening with a beer or two and his Fender Stratocaster, strumming it left-handed, upside down, like Hendrix did.

6

About fifteen minutes after arriving at the beach, me and Mark found our way back to his place—standing there in the dead grass between the shed and the back fence; eyeing the laneway.

On the other side of the laneway runs the village wall. In medieval times the wall surrounded the entire village. It stood maybe twelve foot high and wide enough for sentries to pace along the top of it four abreast. At intervals there used to stand eight guard towers, known as the Chess Stones. These days they're all but crumbled down. Like much of the wall. And over the centuries much of the stone has been raided by farmers and villagers for use in building pastures, or for ovens, or for tying to the ankles of witches before dropping them into the sea.

Mark pointed. I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking at. The spot he indicated looked like just another bit of crumbled wall except it was back-dropped by wild pear trees and a bunch of old willows. 'See that?'

I frowned. 'See what?'

He hoisted himself over the fence and landed on the thistle strewn cobbles. He crossed the path and pointed. 'That.'

I followed him over. The dusty path ran away north and south of us. There was a strange, but not unpleasant, feeling of isolation as we stood there, like we were a million miles from Burnchess even though we hadn't gone anywhere.

I gazed up and down the pathway. Hedge rows and apple trees and red hot pokers from folk's gardens all pushed their leaves and flowers out into the space above the path. A bee buzzed over our heads. A shining orange lady bird crawled up the stone. I'd never noticed before but it was all rather picturesque here. All quite serene.

Sunlight shone bright against the wall where Mark had his finger and I saw black smudges along the stonework about two and half metres off the ground. There was also significant cracking along certain stretches of mortar. As if something of great weight had been heaved against the structure.

'Still not sure what I'm meant to be looking at, Mark.'

'That.' He reached up and prod the area in question.

'What? A bit of dirt?'

'This is where the creature was, Jake.'

I thought of the shadowy figure I'd seen near the barley mill. It gave me a shiver but so far I was keeping that from Mark. Guess I didn't want his imagination firing off on all cylinders like it could if you let it.

'Creature?'

'Yeah.'

I sighed. 'What sort of creature?'

He bit into his bottom lip. He shrugged. 'It was about two in the morning. Yeah? And I got up to have a piss and that's when I heard this weird noise. Like a growl, but in a twittering sort of way. I can't even really describe it.'

That made me recall last night and another shiver went through me.

'It was pretty dark and all,' mark says, 'but when I pulled back the curtain, well, there it was... this... this monster.'

'Not Cruddy Smith again?' I asked. I wasn't going to be caught out again by another of his jokes.

Mark shook his head. 'No, it wasn't Cruddy Smith.' He thought for a moment before shaking his head. 'It looked like... well, this is gonna sound daft, but it looked like some sort of walking tree.'

'Really?' I laughed. 'A walking tree?'

'Yeah. But it wasn't a tree. Know what I mean? It was this thing, this creature, with bark for skin. And red eyes. And it moved about like you and me. On two legs. And when it stood still, you wouldn't know it from a tree, I swear.'

I gazed at the pear trees and willow branches overhanging the top of the wall, their leaves rustling gently in the breeze. I laughed again. 'So we've got fucking Treebeard walking round Burnchess?'

'Brutha, I don't know what the hell it was but it didn't look friendly I can tell you that much.' He showed me a graze on his elbow. 'See that? I did that falling over, trying to scramble back from the window.'

I shrugged and showed him a blood blister under my thumb nail. 'I did this fighting off aliens from the planet Horseshit.'

He smiled. 'Okay, so you don't believe me. But I'm telling you, Jake, it was here. See these cracks in the stone work? When this animal scrambled over the top, the wall shook and cracked under its weight.'

I eyed the freshly crumbled mortar. 'Mark, you and I both know a sparrow's fart could dislodge some sections of this old wall.'

'Not this section. Watch.' He put his palms against the stone and heaved. I secretly wished the stonework might shift but nothing happened; the wall in that part is still a decent two or three metres10 wide. He then tried wiggling individual stones about. (Which he'd be fined for if he was caught. It's all national heritage listed so folk aren't allowed to just come along and yank huge chunks out whenever they feel like it.) The stones didn't budge either.

'See?' he says puffing from his efforts, 'nothing could've made those cracks unless it was something of immense weight. And you see those stains? That black goo?'

I studied the black smudges. Could've been nothing but soot rubbed there by someone.

'My guess is, it's some sort of sap,' Mark said. Now he pointed at the ground. Along the base of the wall ran small piles of rubble and dirt. 'And all that mortar and shit came tumbling off the top too.'

I eyed the rubble. It looked freshly fallen; no weeds had grown up around it.

But bits of that wall are falling off all the time. Some of it due to simple weathering; the rain and the wind. Some of it due to seagulls and swallows who lodge there and make nests. Or due to adventurous kids who'll eagerly climb the construction just to beat their mates to the top. (Mark knew that. When we were boys me and him used to scramble over the damn thing all the time.)

I visualised the animal I'd seen howling near the Mill. Not like I'd had a good look at it, but it certainly hadn't looked like a tree. I regarded Mark. I don't know what he wanted me to say. 'Right, now that you've got that out of your system, we gonna go fishing now or what? Otherwise I'm gonna text Hayley and see what she's up to.'

'Look Jake, what I'm trying to say is something's going on,' he tells me. 'Okay? Those cows. Those pigs. Something strange is happening in Burnchess, brutha.'

This was exhausting me. 'So, wotta ya want me to do about it, mate?'

'Okay, listen. When was the last time you saw the Charweed girls?'

I'm thinking Last night, but I don't tell him that. So I shrug and say, 'Yesterday.' Like it's obvious.

'Yeah, but before that.'

I shrug again like it's obvious. 'Last summer. In their greenhouse.'

'Exactly.'

'What's your point?'

'We don't see them for a whole year and suddenly I see them twice in twelve hours.'

'Wotta ya talking about?'

'After the creature had gone I came out to have a look,' he tells me. 'Okay? And guess who I happened to see?'

'I dunno. Santa clause?'

'No, you twat, the Charweed girls.' And he points. 'In the cemetery.'

Beyond the apple trees at the end of Mark's garden lies a small stretch of parkland. During the summer season tourists will often sit there and tuck into a picnic lunch beneath the shady elms. Beyond the park lies the church grounds. A hawthorn hedge hides most of it from the vantage point of Mark's house but some of the gravestones can be seen near the church.

That day I could see a bunch of people down that way. Maybe vicar Mayberry was holding one of his outdoor sermons.

'Yeah? So what were they doing?'

'Don't know,' he said. 'I just saw them standing there.'

'Standing there?'

'Yeah.'

I gaze off at the cemetery, yawning. 'So, they were taking a midnight stroll,' I said. 'Whoopie do! Probably the only time they get to walk around Burnchess without being hassled.'

'They're up to something, Jake.'

'Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. We going fishing now?'

My phone rang then and I knew it was Hayley. Sanity calling, I thought. But when I fetched my phone from my pocket I saw it was Kate's name on the screen. I thumbed the receive button and put the phone to my ear. 'Morning Kate, you alright?'

Immediately she's talking at a million words a second. 'Jake, you're not going to believe this! Farmer Morton's in the church grounds. He claims he's caught some monster!'

THE HOBGOBLIN

1

THE BURNCHESS Church is situated on the southern fringe of the village. It sits across the road from an area of cliffs known as Massacre Point—a location so named because two hundred Henbane witches were slaughtered there in 1793 after loose accusations they'd barbecued the local Presbyterian congregation at the annual Witch Family Fun Day. Claims that were proven slightly unfounded when the Presbyterian congregation concerned, rolled back into town a week later after attending the Cease Capital Punishment parades up in Paganville.

Between the church and the back of the police station (and the village hall for that matter) you'll find a few hundred dead people... provided you dig deep enough. That's the local boneyard, the spot where Mark claimed to have spotted the Charweed girls the night before. Gravestones, perched this way and that, date as far back as the 1200s and are festooned in moss and scrambling ivy and bird shit.

During August and September the apple trees there plop fruit into the soft grass. And in June and July you can watch the sparrows escaping the summer heat in the bird baths with half of them drowning thanks to groundsman Cronk's failure to lop away the brambles that snares their skinny little bird legs. Every now and then you'll also find some nutter like Farmer Morton attracting a crowd.

2

Me and Mark came in through the gap in the hawthorn hedge near the church and spotted the large pack of onlookers down near the hulking yew tree. As we approached we heard people saying, 'Oh, it's ghastly,' and, 'What a beastly sight!' and one idiot was even yelling, 'It must be burnt at the stake!'

We shoved through to the front of the pack and there it was, the Burnchess monster, trapped in a steel cage with its goggling yellow peepers, and fangs dripping spit. And it wasn't at all chuffed about its incarceration either, the way it snarled and roared and spat.

I'm not sure what Mark was expecting but his face looked a little puzzled when he laid his eyes on it. Not some supernatural beast after all, but a fully grown Bengal tiger. Still, an imposing, terrifying sight, nonetheless. Well-muscled with huge paws and impressive fangs and every now and then there was a smell to it wafting on the breeze—the unmistakable scent of cat piss. Although, part of my brain kept trying to convince me it was the odour of raw cow meat and pig guts and human blood. If this was our culprit, it had not only sunk its claws into a whole slather of bovines and oinkers but, pondering the dead in that Citroen, it had quite possibly torn out the throats of a pair of unfortunate humans. That was a terrifying thought when you considered what the Grey Death had managed to do going uncaptured for two months all those years back. Because potentially, up until now, we'd faced a similar predicament. How many more would have died if it hadn't been trapped?

I glanced across at Mark. He looked curious. I nudged him. 'Here's your Treebeard, mate. Bet it doesn't look half as scary as it did last night in the moonlight.'

'This wasn't what I saw,' Mark said quietly.

I shrugged. What he thought he saw was irrelevant. 'No, probably what you saw was probably the mutated offspring of Cruddy Smith and Betty Harris's rutting.' I nudged him in the ribs. He didn't respond.

Farmer Morton looked buoyed by his capture. He rounded the cage like a circus performer, like a showman, really camping it up. He had bandages on his cheek and forehead with one eye bruised up like an aubergine—no doubt those were leftover scrapes from his alleged attack the Friday before. But his face beamed proud as if he'd captured King Kong.

'This here be our killer,' he announced confidently and some twats in the crowd actually cheered. 'A mighty tiger all the way from the steaming jungles of India! And I lured it into my trap with nothing more than a rabbit carcass and a chunk of good old Burnchess Cheddar.'

He stood by the yew tree where the red 'death' berries shook on the scraggy skeleton branches above his head. Vicar Mayberry stood nearby, silent, contemplative. He hadn't been holding one of his God-fearing sermons after all. But I could tell just by looking at him he didn't much like having this sideshow desecrating his church grounds. All-male nude reviews is probably where he draws the line. But not this. Not tourist cameras clicking and whirring, not some crazed tiger hungry to tear us all to hell.

It let loose another guttural snarl. This time far more aggressive and it sprung into the steel bars that held it. The crowd gasped. The tiger snarled and hissed, baring its fangs, clawing the side of the cage as the crowd surged backwards. For a moment you thought it might break free. But the cage held.

Sergeant Finch, monitoring the situation with a close eye, ordered people back. 'And refrain from taking any more photos!' she yelled. 'The noise is enraging the poor thing.'

Across from us, that dopey mutt Scuppers suddenly bolted from the crowd, executing a false charge at the cage, barking and growling his little yellow guts out. I wondered what sort of death match it would've been to pit tiger against Cavalier—a sure bet that little old Scup' would've been torn from arsehole to ear and back again. I watched him trot cocky as a bull back to master Emily. That's when I spotted Kate.

She was dressed in her trendy Heathergrove jeans and college t-shirt (the one with the logo of the unicorn sporting a halo). Her arms were folded across her breasts. Much of her sandy-blonde hair had been tied back that morning but the soft sea breeze lifted loose strands around her face. She didn't notice me, but that didn't stop me staring at her a little while. I wondered if she would get jealous if me and Hayley Ruckerson started going out. Be interesting to see, I thought.

I noticed Charlton Jones then, beyond Kate's shoulder. Standing there decked out in his bus conductor's uniform, complete with hat and tie and the straps of his satchel slung across his chest. He was staring dead at me I noticed. With the same sort of strange look in his eye that he'd given me the day before when I'd hopped off the Spitfire coach.

Uncomfortable, I looked away. But I couldn't help myself. I looked back... only to find he'd vanished.

Meanwhile, Morton still prattled on. '...So, let it be known, I caught the fearsome hobgoblin of Burnchess! Me! Albert J. Morton.'

Someone yelled out, 'Maybe it's just suffering indigestion from your cheddar, sir.' (A comment that actually sounded suspiciously staged.)

Morton responded in similar theatrical fashion: 'Oh, I doubt that very much, my good man! It's extremely fine cheddar. I will personally attest to that. Why, Mrs Morton may not say much these days but she is the finest cheddar maker in these here parts I'll have you know. You can try some if you please, for, by a strange coincidence, we are selling it over at the market this very day at five quid a pound and not a penny more. Here, why don't you all take a wee sample to taste? I've plenty to go round.'

And after much cheese had been sampled and enjoyed (with the tiger virtually forgotten) wildlife rangers trucked over from Chingola Wildlife Reserve and removed the large cat, cage and all, and escorted it away.

3

By the next day rumour was going around that the whole "Tiger Circus" had actually been nothing more than a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt: Morton, by design or (more likely) by pure luck had managed to capture Burnchess' killer cat. And whether it'd been orchestrated by a stinking lump of cheese or not, it didn't matter. He'd simply seen a business opportunity and taken it by the balls. It'd worked, I guess. By mid-afternoon that Friday every last ounce of his dog-shit cheddar had sold out.

And that, as far as the monster madness was concerned, was that.

THE MADMAN

1

ON MONDAY I started work over at Harry Staten's Amazing World Of Books near Chillskull Lane. Staten's not quite sixty but his fingers are cricked backwards with severe arthritis. Him and Mum are second cousins which doesn't mean much in itself except he claims that some years back he promised Mum he'd have something of a job waiting for me once I finished school. If I wanted it. So there I went bright and early that morning, turning up for work at nine o'clock sharp.

Work at Harry Staten's turned out to be mostly like watching two slugs going neck and neck in a foot race: pretty... fucking... boring. And with business so slow I wondered how Staten could afford to keep such a place open. Or even afford to pay me. At the height of summer, sales weren't exactly going through the roof. But apparently he's got a number of investment properties there and about. Meaning he needn't have kept the shop running if he didn't want to. But he told me it's his passion, a dream of his since boyhood, a venture he built up all by himself. Besides, he claimed it was crucial that society held on to places such as this. 'The only way to keep ignorance at bay is through knowledge,' he said, 'and the best way to hold on to knowledge is to record it. All through history, humankind has recorded its exploits, its discoveries. Think about it, a library holds all of human history in its hands. A picture may paint a thousand words, Jake, but a book paints a thousand pictures. You remember that.'

Still, for someone so passionate about the place, he wasn't about much. He'd bugger off here and there on some sort of errand which seemed to take him a good many hours. Not like I cared. I took the time to put my feet up and enjoy old horror novels by Stephen King or James Herbert or Graham Masterton.

Staten wouldn't have cared. Not with the fun he was having. I found out the sly old dog was off getting into the knickers of Marjorie van Delan, the florist on Daffodil Circuit. Those rare moments when he was at the shop he spoke of nothing else. He even showed me her photo in his wallet.

They weren't officially going out or anything. He told me they were keeping their relationship hush-hush for the time being. Turns out Marjorie's husband didn't exactly know about it. He's a long distance lorry driver and is away most weeks. So I guess they thought it best to keep their shagging to themselves, at least until old hubby'd had time to swallow it.

2

Except for trawling through old horror novels, working at Staten's also gave me ample time to scan the daily papers. Not something I ordinarily do. But when you're bored you'll look for all sorts of shit to occupy your mind. The latest news on the Harris farm massacre indicated that authorities had put square blame on the captured tiger. And they hadn't ruled out capturing a second cat. As such, there'd been public backlash against Chingola Wildlife Reserve. People were demanding to know why the Reserve couldn't keep their cats in captivity. To be fair, it hadn't yet been confirmed that the captured tiger was one of theirs anyway. (Chingola had only come to take it off Morton's hands as they're the closest animal reservation.) But the papers claimed the authorities were conducting private meetings with Chingola management and that Chingola management would soon release a public statement. That's if they didn't go bust first due to some public fucking boycott.

Whatever the case, the victims in the Citroen were apparently unrelated to the Harris event. And Horsefall cops were staying tight-lipped on that front. Which I thought was a tad curious. But I guess at the height of tourist season what the hell were they going to tell us? That a couple of poor sods had been butchered by a fucking tiger? Not likely.

When I got bored of the papers I strolled about to see what else I could find. The interior of Staten's shop is mostly how you'd expect a dusty old bookshop to look: a load of old wooden book shelves stuffed with about eight hundred thousand books. (That might be an exaggeration but you get the picture.) There's a wide central walkway that leads from the front door down to the "front" counter which is situated at the back of the store. All the rows of shelves stand either side of this walkway, arranged in a semi-circular pattern, concentric like, one behind the other behind the other. This leaves a large rounded area smack in the middle of the shop where Staten has put down a couple of settees that face each other across a wide, low reading table. Nearby, against one of the central support columns, he's installed a small stand complete with kettle and mugs, with teabags and coffee and sugar tucked into small ceramic pots. There are more book shelves along the side walls, spaced between the windows. And there are one or two glass-fronted cabinets squished into the front corners of the shop. And it was in one of these, the one on the left as you enter the establishment, where I stopped and my jaw fell open.

Locked behind the glass panel sat an odd assortment of bits and pieces: colourful sea shells all strangely shaped and brass candle holders with peculiar inscriptions etched along their sides; there were fossilised sea critters and stone carvings of curious looking monkey creatures; there was even a couple of flaky old books with nonsense titles like The Bells Of Eradchilus and From Brocketsbrae To Sixhills. But the thing that took my breath away was the hideous object sitting halfway down on the middle shelf.

I immediately took my phone out and snapped its image. Then I sent the photo to Hayley and texted, 'Yu eva seen anithin lyk this B4?'

3

The earliest Hayley could get there was lunchtime the following day. That was the first occasion we'd seen each other since that night on the Green. She'd been up in St Austell visiting her grandmother, see. And then she'd been over in Lambeth for some informal interview with the Cornwall Wildlife Trust about that job she'd told me about. We'd spoken on the phone for like, two or three times and she'd always ask, 'What is that thing in Staten's shop?'

So she came over with burgers and fries and cola and before we sat and ate I took her by the hand and said, 'Come, you gotta see it.'

4

We stood before the cabinet. None of the items inside were on offer to the public apparently. The cabinet had been locked since the day I'd discovered it and a sign stuck to the upper most glass panel read THESE ITEMS ARE NOT FOR SALE.

I tapped the glass and indicated the strange looking item sitting there on the middle shelf. 'That,' I told her. 'Tell me that's not bizarre.'

Hayley stooped a little and leaned close, speechless and frowning. She pulled her hair away from her face for a clearer view. 'Oh my god,' she said quietly.

I scratched my chin. 'See. I told you.'

'It's a skull,' she said, smiling, intrigued, confused. 'Only it's...' She didn't know how to put it. 'Oh my god is that hair?'

The skull sat there with, not two, but three eye-sockets. And they weren't entirely hollow either. There looked to be a shrivelled prune in each one. As if the eyes had never been removed. As if the head had been mummified, with the eyes shrinking and receding. The really curious thing was, it looked as if the face had been removed. The whole front side of it was nothing but exposed bone and teeth and a jagged hole where its nose used to be.

The cheek bones and forehead were yellowed and brown, with zig-zagging hairline cracks running back and forth. And its teeth, the ones that weren't missing, were yellowed and chipped. I kept thinking it was some sort of monkey skull. Because two of the teeth looked like canines. But the skull didn't completely have that tell-tale primate shape. No long sloping forehead. No protruding jaw. Except for its three eyes, everything about it looked human.

From the side you could clearly see where the skin had been cut, where the face had been peeled away. The entire remaining portion of the skull was covered in a thick matting of desiccated skin, and hair, and mummified flesh stretching right down to where its neck ended. You could see its shrivelled ears, could see where the skin had been cut around the top of the forehead, down passed its ears, down below its chin. There was a definite ridge from where the face had been flayed, where the skin and meat gave way to bone.

Hayley grimaced and put her hand over her mouth. 'Oh, this is so ghastly.' She shook her head, incredulous. 'How long has it been here? I've never seen it before.'

'Neither have I. But what do you think? That mask thing you showed me. You think they're connected somehow?'

She frowned and bent again for a closer inspection. There were markings on its cheeks and chin. Ink tattoos of knotted roots like the ones I believed I'd seen on that mask. But there were also things like stick figures, like cave drawings. There was even strange exotic lettering. Etched into the bone, faint white marks showing up against the yellow and brown.

Hayley studied these for a long while. She didn't speak.

'Those markings,' I said. 'They're like the ones on your mask, aren't they?'

She nodded. 'They are. They really are. It's got me totally baffled.' She ran a hand through her hair. 'Mum told me that mask came from Africa. She's never said anything about a skull.'

I shrugged. 'You think maybe she's not told you the full story?'

She laughed. 'Ten minutes ago, Jake, I would've said no way. But now I don't know what to think.' She took out her phone and snapped a handful of photos. 'I'm going to show these to mum. See what she can tell me. For now though, let's get away from this thing. It gives me the creeps.'

5

Staten wasn't back at the shop by the time I'd left for the day. So I used the key he'd given me to lock up. He wasn't there when I returned on Wednesday morning either but he'd left a message on my phone telling me he and Marjorie had gone across to Loue for a couple of days. I didn't care. I was getting paid no matter what so I parked my arse on the settee, put my feet up and got back to reading Stephen King's From A Buick 8.

I'd been there barely fifteen minutes when I heard the door chime ring as someone entered the shop. I looked up and I saw Liberty Ruckerson, Hayley's mum. She turned and strolled out of my view beyond the book shelves.

I frowned and put my book down and left the settee. I found her standing in front of that cabinet with the skull inside. I said, 'Morning, Mrs Ruckerson.'

She turned and eyed me. 'Good morning, Jake. Nice to see you. Is Mr Staten about? I'd like a wee chat with him.'

When I said he'd gone out, she said, 'Out? Well, please tell him I stopped by, won't you?' and she left without saying another word.

She came by again on Thursday morning asking the same question. But Staten was still over in Looe. Either the surf was good or he and Marjorie hadn't yet come up for air. Thing was, when he strolled back in that afternoon, Mrs Ruckerson was right on his tail—she must've been across the street keeping an eye on the place. Staten'd barely made it to the front counter when the door chime rang and there she came, striding down the middle of the shop.

'I say Harry,' she said, 'you mind if I have a quick word?'

Staten looked about, frowning, but answered with a well-practiced, customer friendly tone of voice. 'Certainly, Liberty, what can I do for you?'

And she led him away to that cabinet.

I sort of hung back near the lounge area, pretending to be straightening out the shelves. But I was keenly listening.

'This skull,' I heard her say, 'if you don't mind me asking, where did you unearth it?'

Unearth it? I thought. Strange way to put it. Like it'd been dug up. Like she knew it.

'I didn't unearth it anywhere,' Staten told her. 'It's been down in my cellar since my granddad left it me. I happened to come across it a week or two ago and thought it ought to be on show. I think it looks quite smart there, don't you agree?'

'No, I think you need to remove it immediately,' she told him.

I think old Staten took offence to being told what to do in his own shop because he says, 'I shan't think so, Mrs Ruckerson, I like it quite where it is, thank you very much.'

'It's not suitable for public viewing, Mr Staten,' she told him sternly. 'It needs to come down before it gives children nightmares.'

'Mrs Ruckerson, you stoop down to a child's height and you tell me if you can see it?' he tells her. 'Go on. If you can see anything I'll gladly remove it.'

By then I could see them both through gaps in the shelving. And I saw that Mrs Ruckerson didn't stoop down like he'd suggested.

'Believe me, Liberty, I've taken the little ones into consideration,' he tells her delicately. 'I'm quite certain none have, or will be able to view it. I've placed it quite deliberately, you see.'

'Right then,' Mrs Ruckerson says back to him, 'how much do you want for it?'

'Want for it? I'm sorry but like the sign says, it's not for sale.'

'Everything's for sale, Harry,' she says. 'Everything has its price. Name it and let's have this done.'

Staten frowned at her. 'What's this all about, Liberty? You're acting rather... desperate. Why are you so keen to have it taken from public view?'

'It should not have been put on public view in the first place,' she said. And she went to say more but suddenly stopped herself and looked about, as if searching to see where I was. As if she didn't want me hearing what she was about to say. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. But I heard her. Very faintly. 'Rachel Crassly asked you to keep this hidden,' she said. 'Can you not remember? Rachel implored you to keep it locked away down in that basement and never bring it out. Can you not recall that, Harry?'

'Rachel?' Staten blinked at her. 'Rachel Crassly? Why, she said no such thing.'

Mrs Ruckerson sighed. 'Harry, please, trust me, it cannot stay here. It has to be removed from public viewing at once.'

He sighed. 'You've given me no sound reason yet as far as I know.'

'Because if it falls into the wrong hands we're doomed.'

Staten frowned at her. 'Doomed? Have you gone completely potty, Liberty? Do you hear your own voice? Doomed? What on God's green earth are you talking about?'

'Will you remove it or not?'

'No. I have no sound reason to do so.'

'Alright then, you leave me no option. I shall notify the village council and if we need to take this to a tribunal then that's what we'll do.' She turned and strode from the shop.

Staten stood there looking more than a little dumfounded, watching her go.

After a moment or two I vacated my hiding spot and came over to where Staten was standing and we both watched the back end of Mrs Ruckerson striding away down the street.

6

'What was that all about?' I asked.

Staten gently rubbed his crooked fingers together. As if the encounter with Hayley's mum had made them flare with pain. 'Did you hear her?' he says. 'She wants me to remove this skull. For no good reason. She even brought your dear mum into it, claiming your mother asked me to keep it hidden.' He turned and eyed the street again, searching after Mrs Ruckerson. 'I've never had much time for that woman anyway, to say the truth. Good friend of your mother's she was when they were young. Lead your mother astray though, I feel. Lead her astray quite often, as a matter of fact.' He drew in a deep breath then gazed back at the skull. 'What do you think, Jake? It is rather a gruesome thing to look upon but I have made sure none of the kiddies can see it. You think I ought to put it away?'

I scratched the back of my neck. 'Well...' I shrugged. 'I guess it's not really for me to say. You mind if I ask where you got it?'

He considered his answer. 'Well, it was left to me by my grandfather as far as I recall. The cantankerous old fool told me three great tales before he died. One about giants. One about fairies. And one about a strange three-eyed woman living on the Mongolian steppe in the mid-1700s.'

'A three-eyed woman?'

'Yes. Allegedly this object was her skull.'

'Right then.' Was a bit strange that he chose to display the skull of someone who'd actually lived and breathed. Totally morbid if you think about it. 'So that's not some random puncture wound, she really had three eyes?'

He shrugged, folded his arms. 'Yes, as far as I know. Though who can tell? I did read of a case in India a few years ago where a baby girl was born with three eyes and two noses. Many Indians believed her to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Shiva. So I guess it happens.'

'How'd your grandad end up with it?'

'Well, if I'm to believe his tales, he relieved it from some spirit house. The poor woman died something of a revered entity and I guess that only encouraged some to dice up her divine body. After her head had been severed, her face was somehow peeled off and then mummified in order to preserve it for ceremonial and religious purposes. Sounds ghastly but that's the way the story goes.'

I eyed him closely. 'Her face was peeled of?'

He nodded. 'Yes, and mummified. And her brain was scooped out of skull and then boiled down and eaten.'

I grimaced at the thought.

'Many cultures practise eating their dead, Jake. Even today in parts of Africa, South America and New Guinea, similar rituals continue.'

I swallowed.

'When my grandfather found her skull on show in that spirit house, he and his careless raiding party stole it.'

'And most of us just settle for T-shirts when we're abroad,' I said. 'So, what happened to her face? Your grandfather didn't happen to souvenir that too did he?'

Staten looked thoughtful. 'You know, Jake, I've never even thought about that. That's a very interesting question. Why do you ask?'

'Um... no reason. Just wondering.'

He lightly massaged his arthritic fingers. 'Well, it's probably hanging on someone's wall in Mongolia.' He shrugged. And gazed out the window again. 'Anyhow, I think I need a cup of tea and a good sit down after all that. Fancy her coming in here and telling me what to do in my shop.' He shook his head. 'Right then, I shall get a push along. I just popped by to see how you were getting on.'

I smiled. 'No complaints here.'

'Okay, good. Now, if that Ruckerson woman comes in here again snooping about, you be sure to let me know.'

'I will.'

'There's a good lad.' And with that he left, walking off in that way of his, with his elbows slightly bent and forearms slightly raised, as if favouring his arthritic fingers. He pushed through the front door with his shoulder, the bell chiming, and he tootled off down the street. And I was left by the cabinet, staring in at that skull.

A couple of tourists entered the shop and I returned to the counter, thinking how weird this first week back in Burnchess was fast becoming.

7

Friday morning Staten was out again. As far as I know, he was having breakfast down at Marjorie's. (He supplied the sausage and eggs while she supplied the English muffin.) That morning I'd actually been doing a bit of work. Shifting books around and pulling down shelves and dusting. The sort of thing you do when you're bored shitless. I'd been doing a lot of that lately actually. Tidying. Sweeping. Dusting. I sometimes wondered if that's why Staten took me on. To make the shop all shipshape. I mean, the way his fingers are, it wasn't any wonder the place looked like a dog house. Not like he could hold a broom for any decent length of time, I guess. Nor a rag. I wondered what Marjorie van Delan got out of those crooked fingers. It boggled the mind.

Anyway, I was pottering about on what'd been an otherwise mundane morning, pushing Hayley and Kate and everything else round my thoughts, when the door chime rang. I didn't see who'd entered at first. Not until I came out from behind the counter, moved up the isle and stepped round the end of the shelving. That's when I noticed him standing before that particular cabinet.

Radford Goon. Village nutter.

8

If you've been around Burnchess long enough then you know the stories and rumours. How Goon strangled his own daughter one dark winter's evening in a hellish rage. How he pickled her corpse and hung it in his basement. They say he was never caught. Never tried. Never convicted. Some say he paid the off police. Others say the police were too frightened to come after him because he'd threatened to do the same to their families.

Even if there's no truth to any of that, there's still something fucking creepy about the bloke. You get a sense of it when he looks at you with his dark eyes. A sort of coldness. A revulsion. A hatred. And that's not the worst of it. The worst is what's happened to his face. Some people say when he was a kid his mum dragged him face down along the bitumen behind her car. It's scarred. His cheeks and forehead and his neck. It's all crisscrossed with cut marks and slashes. Like some butcher carved him up.

He hides it under that greasy mop of tangled, seaweed hair pretty well. But you can still see it. And I've sometimes wondered if his entire body is scarred as well because you never see him out of that dirty black trench coat. Even on the hottest days of summer he'll wear that coat like a bat wing over his scrawny frame.

Maybe that's why he ran me over with his cart once when I was a kid. To cut me up. To disfigure me. Or maybe he's just a mean twat. I don't know. I didn't really know who he was back then but I'd come strolling up the street and there he was, telling me he'd spilt some coins under his ox cart. He promised I could keep some if I fetched them out for him. I was six years old. I was saving my pocket money from doing odd jobs for mum and dad to buy Star Wars trading cards. That's all I was thinking about. Adding to my collection. I was fairly obsessed with that sort of thing back then.

So being a naïve little prick, I'd climbed under on my hands and knees and I'd asked him how much he'd let me keep but he didn't answer. Next thing I know there came this almighty whip crack and his horse whinnied and suddenly took off, and that great big cart of his ran straight over the top of me. Apart from my squeals and the blood, the one thing I'll never forget about that day was his maniac cackle as he rode away.

9

So, I'm watching him that day in Staten's. Watching him closely as I scratch the scar along my arm, the one left by the wheel of his cart, the wheel that'd opened up my forearm in a gaping wound that'd taken twenty stitches to clamp shut.

I just kept thinking, What the hell's this wanker want?

The shop's curtains were open and the tall sunflowers in the garden beyond the windows basked in bright sunshine; a soft breeze tipped the flowers slightly and sparrows flitted excitedly about the feed box hanging from the pear tree.

Goon stood there for a long while in front of that cabinet. I wasn't certain what he was actually looking at but you could've bet it was that skull. I don't know why, I just had that feeling.

'I know yer there, Crassly,' he rasped eventually, as if humoured. 'I can smell that Crassly stench a mile off.'

I bit my nail, standing there behind the bookshelf like a child hiding from the boogie man.

'Might as well show yerself, boy.'

I recalled a conversation me and Mark'd had some months back. About Goon. How he'd bullied us when we were growing up. How he still bullied folk. We'd made a decision that we weren't going to take it anymore. That once we got back to Burnchess from school that would be it. If he still wanted to push us around then we'd bloody well push back.

I'd felt so damn sure of myself when me and Mark'd had that discussion but now in Goon's presence I felt little of that certainty. If anything, I felt like that small defenceless kid all over again. Not someone who'd turned eighteen in the last year. Not someone who now stood taller than Goon.

Anyway, what I did was draw in a deep breath and say to myself, Come on, Jake, you can't let this prick intimidate you anymore. It's finished, those days are done.

I took a book off the shelf, opened it, held it in my hand. The other hand I shoved into my jeans pocket. Then, taking another deep breath, and trying to look casual and unruffled, I stepped out from behind the bookshelf. 'Oh, Goon,' I said, 'didn't see you come in. You want something?'

'Yes. This cabinet. Fetch the key and open it up.'

'Why?'

'None of yer business. Just fetch the key. I know Staten has it hidden someplace. Fetch it and have this cabinet open!'

He had this smell to him up close. Something like tar. Or blood. It was hard to determine. I didn't like it.

'Look,' I told him, 'I don't know if you've been smoking anything today but maybe you're having trouble reading that sign.'

He grinned and reached over and ripped the Not For Sale sign off the cabinet and scrunched it up in his fist. 'What sign?' he said with a grin. 'There's none here that I can see.'

'Well, none of those items are for sale.' And as an afterthought I said, 'Are you stupid or what?'

I jumped as he growled, 'Yer get the godforsaken key, lad, and open this here cabinet!'

I thought if he was so desperate he might try and kick the glass in. But the glass was inlaid with wire mesh so he would've had a job. I folded my arms across my chest. 'No.'

He clip-clopped toward me and I put up my fists like I'd punch his fucking lights out if he tried anything. But he swished my arms aside, rammed me backwards into the shelving, grabbed the book from my grip and jammed it up against my throat.

'After all these years it appears we still don't have an understanding! Do we, Crassly?'

I couldn't rasp a reply, not with that book wedged against my larynx. Couldn't even suck back a damn breath. He'd pretty much cut off my airways and because of it my head was growing faint. I tried shoving him off me but for a scrawny fucker he stood steadfast as an old tree. Which confused me because, like I said, I'd turned eighteen in April, grown a few inches since being away at school, put on a bit more muscle. But I just couldn't shift him.

'Now, you listen to me!' he hissed, his stinking pig breath on my face. 'And listen veeeery carefully! Doomsday is coming. The gates to the Witchworld are soon to open 'n' the black fires will swallow this village into its stinking bowel. And you will rot. Yes, you and every other wretched soul in this town! You think that fool Morton dealt the Great Darkness a blow by capturing that cat? Nooooo way! The Beast that roams the byways is still out there, Jakey my friend. So you take my word, the horror is barely begun!'

Strangely enough, I wasn't really taking much in at that point. If anything, I was beginning to black out. Distantly I heard the door chime ring and then someone's yelling, 'Goon! What the hell are you doing?!'

The pressure on my windpipe let up and I dropped like a sack of cabbages. I sprawled there gasping for air. I had a sense of Goon striding away. And then there was some commotion somewhere in the shop. After that, the door chime rang and someone stomped out and the sound of boot steps thudded toward me, then a hand gripped my shoulder and someone's saying, 'Jake, are you okay? Breathe, lad!'

Staten's blurred face hovered above me. Slowly my breathing settled. He helped me to my arse. I sat there, spit dripping off my mouth. Obviously Goon had split.

'Lucky for him you came back,' I spluttered weakly. 'I was just about to let loose.'

Staten went off and to fetch me water. I drank, choking, coughing.

10

Staten helped me over to the lounge area where I slumped into one of the settees. I drank the last of the water he'd given me then he went off to fetch more, carrying the glass in both hands. 'So what the hell was that all about then?' he asked when he returned.

I rolled my head gently from side to side. Back and forth. 'I don't know,' I told him taking the water from him, my voice sounding croaky. 'He wanted that bloody cabinet open.'

Staten looked troubled and thoughtful. 'Did he say why?'

I drank the full glass of water in three gulps. 'No. He just wanted me to fetch the key.' I grimaced as I massaged the lingering pain out of my throat. 'Do you think it's got something to do with that skull?'

Staten appeared thoughtful, almost troubled. 'The skull?'

'Yeah.'

'Beats me why. He's never come in asking after such a thing before. You sure he was talking about that cabinet?'

I sighed. 'Yep. He was standing right in front of it. He was pretty clear about having it opened.'

'And he specifically wanted that skull did he?'

I wiped water off my chin. 'He didn't specifically mention the skull. But you've gotta admit, that damn thing's generated a bit of interest this week.'

'Perhaps. But maybe it was something else he was after.'

I wasn't so sure. That feeling hadn't gone away. That Goon'd had eyes only for the skull. 'Okay, so what else have you put in that cabinet lately?'

'Nothing.'

I shrugged. 'There you go then. It's the skull.' I massaged my shoulder blade. It seemed I had aches and pains everywhere. 'He must've overheard Liberty talking about it somewhere.'

'Hmmm... you're probably right. So we've got her to blame for this.'

I didn't know if that was the case. If anything, Staten was to blame for putting the fucking thing there in the first place. 'Any idea why it's causing such a stir?'

Staten folded his arms, minding he didn't trap his crooked fingers against his chest. 'Well, that's the big question, Jake. I have absolutely no idea.'

THE WARCHEST

1

SUNDAY NIGHT, the 29th of July, brought about the celebration of Dad's birthday on the rooftop of the Inn. I felt pretty chirpy that evening, which is a peculiar irony because Louise'd been on the warpath trying to coax Dad to a birthday meal for just the two of them at the Royal Esarn—some plush Thai restaurant over in Horsefall. But Dad'd politely declined on account of the traditional b'day dinner me and him (and Mum, when she'd been around) hold near the vegetable patch on the roof of the Hare Of The Dog each year.

Louise'd tried to appear unfazed. Saying she understood. But deep down you knew her knickers were twisting because the 29th also means it's my Mum's birthday—my parents are exactly the same age if not for being five years apart. And I hadn't really been looking forward to the evening because it always stirs memories of Mum. But I also knew Louise wasn't going to enjoy the evening either. So as far as I was concerned it was worth being there if only to watch her sulk.

Anyway, what I did was I hauled up the old stereo player and put on one of Mum's CDs. I thought (actually I hoped) this would chew out Louise's patience a bit more. Mum used to crank up some of the old Beth Orton tunes. Songs like Stolen Car or Whenever or Central Reservation and slurp down a champagne or three and sing to people in the street. She had a beautiful voice, and a crowd (usually drunken blokes) always gathered below to applaud her.

If Louise had've said something, like 'Oh, why don't you put something else on?' I probably would've tipped her off the roof. I grew up with Mum listening to Beth Orton, so Louise had another thing coming if she thought I was just going to shut it up. But she was busy prepping things for the occasion and mostly left me alone. The pub chefs baked three or four pizzas. And a French stick turned into dripping garlic bread. Louise (and Emily) hauled that fare up from below, spreading it out neatly on the stone table with party hats, and streamers arranged about.

I'd offered to help but Louise'd told me, 'No, this is your mother's special night.' Like she actually cared it was Mum's special night. But I knew it was a snide stab. It was her way of playing the martyr—get Dad noticing her doing all the hard work (while I sat on my lazy arse) when she and him could've been sucking flutes of champagne together at the Royal Esarn.

If she hoped I'd get the guilts and chip in then she was a bigger idiot than she thought.

2

Roundabout 7 pm Louise popped downstairs to fetch Dad. He was still freshening up somewhere below, having got in late from work. Emily was round about someplace; down in the kitchens no doubt, boring the chefs with her Cryptic Club trophy, describing the blow by blow account of how she single-handedly won her team the Championships, no doubt making them all throw up in their soup. I didn't exactly care. As long as I wasn't anywhere within earshot.

Beth Orton's She Cries Your Name drained dreamily from the stereo and a soft salty breeze lifted off the sea and swept inland. I had a real sense of my mother in that moment. As if I could smell her... on the air. Sense her. I stood right where she used to sing. I gazed down at the street but all I saw were folks going merrily about their evening like Mum'd never existed.

I took a long breath. Again feeling that damn lump high in my chest. That sadness. I looked behind me with the hope Mum might miraculously be sitting there at the table like Obi Wan's ghost. But there was just the food and drink and no one else on the rooftop garden but me. I let my breath go. Still, I really could feel it. Physically. That pang. That ugly hole of blackness gaping in my chest. Of missing her. Of knowing she'll never be back.

I hung my head. Shut my eyes and let the evening breeze trickle through my hair. I saw her lying there. On the bed where she took her last breath. Could see her vivid as if it were yesterday, willing her chest to keep on rising and falling... rising and falling... to fight Old Deadblack creeping slowly through her like a snickering black worm.

3

She didn't die in the Plymouth hospice. But that's where she was four days before she took her last breath. Lying in one of the silent, lonely rooms. An emaciated gaunt thing. I barely recognised her when I entered the room. But I remember having this strange idea, this almost tangible belief... that she wouldn't die.

She couldn't eat by then. The tumours that'd wracked her body had finally found the best way to kill her: strangle her intestines. In hindsight my thoughts were naïve, ignorant, selfish. I'd suggested maybe she should eat nothing but soft food from now on. Juiced fruit and veg like she'd done in the early days of her cancer through some sort of vain attempt to drench her system with antioxidants and kill it early. I'd pledged to give up school and help Dad prepare the stuff daily. We'd get her well. You just watch, I'd told her with a determined smile. I really, truly believed that would help her.

I hadn't actually thought maybe, finally she wanted death. She'd arrived at a plan to defeat this Black Bug on her own terms. She'd come so far and it'd shed her. Really shed her. She and Old Deadblack had been firing shots across each other's bow for nine years. Nine whole years! By that stage, over half my life. And by then Deadblack had pushed her so far into a corner she saw no way out other than taking it down with her.

So, when she asked to see me, when I stepped through that door, it dawned on me. She wanted to say goodbye. That's what it was. And my mind was screaming: 'She won't die! No! Not Mum! No way! We're gonna fight through this... all of us... together!'

But I knew it. She wasn't coming back from this. Never. Our time on Earth together was almost up. And this awful feeling, this absolute gaping, almost paralysing, sensation of loneliness hit me like the hottest, driest desert wind.

She lay on her bed by the window, gazing weakly out at her last rain shower. I'd never seen a living thing so emaciated, so skeletal. Her bony spine, coiled in my direction, with her laboured breathing, her ribs pushing through her shirt. The only thing that wasn't squished inwards was her belly. Those days it was like she was pregnant with devil spawn. Swelling outwards with the bulge of snake tumour coiled throughout her innards.

When I went to her I was already crying. I didn't know it, but this would be our very last conversation. They were loading her train... in the next world, just beyond the thin walls of reality... prepping her bunk, awaiting her arrival.

I got on the cot and lay beside her, my ear against her chest, hearing the faint, faint beat of her heart. 'Life is a small moment in time, Jake,' she whispered weakly, 'and often too soon it flutters by. Our moment passes now. Our moment passes. Thanks for being my good little boy.'

I blubbered into her neck, 'I love you, Mum.' I barely got it out. The grief was physical, truly like someone standing on my chest. 'If I... if I liiived a... a th-thousand years I w-wouldn't, I wouldn't want aaany other Mum but you!'

'That's nice,' she'd whispered her eyes closed, already drifting away, and she could barely get it out as she spoke her final words to me. 'That's nice...'

4

I stood there on the rooftop... leaning against the railing, Beth Orton still singing beside me, tears in my eyes. Soft apricot swirls cut through the western skies where the sun was going down beyond the maze. Village chimneys stood like darkened stumps and the remains of the Chess Stones (glinting with peach-coloured sunlight) made me think of giants bunkered down in the gloom. So too the castle ruins over near Massacre Point. And away west, the wide expanse of Hell's Edge took on the awe of a vast dark pit cut into the earth.

I turned around and gazed east, the chill summer wind still whispering through my hair. The sky out that way was soaked in purple, like someone'd spilt a giant bucket of slug guts. Out that way, six or seven miles past the Drop Off, is Clover Bay, the tranquil cove where me and Dad spread Mum's ashes. Each birthday since she left us I look that way and whisper her name. 'Rachel Evelyn Crassly, we're still with you.' That's what I always say. 'I'm still here, Mum, you're not alone, we're still with you.' Because it's what I kept whispering to her over and over that night she lay dying. Because they say hearing is the last sense to go. So I kept talking to her, I didn't want her to feel as if she'd been abandoned.

I wiped my eyes and turned back to the railing and found Emily standing right there at my shoulder.

5

It startled me to find her there. I couldn't look her in the eyes. I turned my face away, angry and embarrassed that she was there. No doubt she'd spotted the tears in my eyes. No doubt she'd glean some sort of pleasure seeing my pain. I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. Waiting for her to snigger. Waiting for her to tell me to get over it. To stop being such a baby.

But surprise of all surprises... she lightly touched my shoulder.

I flinched, swallowed.

'Jake, I just wanted to say... happy birthday, to your mother.' The candlelight from the table reflected off her glasses. 'I know she's not here, but you know...'

That's a damn rare thing: Emily showing some heart, some empathy. But you know, every now and then the gloves are off. Every now and then she has this tectonic personality shift. And it gets me guarded, gets me so suspicious. Like Louise's put her up to it. Or Dad.

I blinked. I just couldn't look at her; she'd notice the dampness under my eyes if she hadn't already. I shrugged. 'Yep.' I didn't know what else to say. 'Yep. Whatever. Thanks.'

We both stood there. Uncomfortable... for maybe a minute or more. She wouldn't leave. I was thinking, Just go away.

'Jake, I know how it feels,' she said softly, her head down. 'When they're not around anymore. It's like a pit in the dark. A complete and utter emptiness. Like some horrible monster's gouged a gaping hole straight out of your soul and it's never going to close.'

I thought of Mum's ashes on Clover Bay. I pictured them flowing away on the ocean wind. I nodded. Emily was looking at me again but I couldn't look back. It's true, she does know what it's like. To lose someone. She never shows it though, never talks about it, but she lost her father in a sailing accident off Devil's Point. Much younger than I was when I lost Mum, but still, she lost him. And she never talks about him. Never. And that really confuses the hell out of me. But I guess, you know, some days she must still feel it. His absence.

I felt her fingers squeeze my arm and she turned away. I didn't know it, but I'd been holding my breath. When she walked off I finally let it out.

6

When Dad eventually made his way to the roof he was dressed all smart in black trousers and white shirt and tie. His dark hair was glistening and combed neatly into that side-part Mum always liked. By then, there were two birthday cakes gracing the table. (That'd been my one request.) One read in squiggly blue icing, Happy Birthday Charles. The other, Happy Birthday Evelyn in pink. But looking at it then, Mum's name there, seeing a cake that was meant for her, knowing she'd never ever know, never taste it, shot a lump of melancholy up in my throat.

Outwardly I stayed upbeat mainly because of Dad. When he reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the roof Louise began singing Happy Birthday. Dad began clapping, tapping his feet, happy as a pig.

Emily joined in. I sort of felt pressured to join in too, but it all felt a bit bloody contrived. (Mark probably would've said it was more a case of me not wanting to partake in anything Louise instigated. And maybe he would've had a point.) Thing is, Mum used to wait till we cut the cake before we sang the birthday song. But I didn't want Dad thinking I wasn't enjoying the occasion. (Which I sort of was and sort of wasn't.) So, I just sang. Smiling. But with my arms crossed. Not waving them round like drunken morons like Louise and Emily.

I was glad when the song was over. Glad Louise didn't do something stupid and sing Happy Birthday Dear Evelyn—that would've sent me into conniptions. Instead Dad poured us all a flute of Veuve Clicquot (Mum's party preference) and he got us to raise our glasses. 'Here's to dear Evelyn, whose spirit is still amongst us.'

They were respectful at least. Louise and Emily. They raised their glasses and shut up. (Once, last Christmas, Louise had said, 'To absent loved ones,' trying to pay her respects and all, but it drove me nuts because she never knew Mum, never even met her. So, the sentiment was totally false. That Boxing Day I'd given her a piece of my mind, told her a bit of what I'd thought about her 'absent loved ones' bullshit. She argued that she hadn't exactly been referring to Mum but since then, thank fuck, she's never said it again, which tells me she had been referring to Mum all along.)

I was in jeans that night. Dark shoes and navy shirt. Louise and Emily looked pretty dolled up in their evening dresses, hair all flounced up and stuff and smelling like some perfume factory. Emily gave Dad a fake leather wallet (fake because she doesn't advocate the use of genuine animal products). And I gave him a new pair of socks (not very inspired but who doesn't need socks). Louise produced this massive gift all packaged up in sparkling silver wrapping paper, catching the pink of the sunset.

Dad was impressed. But it was typical Louise, if you ask me. She'd out do the pope if she could.

Dad gave her a kiss (I watched it with contempt) and he tore into the paper; the Dear Evelyn cake, like a neglected piece of my mum at the other end of the table. A moment later he cradled this strange object. From where I sat it looked like a shoebox. I even told him that. Mainly to get under Louise's skin.

He laughed. 'Oh, it's more than a shoebox, Jake.'

I admit, the thing looked too damn fancy to be a shoebox anyway. Looked wooden or something. And the candlelight lit up a thousand etchings across its surface: knights, swordsmen, archers in the heat of battle. Still, I pretended I was bored with it.

'What it is,' Dad says like I gave a shit, 'is what folks used to call a Warchest.' He elaborated. 'If you were heading into battle you'd store your swords, crossbows, or even catapults inside it. Then once you'd despatched your enemy it was used as a closet for the spoils of war. A receptacle. They were very much favoured by medieval knights.' He opened the lid. The interior sat empty. And just looking at it, you couldn't have fit more than a dead cat in there.

I grabbed another bit of pizza and stuffed it in my gob. Scuppers sat at my feet, his Cavalier bug eyes trying to hypnotise me into stuffing all food in his gob: You know it makes sense, Jake, so just do it. He was even whining under his breath like he hadn't been fed for six months.

'Must've had pretty small catapults back then,' I pointed out.

Dad grinned. 'Oh, but Jake, legends tell us these Warchests had magical properties.'

I grinned back. 'Oh, for sure.'

He laughed and went to say something but if memory serves me correctly, that's when it happened...

The blood chilling shriek that echoed out of the Hell's Edge maze.

The four of us jumped and squealed, snapping our heads around to witness droves of squawking, screeching birds (they looked like swarms of flies from this distance) burst up from the large lonely stone maze and take to the skies.

Scuppers barked like mad, charging around the vegetable patch, while the rest of us just stood there startled, blinking at each other, wondering what the hell'd just happened. Emily looked as though she'd just shat her pants.

BLOOD TRAIL

1

NEXT MORNING, round about 7 am, Farmer Hicks and Farmer Stowe rolled into town with some dead beast heaped into the back of an ox cart. The bell they were ringing brought me out of sleep. (And out of some bizarre dream concerning the Charweed witches scratching at my bedroom window.)

Groggy, I opened my eyes and lay there wondering what the hell the noise was. I had a foul taste of Scotch in my mouth. And a slight buzzing headache. I vaguely remembered meeting up with Hayley and Mark after the do on the rooftop garden. We'd seen the night out with a handful of drinks over at the Sealuggers. They'd both been amused by my retelling of Goon in Staten's shop. I must've told it to them half a dozen times.

But by then most folk were going on about the screech that'd come from the maze.

The speculation was that Morton had caught another tiger. That he'd gone out into the maze to catch it. So, people were toasting Morton's crafty efforts. Which is probably why we ended up drinking more than we should have. Which is probably the reason Hayley and me ended up having quite a lengthy snog.

Anyway, next morning when that bell kept ringing, I groaned and left my bed to see what the fuck was going on. I crossed the room to where Cookie sat on the sill gazing out the window. I gently pushed in beside her, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, drew the curtain back and pushed the window open.

Fresh sea air gushed in and as I looked down I was greeted with rather a bizarre scene: a procession of people crowded about an old ox cart, Hicks doing his best to steer his Clydesdale through the throng (it was he who was ringing that bloody bell) while Stowe walked alongside, solemn, almost monk like, his hands clasped below his belly, his head gazing forward, never wavering. Around him people tripped and stumbled in their efforts to get close to the cart. All thirsty for an eyeful of the ripped up horror that lay in there.

2

Yawning, I pulled on my jeans and sneakers, dragged on a t-shirt. By the time I'd clambered downstairs and outside, Hicks and Stowe and their impromptu entourage had made it all the way down Castle Grove where they'd plonked the cart before the steps of the police station. Behind them, a long trail of blood lay on the cobbles. And with some dead horror attracting flies and tourists (I don't know which is worse) in the centre of Burnchess, Farmer Hicks moved up the stairs and banged on the front doors of the station.

I got there just in time to see Dad emerge (looking somewhat hungover from last night's soirée) and he came down the stairs, running a curious (if not bleary) eye over the carcass. He had the look of someone who realises with dawning dread that a problem solved a few days prior with the capture of Morton's tiger had now been totally unravelled. 'Damn it,' he says, 'what the hell is going on here? Where did you gentlemen find this?'

'It's Zanzibar, one of me cart-horses, sir,' Stowe told him. 'Witnessed its slaughterin' yester evenin', sir, I did.'

'Witnessed it?'

'Aye, sir.'

Dad rounded the cart. Casting his eyes across the torn-out belly, the punctured face. 'And what exactly did you see, pray tell?'

'Inspector, I must confess,' said Stowe respectfully, 'I know yer probably thinking a cat done it but I tell yer honest, sir, it were no cat. What we witnessed was summat else. Summat... summat I cannot explain.'

Dad eyed him closely. 'Stowe, you're making no sense.'

'It were an animal, aye sir, it were. But nothin' of the natural world. I swear to yer.'

Then Farmer Hicks: 'He's right, Inspector. I seen it too. Hideous it were. Demonic. Same darn thing that took out Biffon's pigs, I'd wager. An' like Farmer Stowe told yer, it ain't no cat. I'll swear to yer on the grave of me dearly departed wife, bless her gracious soul.'

'Look, I don't know what you gentlemen were drinking last night but what you're saying here is ludicrous.'

Detective Sergeant Finch exited the police station about then. She strode down the steps with a grave look on her face. You knew she didn't like this one bit. That strained, wrinkled look in her brow.

You also knew Dad was thoroughly cheesed off that Hicks and Stowe had the gall to drag this diced-up mess into the village where folk on holiday were snapping photos, where small kids were staring bug-eyed, where rumours were likely to take off like flame in high summer grass.

'Oh my lord, what aren't you telling us, Detective Crassly?' came a voice from the quickly-expanding crowd. 'If the creature's still out there why didn't you tell us?' And someone else put in, 'No cat killed this cow. It's the bloomin' farmers, ya know! Killing off livestock b'cuz of this gripe they've had with the shire council!'

'That's a load of codswallop!' someone else yelled. 'And you know it!'

Finch ushered back the throng as best she could, commanding people to step away, to disperse. But many seemed hard of hearing, especially those leaning over the cart like starving fools. Cameras clicked and whirred about her face. Any second now I thought she was going to blow her lid. John Beetson, official Gazette photographer stood amongst the pack, snapping away with his trusty Nikon F. I wondered what sort of sensationalist front-page headline he'd have accompanying those photos down at Gazette HQ? Slaughtered Draft Horse Points to Martian Invasion?

I was like everyone else who'd come along to have a sticky-beak at this freak show, I guess. I'd been busy squeezing my way to the front of the crowd and wasn't going to turn away till I'd had myself an eyeful. Now that I'd made it to the cart I just stood there. Staring. Finch's voice had become some insignificant drone in the background.

Far as I could make out, a number of deep gouges ran down old Zanzibar's belly. As if something with a powerful set of claws had opened up the poor thing in a single swipe. Intestines had piled into the cart; the pink guts and deep red blood a stark contrast against the white and black skin. People were cupping their noses. The stench of raw innards was pretty rank. Part of the draft horse's face had been torn out too. Most of its cheek had been yanked aside, exposing part of the jaw bone and a row of teeth, all meaty and bloodied. But the thing that stuck in my mind was its eyeball. It'd popped out and it just dangled there, this huge bloodied white orb, seeing nothing now but the world of the dead.

I shook my head. So, there was a second cat running around out there, after all.

We all should've known.

Finch kept ordering people to move aside. But I'd seen enough anyway. I turned to find my way out of the throng and as I did an icy chill trickled up the back of my neck. Goon stood there. Opposite me, on the other side of the cart. Looking right at me. And he was grinning.

I blinked and looked away, self-conscious like, uncomfortable, rattled. But without wanting to, I glanced back. And he was still grinning at me. With a look that seemed to say, 'I told yer so, Jake lad, I told yer the Beast is still out there, and yer didn't believe me! Well, yer best listen, cos it's just warming up!'

I suddenly couldn't get out of there quick enough. But it proved just as big an effort to squeeze my way out of that fucking throng as it'd been to reach the cart. And that popped-out eyeball kept eating at me. I wasn't even sure what was hangover anymore and what wasn't. I felt hot and cold. I felt dizzy. And if that wasn't bad enough I suddenly felt someone breathing on my neck, following me. I spun about, terrified that Goon had somehow made his way up behind me, leering at the back of my head or something. But he wasn't. There was no one there except people shoving into the space behind me, jostling for the best vantage points. But between their heads and shoulders, I spotted him, Goon, still standing there on the opposite side of the cart, still eyeing me, still grinning, his dark teeth caught in the morning sunshine.

I finally broke free of the crowd, pushing out into clear sunlight and cool sea breezes, away from the mass of writhing bodies. I breathed deeply, relishing the cool air on my skin. I wiped sweat off my forehead and looked around. No Goon. No one even paying me any attention at all; every eye was on the freak show in that cart.

I stood back and watched the frenzy for a moment or two. Then I sighed and headed for the Inn.

3

As I started off I heard a familiar voice call out my name. 'Jake, wait up.'

I turned and saw Mark strolling toward me, Scuppers jumping around his feet. But I also spotted Spitfire bus conductor, Charlton Jones. He stood off to one side, as calm and cool as can be, simply observing the commotion. But as I watched him he turned that piercing look of his toward me. And he seemed to watch me as I moved away up Castle Grove.

I was tempted to go back and ask the prick what his problem was but then Mark caught me up and he's like, 'Did you see that shit, Jake?'

We strolled side by side up Castle Grove, Scuppers trotting beside us, leaving the hungry crowd and the crows to their minced horse. I threw a last glance over my shoulder at Jones but he was strolling away in the opposite direction.

'Yeah,' I said to Mark, 'Poor cow looks like it lost a fight with an industrial sized cheese grater.'

'No shit, it looks really messed up.'

'How's your head?' I asked him, keen to change the subject. 'You put a few Scotches away last night, if I remember?'

'My head's fine, mate. What about your form though? You and Hayley sucking face.' He reached over his knuckles and we fist bumped.

'Yeah, it was okay,' I said.

He laughed. 'Okay?! Bloody hell, it looked more than just okay. I thought you pair were just gonna go for it on the pool table.'

I shrugged, smiling. As long as he ran off and told Kate about it, I didn't care. Because if it all went to plan, Kate'd be so overcome with the news of it that she'd be struck down by sheer blinding jealousy.

At the same time though... I've got to admit, I quite enjoyed kissing Hayley.

'Shit, look at you,' Mark says, grinning, gripping me tight around the shoulders with his arm, his afro sponging into my ear and half my face. 'All shy and shit, all of a sudden.'

I grinned. 'Well, how about you?' I said pointing at Scuppers. 'Taking Emily's dog for a walk? What's that all about?'

'It's nothing.' He released me and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. 'Just thought I'd ask Emily, you know, if she'd like me to walk him.'

'Oh yeah?' He couldn't fool me. I knew he was keen on Emily. God knows why. But I'd seen them lip-locked at the end of school. He didn't know I'd seen them. I hadn't bothered telling him. But he's keen on her.

He shrugged. 'So, you think we got another cat on our hands or what?'

I yawned. 'Obvious, isn't it?'

'Another tiger?'

'Probably.' Be interesting to see how Chingola try to squirm their way out of this one, I thought. Two rogue cats in the space of a week. They're likely to be closed down.

Mark was quiet for a few moments as we strolled up the street, passing the Letifer stone circle, folk at the market busy setting up their stalls for the day's trade. Morning sunshine shone stark and brilliant. Gulls could be heard squealing. My phone beeped and I checked the incoming message. It was from Hayley. What R U up to today?

I texted back. Hopfuly seing U. I mean, I had to go and do my bit at Staten's shop and all but maybe Hayley could come by if she wasn't busy. Maybe we could have lunch together. Or catch up after work.

'You delivering fruit machines today?' I asked Mark.

'Not sure yet,' he tells me. 'Gotta wait to hear from Dad.' He gazes over his shoulder back at the throng of people back there outside the police station. 'So, you really think we've got another cat getting about?'

I sighed. 'Well, I don't think that cow died from the cold, Mark.'

He looks lost in thought for a few moments. Then he says, 'Look, I know you're not gonna believe me but I genuinely think there's something else crawling around out there.'

I glance across at him. Scuppers races off, barking after some gulls. 'What? Instead of a cat?'

'Yeah.'

Here we go, I thought, bullshit alert. 'Mark, if you've got anymore Charweed tales or fanciful stories about walking trees then I don't really want to hear them. Okay? Sorry mate. But not today.'

'No walking trees this time.'

'Oh? Well, don't tell me, a Charweed Frankenbeast then?' I smiled. 'Cos that'd make a lot more sense, wouldn't it?'

'No. You remember that thing on the front of the Gazette?'

I watched him closely. 'Shit, for a second there I thought you were gonna suggest something totally ludicrous!'

'Brutha, take the piss all you want, but I believe I've got proof.'

'Proof?'

'I'm serious. I've got photos.'

4

We were in his bedroom about ten minutes later, Scuppers lying on his bed. The window hung open. A soft breeze fluttered the curtains. On his laptop Mark'd brought up a bunch of images he'd allegedly snapped the night before. I actually could not believe what I was seeing.

'Last night,' he says, 'after I left you and Hayley, I came home down Warrior's Way, and I'd just come passed the clock tower when, well... when I saw this.'

The images were dark. But there was certainly something there. Something huge. I'm talking bigger than Farmer Merrick's prize bull, Pluto, and Pluto stands at fourteen hands and weighs almost four hundred pounds.

In nearly all of the images the creature is obscured by both the dark, and by the low resolution provided by Mark's phone, but one thing seems certain: its hide looks black. And whatever the thing is, it dwarfs the ox cart present in a number of the images. As if the ox cart is a mere miniature. The beast also has a pair of horns. Horns that looked somehow too short for its immense size. But they look deadly enough. Sharp, pointed, corkscrew spikes that curve forwards from the back of its skull. It has gangly limbs. Insect like. And something of a human face. But its eyes are like that of a spider's.

'Oh and you gotta see this,' Mark says, 'some nutter was even trying to fight it.'

He scrolled through the photos until this image fills the screen; an image of some bloke, dressed in a dark outfit complete with helmet and face mask, snapped in mid leap as the creature scrambled over what I assume is the village wall. The person grips a crude looking sword in his hand.

I gazed at the pic for quite a long while before I scrolled back through the images one by one. I paused on one where the bulk of the creature could be seen a tad more clearly than in the other images. I studied it for a moment or two. Then frowned. 'What the hell is this, Mark?'

'You tell me,' he says. 'I've never seen anything like it.'

I shook my head. 'No, what I mean is, this looks similar to that pic they published on the front page of the Gazette last week.'

'I know, it's weird isn't it?'

I watch his face. 'But... but this...' Hell, my head was in a complete spin. And not because I believed Mark had snapped something unknown to science. No, the photo that'd been sent into the Gazette had come from an "anonymous" source. Well, the similarities between what Mark was showing me here and that particular image were striking. 'This is some joke right?' I took hold of his laptop and shifted for a more square on view. I clicked through the images again. 'I mean, seriously, tell me this is some fucked up joke.'

He looked at me puzzled. 'I don't know if it's a joke or what but that's what was there.'

I turned my head and gazed across at all his sci-fi movie magazines on his book shelf. And all his monster posters on his wall. 'I think I'm starting to understand. Which one of those mags did you take these images from?'

He laughed. 'What?'

'Come on, Mark, you're playing at something. What is it?'

'You think I'm making this shit up?'

'Well, it sure as hell isn't real, Mark.' I waited for him to explain himself. 'It was you who sent that pic into the Gazette, right?'

He looked mortified. 'Brutha, I don't know who sent that pic in but it sure as hell wasn't me.'

I eyed him for a while. Something wasn't right here. I just knew it. I pondered the drawings and artwork on his walls, pinned there between his framed Natalie Portman posters. The dragons, the goblin critters, the space ships flying over marshland populated by zombie things, the one with the knight in blood-streaked armour lunging towards a dragon as it fled over a stone rampart.

Then I spotted it. His drawing tablet. The Cintiq. Lying there on the desk across the room next to his PC. I suddenly got it then. He'd created these images. He'd manipulated a bunch of photographs, drawn in these monster images, or at least imported them from somewhere else, and craftily blended them in. It'd taken me a while to understand it because I hadn't realised he'd finally gone and mastered the Cintiq.

This was all a piss-take. A clever one too. Now I knew why he was doing it. He was of showing off, demonstrating how good an artist he'd become. And fair play to him. What better way to flaunt his skill than by conning half the fucking village?

I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Bloody hell, Mark, you almost had me.' I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled heavily. I felt relieved. 'You really almost had me.'

I offered him my knuckles, we fist bumped, although it must be said he looked puzzled. 'Fair play to ya. I mean, wow, these images are amazing. How long have you been working on them? And that one on the front of the Gazette, brilliant. You've had almost the entire village convinced we were being stalked by some alien creature. It's fucking brilliant.'

I hoped then he'd just concede. Say something like, 'Fuck, it's taken you this long to work it out?

But he didn't concede. He didn't do anything of the sort. He simply frowned and said, 'I didn't draw these, Jake. They're real.'

I laughed. 'Piss off, Mark. Pull the lid on this. Seriously.'

'Jake, you have to believe what I'm showing you.'

'Come on, Mark, what are you doing to me? This is ludicrous. I can't tell if you're joking or what.' I pressed my palm to his forehead, as if to check his temperature. 'Have you got a fever or what?'

He pushed my hand away. 'Jake, honestly, I didn't draw these.'

'Come on, Mark, tell me it's a joke. Tell me this is Cruddy Smith and Betty Harris again. At least that was halfway funny.'

'I didn't think it'd be this hard.' He stood and clapped his laptop shut. 'Okay, I've got one last thing to show you. If this doesn't convince you, then I don't know what will.'

5

We stood beyond the wall. Out there it's all wild grass and brambles and wild pear trees and woodland that stretches a couple of hundred metres west to the wall of the great maze. We'd followed the cobblestone path along the village wall and climbed through bull thistles and ragwort growing in thick snaggled clumps along the base near Bomber's Hole.

Mark pointed to splashes of what he claimed was blood. When I pointed out it was black he said, 'Yeah, monster's blood.' Like it was fucking obvious.

There was more of it on the other side of the wall, where it looked to have splashed across the weeds. It was all dried of course. But I couldn't help thinking it was some carefully thrown paint.

'The photo of that bloke chasing it over the wall,' Mark said, 'well, this is where it happened.' He pointed to flattened shrubs, busted branches, knocked over trees. We came to a spot where the so-called black blood was everywhere. As if something the size of an elephant had been slaughtered here and its carcass dragged away.

'This is where the bloke stabbed it,' Mark told me. 'I don't know if he killed it but it was really squealing.'

'No photos of that then?' I asked sceptical.

'No, I dropped my phone. I had to come back and look for it first thing this morning. That's when I saw all this.'

I scuffed some of the dried "blood" with my sneaker. I crouched and broke off a blade of grass that was covered in it. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed it. I grimaced. An acrid stench had filled my nose, singing the insides of my nostrils. 'Can't be blood,' I told Mark. 'It smells like bleach.' I tossed the bit of grass aside. I thought of the dead cow back there in front of the police station. 'This is a prank, Mark. If you had nothing to do with it, if you're not aware of it, then someone's playing the village for idiots.'

He shook his head. 'Brutha, I know what I saw last night. And photos don't lie.'

I thought for a long while. Looking about the area of trampled grass and flattened shrubs. For some unexplained reason I couldn't help thinking back to that night on the village Green. The Charweeds.

And I remembered only now that I'd actually dreamt of them last night.

I'd dreamt that they'd been perched like bony birds at my bedroom window. Scratching at the sill with long black fingernails, their bone white eyeballs pushed insanely up against the glass.

'Look, Mark, all of this—' I pointed at the so-called blood. 'And all those photos you think you took. I think... I think it's all bullshit.'

He frowned, like he wasn't following.

'What I'm saying is, for some reason someone's trying to make people believe there are monsters on the loose.'

He laughed. 'Like who?'

I didn't really want to say it in case it fuelled one of his stupid monster theories. But I had to. 'I don't know. Maybe the Charweeds.'

'The Charweeds?'

I shrugged. They'd made me see things that night on the Village Green. Giant lizards and flying creatures. And that same night, if I think back to it, Mark believed he'd spotted some walking tree clambering over the village wall near his house. 'Yeah. I mean, if I think about it, it makes sense.'

'Oh, and they made me believe I took a bunch of photos too did they?'

'Yeah.'

He snorted. 'Come off it. So they're like Derren Brown? They're going round hypnotising people?'

'You lost your phone. You just told me.'

'So what?'

'So, maybe you didn't lose it. Maybe on the way home last night the Charweeds were trailing you and through some sort of hypnosis or mind suggestion, they made you think you'd snapped a bunch of photos when in reality they'd simply commandeered your phone and after you'd wandered on home and passed out, they uploaded a bunch of doctored monster images. Which I guess means they were the ones who sent that pic into the Gazette.'

'I know what I saw, Jake. When you're in the presence of something like that hulking thing I saw last night, you don't quickly forget it. The smell, the awe, the fear. It was as real as anything I've ever experienced, brutha. I'm not shitting you.'

'It's called an illusion, Mark. Or a delusion. Blame the Charweeds.'

'An illusion? So what killed Zanzibar?'

'Another tiger, Mark. I mean, those two witches are using all this slaughtered livestock bullshit to fuel public hysteria.'

'Why?'

'How the fuck should I know? But that's all it is. I mean, allegedly those girls have an entire history of doing that sort of thing. Abduction, kidnap, experimentation, then blaming it on something else. You know that as well as I. That's probably how they've gotten away with it for so long.'

'Didn't you hear what Hicks and Stowe were saying? That what attacked Stowe's horse was some beast they'd never seen before. Something alien.'

I sighed. 'Maybe the Charweeds corrupted their minds too. I don't know.'

He shook his head like that's the stupidest thing he's heard.

'Listen, Mark, you've had the wool pulled over your eyes. There's something going on, something neither of us understand, and we're being played for fools.'

Mark eyed me for a little while. Nodding, as if weighing up all I'd just said. But what he said next I wasn't expecting. 'Okay, put your money where your mouth is.' He stuck his hand out. 'Let's put two hundred quid on it.'

I frowned at him. 'What?'

'Two hundred quid says we've got some great big fucking monster on our hands. A real monster. Not just some jungle cat. But some real life fucking nightmare.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'You wanna bet me two hundred quid that there's some actual monster running around out there?'

'Yep.'

'Are you outta your fuckin' tree?'

'I'm serious, Jake.'

I watched him like he'd lost his tune. 'So, how're you gonna prove it?'

'I don't know yet. But I will.' He kept his hand poked at me.

I laughed and shook my head. 'Listen, Mark, I love you like a brother, but seriously, sometimes you're the stupidest twat in the world!'

I gripped his hand and we shook.

6

After he'd walked off my phone rang. I didn't bother following him. I'd had about as much as I could stomach of his bullshit. I saw Hayley's name on my mobile. I thought maybe I could hang out with her for the morning. Maybe pick up where we'd left off last night, you know, snogging and stuff. I was trying to think of a way I could juggle her and my work at Staten's but when I answered she's like, 'Jake, please help me, I don't know who else to call! Mum and Dad are over in Lambeth! I'm at the woolsheds. Something terrible's happened. There's blood everywhere. I think someone's been murdered!'

THE HORROR

1

THE BURNCHESS Woolsheds have a strange reputation for being the perfect hideaway for local kids to go and make-out, smoke fags, or drink beer. But you have to watch what you get up to over there because one time, Nicole Davis and Mary Swift were caught doing the old Pac-man on each other and as soon as word got out, kids went about calling them the Cracksnacker Sisters. Which is a tad unfair because I know for a fact they aren't actual sisters. (Just as well, I guess.) But why the hell Hayley was over that way all alone had me puzzled.

I made my way along the cobbled lane trailing the wall until I met the path that cut west out of Burnchess. Then coming towards the eastern entrance of Hell's Edge I took a shortcut through the pines, wading through the tall grass, grasshoppers and beetles springing into the air as I went. When I neared the clearing before the woolsheds, dappled sun cut across my face and I spied the first of the sheds emerge from the sunny woodland.

Beyond it, I was struck by how high the maze wall actually stands. How overbearing it seems, rising from the tall grass like the outer walls of a giant's lair. And how all the woolsheds cower in its shadow like timid turtles. I strode onto the cobbled path. A hundred hidden bugs trilled in the grass. Somehow I suddenly felt extremely isolated.

'Hayley? You here?' There was no sign of her. Had I heard her right? She had said the woolsheds, hadn't she?

I heard the faraway bark of a dog as the sun beat against me. Much closer came the desolate waaaaarkk of a yawning crow. Every now and then the eerie moan of the warm breeze sifted through the abandoned sheds, tinkering loose tin against the stone walls. There was a weird feeling in the air. A smell. Something not right.

A clutch of swallows burst from the nearest shed and I reeled backwards, shrieking like a girl. I gathered myself and watched them swoop away over the top of Hell's Edge. 'Holy shit!' I got my breath back. 'Hayley? Can you hear me?'

A sudden noise behind me. I whirled around.

A face right there in front of me.

I screeched and flew backwards.

2

I steadied myself when I saw who it was. I caught my breath. 'Hayley! Holy shit, you scared the shit outta me!' I laughed.

Her eyes were beetroot red. She was dressed in t-shirt and lycra cycling pants and sneakers. She looked pretty damn hot I've got to say, dressed like that. But she was in obvious distress.

'Hayley, what's wrong?'

She just pointed with a sob toward one of the sheds.

I turned and studied it. It looked much like the others: crumbling stone walls, and most of the slate roof collapsed and slanting inwards, grass growing between the tiles. Snaking past it was the path that cut through the high grass before disappearing through the open maw of the Hell's Edge Gate. What I saw then was a blue bike toppled on its side, half-dragged into the grass. Hayley's ten speed Giant, I realised. Nothing else stood out as unusual.

I looked back at her. 'Hayley, what is it?'

A sob escaped her. She backed up a step or two, shaking her head like she couldn't say, her hand clapped over her mouth like she was afraid to even make a sound.

I smiled, confused. 'Come on, Hayley, what is it?'

'Jake, he's there.' She sobbed. 'Someone. I don't know. It's terrible.'

I blinked at the shed. Butterflies flapped about. What the hell had her so damn spooked?

'He's dead, Jake,' she suddenly cried. 'He's dead!'

I studied her face. 'Who, Hayley? Who's dead?'

Her palms were on her cheeks. 'I don't know, Jake. Please, I don't know who it is. I just want to go home.'

I studied her eyes. Then looked back at the shed again. Flies buzzed. I squeezed her hand. 'Okay, wait here. I'm just gonna go and see, okay. Just wait here a minute.'

She sobbed and nodded. I turned for the shed.

3

I went forward and copped a whiff of that weird smell again. It was like Clem Fogarty's butcher's stall at the market, a cloying reek of bone and raw meat.

I reached the shed Hayley had pointed to but saw nothing in there except weeds, cigarette butts, Carling lager cans, bird shit, busted slate tiles, a water-wrinkled stick mag and old squirrel bones.

But that's when I heard the zinging flies beyond the crumbled walls.

4

There was a wide sea of tall brown grass between the shed and the eastern wall of Hell's Edge. It rasped in the hot wind and that's where I saw them. The flies. Clouds of them swarming over patches of grass that'd been trudged flat and turned red.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The sheer volume of blood. Red blood. Not black like the stuff Mark had just shown me. Like someone'd had their jugular opened up. That's when I caught sight of the twisted ropes of yellow intestines. And greenish organs.

I stood there running my eyes over the scene, blood pumping hard in my temples. I was thinking, Just get outta here, Jake. Just get outta here. I mean, I just knew the second cat the authorities suggested was still at large had opened somebody or something up here and me and Hayley needed to get the fuck away from the area. Fast.

But that's when I saw it. The figure lying behind the wild rose bushes.

Farmer Morton.

He lay as still as a dummy. Swarms of flies roaring above his head.

'Morton!' I hissed. 'Are you okay?'

The wild rose shrub concealed him pretty good. But as the hot summer wind pushed its branches to and fro I noticed the blood down the side of his head. And his ear... His ear had been torn off.

His eyes seemed to watch me desperately, his mouth sort of gaped open as if struggling for breath.

It was obvious he'd been attacked.

I acted on impulse. Didn't even think it out. I crept through the tall spiky stalks, hoping to hell something didn't scream up behind me and chomp a Quarter Pounder out of my arse cheeks. 'Hold in there,' I hissed at him. 'Just hold in there!'

But as I came up on him my bones went rigid.

5

Jutting from a thick bloody glove of skin and muscle was Morton's rib cage. It'd been almost completely hollowed out like the shell of a boiled egg. His ribs curled like long white fingers, glistening in the sun, dripping with blood. And his lungs and organs had been pulled out and dumped behind him and his intestines raked off into the grass like ribbons of sodden rope. His legs were nowhere to be seen.

I clamped my hand across my mouth and my stomach heaved out a great lumpy spray of last night's kebabs.

THE REVELATION

1

ME AND Hayley were 'debriefed'. A curious term if you think about it, seeing as it played out more like an interrogation. Dad sat there with village counsellor Melanie Black while me and Hayley were pretty much drilled for a good hour regarding what we'd seen. What we'd witnessed. About how Morton'd met his demise.

Hayley didn't know much more than me. She hadn't seen the incident. Just the bloody aftermath. She'd been on her morning ride when she'd spied it. The sight had made her come off her bike and she'd been so shaken by it she couldn't get back on. She'd cowered in one of the sheds for fear of ending up like Morton.

All told, we sat there dazed, bewildered, shocked. Unable to provide any sort of crucial info. When Dad felt he was done with his enquiries it was left to Mel Black to quell the demons festering in our heads. That was until Hayley started hollering at the top of her lungs: 'Ohhh, myyyy gaaaaawwwd! It was so aawwwful!'

Mark came down to the police station when he heard what was going on. When they let us out they told us to go home and relax. Like it was going to be that simple! Me and Hayley were hugging on the steps, consoling each other when her parents, Ron and Liberty, arrived, and they snatched her away, giving me these searing looks like it was all somehow my fault.

Mark took me up to Lost Worlds and we sat in our booth slurping black coffee. It near blew my fucking brains out. But it helped clear out my thoughts. Emily and Kate arrived soon after that.

Kate wrapped me in her arms, squishing her cheek to mine. 'We just heard what happened,' she said with her lips at my ear. 'You poor thing. Are you okay?' She wouldn't let me go, kept gazing at my eyes, combing her fingers gently through my hair. I would've tied my balls in knots just to have her touch me like that more often.

I couldn't look any of them in the face though. Not even Kate. Not for long at least. I felt the damn waterworks creeping up the pipes. But I held it in. Just stared at the table top, then out the window. I wasn't going to cry, not in front of Emily. No way.

'Was it... was it really Farmer Morton?' Emily asked, her face creased with angst.

I nodded. 'Yes... and...' I couldn't say it. I hung my head. 'His wife. They found his wife too.' I shaded my brow with my hand.

'His wife? Oh, my God! Old Gladys. Really?'

'I didn't know... I didn't know she was there. I only saw old Morton himself. I only... I mean, I tried to help, but he... he was... he was already gone.' I shook my head. 'It was awful. Just awful.'

We sat there quiet... for ages. All of us. You could see the looks on the girls' faces, tears in their eyes, thinking this wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. Morton and his wife both dead. They ran the sweets stall during primary school fete every year. And Morton himself was always the first to enter the annual inter-pub dart championships, and always the first to bow out because he couldn't throw to save himself. And what about the yearly muck-raking charity drives on the Morton farm? What would happen to that now? Would they still run it?

None of us'd ever been that close to the Mortons. But they were, you know, part of the village, part of the furniture. As constant as the Archway, or the Chess Stones, or the castle ruins. Surely they couldn't be dead. Surely not disembowelled and dismembered and strewn helter-fucking-skelter. Surely they were sitting at home crafting more of that tasteless cheddar. Not lying there in bits in the Horsefall morgue.

2

Later I sat alone in my room with Cookie at my side, both of us staring out the window into the village. She watched birds glide by. I watched nothing. Below the window, the pub sign creaked in the soft breeze. I used to think the depiction on that sign was sort of cool. It shows a dog and hare out for a stroll, both of them upright on two legs, with the hare tethered to a leash and the dog leading the way. The dog's dressed in a smoking jacket and tweed trousers, and he's got a pipe sticking from his gob. I used to think it was cool how the hare looks like it's been on a diet of growth pills because it stands head and shoulders taller than the dog. I used to think how brilliant it was that the hare also looks as though it's been struck with a serious case of zombiism, with its veined bulging eyes and teeth dripping blood. But right then I couldn't look at it. Right then the way that sign squeaked in the wind was like a corkscrew through my neck.

As I stood there my gaze stole in the direction of the woolsheds. I couldn't help myself. Like when you spot someone with a deformity, you know you shouldn't stare, but if a guy's moaning and dribbling spit into his lap and having a conversation with his elbow, you can't damn well help it.

The woolshed rooves peeked back at me over the tree line. Mocking me. I felt sick. But I couldn't let it go. Couldn't flush that Morton parody from my mind: his staring, dead eyes, and his guts trailing out behind him like squid arms. And his poor wife, Gladys. Apparently they'd located her head a hundred metres from her body. And her legs a hundred metres from her hips. What a blessing me and Hayley hadn't seen that on top of everything else.

I shuddered at the thought of it all and left the window.

3

I called Hayley, but her parents told me she wouldn't be taking any calls that day and that she wasn't to be pestered. That's how they put it. Pestered. I put my phone down and there was a knock on my door.

'Jake, you mind if I come in?'

I thought it was Emily, but it was Louise. Her voice strangely soft, strangely motherly, which was totally unlike her. Still, I didn't bother going to the door to see what she wanted. I sat there on the floor and said, 'Why?'

'I... I've heard what happened.' Her voice sounded sick. Like maybe she'd been crying and was trying to hold it in. 'I just wanted to see if you're all right.'

I took in a breath. Blew out a sigh. You knew she didn't give two shits about me. You knew Dad'd called her and told her to see if I wasn't hanging myself or something. 'Look... I just wanna be alone right now. Okay?'

A pause. Then, 'Are you certain?'

I rolled my eyes. Do dogs like sniffing arse? 'Yes.'

'I'm here if you need to talk.' Her voice was wavering. 'All right?'

I would sooner have dipped my knob in molten plastic than have a damn heart-to-heart with the likes of her. But it only occurred to me later that maybe she'd been looking for someone to chat with that day, that maybe the iron bitch of the village was barely dealing with what'd happened. Maybe with Dad and Emily out of the Inn, all she had right then was me.

She hung outside my door for a few moments. I could sense it. Hear her with her ear at my door. Hoping I was going to change my mind and invite her in for scones and tea and a damn good natter. Finally I heard her footsteps moving away.

4

I didn't leave the Inn till late afternoon. Mark and Kate'd called to see if I wanted to go and have some drinks and nibbles at Kate's place but I'd told them I was okay where I was. (For some reason, I had this suspicion that Corey Wankerson was in town, so I didn't want to be around him and Kate if they were going to be holding hands and snogging.) I told them I'd call them later.

I was sitting by the window gazing out across the village when I noticed Charlton Jones standing across the street gazing up at me. I frowned. This was the third or fourth time now I'd caught him just staring at me funny. What was his fucking problem?

When he saw that I'd noticed him he continued strolling up Castle Grove. When he was out of sight, my mobile phone bleeped.

I picked it up and saw an incoming text message. It was from Jones. I frowned as I read it.

Jake, if you want to know what killed Morton, come and see me. I'll be at the bus shelter.

5

Thing about Jones is, even though he works as a bus conductor and wears that prissy little outfit he's a bit of a hard prick. His hair is close cut and he's nearly always unshaven and he's got this scowl, this look in his eye like he'd smash your fucking face in if you looked at him the wrong way. Guess it's no surprise that he doesn't have much of a sense of humour.

He had a big soft spot for my mum though when she was around. That much was obvious. I don't know, maybe they'd had some fling when they were younger. Maybe in their younger days they'd gone out for a while but it hadn't worked out. Maybe he'd never fallen out of love with her—even after she met and married Dad. Because other than Dad, you couldn't have found a bloke who treated Mum more like a princess.

It's probably why he's always treated me a bit like a son. Well, at least he used to. We haven't had much to do with each other this past year but me and him'd had some good chats after Mum passed away. Especially when Dad was grieving and wouldn't respond to me. Actually, Jones was the one I credit for pulling me through all that terrible emotional shit. That's the thing about Jones. He looks like hard nut but he's got a heart of gold.

I found him tinkering under the bonnet of the old double-decker Spitfire in the large hangar out the back of the barley mill. The massive doors were swung open to the sea air and the grasses rolled and swayed across the Village Green; a zillion daisies and buttercups danced in the warm sunny breeze. Over the lip of the Drop Off you could hear the surf crashing and seething into the high cliffs as the deep blue ocean rolled away to the edge of the world.

Jones looked up when I knocked. He straightened, stretched his back into a long crackling arch and squinted at me in the glare. 'That you, Jake?'

I stepped in. 'Yep.' I'd felt like a jittery fucking mess leaving the Inn. And on my way up Castle Grove I'd sent a thousand glances over my shoulders, scouring every shadow, every darkened laneway. I knew whatever the hell'd killed Morton and his wife, was still out there, hiding, waiting... hungry to kill again. It had me paranoid as a chimpanzee jacked up on Acid. I thought I'd be next if I let my guard down. It was going to burst from the shadows and take me down in a flurry of blood and guts.

Jones stepped across to his workbench where his conductor's bag and hat lay bunched together. He wiped his hands on an old rag before lifting a mug of tea to his gob. 'Welcome back to the village,' he said and sipped his tea. He wiped his mouth with the back of his greasy cloth. He gazed out the small jagged window for a second; a beam of sunlight cast across his face. I noticed some raw cuts up his neck. I noticed grazes on his forehead.

When I spoke I didn't mean to sound so abrupt but I just felt so anxious, so frustrated. 'So you know what's going on, do you?'

He put his mug down. Wiped sweat off his brow. 'Yes.'

I frowned. 'Okay. Let me hear it.'

He took another sip of tea. He shrugged. 'You may not be ready to learn the truth of it though, Jake.'

'What's that supposed to mean? It's just some big cat, right? And if not, then it's just Darcy's hounds or something.'

'Yes, well that'd be the most straightforward explanation.'

'So, which one is it?'

'Neither.'

'Neither?' I wracked my brain to think what else could've escaped Chingola that had the capacity to tear people to bits. They didn't have bears. They didn't have wolves. They didn't have crocodiles. 'What else could it be then?'

Jones wiped his hands on a rag and considered his response. 'We are dealing with a problem way beyond the knowledge of this world, Jake. We have a monster on our hands. A creature of nightmares. To reach us it has stepped through an ancient doorway. Others of its kind are knocking. If the portal is not shut down we will soon find ourselves invaded.'

I laughed. 'Are you on drugs, mate? What the fuck are you talking about?'

'While you lot live out your nice little lives, there is a war going on, Jake, behind the scenes and in the shadows. And while I'm doing my best to prevent people being killed, well, at the end of the day, I am but one man with two arms and two legs. I am doing the best I can.'

'A war? What are you going on about? Are we still talking about the same thing?'

'Jake, in all seriousness, perhaps I should not have bothered you. I can already see which way this conversation's heading.'

I blinked at him. 'I uncovered Morton's chopped up body for fuck sake. So I'm not leaving here till I get some sort of answer.'

'I just gave you an answer.'

'You said some shit about a war and some portal and none of it makes sense.'

'You think a cat or a bunch of dogs did over Albert and Gladys Morton, Jake? The way they were killed? Was it a frenzied attack or was there an intelligent mind behind it?'

I didn't know what he wanted me to say.

'No disrespect to dear old Albert,' Jones went on, 'I warned him not to play the hero but he insisted. He went out in search of another tiger. More fool him.'

'So what did he find?'

Jones laughed. But there was no humour there. More a scoff. More a derisive grunt. 'Nothing. It found him.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Come on, Jones, what the hell is it? Just tell me. Did it escape from Chingola?'

He frowned. 'I just told you, Jake. It is a monster. Not from our world. Some call it the Bucca. Some call it the hobgoblin. It has visited us before but we managed to chase it back through the gate. It kills. That is what it does. And it will keep killing until we stop it.'

I blinked at him. My eye twitched. I wasn't even sure what I was hearing anymore. I grinned. 'You know what? This is fucking ludicrous.' I thought Mark must've been in his ear to be coming out with this shit.

He sipped his brew and smiled. 'There you go. I rest my case. You have too much of your father's pragmatism, I'm afraid, and too little of your mother's thirst for the unknown.'

'Yeah, well you wanna know what I think? You wouldn't know a turd log if it fell out of your arse.'

He gave me a look between puzzlement and humour. 'Very colourful, Jake, but I'm not sure I take your meaning.'

'It means you don't have any more idea about what's running round out there than the rest of us. Am I right? Tell me. You don't have a clue do you? You're just a lonely old prick trying to stir up some attention.'

He shrugged and sipped more tea. 'If only that were so.'

'Tell me then. What the hell is it?'

He rubbed his hands on his rag. 'Jake, I'm sorry to have wasted your time. And mine. Now, if we're done here, I've got work to do.'

I was bewildered. 'Oh and that's it, is it? And what if someone else winds up dead?'

'Oh, that's highly likely considering what we're dealing with.'

I watched him after he said this. I mean, it was the way he'd said it. Like someone predicting flame before the strike of a match. Like it was a full gone conclusion. And he stood there so casual like, as if it didn't concern him. Like there was nothing that could be done about it.

'You're saying Morton and his wife won't be the last?'

'No. They won't be the last.'

'Well, you've gotta go to the police,' I told him. 'They've got to be warned.'

'The police?' He smiled again. 'Jake, I have sent your father countless warnings explaining what's about to happen in Burnchess. He and Finch have joked at my expense. Your father is a good man, Jake, don't get me wrong, but he's demonstrated that even good men can be fools. So, no I won't waste my time with that lot again. They have an extremely limited capacity to deal with anything outside what they consider the norm. And believe me, lad, this ain't normal.'

'Okay, that's it then,' I said frustrated. 'Thanks for nothing.' I turned and went striding out the wide shed doors.

'Jake,' he called.

I turned around impatient like, fed up with this bullshit.

He drew a deep breath. 'Have you not considered why I asked you up here?'

I sighed. I didn't care.

'I'd hoped you might share an open mind like your mother. I'd hoped you'd be willing to listen. If signs prove true, then you may yet have a hand to play in the outcome of this growing dilemma.'

I shrugged. What the hell did he want me to say to that?

'Jake, look, I urge you to keep an open mind.'

I strode out the shed doors and into the afternoon sunshine but again Jones called after me. 'Jake!'

I stopped and turned and eyed him.

'Listen, a word of warning. Keep your doors well locked these next few nights. The darkness may well seek a way in.'

6

The papers ran headlines like Mortons Slain By Second Tiger and Cheddar Not So Easy To Swallow After All. That was essentially the public verdict on the Morton massacre: a second predator was on the loose. Another tiger. Another cat. It didn't matter what sort. As far as the farmers were concerned, unless the cops acted, they'd be roaming the countryside packing shotguns rather than face being garrotted or disembowelled or both. Thing was, the history of the Grey Death of Horsefall was so firmly entrenched in the public psyche that the finger was being pointed directly at Chingola Wildlife Reserve. But their management denied any link. Chingola CEO, the snivelling, weasel-faced, Patterson Zukowski, called a press conference. 'We regret the loss of life,' he whined, 'but all our cats are present and accounted for. And for the record, I wish to take this opportunity to remind people that big game cats do not mutilate for the sake of mutilating. They operate on very basic laws of biology. On a basic hierarchy of needs, if you will. Either killing for sustenance or for protection. Mutilation, either for pleasure or for the sheer hell of it, does not feature in their behaviour. If there are murders being perpetrated, then might I suggest the authorities look at the possibility of there being a serial killer on the loose and not be so quick to point the stick at us!'

That didn't help things. Not with the summer season kicking into gear. Because all of a sudden we had idiots running round flapping their mouths about a homicidal maniac walking amongst us, that the tiger was nothing but a police cover story.

As this all gained momentum, Dad had to hold a press conferences of his own to hose it away. 'Contrary to sudden village opinion,' he said, 'there is no evidence to suggest we have anything other than another large cat in our midst. I want to make that very clear. The malicious allegations put forward by Mr Zukowski are entirely without basis.'

But it was too late: the genie was out of the bottle. By then the idea of a serial killer was proper imbedded. Folks talked about it down back alleys and in the dark booths of local pubs. It blanketed Burnchess like fungus. There was the general idea that we should all bunker down, bolt our doors, hide beneath our beds with our arms over our heads and pray our hairy arses be saved by the Almighty. (Which is an apt point seeing as Vicar Mayberry's flock of parishioners grew out of sight, leaving no spare pews in church for those who suddenly wanted to try their luck with the god squad.) It was as if goblins had taken over, as if everyone now expected to be picked off one by one unless some divine hand interfered.

I'd never known hysteria like it.

From my point of view, the best thing to come out of the mess was that half the damn tourists packed up and fucked off. Muldoon and Jones had to put on extra bus trips just to shift the panic-stricken crowds gathering at the barley mill. That's when the Village Council called an emergency meeting to discuss the ramifications.

'It's a terrible state of affairs,' argued Mrs Barnacle, the chubby hag who owns and operates the Barnacled Octopus (the reeking seafood joint across the road from the Hare Of The Dog). 'If nothing's done quick smart about this serial killer business we'll have no tourists left and all our summer revenue will take an irreversible turn for the worse.'

'Serial killer?!' laughed Mr Rhodes, long-time council committee member. 'Ha! It's a bloody cat is all it is, for God's sake. And what we need here is hunters from Chingola. We need them to take responsibility and conduct a broad spectrum sweep across Hell's Edge and take down any damn thing that moves!'

Retired Major General Cookson (and long-time haemorrhoid sufferer) stood up on his one leg and stomped the wooden floor with his crutch. 'We call in the forces is what we do!' he boomed. 'A ruddy good dose of carpet bombing by a B52 bomber ought to sort out our problem quick smart! You mark my words!' Then he crashed over, knocking spare seats flying across the hall.

It wasn't until Friday the 3rd of August that post mortem results went public on the Morton massacre. Trouble is, the verdict was pretty fucking vague. We were told wounds in the torn flesh were consistent with a "sharp implement". We weren't told whether that meant knife or claw. All we were told was that pathology had concluded that Albert and Gladys Morton were 'more than likely' victims of an attack by a large game cat.

If it was meant to sweep aside public concerns then it didn't work. Everyone believed some mad fucker was still out there hiding in the quiet surrounds of the countryside, waiting to strike again. Everyone believed the true findings of the autopsies had been kept under wraps for fear of creating widespread panic.

All I know, is that almost a week after the Morton business, Jones's words would rear up to haunt me. 'Keep your doors well locked these next few nights,' he'd told me. 'The darkness may well seek a way in.'

Because in the wee hours of August the 5th the monster found me.

THE BUCCA

1

IT WAS two in the morning when I snapped out of sleep like someone'd stabbed a freezing slice of metal up my bowel. I didn't know what'd brought me round but I had the terrifying sensation I wasn't alone. And sure enough, as I trained my eyes into the dark, I saw a shape standing there in my room.

Adrenalin roared through me. I fumbled my cricket bat into grip and jumped out of bed, swinging the bat at it.

Only, my bat hit nothing.

I staggered back and snapped on the bedside lamp, squinting as light flared, tensing myself for something to come flying at me. But there was no-one in the room. Just Cookie lying on the chest of drawers, wincing at me.

I stood there panting, unconvinced.

The wardrobe door creaked.

My eyes flashed to it.

I could hear someone breathing in there.

I glanced around at Cookie and frowned. If an intruder had hidden inside my wardrobe why the fuck wasn't she in fits? She just lazed about as casual as you like. Like it was Sunday afternoon.

I ignored her. She was probably drunk. She'd probably been lapping up the head chef's Bailey's again. I approached the wardrobe, cricket bat held back ready to clobber the head off the shoulders of whoever stepped out. I reached my fingers toward the door knob.

But I stopped... and stood there listening. Beyond the moaning wind outside the Inn I could hear them in there whispering.

Shit, did that mean they weren't alone?

I leaned closer. But I couldn't make out what they were saying.

I swallowed and said, 'Who's in there?'

No answer.

I reached for the knob again. Gripped it, held the bat ready to swing.

And yanked the door open.

2

Straight away I saw her hiding behind my coats. One of the stinking, scrawny Charweed girls. Her pale face and her large eyes goggling at me. Adrenalin shot through me, I stopped breathing. My pulse went wild. I fumbled the cricket bat but I couldn't get it round. She lurched toward me and I swung the bat and hit the side of the wardrobe. I pulled it back again.

She came at me, arms outstretched, fingers reaching for my throat. 'Billy,' she screeched, 'Billy! You didn't drown? Can you breathe?'

Her pale bony elbows slipped around my neck, clawing me. I tried wrestling her off. Both of us knotted and twisted together, stumbling into the lamp stand, before falling into the chest of drawers. I lost my cricket bat in the tussle. Cookie hissed and scrambled beneath the bed. We crashed into the floor. The Charweed girl had me in a death grip; I couldn't get her off.

'Billy,' she groaned, 'Billy, don't let me go!'

Billy? I thought and she had her mouth against my neck like she wants to bite a chunk out of me. But next thing she's sobbing. I gripped her hair and pulled her head back and was stunned.

It wasn't the bulging-eyed death mask of a Charweed that stared back at me.

It was Emily.

3

She didn't have her glasses on but she had this look of complete bewilderment when her eyes focused on me.

'Jake?' she says tiredly. 'What are you doing here? Where's Billy?' Her face was full of confusion. Like she didn't know where she was. 'I thought you were Billy,' she said with a gasp and pushed me away.

'Who the fuck's Billy?'

But she doesn't answer. She scrambles backwards like I'm trying to have my way with her. She hisses, 'What the hell are you doing in my room?'

I sat there, leaning against my chest of drawers. 'You're in my room, Em. You're bloody well sleepwalking again.'

Squinting, she scrutinised her surroundings. Then, embarrassed, she got up, swept hair off her face and scurried out of there.

4

A few minutes later I was down in the kitchen. I had the fridge open, shaking my head. I felt like a right twat. Emily scaring me like that. But three nights in a row I'd awoken in the same manner—yelling, wrestling with nightmares of Farmer Morton and his guts flung every which way.

I dragged out the apple juice, guzzled down a throatful. I had the lights on, staring at the kitchen doorway. I just felt spooked. I kept thinking of Morton lying there with his guts all torn free. I just couldn't push that memory out of my mind. You gotta get a grip, Jake, I told myself. I took another gulp of juice, put the bottle back, shut the fridge and flicked off the lights...

5

That's when I heard it.

A strange sound...

Something like a growl.

Must be Scuppers. If so, what the fuck was he growling at?

Now I heard footsteps in the hallway. I don't know why but thoughts of that fucking meat puppet crept into my mind. I imagined it was out there in the hall, beyond the vacant kitchen doorway, waiting for me. Only not the fox-octopus one. But the wolf-cross Mark'd mentioned, the wold-cross with its huge octopus body slithering and flopping against the walls, its wolf jowls dripping with spit.

I held my breath, my eyes bulging at the empty doorway, waiting for it to appear.

But it didn't.

Nothing did.

I stood there listening intently. The sound had gone.

I approached the doorway as quietly as I could. Then ever so slowly I peered out into the gloomy hallway. I don't know what I would've done if I'd seen something. Squealed, maybe. But there was nothing out there, just the vacant hallway trailing off into the night gloom in both directions.

Ghostly moonlight poured in at one end, showering the coat stand and the picture frames along the wall. When I peered up the flight of stairs leading to the bedroom level it was deserted.

Beyond the Inn, the eerie howl of gusting wind continued. I could see leaves splatting against the windows. The Inn moaned and creaked like it does on stormy nights.

I left the kitchen. I trod slowly down the hall and then climbed the stairs, the floor boards creaking beneath my feet. I reached the landing above and turned for my room and I noticed Emily's bedroom door was open...

It stood ajar by half a foot. And spilling through the gap, cast in the glow of the moon, was this weird shadow that stretched out across the landing...

My first thought was Emily. But then I heard a strange grunting sound coming from her bedroom. And it was only then I realised the shadow looked like someone clasping an axe.

I panicked. I didn't even think about what I did next. I rushed at Emily's door and kicked it open. And gasped.

6

I don't know what the fuck I was expecting. Some weirdo with an axe, I guess. But even a weirdo with an axe would've made more sense than what I saw looming over Emily's bed.

An ape. A huge hairy thing. With long, muscular limbs. Only it wasn't an ape really. Not when it turned and looked at me. It had a bizarre protruding crocodile snout and its eyes were huge empty holes.

Scuppers awoke from dreaming bone dreams under Emily's bed and he crawls out, looking clueless at first... except the moment he spots this thing he goes ballistic, snapping at it like a rabid pig.

Emily, who must've already gone back to sleep after her foray into my room, rolled over wincing at me, wondering what the hell the racket was. But her eyes suddenly ballooned when she saw this thing leaning over her and she let out the most head-splitting squeal you've ever heard in your life.

The beast looked startled. It took a step backwards. Scuppers was still snapping at its big clumpy reptilian feet. It turned and lumbered toward me, like I'd foiled its plans, scaly outstretched hands reaching for my face. I lunged out of its way, crashing to the floor and the thing ran from the bedroom and Scuppers tore after it down the hallway.

Moments later Dad burst into the room, snapping on the lights yelling, 'Jake, what's wrong? Who's screaming?' When I didn't respond he grabbed me and said, 'Jake, are you hurt?' That's when he noticed Emily with her bulging eyes, and her duvet yanked to her chin. He rushed to her. 'What is it, Emily? What's the matter? Are you okay?'

'Th... there was some...' she spluttered, 'there was something in my room.'

Louise came crashing through the door crying, 'Someone in the room?' and she was at Emily's side in a heartbeat, crying, 'My God, sweetheart, are you okay?'

'He... he was standing r-right there!' Emily panted, her voice quivering, her face all bug-eyed.

Dad turned and strode for the door. 'Louise, stay here!' And with that he was gone, pounding down the hallway.

THE DARK RIVER

1

MERRILINE AND Farmer Joe Sharkfin run a small Bed & Breakfast at the foot of the Hidden Sea Hills on the Tigwater Moor. On the night of August the 4th, the very night Emily's intruder paid us a visit, four tourists were out late sipping shiraz on the front lawn and enjoying the long balmy summer evening. Round about 10 pm Merriline Sharkfin came out to warn the group they shouldn't linger outside too late in case the fiend (be it animal or serial killer) that took down the Mortons was slinking about.

Her guests said they'd be indoors soon and Merriline left them be.

That was the last time they were seen alive.

At dawn next morning the Sharkfin sheepdogs discovered their bodies approximately two hundred metres north of the farmstead, lying on the banks of Hell's Stream.

Dad and the authorities were called. They set up a cordon. They would keep the story under wraps for the time being so as not to cause village panic. But as shit tends to happen in a small town, news leaked out like water through a sock. And before long the morning grapevine was abuzz with rumour about not only some brazen break-in at the Hare Of The Dog, but also with what people were calling "bizarre murders" out by the Hidden Sea Hills.

I first heard about it when Louise came scurrying upstairs, saying in a hushed voice, 'Oh, I hope to God you haven't said anything to Emily about the terrible business at the Sharkfin's overnight. Emily's in a delicate state as it is. It'll send her into shock.'

I frowned. As far as I was concerned, the only shock Emily was likely to suffer was from all the attention her mother was lavishing upon her. Since Emily had awoken that morning, Louise had fetched her numerous cups of tea, and crumpets sodden with honey and a magazine from the corner shop and a crème bun and doughnut from the bakery. Scuppers hadn't gone without either. The little hero lay there tucked up in bed beside Emily, happily gobbling down a reward of juicy bacon scraps.

I said, 'Why, what's happened at Sharkfin's?'

But she didn't tell me. She just says, 'Oh what a relief, you haven't heard, thank God,' and she scurries off to Emily's room, calling, 'I'm coming, sweetheart. I've got your hot chocolate just how you like it.'

I could've chased after her to ask about this "Sharkfin business" but I was pretty close to vomiting by then from all her fussing so I headed downstairs to see if I could gather any information from the bar staff.

On my way down, I bumped into Kate coming up the other way.

It was strange when I saw her. I realised I hadn't actually thought of her in a couple of days. I mean, I'd seen her come and go from the Inn with Emily over the past week or two. They're like best mates so it's not easy to keep out of her way completely. But there'd been so much going on, I hadn't had to torture myself with thoughts of her and Wankerson.

Even so, seeing her stirred my feelings. 'I just heard what happened,' she says to me, her eyes smouldering with concern. 'Are you lot okay?'

'A little bit shook up I guess.'

She took me in her arms and held me a few moments. It felt so good. I put my arms around her and buried5 my chin in the crook of her neck. That old familiar smell hit me, her skin and hair conditioner. It was cosy. It felt like home. I shut my eyes.

'Jake, it must've been terrible,' she says, releasing me, 'Is Emily hurt?'

I sighed. I hadn't wanted that hug to end. 'Emily? Yeah, she's well traumatised,' I told her. 'Louise fetched her one doughnut instead of two. She's in a right state.'

Kate looked at me puzzled.

'Doesn't matter.' I didn't know what else to say. I suddenly wished that thing I'd sprung in Emily's room had broken into my room. I wish it'd rammed me into a wall and punched me in the face and given me a few bruises to show off. I could've done with a bit more sympathy off Kate right then.

'Jake, I honestly don't know what's happening anymore,' she said worriedly. 'Something really weird's going on. This town feels like it's going insane. I mean, the thought of another cat is bad enough. But now this intruder. And those poor tourists at the Sharkfin place.'

'Tourists?'

'People are saying a group of tourists were found this morning. On the banks of Hell's Stream.' She swallowed. I could see the news had her distressed. There was a tear in her eye. 'They were all... all dead.'

I frowned. 'Dead? What?'

She shook her head, wiping the tear from her cheek. 'Jake, it's just horrible. All this crazy stuff happening.' She took my hand. 'Listen Jake, whatever happens, you be sure to stay safe, okay?' Her voice sounded close to sobbing.

I nodded. 'Yeah. I will.' I was dying to know what happened on the Sharkfin property.

Kate held me again, pulling me to her. 'You have to promise me, Jake.'

'I will. You too.'

2

Down stairs I moved through the ground floor foyer where the foggy glass wall divides the check-in desk from the main bar. I was surprised to see old Hogshead lugging a hundred bags and cases out to his cart. 'What's all this?' I asked as he shuffled passed me.

'More folk cancelling their jollies,' he said. 'They can't get out of Burnchess quick enough. Them deaths on Sharkfin's property have 'em all spooked, lad. Some idiot's been going round tellin' em' that last night's intruder did those poor folk in.'

This town really is going nuts, I thought.

He moved off and my phone rang. It was Mark. I put the phone to my ear and said, 'What's up?'

'Jake, did you hear that something weird went down at the Sharkfin place over night?'

'Yeah. But only bits and pieces. Do you know what happened?'

'No. But I'm hooked into police radio. And there's some weird shit going down out there. Right now. They're tracking some anomaly through the western edge of Hell's Edge.'

3

The Hidden Sea Hills lie west of the Hell's Edge maze, rolling three miles inland and stretching five miles up the coast. The tallest hill out that way is Sunken Ship Rise, with a summit that sits two hundred metres off sea level. Up there the winds blow a constant gale but you get a seagull's idea of the surrounding land. Away west, the fossil strewn, grassy hills eventually fall away to the white cliffs that curve twenty miles south-west to Fensallow beach. (A popular spot where girls bathe topless at the height of summer.) And east toward Burnchess you can see the gloomy corridors of Hell's Edge, and the rambler's trails beyond the derelict lighthouse winding along the bare windswept Howling back toward Biffon's piggery.

It was a good twenty minutes later that me and Mark zipped round behind the Rise on our dirt bikes and hit the brakes, cutting impressive skid marks through the cruddy grass. At our backs the ghostly hulks of old shipwrecks lay just off the coast, hanging on the reef beneath the green waves like giant marine creatures.

We left the bikes at the base of the hill as we didn't want to be heard zooming to the top of the Rise—less questions to answer if the authorities didn't know we were there. Then we began the steep hike as quickly as we could.

4

'So what did you hear exactly?' I asked as we pushed our way through the bracken and thistles. I imagined Mark'd been sitting there day after day listening in on so-called secure police frequencies over the two-way. The two-way that used to be part of Burnchess police property until I "borrowed" it from the little store chest Dad has stashed in the attic of the Hare Of The Dog. It's one of a batch of old model Motorolas they're not using anymore. But we realised pretty early on that we could still use it to tune into encrypted emergency channels broadcast in a ten mile radius so long as the relay antennas weren't damaged.

'Something was spotted,' he said. 'In the south western quadrant of the maze. They were talking about a Code X. The Horsefall dog unit has been mobilised. They've even got Force Support Group personal from Lambeth.'

'Code X? You actually heard them say Code X?'

'Yes.'

It had to be bullshit. They never use Code X. Code X is an urban myth. Reserved for weird shit like... like UFO's. Or unexplained phenomena. It didn't make sense. Mark had misheard them. That was the simplest explanation.

We reached the top of the Rise, crawling the last few metres so as not to be noticed from those to our north, then we lay flat on our bellies.

5

Immediately north-east of Sunken Ship Rise lies the bog of Tigwater Moor where the ancient stone ruins of Crowspine lie half-submerged in the marsh. Between the soggy moor and the western gate of Hell's Maze stand the various stone buildings of Sharkfin's farm.

Down there I recognised Dad. And Finch and Ted Sutton. (Dad was on his phone, his face dead serious, while Finch looked to be interviewing the Sharkfins; Mrs Sharkfin was sobbing fairly heavily.) They stood by the main farmhouse while the police vehicles, highlighted by their Battenberg markings, were parked beyond the old stone bridge. Parked further back there looked to be media vehicles; crews from the Burnchess Gazette, the Lambeth Lancet, and the Horsefall Tribune hung around like rats waiting to feast on a juicy news story.

West of our position lay Hell's Edge, ten square miles of mighty stone maze, stretching all the way back to the Biffon farm. It's an eerie sight, seeing it from that vantage point, but it's also spectacular. It's the largest maze of its kind in all of Britain.

Two things were immediately clear. Units of the Force Support Group, along with the Horsefall dog squad, could be seen fanning out through the maze. Some members of the FSG even walked out along the tops of the maze walls, packing guns and batons and shit. What they were tracking we couldn't see.

What we could see, were the bodies.

North of the Sharkfin homestead runs Hell's Stream. Despite its name, Hell's Stream is normally a pristine waterway teeming with water birds and fish and frogs. Its source is the underground spring that bubbles into a pool in the centre of the maze—from that pool, the stream cuts an almost direct westward path through the maze, winding beneath small footbridges and channels dug into the base of walls. It exits somewhere north of the Sharkfin farm, meandering three hundred metres into the Moor.

That day the stream looked black. Like a load of oil had bubbled up from the bowels of the earth and contaminated it. Most of it had accumulated by the edge of the moor about two hundred metres north-west of the main farmhouse. It had pooled beyond a grassy field separated from the bog by the impenetrable yew hedge that stands as a wind break against the wild gales that roll out of the hills. And as far as we could make out, all along the length of Hell's Stream, from where it exited the maze to where it entered the marsh, geese and gulls and ducks and grebes and swans all lay dead, strewn about the wilted bulrushes and reeds and marsh thistles.

That's where the four tourists lay. Twisted and contorted and dead. No sheets covering them. No police tent hiding them. Nothing.

6

'What the fuck is going on?' I murmured.

Me and Mark were both bewildered. I couldn't take my eyes off them. The bodies. The way they just lay there so still. Never to stand again, nor talk, nor laugh. Just lifeless lumps of flesh and bone. Empty. Silent. Staring.

Mark'd brought binoculars with him. At first he had them fixed on the bodies. But then he brought them round to the maze. I followed his gaze.

'See anything?' I was still trying not to look at those bodies.

'The dog unit must be onto something,' he said, 'but I can't see what.' He handed me the binoculars.

I took them and nestled the eye pieces into my eye sockets, slowly turning the focus knob. For a few moments I studied the activity inside the maze, watching the FSG people go about their work. Whatever they were after, I couldn't see it.

Curiosity made me turn the binoculars on the dead tourists. I regretted it almost instantly. Until then they might have been simply sleeping. But now the detail was thrust in my face as stark as a spot light. I saw distorted faces, distended jaws, hanging tongues, and eyes that'd rolled backwards. I saw twisted bodies and limbs bent at unnatural angles.

I took the binoculars off my face. If I'd known I'd be seeing dead people this morning I mightn't have come. 'Fuck, man. This is nuts.' I handed the binoculars back to Mark. Saliva pooled at the back of my mouth. I could feel the warm swish of bile at the base of my throat. I couldn't help but see Morton in my mind again and again. His ribs. His innards. I saw those tourists with their mouths hung open, their warped faces, their bent hands and feet.

7

I rolled onto my back and gazed out into the blue sky. I slowed my breathing. I felt on the verge of a panic attack. I saw a falcon out there and focused on its flight. There were gulls too. All back-dropped by small fluffy clouds. A distant silent jetliner had a thin vapour trail strung out behind it. (I imagined its passengers sipping tea and nibbling camembert on crispy-toast, happily and blissfully oblivious to all this shit.)

Mark's like, 'Hey, check this out. We got people in chemical suits or some shit.'

I rolled over. Mark was pointing. There were three or four of them crossing the stream via the old stone bridge. Big bulky yellow suits from head to foot.

They were moving toward the bodies now. Mark followed them with his binoculars.

'They chemical suits?' I asked intrigued.

'Yeah. Take a look.' He handed me the binoculars and I trained them in their direction.

I saw big airtight body suits with helmets. And air tanks. I recognised the large orange 'Hazchem' insignia printed on their chests and upper arms. 'The fuck is going on here?' I murmured.

I handed Mark back his binoculars. And we both continued to watch proceedings. Around us daffodils danced in the wind. The long grass tipped to and fro. Thistles and bracken waved about. 'Maybe they're forensics,' I said.

'So what's the deal with the suits then?' Mark said.

'Don't know. Must be Hell's Stream. It's gone toxic or something.'

'How?'

'How the fuck should I know?' I gazed back toward the maze again. I frowned when I saw the FSG members now hurrying toward the western exit gate. I pointed. 'Look. Something's stirred up the FSG guys.'

We both watched them rushing toward maze exit. The dog unit leading the way.

'They chasing something?' Mark asked. 'Or is something chasing them?'

I was about to say 'Don't know' when I suddenly spotted a bizarre shape. I gasped. 'Holy shit!'

Mark's like, 'What?' but I snatched the binoculars off him and focused them in on this figure.

My skin went cold.

I see this shape. This large, dark shape moving slowly amongst the reeds, hunched over like a giant black gibbon. When the sunlight catches its face my breath stops. There's no mistaking it. It has large dark hollow eyes. And a terrifying crocodile mouth.

The thing from Emily's room.

'Shit, I gotta notify dad.' I wasn't even meant to be out here. I wasn't even meant to be out of the village. I didn't care. Dad'd understand. All'd be forgiven if I helped him catch the damn thing that'd been in Emily's room.

I dragged my phone out to call him and Mark's like, 'They've released the dogs.'

We watched five German Shepherds from the dog unit come charging from the maze gate and veer toward the farm, crossing ground with great speed.

The ape-thing broke from its position and tore south of the main farm house. Running across lawn, leaping a low stone wall, and bounding through tall grass, heading in the direction of the Rise.

Shots rang across the morning air. We ducked. The FSG members who were positioned on top of the maze walls had spotted the figure and were firing at it with their G-SK Marksman rifles.

Away north, dad and Finch and all other police personnel turned now to see what the matter was. The dogs continued their charge toward the farm sheds.

A small copse of trees was situated just north east of the Rise. We watched as the ape-like figure with its crocodile snout charge into it. Beyond that there was just open ground and then the northern base of this hill. But the figure halted there. Poised there. The dogs were rounding the farm, tearing toward the stone wall. We looked back at the figure. It just stood there now. Like it didn't know where to go. 'It's toast,' Mark said. 'Those dogs'll tear it to bits.'

The dogs leapt the wall and raced through the grass toward the copse. FSG members were fanning out from the maze gate, guns held primed to shoot.

I watched the monster cowering beneath the trees. I must've known its game was up. If it broke for it, it'd be shot. If it remained, the dogs would have it.

But suddenly we witnessed the strangest thing.

A faint reddish glow surrounded the figure for a moment. And when the glow vanished, the figure had miraculously gone.

Mark and me just lay there blinking. Mark grabbed the binoculars from me and scoured the scene. 'Fuck,' he says. 'Fuck. Did you just see that?'

I was speechless. I didn't know what I'd just seen.

'Did you see it?' he says again. 'It just vanished! That thing just vanished. Did you see it?'

I frowned. 'Yeah. I saw it.' I had no explanation for it.

'Where'd it go?'

I snatched the binoculars out of Mark's gripped and zeroed in on the area we'd last seen it. By then the police dogs had reached the copse, charging about madly, sniffing the grass around the point where the creature's trail came to a dead end. 'It must've dropped into a hole in the ground,' I said. But I saw no hole in the earth. No strategically placed trapdoor. Nothing but grass and weeds and old mossy stones.

We lay there for another fifteen minutes, possibly longer, watching the dog squad people search the area, kicking through the tall grass, searching the trees. A couple of times they even cast their eyes up the Rise. That's when I said to Mark, 'We best clear out.' The last thing we needed was to be spotted. I didn't want to be mistaken for some fiend and have those dogs set upon us.

8

The ride back to the village couldn't have ended quick enough as far as I was concerned. Mark was charged up. 'No denying it now, brutha,' he called above the roar of our dirt bike engines. 'I don't know how it just vanished like that, but you've now seen one, you've finally seen proof of what I've been talking about.'

I didn't know what I'd seen but there had to be a rational explanation.

'Come on, Jake. Say something. You saw it. You laid eyes on it. A creature straight out of the Charweed's Greenhouse of Horrors.'

'Come off it, Mark.'

'I'm serious, brutha. It had a crocodile head stitched to the body of a fucking gorilla. You saw it.'

I shook my head. But I honestly didn't know what to say. We negotiated the bumpy, uneven ramblers track. He kept glancing sideways at me.

'What?' I called out.

'You're just pissed off cos you lost the bet. Don't be a fucking girl about it.'

'I'm not being a girl about it.' I frowned. 'Anyway, what bet?'

'Remember? I bet you two hundred quid we've got some weird monster getting about.'

I barely remembered it. I said nothing.

'I mean, what more proof do you need?' he called. 'All the proof you needed just ran through Sharkfin's farm! In broad fucking daylight! It's not gonna get any clearer than that, Jake.'

'Proof that vanished off the face of the earth right in front of our eyes, Mark,' I called back at him.

'Look,' he said. 'I actually don't even want the money. I just want to hear you admit I'm right.'

9

I was late to work that morning. Though it turned out Staten had other things to worry about. As I rode up to the shop on my dirt bike and parked outside, I noticed the sign pinned to the door:

SHOP CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE

That was curious enough but once inside I found the situation even more curious.

Auxiliary cop Constable Dan Newson stood over by that glass cabinet, the one with that fuck ugly skull. He'd cordon-taped the area and was busy snapping photos from every possible angle.

I strolled over and noticed the glass of that cabinet had been booted out and the wire mesh hacked aside. There was mess strewn across the floor. The contents of the cabinet were all pushed over and knocked about.

Newson caught sight of me and lowered his camera. 'Don't contaminate the crime scene,' he growled and he pointed to an area at the other side of the shop he thought would be a better place for me to stand. 'Back up. Go on.'

Newson's usually back at the station writing up paperwork. And if dad and Finch hadn't been off elsewhere that's where he would've been. It's where he belongs if you ask me. He's an egotistical moron with a chip on his shoulder. I've never had much time for him. But it makes me smile because he's the underling in the local cop hierarchy. That fact pisses him off. It doesn't allow him any real power, doesn't get him out of the office much. It means he's a veteran at fielding titillating domestic matters like pet cats stuck down drain pipes or sauce bottles wedged up someone's arse. (As was the case two years back when old Mr Whetley claimed he fell on the offending item after coming off the ladder.)

'What happened?' It wasn't a question for Newson. It was for Staten who stood off to one side, taking inventory.

Newson went back to his photography and Staten eyed me thoughtfully, a biro stuck between his crooked knuckles. 'Seems we've had some restless soul exercise his slippery fingers in the wee hours of the night, Jake.'

'Really?' I gazed back at the cabinet. 'What'd they steal?'

'Take a guess.'

It was obvious. 'The skull.' I watched him keenly.

He nodded. 'Yes. I'm currently sifting through my list to learn if anything else has gone missing.'

'You think it was Goon?'

Newson lowered his camera and looked around at me with a questioning frown. 'Why would you say Goon? Do you know something we don't?' He had this burning look in his eyes. Like he'd just found the accomplice to this burglary, like he was part way to solving a crime that'd bring him to the attention of his superiors and maybe pull forward a promotion.

I shrugged. 'Just a guess.'

He eyed me closely. 'A guess?'

'Yep.'

He watched me suspiciously then returned to his work.

'Witnesses claim someone was seen leaving the premises about four this morning,' Staten told me. 'Someone dressed in a sort of monster suit.'

Newson's eyes narrowed. 'Monster suit?' He took out his pen and note pad. 'You didn't tell me anything about this before. Why didn't you?' He was jotting down monster suit.

'Well, you haven't yet asked, good constable. You've been quite preoccupied with your cordon tape and your little camera.'

'It's not little,' Newson argued. He watched Staten closely. 'Anything else you ought to let me know about?'

Staten shrugged. 'No. That's about all.'

Newson frowned at him and put his note pad away. After that he began dusting the cabinet for fingerprints.

'Right then,' Staten said, 'who's up for a cup of tea?'

'Look,' Newson said. 'I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm dusting for prints.' Like the world had to stop if Newson was dusting for prints.

Staten looked at me, inclining his head toward the lounge area, suggesting we ought to finish our conversation away from the good policeman.

I followed him to the settees where he put on the kettle.

10

'So, what did this monster suit look like?' I asked eagerly as the kettle boiled.

With his crooked arthritic fingers Staten awkwardly flipped his stock sheets over to some notes. And he read: 'The suit itself was shaggy. The mask consisted of large black eyes and a snout like a hound.'

I stared back in the direction of the cabinet. Thinking about Goon, thinking about that thing in Emily's room, thinking of that figure out at Sharkfin's. Could it be true? That it was just some idiot in a suit. I felt some relief wash over me at the thought. I said to Staten, 'Did you know we had an intruder last night at the Inn?'

'Yes, I heard.'

'Well, the way you described this suit, that's how it looked.'

'Really?' he said, 'how very intriguing.'

I scratched the back of my head. 'Shit, you think it was Goon?'

Staten had this look in his eyes like he didn't want to jump to conclusions. But he conceded the possibility. 'I'll admit, Jake, it's highly probable.' He turned and made sure Newson was well out of earshot before what he said next. 'You ought to know, Goon was in here again yesterday after you knocked off for the day.'

'Really?'

'Yes. He came marching right down to the counter and bailed me up. I don't know if he'd been drinking but he was rambling on about all sorts of nonsense. He said he'd let me live once the dark ones stormed out of Witchworld but all I had to do was hand over the key to that cabinet. It sounded like a whole load of poppycock, the nonsense he was going on about, but he was quite animated.'

'You didn't give him the key, did you?'

'No, and when I refused, he grabbed me and pushed me into the wall. No-one else was in the shop at the time, mind you. But I wasn't going to be pushed around on my own premises so I fought back like a man defending his castle. And well, didn't we both end up in a bit of a wild scuffle. Right there behind the counter, throwing each other about like mad. My old wrestling days came back to me I might add, but my grip's not what it used to be.' He didn't need to show me his fingers to prove that. 'Goon's particularly strong, I discovered, for someone so slight. But just as he throws me flat on the floor and begins to throttle me, who should walk in but Liberty Ruckerson. And low and behold, as soon as Goon hears her call out a hello, he forgets he's in the middle of strangling me half to death, and without a word, climbs to his feet and scurries out of here quicker than a rat up a spout.

'Now, I thought this rather odd. It was as though he was afraid of her somehow. And Liberty just watched him flee and I thought she might ask if I'm alright, ask if I was hurt, but instead she comes out and tells me she's giving me one more chance to remove the skull before she goes to lodge an official complaint with the council.' He shook his head. 'Some people just won't let things go. Anyway, cut a long story short, after she'd gone, I discovered Goon had dropped something during our fight.'

'Really? What was it?'

He peered in the direction of Newson again, making certain the constable wasn't listening. Then he pointed to the surface of the coffee table. 'That little item just there.'

11

A book sat there. A smallish book called The Dark History Of The Henbane Witches.

The cover art depicted a grey painting of a group of haunted-looking women with hangman's nooses gripped around their scrawny necks.

Staten sat down, leaned forward and flipped it open. 'After I found it I discovered a page tagged with a post-it note.' With his gammy fingers he flipped through the book until he arrived at the page in question. It marked the beginning of a chapter titled Portals to the Witching Realm. He nudged the book in my direction. 'Take a look. I think you'll find it quite interesting.'

I picked it up, turned it around and, began reading, murmuring the words as I went. 'To understand the Witches of Henbane we must first understand the way they lived. Their day to day existence revolved around a series of rituals and ceremonies, many of which were performed in a place some referred to as the Witchworld. In actual fact, reaching Witchworld was a small ritual in and of itself, involving navigation through a secret portal using specialised keys fashioned from the body parts of ancestors; these included desiccated hands, legs, and skulls...'

'Skulls?' I looked up at Staten, intrigued.

'Read on,' he urged.

'Amongst these bizarre ceremonies was the Summoning, a rite in which one particular witch sect, the Dark Sisters of Henbane, would dress in elaborate robes or in costumes to resemble nightmarish beings. This accompanied animal sacrifices offered to the ocean in order to tempt the mythical Pachlaena (said to be a giant octopus) from the depths of Hockmarsh Channel. The greater the number of sacrifices the more likely the great Pachlaena would arrive to do their bidding. Incidentally, the Dark Sisters of Henbane would use the Pachlaena as a weapon of war, annihilating opposing witch clans or for murdering arch enemies...'

I couldn't look away from the peculiar archaic diagram printed beside the text. A black and white octopus-monster crawling inland over trees and a farm wall with a handful of cow carcasses in its wake. Mark's outlandish claims rang through my brain. About giant octopus spliced with wolves. Claims of monsters he'd spied from his bedroom window. It all flashed through my mind like lightning strikes. Harris's slaughtered bovines, Biffon's pigs, Stowe's disembowelled horse. And Morton: his torn in half, ripped up, hollowed out body. I shuddered. I tried to hide it but it just rode me for a moment.

'You okay, lad,' Staten asks.

I nod. I swallow. 'Yeah. But this... I mean, this is nuts. It'd make more sense for the Charweed girls to go after that skull. I still don't see why Goon'd be interested in it.'

The kettle boiled. Staten turned away to make two cups of tea.

'Okay,' he says, 'let's assume for a moment that Goon believes this stuff. Alright? He's carrying this book around with him so he must give it some sort of credence. Something about it speaks to him. Okay? I mean, it's a worrying thought, really. He's proven himself a loose cannon over the years. Some might even say he's certifiable. But if he actually believes he's acting out some ancient ritual by stealing that skull of mine and dressing up as some creature of the night, then to what end?'

'You think he killed the Mortons?' I find myself asking.

Staten seemed to struggle for answer. Eventually he said, 'An interesting idea, Jake, but who would know? The manner in which Morton and his wife died... well it just seemed so brutal. You'd hope that a human wouldn't carry out such a barbaric act. But then pigs might fly. And as they say, there's naught so queer as folk. But if Goon had a hand in that, well, perhaps he's finally fallen off the rails. And if that's the case, how many others might he try and kill in this bizarre scheme of his?'

12

When I knocked off work at the end of the day I rode home and parked my dirt bike in the shed at the back of the Inn. I was preoccupied with everything that'd gone on in the last eighteen hours that when I pulled the shed doors closed behind me I barely registered the figure standing near the blackberry hedge.

I screeched when I saw something was there. I flailed backwards.

But then saw who it was.

Charlton Jones.

I glared at him as I gathered my breath. 'Holy shit, Jones! You scared the living hell outta me!'

He looked almost smug, pleased with himself for some reason. 'Sorry, lad, that wasn't my intention.'

I wiped sweat off my upper lip. Gathered my breath. The cries of gulls could be heard across the Green. Folk were out there on the grass. Chatting. Chatting about what, I did not know. But you could've bet it was about all the shit that was going down.

'What can I do for you?' I sounded short with him. But I guess the day's events had made me a little uptight.

'I understand you had an incident here at the Inn last night.'

I shrugged. 'You could say that.'

'Some sort of intruder?'

I grinned. He wanted me to say it was a monster. He wanted me to jump on board with his stupid theories. 'It was some knob dressed up in a suit.' I watched him closely, wondering if he knew. 'Radford Goon.'

'Goon? Really? Why do you say that?'

I shrugged. 'Got my reasons.'

He folded his arms. 'If it had pit eyes and a long snout then Goon had nothing to do with it, Jake, I can assure you.'

'Oh yeah? How would you know?'

He stood there, arms folded, eyes watching me. 'Look. Why don't you come for a drive?'

'A drive? What are you talking about?'

'I believe I've found a way to help you understand what's going on.'

I was sceptical. Even cautious. 'Really? So what's wrong with telling me right now, right here?'

'Too many ears, Jake.'

I looked about. Laughed. 'No one here but me and you.'

'That's the way it may seem. But trust me, from my experience, Burnchess has more than its fair share of busy bodies and twitchers. So, you want to hear what I have to say or not?'

THE SECRET

1

THE MAIN road out of Burnchess that time of year is as scenic as the drive in. You leave the village going by the Archway on Coddington Lane, then you coast through the Seven Ghosts woodland and wind through dappled summer sunshine twinkling through pattering leaves and flitting butterflies.

With Muldoon at the wheel of the Spitfire double-decker we took the Horsefall Track at the fork where the small woodland peters out. From there it's checkerboard fields as far as the eyes can see. Jones clunked me down in a seat on the upper deck, spicy country air gushing about my face. I'd expected the bus to be filled with fleeing tourists (especially after the latest killings) but the seats were empty as church pews in hell.

Jones stood with one eye squinting against the sun. 'Firstly, are you aware of the business that transpired at Sharkfins' overnight?'

'If you're talking about the dead tourists, yeah, don't worry, I saw it firsthand.'

He had his arms folded, the fingers of one hand shifting the stubble on his chin. He nodded. 'Good. In that light, I'm going to give you a history lesson. After that I'll explain how it relates to what happened last night in the small hours. That fine with you?'

I nodded. 'Hey, if it helps me get a handle on what's going on, then what do you think?'

'Good. Now, listen very carefully. I won't be repeating myself.'

2

To get an idea exactly how and when the terror began, Jones says we need firstly to go back to the early 1900s. To the Deeping massacre of 1927.

Back then the population of the Burnchess region consisted almost entirely of farming and fishing families. People weren't overly well off. A small number of souls in the district were wealthy enough to own a motorcar but such items were a luxury few could afford. One of those individuals who could afford such an item was a Dr John Deeping of the Maidenhead Estate.

For Easter that year Dr Deeping decided to treat his family to a holiday by the seaside. He and his wife Hetti, their daughter Catherine, and son Edward drove out of the estate on the border of the Gatling Moors six miles this side of Horsefall at around seven on the morning of Good Friday. Jones claims we know this as per witness statements given by the butler and ground staff.

It was the last time the Deepings were seen alive.

Having failed to arrive at their scheduled destination, the now derelict Butterfly's Hoof on Clover Bay, it was assumed they'd simply encountered mechanical problems and had either turned back or had become stranded. It wasn't until a full day later that Superintendent Cochrane of Burnchess learned of the matter.

Cochrane's police station (situated across the road from the castle ruins in Burnchess, the location unchanged to this day) consisted, other than himself, of two constables and one Detective Inspector. Ordinarily, procedure would dictate that he appoint one of his detective constables to see to a problem such as that of the Deeping disappearance. Or if the occasion warranted it, his DI.

However, the fact he opted to take a close interest in the matter was not driven entirely by his personal friendship with the Deeping family but due to something more sinister.

Local farmers had begun reporting sightings of an unknown creature hiding on farmland. Something that, allegedly, did not fit within the known laws of biology. A number of farmers had reported being stalked or followed by this mysterious animal. Livestock had also been found slaughtered. One, a Farmer Gillingham of Stoakmanor Farm, had gone as far as to claim he'd been attacked. Claims that were never substantiated.

Superintendent Cochrane phoned the Maidenhead Estate to firstly gather details of the Deeping route. He established that their planned route was to take the Horsefall Track and then follow the Lambeth Road south of Wolfcrag Forest. He phoned the proprietor of the Butterfly's Hoof to double check the Deepings had not simply arrived late.

The answer was they had not.

Cochrane began his search at the Butterfly's Hoof. Driving west from Clover Bay he took first the Lambeth Road, stopping anyone he encountered along the way, which, in those days was few and far between—the population of the region sat at around several hundred rather than the several thousand it is today. To those he met he would ask the same question: had they come across a stranded family or seen any signs of a motorcar suffering mechanical trouble? The answer, however, was always the same: nothing of that nature had been sighted.

It wasn't until four hours into his search that he uncovered something unusual. Firstly, on reaching Maidenhead and having unearthed no sign of the Deepings, he'd turned about and begun his search again, backtracking his way to Clover Bay. This time, by pure chance, he found faint tyre tracks leading into Wolfcrag Forest. Trailing them he discovered Dr Deeping's abandoned motorcar—the 1926 Austin 7 box saloon.

After venturing into the Forest a little further he discovered a truly disturbing scene.

He would write later in his report that what he found was like "the floors of the Horsefall abattoir". And he admitted he could not tell where the remains of one body ended and the other began. But he at least recognised the faces of the victims. Thus officially he identified them: they were indeed the missing members of the entire Deeping family.

3

This was only the beginning, Jones tells me. In total, four farming families went to their maker that year. All of them dismembered, disembowelled or hacked beyond recognition.

Curiously, one family was spared the indignity of being cut to ribbons. The Kelstons. Found dead on the other side of Strangler's Vale near Clutgoat Lagoon. The so-called lagoon had been inextricably blighted by some sort of unknown contaminant. A contaminant that appeared at first mustard in colour before later turning black. Anyone who strayed within its proximity succumbed to toxic fumes, resulting in agonising death.

The second wave of deaths came to Burnchess thirty-six years later on New Year's Eve, 1963. It began on the Geddes Farm. Twenty-two people from five separate families had gathered on the rear veranda to enjoy the festivities and see in the New Year.

By dawn on the 1st of January, every one of them had been found dead, all seemingly hacked to death. Women, children. The elderly. Not one of them was spared.

Rumours ran rife about a serial killer at large. And then mid-January 1964, without a single perpetrator ever having been traced, two farmers and their children were discovered slashed to the point of being unrecognisable near the northern entrance of Hell's Edge.

Five days later a small rowboat was found on Hollow Gut Beach. Scattered in and around this boat were the various appendages and organs of one male and two females. All believed to be tourists.

It was three days after this that another anomaly appeared. Beneath the pines in Wolfcrag23 Forest a bubbling toxic marsh of unknown origin was discovered. And near this black muck, the bodies of a farmer and his grandson, both of whom had been out hunting grouse and hare, were located; their remains were twisted and contorted as if both their deaths had been excruciating. Yet, on the whole their corpses remained unblemished.

The third wave of killings came in 2001. Similar to the first two occasions in that cattle, sheep and horses, were all found slaughtered. The human casualties started in May. Once again the deaths proved to be particularly gruesome—body parts and organs were discovered scattered across the region. In total, seventeen people, sadly five of them children, died between May and the end of August that year.

During that period two separate lots of bodies were also uncovered within breathing distance of blighted, blackened waterways. The first lot consisted of three members of the McCall family. The second group were believed to be holiday makers. On both occasions these corpses were discovered contorted, but neither lot had been dismembered or disembowelled. All were presumed poisoned.

Now, the thing to note about all of these findings are the common threads, Jones says.

On each occasion folks had spotted a mysterious creature roaming the rural back roads and byways; a creature long suspected of the killings. Claims that still, to this day, have never been substantiated.

And except for a small few, who—according to test results—perished through exposure to deadly toxins, all of the killings were brutal and merciless.

Aside from that Jones suggested that I must keep in mind the appearance of the strange anomalous substance polluting local ponds, streams or lakes. A phenomenon that folks have come to call the Dark. And if there is some connection between this and the emergence of the creatures it is yet to be publically established.

4

The Spitfire cut through barley country. Endless fields of sundrenched gold swept away on either side of the road. Muldoon kept pushing the bus onward. I'd never ridden this bus when it'd been quite so empty; never heard its clutters and groans like I did that day.

My head spun with the strange tales I'd just heard... This bizarre secret history of Burnchess... Stuff I'd never known. I was suddenly eerily aware how isolated I felt.

'It's very interesting,' I said to Jones after a few moments trying to absorb what he'd just told me. 'But it still doesn't tell me what the hell's going on.' Warm air gusted through my hair, flapping the collar of my shirt. The sun baked hot against my face.

Jones gazed across the sundrenched fields. 'I believe I've told you enough, Jake.'

I frowned.

'The rest I shall let you discover for yourself.'

5

Muldoon pulled the Spitfire off the road and I looked up to see the bus rolling into the cramped, weed-choked car park outside the Temple Ash Inn. Poplars and pines shaded us from the drenching sun. Across the road golden barley fields pushed out to the hills.

I was immediately suspicious about why we'd terminated here of all places.

The Temple Ash has a seedy reputation. It's about as far from anywhere you can get round our way. Stuck there on that lonely stretch of Horsefall Track, snuggled against the northern edge of the sandy, brambly Witchthorn Wood that stretches five or six miles south to the shores of Breathless Lake. It's an ancient tarred building, tilted on its foundations, and plagued by thorny bushes that bloom monstrous black roses even in the dead of winter. It's where the freaks and nutters of the Burnchess region go to slake their thirsts.

I trailed Jones down the stairwell and off the bus. Sparrows twittered about the shrubs in the car park. Muldoon was polishing grime off one of the forward panels; Muldoon with his weather-spotted skin, hard as old leather, and bushy mutton chops thick as woolly socks sprouting so high up his cheeks his eyes were barely visible between that and his driver's cap.

'What are we doing here?' I asked.

The dappled sun cast across Jones's face as he turned to me. He dragged a notebook from his satchel and held it up. He had that look in his eye. That no nonsense, don't-fuck-with-me look. 'I found this,' he says. 'It's been lost. I'm hoping it'll help you understand what we're facing.' He looked at me sternly. 'A word of warning though. Far as I know, your father has never been made aware of it or its contents.'

I frowned. 'Why? What is it?'

'A scrap book, Jake.' He watched me closely. 'It belonged to your mother.'

My frown turned even deeper. 'My mother?'

'Yes. And hopefully, if you look deep enough, you'll find how everything links together. Who our killer is. Where it's come from. But you're gonna have to look closely. You're gonna to have to really do your homework.'

'Wait a minute. Mum's scrapbook?' I blinked, confused. 'Mum never had a scrap book.'

'Not that you knew about, Jake.'

'But... what... wait, you're saying mum's connected to all the shit going down in Burnchess right now?'

'Yes. The killings I told you about. In 2001, she was there, Jake.' His eyes didn't shift as he said it. 'That's all I'll say. You need to find this shit out for yourself.'

'Bloody hell, why don't you just tell me.'

There was almost a grin on his face as he replied. 'You remember our conversation in the bus shelter, don't you?'

'Yeah.'

'Good. So then you're not likely to believe what I have to say. That's why I'm saying you'll need to discover it yourself.'

'Try me.'

He flung the book at me. 'No.'

6

I caught the book and he strode away. And as he passed by Muldoon, the old driver handed him a package wrapped in brown paper. I stood there confused. 'Where the hell are you going?'

He stopped and eyed me. 'I'm going to try and find us a way outta this damn mess. And if I fail then you're all we've got.' He actually grinned. 'Why else do you think I've given you that book?'

I shrugged. I honestly didn't know what the hell was going on here.

'Go home,' he said. 'Work through it. Time's short.'

'I've still got questions!'

'I don't care.' He pushed off and strode away through a gap in the squat hedge. You could hear his boots crunching across the white-pebbled path that lead to the pub, carrying that parcel under his arm as he passed through the squeaking door. And he never looked back. Above the door, perched on the slanting lintel, the pale skeleton of a crow seemed to eye me.

Muldoon slapped the side of the Spitfire. 'All aboard!' he called, looking dead at me. 'Next stop, Burnchess Village.'

THE CRIMSON WRAITH

1

STRICTLY SPEAKING it wasn't a scrapbook. If anything, it was more a photo album. Slightly smaller than a pad of A4, and about an inch thick. A floral paper jacket had been carefully taped around the outer cover. This jacket was predominantly blue in colour but broken by prints of daisies and daffodils and roses. Within a blank white bar on the front cover someone had neatly scrawled the following name: Rachel Evelyn Maddox. And inside the front cover, written by the same hand, was this:

The book you are holding is the property of

Rachel Evelyn Maddox.

Hare Of The Dog Inn

72 Castle Grove

Burnchess, Cornwall

UK

All that is contained within these pages is true.

No part of it has been fabricated.

As I turned to the first page and lay my eyes on the bizarre photographs, well, I was utterly speechless.

2

The images were predominantly black and white. But some were colour photos, if not a bit grainy. But all of them portrayed of what I can only describe as monsters.

The first several pages showed off a substantial collection of hulking figures traipsing across barren stretches of land, and hunched creatures walking upright on two legs with limbs as long as tree trunks. There were strange beasts emerging from bodies of water, beasts with long necks and snouts like lizards. Other creatures swung from trees. Or gorged themselves on the carcasses of horses. Every photo was accompanied by hand scrawled captions. Like Strange Creature prowls the Gatling Moors, April 5th 1927. Or Beast hunts fish in Clutgoat Lagoon, March 31st 1963. And Mysterious animal slaughters and consumes Farmer Cotton's prize mare—14 witnesses, May 18th 2001.

I just sat there gobsmacked. I couldn't move. My eyes were simply glued to these bizarre scenes. I kept thinking it just had to be some hoax. That it was all grand piss take, that none of what I was seeing could possibly be real. Jones had to be part of it, I thought. The Charweeds too. They'd concocted this shit for some fucking reason.

I kept leafing through the pages. The whole time just flabbergasted. The contents of the book soon switched to black and white portraits.

I had no idea what these had to do with the monster images but the first group showed off two teenage kids. And scribbled there beneath their photos was a date that matched the year of the first sets of monster pictures: 1927.

The boy and girl in question sat dressed in formal attire. The boy (maybe thirteen or fourteen) was decked out in suit and tie and hat. The girl (same age, I guess, perhaps a year younger) sat dolled up in a dress with white gloves and bonnet. Neither of them bothered with smiling, not one bit. The caption read: Carson Rawlins and Abigail May, The Mortifera of 1927.

I pondered these names. I mean, the Carson Rawlins and Abigail May that I knew of were both long dead. Carson used to run the Confectionary Rectory until he choked to death on a Spit Sopper when I was in fifth year. And until three years ago Abigail May lived just round the corner from the village market but one night, two months short of her 95th birthday, she went to sleep and never woke up.

There was another image of them both standing beneath the Burnchess Archway. Once again with expressions as cheerful as a car crash. The caption read The Mortifera and the Doorway, June 1927.

On the following page, there were more portraits. These showed two blokes who looked to be either in their late twenties or early thirties. The year jotted there catalogued them with the second sets of monster photos. 1964. The two blokes looked like Elvis Presley clones, the young 1950's Elvis, in dark jeans and black boots, both of them with greased back, dovetail haircuts. The caption read Buffalo Mitchell and Chillicote Greaves, The Mortifera of 1964.

Theirs were names I'd never heard of. Either they'd left town sometime in the distant past or they were bones in the ground somewhere.

They too had been photographed by the Archway, standing beside a mean-looking, sea-blue Chevy Nomad. The photo read The Mortifera and the Doorway, 1964.

I kept turning pages. And the portrait photos switched to images of two young women. And my mouth fell open.

I recognised one of the women instantly.

It was my mum.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, she looked no older than I am now but I just knew it was her because of that smile. And her kind eyes. And the same shoulder length bob that I've seen her wear in hundreds of photos taken when she was that age. She and the other woman stood beneath the Archway and someone had written below the image, Rachel Evelyn Maddox and Liberty Sweetwater, The Mortifera of 2001.

I kept turning pages. I had to know if this book would ultimately provide some sort of explanation. Kept hoping I'd just finally see something here that'd be like the bombshell, the thing that'd just open up this entire mystery.

But the images of the so-called Mortifera gave way to even more compelling images. And here my intrigue really swelled. There sat a photo now before of what I first took for a large black lobster. But I quickly realised it was a six-fingered hand. It had been dismembered and it looked desiccated. It'd been photographed from varying angles. One with its knuckles up, another with knuckles down. One from its left, the other its right. A deep three-eyed face had been etched into its palm which of course struck me as curious. The caption read: The Scrivinas.

Images of a second artefact held even more intrigue. An image of a skull with a caption calling it The Crogen. It bragged three darkened eye sockets and looked just like that damn thing stolen from Staten's shop.

But it was the third object that had my jaw dropping open. I was taken instantly back to that night with Hayley on the Green. Because here sat an image of that mask. Or at least something uncannily similar. And a handwritten title called it The Veisder—a desiccated three-eyed face with a dried, cracked mouth sitting slightly open.

But nothing had prepared me for the final set of images. And when I turned the page and saw them, I nearly fell off my bed.

There were three separate photographs. They showed the three separate couples I'd observed across the preceding pages. Rawlins and May; Mitchell and Greaves; Maddox and Sweetwater. But it wasn't them that chilled me. It was the terrifying figure that stood next to them: that shaggy ape monster with the crocodile jaws. And a single caption at the base of the page read The Mortifera and The Crimson Wraith.

3

I simply could not take my eyes off it. Could not get my eyes off Mum standing right beside it. It blew my fucking mind. What the hell was going on?

Was that Goon? Had he and Mum been mates? They couldn't have been. I refused to accept it. No way.

There's some rational explanation here, Jake, I told myself. There's just some simple, rational explanation.

I flicked back through the photos. Hoping to find some tiny, small piece to this puzzle. Nothing. Nothing anywhere. I flipped to the back of the book again. Studying the photos where Carson Rawlins and Abigail May stood with that thing at the archway. Thinking. Thinking...

Right, so it couldn't have been Goon. According to the caption, that photo was taken in 1927. He wouldn't have been born at least until the 50's or 60's.

I sat back, racking my brain, thinking this through. This just had to be some elaborate piss-take. They're all photo-shopped, Jake. It's all bullshit. But why the hell would someone go to such lengths for a damn prank?

I sighed and tried mulling it over logically. Pondering these latter photographs over the initial shots of those lurking creatures. Okay, maybe only part of this is a hoax. The photographs of the monsters. If I were to believe the photos of Mum and Liberty standing there were genuine and not doctored, then maybe mum'd been part of some club. The Mortifera or some shit. Something like the Masons, it spanned decades and perhaps that ape suit was like a mantle, you reached a certain status and you got to don it, something passed down through the years from club leader to club leader.

Who were they then? This club. Were they still around, still operating? Did Dad know about them? Had Mum told him anything? What was their purpose? Generating fake images of supernatural beasts? If so, what the fuck for? Jones'd promised the book would give me answers, would tell me who the killer is, but I had more questions than ever.

I got out my phone and called him. But he wasn't answering. I left a message. 'Jones, call me. It's about the19 scrapbook. We need to talk.'

4

I realised as I sat there that of the six so-called Mortifera, one of them was still living and breathing.

Liberty Sweetwater...

A.k.a. Hayley's mum.

I phoned Hayley, drumming my fingers on the surface of my bedside table. Her message bank kicked in: Hi, you've reached Hayley's phone, if I'm not answering I'm either—

I hung up and dialled again...

Same deal as the first time round.

This time I didn't hang up. When the beep sounded at the end of her spiel I said, 'Hayley, it's me, Jake. Um, just wondering if you could call me back? I need to ask you something. It's sort of important. Call me as soon as you can.'

I stood there gazing out the window into the empty street, wondering what to do next. Wondering whether or not to ring Dad. What if Jones was right? That Dad didn't know about this stuff. Would it surprise him to find out? Shock him maybe? Embarrass him? Surely if anyone had tabs on shit like this it was Dad. Or the police.

I made up my mind to call him. I took out my phone and thumbed his number...

My phone rang through to his message bank.

No doubt he was still busy out at the Sharkfin farm. But I sighed. Three people now who weren't answering. I didn't bother leaving him a message.

5

I pulled the album onto the bedside table. Cookie lay there watching me. I flipped to the photos of the Mortifera again and just stared at them.

Something occurred to me then. Something about the images. There was one common element here that had somehow gotten past me on my initial viewing. I'd been so hung up on Mum I hadn't really acknowledged it.

The Archway.

6

The Burnchess Archway is a magnificent structure as it's one of the few relics in our town that doesn't lie in ruin. It's smothered in enough pigeon shit to weigh down an elephant but the relief carvings of knights and archers chopping down hellish beasts still stand out proud as ever they have throughout the ages. And remnants of the crumbled village wall run on for a metre or two beyond either end of the Archway where a pair of gargoyle sentries sit amidst the choking thistles and ragwort.

As far as I know, work on the Archway was completed back in the 1300s and as recent as two centuries ago it was still fitted with its heavy oak gates. Those were days when the village wall still stood tall and proud around the entire settlement, meaning the gates served as the sole service point in and out of Burnchess.

At either end, the Archway housed guard towers, incorporated into the now-ruined Chess Stones. But like the village wall they too are now mostly crumbled. And all the Arch does these days is attract too many frigging tourists.

7

Ten minutes after leaving the Inn I found myself standing there gazing up at it. I pictured the Mortifera club members having their photos taken beneath it. I pictured Mum and Liberty Ruckerson and the Crimson Wraith. I'd decided that if indeed it was some monster suit, then it had to be garb worn by the head honcho. Whether or not the club was still operating didn't matter. What mattered was Goon was most likely the suit's present owner. He'd donned it to break into Staten's. He'd donned it to sneak into The Hare Of The Dog. He'd had it on out at Sharkfin's.

But why? Why wear it and why do all those things? I mean, we knew what he'd got out of Staten's. That skull. But exactly what had he been searching for in the Inn?

My thoughts kept circling around that skull. And then turned to the book Staten had shown me. The book that Goon had apparently dropped in his shop. Hadn't it claimed that the Henbane witches had used skulls to unlock secret doorways? Well, a curious notion... Did our great monument then contain a hidden doorway? One that'd interested both the witches and the Mortifera?

If so... where did such a doorway lead?

8

Mr Percival Kenneth Fanneray (better known as Old Fanny) owned the souvenir stand which sat at the curb on Coddington Lane facing both the Arch and the Village. When Fanny wasn't flogging his Chinese made tat to the tourists you could find him whining about the downturn of business. And if it wasn't whining about the downturn of business, he'd be whining about the gout in his feet and mumbling, 'Don't these tourists have a darn care?'

That day I didn't think he looked the least bit busy. Nor strangely enough did he seem to care. He looked distracted if anything. Faraway. Sitting there on the wooden bench next to his stall, eyeing the Archway. From there it's a good vantage point of both the monument and the village actually. A fairly decent view of the castle ruins at the opposite end of the village and the ocean beyond.

I went over and I said, 'Hi, Mr Fanneray, you mind if I ask you something?'

He didn't seem to hear me. He just went on staring distantly at the gargoyles.

'Mr Fanneray?'

He jumped. 'Oh, God!' He focused his eyes on me. 'Jeremy! I was honestly miles away. I didn't see you approach!'

I thought about reminding him my name wasn't Jeremy. Or Jeff. Or John. Or whatever hundred other names he's called me over the years. But what did it matter? He always forgot.

'Sorry,' I said, 'I didn't mean to startle you.'

'It's okay, lad. It's just that it's been so eerily quiet. The tourists've all left town, you realise. They've left it so still... so empty.'

I nodded. I got my gob open to speak but he went on.

'Makes you appreciate how fragile the economy is down our way. Don't you think?'

'Look, I was wondering—'

'We've got so many lovely attractions, so much wonderful history, but if there's no one here to enjoy it then what does it matter? What does any of this matter?' He briefly indicated his souvenir stall. 'We're fish in a bowl, Jeremy. We nibble at the bread that's thrown to us... then we die. I'm sorry to sound so morbid but I've just been sitting here thinking about the fate of the poor Mortons, that's all. I guess I haven't exactly given them much thought till now. I don't honestly know why. I'm afraid what became of them might only have just sunk in. Maybe it's got something to do with those poor sods found dead at Sharkfins' this morning. The whole thing's simply got me sickened.'

He eyed me, with an almost pleading look—his balding red scalp uncombed and skin sagging like death.

'You found them, didn't you, Jeremy? The Mortons. You found them.' He watched me intently, like maybe I could've saved them. Like somehow it was my fault they'd perished.

'Yeah, but I don't really feel like talking about it.' What else did he want me to say?

'No. Of course. No, I don't blame you, Jeremy.' His eyes went back to the monument. He was silent again for a little while. Sparrows chirped at the base of the Arch. Pecking about the cobbles for specks of food. I thought he'd forgotten I was here. I was about to throw him my question again when he said, 'I recall only two summers in my life quite like this one, Jeremy. 1964 and 2001. Very strange years those two. Very strange.'

I eyed him carefully. 1964? 2001?

'Oh yes. We had monster sightings both those years, you realise. And all sorts of speculation. And some unfortunate deaths. I've just been sitting here now thinking this all through, you know. But I don't know why it's suddenly entered my mind. All that bother. I fear those dark days may have returned. They say it'd be bad for our reputation as a holiday destination if people knew this has happened before. That's why no one ever talks about it. That's why it's been swept under the carpet. Burnchess' dirty little secret. But it's happening again right now, under our very noses. It's as though this town were cursed, lad. It seems it's impossible to escape it no matter how many darn times we try to sweep it under the rug.' He shakes his head. 'But this time, Jeremy, I swear to you, I'm thinking about clearing out. Lot of people've left town already, you know. Not just the tourists. Lot of good honest Burnchess folk've cleared off to Lambeth or Horsefall. But what would I do? Where would I go? This small souvenir stand is all I have, it's my bread and butter, my livelihood. How would I cut a living someplace else?'

He fell silent.

It hadn't actually occurred to me to ask him about the Mortifera. But if he knew about the previous killings, well, why not pick his brain a bit. 'You say this has happened before, Mr Fanneray? Monsters and killings and stuff?'

'Yes, Jeremy.'

'1964 and 2001?'

'Yes.'

'And you were here? In Burnchess, I mean, living here?'

'Indeed.'

'Can you tell me what happened in '01?'

His face turned dark. He even winced. 'Kids. They were all just kids. All slaughtered.' He turned and pointed into the woodland of the Seven Ghosts. 'There. That's where they were found.' He shuddered. 'I'm sorry, but I can't talk about it.'

I bit my lip. 'You ever hear of any club or group calling themselves the Mortifera?'

He eyed me closely, as if momentarily the name rang a bell. Then he frowned and shook his head. 'Mortifera? No. Who are they then?'

I scratched my head and regarded the Archway. 'I dunno. Some club who thought the Burnchess Arch was a doorway.' I watched him to see if that rang any bells.

I was surprised when he suddenly eyed me with a strange challenging grin. 'Oh, I see. Mrs Cartwright put you up to this, has she?'

I frowned. 'Who?'

'Jeremy, listen, my family has been the unofficial caretakers of the Archway for fifty years now.' He waggled his finger at me. 'So you go back and tell that old Cartwright dragon once and for all that there's no secret doorway leading down into old Devil's Keep. And if she wants to know why, well you remind that senile old battle-axe that the earthquake of eighteen twelve collapsed the Devil's Keep catacombs like a bag of cement on an ice-cream wafer. Okay? I don't know how many times I've told the silly old twat this but once again she's got her tiddles mixed up with her blasted taddles!'

THE MISSING

1

NEXT MORNING I took Mum's strange photo album to breakfast. The plan was to just lump it in front of Dad and say, 'So what's this Mortifera shit I've been hearing about?'

When I strolled into the dining room, both dad and Louise sat there chatting about the state of the village. I stuffed the album in my jacket pocket and left. I didn't need the likes of Louise getting her nose in this stuff.

Later, before work, I got another chance. Louise'd gone off to an emergency council meeting and Dad was out in the shed. I took the album out there and I froze at the last second. I can't say why. All I know is I didn't end up showing him. Though I did get as far as asking, 'Dad, have you heard of a club called the Mortifera?'

He smiled and said, 'Who are they then?' Like I was talking about some visiting cricket team.

'Don't know. Does that name mean anything to you?'

He was hitching the golf bags away from the lawn mower and he smiled nostalgically as he drew out the five iron. 'Jake, when was the last time you and I went for a round at Lambeth Links? Must be two, maybe three years. We ought to go for a hit some time.'

'Yeah, we should.' I shrugged. 'Anyway, does that name mean anything to you? The Mortifera?'

He shook his head. 'No. I don't believe it does. Should it?'

I shrugged.

2

I took the diary to work with me. Hayley had returned my call at last. When she'd asked what was so urgent I told her it was about her mask. And that skull. And that I'd found some weird photos. I didn't mention her mum though. I wanted her to see her mum's images in that "scrapbook" for herself if that was possible.

Hayley was still out of town by that stage. So were her parents. Her parents wanted her nowhere near Burnchess with all this shit going down. That annoyed me. One, because I wanted to see her. And two, well, she was like a link to her mum, and so far my queries about the Mortifera and the Crimson Wraith were going unanswered. She told me she missed me and we chatted and stuff for a while. I told her I missed her too. It was nice to hear her voice. But she couldn't tell me when she'd be back in the village. 'We're in St Austell,' she said. 'Staying at my nans. Mum tells me it's too dangerous in Burnchess at the moment. I hope you're okay.'

3

After the phone call, I stood outside the bookshop. I gazed up and down Castle Grove. It was an eerie sight. The place looked deserted. Not a motorbike nor an ox cart in sight. No cyclists, no endless trails of pedestrians. The only sound was the lonely sea wind whining up and down the abandoned alleys and the eerie call of the gulls.

The Sharkfin stuff was still right across the news of course. Every local radio station had picked up the story, and every news channel on telly. The daily papers ran headlines like SERIAL KILLER HOOKS INTO BURNCHESS! (Hell, if they hoped to isolate a small coastal village from the outside world then they were doing a fucking good job of it with headings like that.) Police were yet to charge anyone over the deaths of the tourists. Or for the break-ins at Staten's bookshop and the Inn. Police were yet to even catch anyone.

There'd been one intriguing development though. If you believed it. When I'd got to work that morning the local paper was sitting, rolled-up, outside Staten's shop. Once I'd fetched myself indoors I opened it up and there it was. An article claiming police had made a significant discovery in relation to the dark oily muck contaminating Hell's Spring. Apparently it was attributed to a massive fertiliser spill.

Eighteen months ago local council floated the idea of raising water rates and road tax to farmers due to their excess drain on resources and environment. But farmers had long argued that such a policy would be unfair as their produce brings in substantial income to the local economy. There was the threat that, to prove a point and highlight how the economy would suffer, farmers would begin eliminating livestock from the region. And then if a bigger statement needed to be made, they'd begin blighting their land so as to make it unusable.

Sharkfin, along with the CFA (Collective Farmers Association), had allegedly purchased a discount ton out of Horsefall and alleged mismanagement during delivery (or, depending on who you believed, deliberate spillage) had seen the lot flow free onto Sharkfin's land. Thus causing severe fertiliser burn and the death of the four tourists by toxic asphyxiation.

The enquiries the constabulary were making of course were whether or not this alleged spill had been intentional or by pure accident. If they proved it to have been a deliberate act then the CFA would get their arses reamed for negligence and manslaughter.

As it was, Sharkfin was already getting his arse reamed for failing to alert the authorities over the matter and allowing tourists under his care to stray into harm's way.

4

At midday I went to fetch myself some lunch. As I strolled up to the Lost Worlds Café I still couldn't believe how deserted the village was. When the Mortons had gone and got themselves hamburgered I remember thinking goblins were taking over. Now that's exactly how it felt. I half expected to glimpse strange critters skittering through the back lanes. Or black beady eyes watching me from the shadows. Not so long back, laneways had been filled with fat, sweating holiday makers. Now they gusted with nothing but loose crisp packets and chocolate wrappers or tinkled with soft-drink cans. The barley mill car park sat mostly empty. The livery and stables were without their usual activity. The rumble and clack of ox carts on the Castle Grove cobblestones had fallen silent; except of course for the farmers lugging produce to sell to nobody at the market. Many shops and cafés had pulled down shutters and locked their doors and signs had been put up reading CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. In a way (and I can't believe I'm going to say this) I almost (almost) preferred the tourists to this eerie emptiness.

5

As you'd expect, sales at Staten's Amazing World Of Books pretty much bottomed out during that period. Although it was business as usual in other ways: Staten was still off down Marjorie van Delan's place most days. I think her hubby had up and left her by then. Giving Staten full undivided attention at last to the insides of Marjorie's knickers.

Jones hadn't called me back. And the prick still wasn't answering my calls. For all I knew, he might've been feeding fish at the bottom of Hockmarsh Trench. I hadn't seen nor heard from him since he'd given me mum's album. "I'm going to try and find us a way outta this damn mess," he'd said. "And if I fail then you're all we've got..."

Whatever that fucking meant.

Word was, due to the lack of tourists, he and Muldoon'd been conducting fares between Horsefall and Brandywine. But I'd caught Muldoon late that cloudy afternoon as the Spitfire came rolling back into town and Muldoon couldn't tell me where the hell Jones was. 'I ain't seen him, Jake m'boy,' he grumbled. 'Not see him at all.'

That puzzled me. I thought maybe I ought to have pressed him for more details. I thought maybe he'd been instructed to keep Jones' whereabouts a secret. I thought maybe Jones was hiding out at that seedy pub. The Temple Ash. But everything I'd seen, there was no way I was going out there by myself to find out.

So next morning, without any customers to serve and with no-one to shed any light on what the hell was going on, I began my own investigations. Right there in that shop. Kicking off with a loose bit of information inadvertently supplied to me by Old Fanny.

The catacombs.

6

Amongst all those ratty old tomes I found a book titled Famous Burnchess Explorers. I wouldn't have given it a second look except for the black and white image on the front cover showing off some knob standing next to a sign that read Devil's Keep.

I took the book and sat in the hazy sunshine on the old wooden table out the front of the shop—a box of greasy hot chips and a large cola propping open the pages at the catacombs chapter. Except for the odd farmer giving me a nod as they rolled by in their carts, the street was empty. Scuppers sat there on the cobbles, scratching fleas and licking his nuts. Emily wasn't around. Generally if you've got the mutt you've got his master. But every now and then Scuppers fucks off and no-one can find him. Except that day he was happy to lie there by the bench, licking himself.

The gulls kept at a distance while he was there. Every now and then he'd get up and chase them off, barking his mad little head off. They never went far. Hopeful that I might throw them a chip.

So I sat there munching my Lost Worlds burger, and reading that book with interest.

This is what I learned...

There are two schools of thought on the subject of the old catacombs. Some subscribe to Fanneray's idea that the catacombs collapsed after an earthquake shook the region in 1812. But if that really happened, you'd have thought Burnchess would've gone down too.

The other theory is based on the exploits of Sir Godfrey Robertson Peppercorn. (The knob depicted on the front cover.) Sir Peppercorn had been a 19th century explorer who allegedly unearthed a secret passageway into Devil's Keep, the name given to those catacombs. Matter of fact it was old Peppercorn who gave it its name. There was no indication where his entry point might've been located—some pages were missing so possibly that info had been lost—but in 1839 he'd funded an expedition to map the entire catacomb network. To cut a long story short he supposedly trailed a cave system to an exit point out near Launceston. That's about fifty miles away, give or take.

The thing to bear in mind though is the recorded date of old Popcorn's expedition—it took place some twenty-seven years after the alleged earthquake. Meaning the catacombs hadn't collapsed at all, that the theory they'd come tumbling down was quite possibly another story straight out of the old village rumour mill.

My thoughts were this: the Archway acted as a possible entry point into these catacombs. Into Devil's Keep. Or as some seemed to call it, Witchworld. According to The Dark History Of The Henbane Witches (the book Staten'd showed me) the Witches once utilised the catacombs as a safe haven to conduct ceremonies, brew potions and frig each other with their broomsticks. (Admittedly, the frigging part wasn't mentioned, but if I was willing to start another rumour...) Anyway, so my question was this: had the Mortifera (perhaps like I said, some secret ongoing club) set up HQ down there in the days after the witches had abandoned the place?

If so, how was it linked, if at all, to our current predicament?

The fact Goon had stolen the mummified skull didn't tell us a great deal about why he wanted it. But maybe, like the witches before him, he had a need to open some sort of secret doorway. (Provided a simple three-eyed skull could act like a key and do such a thing.) And perhaps this doorway led into the catacombs.

If that was true, then I kept coming back to the same query: what the hell was down there?

7

When I knocked off work at the end of the day I locked up and headed home. I had my phone out, FaceTiming Hayley.

'Hiya,' she said when she answered, her face filling my phone's screen. 'You alright?'

'Yeah. You?'

'Good. Is the village still under some sort of zombie lock-down?'

'See for yourself.' I panned my phone about so she could get a view of the street.

'Wow,' I heard her say. 'I know they said empty but I didn't think it was that bad.'

'Yeah, I think most of the tourists have cleared out. The council's shitting themselves. They've had emergency talks, trying to work out how to get people back.'

'Sounds pretty serious.'

'I guess it is. Nice change though in some ways. No-one bumping into you in the street. When are you back in town?'

She paused. 'Not sure exactly. Mum and dad are being really paranoid. They want to keep me here at Nan's.'

I nodded. 'Okay.' I thought that was weird. If it was me I'd have just told them to get knotted and left. 'Hey, I wanted to say, the other night at Sealuggers. I ah, I really enjoyed myself. It was a really good night.'

I thought she almost blushed. 'Thanks. I enjoyed myself too actually. I was thinking, maybe you could come up to St Austell or something over the weekend or sometime. If you want like. We could hit the pubs. Have some drinks and stuff.'

I smiled. 'Yeah, actually that'd be great.'

'Ooh, second thought, it might have to be Sunday. Sorry. I forgot I'm meant to be meeting someone from the Wildlife Trust again tomorrow afternoon.'

'They given you work yet or not?'

'We'll see tomorrow, I guess.'

'Well, good luck with it,' I said. 'Hey, is your mum about, at all?'

'My mum?'

'Yeah, I'd actually like to ask her something.'

'She's out at Tesco at the moment. Want me to pass on a message?'

'Yeah. Could you ask her if the word Mortifera means anything to her?'

On screen I watched Hayley frown. 'Mor-ta-fera? What on earth is that?'

'Okay, it sounds ludicrous but she might have some connection to all the shit going down in Burnchess at the moment.'

'Really?'

'Yep.'

8

I reached the Hare Of The Dog and moved into the foyer and I saw Emily and Kate and Mark talking animatedly out in the beer garden. I thought I'd go and see what was going on. Probably they were just discussing Kate's party. Her mum was holding an End Of The World party that night. Her mum's a bit of an eccentric and if you knew her then you'd know throwing such a themed party is sort of run of the mill for her. Madeline Parsons' parties are usually pretty wild.

I moved through the bar and stepped out the doors and they all shut up and looked at me.

'What?' I said.

Kate says, 'Jake, you're not going to believe this. Emily believes she knows who killed the Mortons.'

9

Emily sat there looking quite smug with herself. She wiped down the lenses of her glasses as I went and sat next to Kate. I lonely wind blew in across the Village Green. Scuppers lay in the grass, legs stretched out, asleep.

No-one spoke. We're all just waiting for Emily to stop looking so self-important.

'So, you gonna tell me or what?' I ask her.

She produces a thick manila folder. And flips it open and slides out a ring-bound dossier.

On the cover in bold print I read:

FILE #072 - THE VANISHING OF CARENZA GOON. [J.G.—2000/01, 2008]

'This turned up this morning,' she says in a low voice. 'Under the door of the Inn. Hogshead found it. We don't know who it's from. Or who compiled it. But it arrived anonymous delivery. It was addressed to me.'

I frowned. Addressed to her?

She pushes the report across the table, all businesslike. She indicates a mug shot of a young girl maybe seven years old, maybe eight. 'Radford Goon's daughter,' she says, 'Carenza.'

Goon's daughter? I'd never seen a photo of her. It was strange to finally put a face to the girl in all those stories about Goon killing her. And looking at her image, I was surprised. I expected anything spurted from Goon's loins to look more like a cross between a toad and a truck crash. But this girl was far from hideous with her brunette hair tied in pigtails and her freckled nose and gorgeous bright chocolate-drop eyes.

Emily continued: 'Carenza disappeared in 2001. Without trace.'

2001? I frowned again.

'It doesn't specify, but something happened in Burnchess that year. Something weird and drastic enough that the authorities evacuated all children to Lambeth.'

I pondered what Jones'd told me:...killings in 2001... Five of them children...

It seemed Burnchess Village's dirty little secret really was finally wriggling out of the woodwork.

'It was during the evacuation that Carenza Goon vanished,' Emily said. 'An oil slick across the road caused the coach to skid into an embankment and one of the tyres blew out. The children were permitted to play on the sands of Hollow Gut beach while the tyre was changed. They were warned not to wander far. Yet, once the bus resumed its course and reached Lambeth it was discovered Carenza was not among them.

'That night they sent out a search party. To comb Hollow Gut beach, the last place she'd been seen. What they found was curious, to say the least.

'Her clothes. Buried under rocks. Nothing else. No sign of struggle. No blood. Nothing.'

I studied another photo in the file: a bunch of sand-soaked clothes covered in a mess of seaweed.

'The following morning each of the remaining children was interviewed. Seven children in all. Not one of them managed to offer a suitable explanation as to what had happened. Three of them admitted they'd seen Carenza wander off. And of these, two claimed to have notified the supervising adults.

'One thing is certain: she was never seen again. It is presumed Carenza Goon went for a swim, got into trouble and drowned. I guess that could explain her discarded clothes. Her body has never been found.

'The police investigation into Carenza's disappearance, led by the now-retired Detective Chief Inspector Colin Layman, became a prime example of gross mismanagement. It was revealed later that old Layman had developed an early onset of Alzheimer's. It went undiagnosed during his last six months in office. As a consequence he bungled the investigation, so much so that Radford Goon became convinced that there'd been some sort of village cover-up in Carenza's vanishing. For ten long years he fought to get to the bottom of it but, sadly for him, nothing was ever resolved. It was this process, they say, that drove Goon mad.'

'So, what's this got to do the Mortons?' I asked.

'Okay, the person who volunteered to drive the bus that fateful day was Albert Morton himself. Gladys Morton and Merriline Sharkfin were two of the supervising adults. This report suggests that all these years Goon has held them personally responsible for his daughter's disappearance.'

This made me scratch my head. It didn't make sense. Morton and wife had been hacked to pieces, and if Goon'd had some beef with the Sharkfins then (presuming he'd slaughtered the Mortons in the first place) why hadn't he extended them the same courtesy?'

'But tourists died out at the Sharkfin place,' I reminded her. 'Not Merriline.'

'A warning shot,' Emily proposed. 'Merriline's likely still in danger.'

Still didn't make sense, as far as I was concerned.

'Look, according to this report,' Emily said, 'Goon won't stop with the murders of the Mortons or Merriline Sharkfin. His blame now extends to all of Burnchess and to fully avenge his daughter's disappearance he is actively planning to wipe the entire village off the map.'

I laughed. 'Off the map?'

She gave me an impatient look. 'Yes, Jake. Off the map. On the 24th of August it will be fifteen years since Carenza Goon vanished. The report says, and I quote, Goon will use this anniversary to turn the world to blood. It will be a day long remembered for one thing and one thing only: the total destruction of Burnchess and the absolute annihilation of all its residents.'

This was ludicrous. 'Yeah? And how's he planning that then?'

'Simple. He wants to collapse the ocean catacombs.'

10

The news was like a jet of steam squirted point-blank up the colon. I simply sat there eyeing Emily, then Kate then Mark.

Was Emily joking? 'The catacombs?'

'Yes,' she said. 'The report suggests Goon will attempt to locate an entry point into the catacombs, but it doesn't specify where. That might indicate that it's hidden. What it does specify is that he's on the trail for three keys. Three specific keys that will apparently gain him access.'

'We think maybe these keys are concealed somewhere in the village,' Kate said, 'which might go some way to explaining the bizarre burglaries lately.'

'Exactly, and if he gets hold of these keys before the 24th of August,' Emily stressed, 'then his plan is to set off an explosive charge that'll cause a catastrophic chain of events. Because if the catacombs collapse en masse it'll bring down the Drop Off and the entire village will simply slide off into the sea, killing the entire population.'

11

I sat up late that night, thinking about all that shit. It was just swirling round my head. I'd asked Emily if I could borrow the file, you know, so I could go through it at my own pace. But she told me she'd already handed the folder over to Dad so I guess he was going to deal with it. Still, I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

So I'd grabbed Mum's album. And I just stared at the images of those bizarre artefacts. The six-fingered hand which, according to the caption in the album, was called the Scrivinas. The shrunken head, apparently known as the Crogen. And the mummified face, aka the Veisder.

Were these the so-called keys Emily had mentioned? The ones Goon was after.

If so, what the hell were we meant to do?

I thought of the break-in at Staten's. I accepted Goon'd done it to snatch the shrunken head. So, why had he broken into the Hare Of The Dog? That part didn't measure up.

Unless of course he believed one of the remaining keys was hidden there. If Mum'd actually been part of some club who'd had access to this alleged catacomb doorway, then wasn't it feasible she'd hidden it in the Inn? And maybe, just maybe, Goon knew where.

I gazed at the image of the Veisder, that three-eyed face-mask thing. I thought back to the night on the Village Green, Hayley showing it to me.

Did Goon know she had it? Perhaps he did. I mean, if he was chasing all three keys, wouldn't he go after her next?

The thought suddenly worried me.

12

Hayley wasn't answering her phone. I left a message. 'Hayley, it's Jake, listen, I don't wanna sound paranoid but this business in Burnchess, well, I now believe it's got something to do with Goon. That thing you showed me the other week on the Green, that African mask thing, I think he's looking for it.'

I hung up and stood by the window. It was raining out. It was almost an hour to midnight. The thick cloud had finally seen off the twilight. I had my phone playing that Clare Bowditch tune, Start Of War. Cookie sat preening herself having polished off a tin of Tuna Prime Fillet. My head kept ticking over.

I couldn't stop worrying about Hayley. If she'd been in town I could've gone over and warned her. Then again, if she'd been in town we'd probably have headed over to Kate's party, I wouldn't have turned down my invite. Corey Wankerson was there see. I'd have been happy to go along if Hayley had come with me. Actually, that would've killed two birds with the one stone: I'd have kept Hayley out of Goon's reach while at the same time made Kate insanely jealous by snogging Hayley's tonsils out in front of her.

I did feel a bit bad. For Kate, I mean. Even without Hayley on my arm, I should've made the effort. The last thing I wanted was Kate to think I hated her. We're supposed to be mates and all. I just couldn't bear to see her smooching up to that Wankerson moron all night. Surely she'd understand.

She might if she knew you were in love with her, I remember thinking.

Yeah? Well, even then, maybe not. Even then she probably would've just laughed. If I'd've marched over there and opened my heart she probably would've said something like, 'Oh, brilliant joke, Jake.' It's likely I wouldn't have got a private word with her anyway. Not with Corey Wonderboy clasping her hand all night long. Not with Corey Wonderboy trying to worm his way into her pants after everyone had crashed.

My phone rang. I grabbed it and when I saw who it was relief swept over me. I pressed the FaceTime button and her face filled the screen. 'Hayley. Thank God you got my message. Are you okay?'

'Yes, I'm fine.' Her voice was calm. 'What's all this stuff about Goon?'

'Okay, I didn't wanna alarm you or anything but I've got reason to believe Goon's searching for that thing you showed me, that weird mask thing.'

She was quiet a moment. 'Honestly?' She sounded sceptical.

'Look, it's not for certain. But I think he might be to blame for the break-ins. Maybe even the death of... you know, the Mortons.'

Her brow creased over. 'My God. Really?'

'I just thought you oughta know. Just in case.'

She didn't say anything.

'Hayley?'

'Yes. Okay. Thanks, Jake.' She went quiet again.

I watched her face. She looked distracted.

'You okay?'

I'd frightened her. She was paranoid that she'd look up, where ever she was, and Goon'd be suddenly standing there, watching her through her window or something.

Eventually she says, 'Jake, listen. Something strange is going down.'

I frowned. What the fuck did she mean? Strange shit had been going down ever since we'd got back from school.

'Look. I don't know why but for some reason my mum's coming to see you.'

I frowned. 'Your mum?'

'Yes.'

I thought of the face mask. I thought of the Crimson Wraith photos. 'What for?'

'I don't know. She wouldn't say. She insisted I don't get involved.'

'Was she talking about the Mortifera stuff I asked you about?'

'Honestly, Jake, I don't know what she was talking about. She wasn't making any sense.'

'But she's coming here? To the Inn?'

'Yes. Right now. She says it's urgent.'

13

There was a knock on my door and Louise calls out, 'Jake, you've got a visitor downstairs.' She knocked again and when I met her at the door she said, 'It's Liberty Ruckerson. Tell me you haven't gone and got Hayley pregnant.'

I was dumbfounded by the question. I couldn't believe she'd asked such a thing. As if I answered to her anyway. 'Louise, if I've blown my beans up Hayley then that's none of your business. Okay?'

14

I came into the main bar. It was late Wednesday evening. That time of year there should've been a bunch of drunken patrons indulging in last drinks. But there was nobody around except for a group of old blokes playing poker in one corner and Farmers Hicks, Webster, Stowe, Gruff and Biffon all chatting quietly, almost secretively, in another. Rain spattered against the window panes. The jukebox played Start Of War, which I thought was a bit bizarre seeing as it was the same song I'd had playing on my phone upstairs.

I spotted Hayley's mum across the bar at one of the tables in the darkened alcove. She'd bought herself a white wine of some sort. I grabbed a Raw City lager and went straight over.

Mrs Ruckerson has Hayley's face with those large hazel eyes and reddish hair and a dimple on the left side of her mouth. And if we're making comparisons, she has a similar sized development hanging off her chest. But there was something else about her that night. Something I couldn't put my finger on. Something unsettling. I've always known her as Hayley's mum, as the owner/operator of the Ruckerson Dream, the pleasure yacht that takes tourists up and down the coast and out to the Hangman Islands. She's also the amateur florist who sells geraniums and gladiolas on Sundays down the market. And she's got a passion for the welfare of abandoned animals and injured wildlife.

Yet, as I approached her, I couldn't help picture her photo in mum's book. I suddenly realised she wasn't simply plain old Liberty Ruckerson anymore. This was Liberty Sweetwater—last surviving member of the Mortifera. Someone I didn't really know these days, someone with a secret past. A possibly dangerous past. I suddenly felt very wary of her.

She didn't stand as I reached her. But she smiled at least. (Same smile from that photo in the album—although perhaps not as cheerful. More guarded, more nervous.) She held out her hand and we shook briefly as I sat down.

'Jake, how are you?'

I shrugged. 'Okay, I guess.' I was about to say How are you? but she cut me off.

'Look Jake, I'm going to be brief. I can't afford to hang around; I want you to listen to me very carefully.'

I nodded. 'Of course.'

'I have a particular relic in my possession. Something known as the Veisder. It is but one part of a three part key mechanism.' She let me take this in. 'Do you hear me?'

I frowned, but told her, 'Yes.'

'Much to my annoyance Goon has already claimed the Crogen. If Mr Staten had only listened to me we wouldn't be in this predicament. But we must make certain Goon does not gain any further pieces. I cannot tell you where the third and final piece is. Your mother was tasked with hiding each segment. It was decided that she alone would conceal them, thus she alone knew of their whereabouts. I'm tasking you with locating it. You will also need to retrieve15 the Crogen from Goon. Together, with the piece I have with me, they open a secret doorway. I've been informed that you've received your mother's diary. So I don't need to explain what the other relics look like or where to use them. But you must acquire the remaining pieces. Are you hearing me? Are you taking any of this in?'

This was bloody ludicrous. 'Look, Liberty, I'm stumbling in the dark here. I gotta know what the hell's going on.'

'I've already told you enough.' She looked about. No one could see us tucked inside the alcove along the side wall. She pushed a satchel across the table at me.

'What's this?'

'It contains the relic. It once belonged to your mother. It has been in my care for some years but the time has come to pass it on. Yet promise me one thing. Goon must never know you possess it. Do not let him get his hands on this! You have to promise me that, Jake. This is very important.'

I went to take the satchel but she wouldn't release it.

'Promise me, Jake!'

'Okay, I promise.'

She let it go. 'You fail and we all die. It's that simple. I need you to understand the gravity of that.'

I nodded, frowning. We all die? What was she talking about?

She made to leave.

'Mrs Ruckerson, wait, please. This secret doorway. Is it on the Archway?

'Yes.'

'Does it lead to the catacombs?

'Jake, metaphorically speaking, everything beyond that Door is a catacomb.'

I scratched my head. 'You're not making any sense. Just tell me what's down there.'

'Our meeting's over.' She stood to leave.

'Liberty, wait. Please. What the hell's down there? What's so important? Who's the Mortifera?'

'Jake, I'm tired and won't fight the dark forces anymore. My time is done. But your time is just beginning. Find the doorway.' She left the alcove, hefting a coat into her arm and headed for the exit.

I left my beer, gripped the satchel, strode after her. 'Liberty, wait!'

15

Castle Grove was deserted, gushing with a splintery rain that made the street lamps glow weak and sallow. Across the road, the shadows hung silent as sea caves, dark inky hollows where the light refused to go. I had a squirming sensation of being watched. As if hungry beady-eyed monsters were hunched over there in the shadows, staring at me. As if something was about to rush out and drag me into the dank corners of the night.

I couldn't help wondering if the Charweed girls were on the prowl with some fucked up little Frankenstein critter.

'I know about Goon's plan to destroy Burnchess,' I told Mrs Ruckerson as I came through the door. An idea which was likely bullshit but I needed to try it on for size, see how she'd take it. 'And what happened to his daughter. That she vanished without trace.'

She shrugged on her parker. 'So what?'

'Well, tell me. Did his daughter really disappear? Was she a victim of one of the massacres of 2001? Or is she really hanging in his cellar?'

She flipped the hood over her head and gave me this look, like, You have no idea.

'Come on. Please. Is Goon to blame for all these deaths that've been going on?'

Something whickered from the dark and suddenly some hulking animal loomed over my shoulder, startling me, making me screech.

Liberty reached out and drags this horse into the dull street light. Gracefully she hoists herself into its croaking leather saddle. I stood back, fearing she might run me flat into the road. Her mount's large heavy hooves clip-clopped noisily on the wet cobblestones. She dragged the reins to her right and the mare turned away from my face.

I gazed up at her, questioning why she was on horseback. Surely she hadn't ridden all the way here from fucking St Austell. Drizzle plinked off my eyelids. 'This is all bullshit, Mrs Ruckerson. You know it and I know it. If you've got crucial information about what the hell's going on then you have to tell someone. If it's not me then it's gotta be the damn police.'

'The situation has been explained to the authorities before, Jake. They plainly don't have the capacity to comprehend. That's no disrespect to your father. That's just the way it is.'

'Then tell me what the hell's going on.'

'No. Find the door.'

I shook my head. 'It's not gonna happen. Not until you tell me what this is all about.'

She sent me this look. I mistook it for humour. Then I realised it was exasperation.

'The sad fact of the matter, Jake, is you simply wouldn't believe me if I did.' With that she jammed her heels into the mare's ribs and bolted into the night.

THE MONSTER

1

I STOOD watching her ride away until the night dark swallowed her up. I was alone in the street. Nothing but darkness and rain and foggy streetlamps. I considered the satchel in my grasp. I opened it and peered in. My breath sucked back. Rain drops spattered in against the ghastly three-eyed mask thing as it gazed back at me.

I shut the satchel quickly like I was holding a sack full of spitting cobras. Like the thing would somehow wriggle out and bite me. I clenched the bag shut with straining white knuckles.

That's when I heard a loud croak from somewhere across the street.

Startled I turned about and peered into the gloom. There were deep shadows in the shrubs at the Barnacled Octopus. The dark restaurant windows glinted beneath the streetlamps. The only light on at that place was the lamp illuminating the small billboard. It highlighted the insane looking goggle-eyed octopus with the green barnacles clinging to its purple body and its tentacles all twisted and entwined about the letters of the sign, pulling them skewiff. Generally, late on a summer's eve, that place'd be open. But like so many establishments, it had shut until further notice due to the fact most of its customers had cleared out of the village. But something stood there, on the ground behind the shrubs. A tall, murky figure barely visible against the shadows. Its eyes glowing yellow.

My skin crawled and I backed up to the doors of the Inn. I pushed my way inside and shoved the doors shut behind me. I heard it coming, out there in the street, cloven hooves clip-clopping quickly on the sodden cobbles.

Hardly breathing, I edged toward the window and peered out ever so carefully.

I saw nothing. Nothing hiding in the shadows of the Barnacled Octopus. Nothing but the rain falling through the soft glow of the street lights and Castle Grove disappearing into the gloom in either direction.

2

I started to think maybe I'd been seeing things. That it'd been a trick of the light. Still, I couldn't ignore the fact that it'd made me nervous as hell. And it was probably just my imagination getting the better of me but I couldn't help feeling that some huge, hairy beast with mighty jaws and a trillion teeth, was out there, pushed up against the Inn, waiting, hiding, hungry.

As I contemplated this, the front doors of the Inn... began to open.

3

It came in headfirst. This thing. Whatever it was. It had to stoop to enter. That's how tall it was. When it straightened, the tip of its head stood higher than the lintel. The light there in the foyer is always dim and moody, especially at night, so I couldn't get a handle on what the fucking thing was exactly. Only that it wasn't hairy like I'd expected. It had slick skin like a shark's, skin as dark as old leather. And it dripped drool and spit all over the carpet.

I'd all but frozen, backed up against the wall. I didn't dare move, I didn't want some creaking floorboard telling it where the hell I was.

But as I watched, it lowered its head toward the floor and its skin suddenly sloughed away, flopping to the carpet like a mass of sodden seaweed.

I frowned.

And I watched Hogshead emerge from beneath.

I just blinked at him. My pulse thumping in my temples. Trying to make sense of what I was seeing. What I think happened was he must've somehow gotten his umbrellas caught beneath his trench coat. He was cursing and groaning in his efforts to untangle himself. When he finally did he dumped the umbrella in the umbrella bin beside the doorway and hung his long dripping coat on the coat rack. He never saw me. I just stood there, frozen against the wall. He just hobbled away into the main bar.

It took me a few moments to move. I simply kept staring at the doors, waiting for some hell beast to follow him inside.

None came.

I edged back to the closest window. And peered out. I saw Hogshead's shire horses, Coral and Seabush, standing patiently in the rain at the head of Louise's charabanc. Beyond them the insane octopus on the sign across the street leered at me. Any dark shadows with large yellow eyes had gone.

4

In my bedroom I fetched from my wardrobe the bell with the string attached. Out on the landing I looped the string at ankle-height about the bannister. I trailed the string under the base of the door and hung the bell over the end of the bed. It hadn't been deployed in a while but this used to be my alarm system during my early teen years, designed to alert me to anyone approaching my door, giving me crucial seconds to wipe any porn sites from the screen of my iPad or hide any 18+ video games that Mum or Dad didn't know about.

Once set, I pulled the door shut and locked it again.

Now what I needed to do was get that mask hidden. I considered the chest beneath my bed. I dragged it out and unclasped the padlock. I pulled out the old board games of Monopoly and Cluedo and Trivial Pursuit. (Most of these had been mum's when she was young). I hauled out bags of plastic army men and toy tanks and submarines. There was even a bounty of old Penthouse magazines me and Mark'd collected back when we'd first started high school. When the chest was empty I put the mask in (it was still tucked inside the satchel) and I piled everything back on top. Then I fastened the padlock and shoved the chest beneath the bed again.

Then I sat there on the bed next to a bemused looking Cookie, clasping the cricket bat wondering what to do next.

5

I thought back to Liberty Ruckerson. I tried making sense of all the bullshit she'd been going on about. The mask was one part of a key, she'd said. That it opened some doorway on the Archway. That I needed to track down the two remaining pieces (one of them, the skull, now in Goon's possession) and open the door. But why? I still didn't know where the door lead to. The catacombs? But what the hell was down there? Was I meant to foil Goon's plans of destroying Burnchess?

It was maddening.

I got up and peered through the window into the street. It still rained. It seemed heavier than before. The street lamps looked dull and faded in the deluge. Hogshead's horses had moved on now I noticed; he must've headed home for the night. There was nothing beneath the octopus sign, no ominous looking figure. The Grove lay deserted. Just rain sluicing down the gutters, carrying leaves and bits of rubbish.

I came away from the window, pulling the curtain shut, resigned to a sleepless night. At first light I would head up to the Archway. I planned on that much. I mean, I didn't have the keys to open it, but I just had to see this damn doorway for myself, if I could. I couldn't for the life of me imagine where it was situated on the Archway. It must've been well hidden. But I just needed to see it.

For now though I had to stay awake. Call me paranoid but I just felt something was waiting for me to nod off, biding its time before it snuck in and stole the mask. For once I wished Scuppers hadn't trailed off after Emily. He's a dopey mutt at the best of times but holy shit, he'll bark up a storm if he ever senses a disturbance.

I pulled the bean-bag in front of the telly and switched on the Xbox. I had a couple of games I'd bought in Plymouth that'd see me through the night. The Witcher 3. The Elder Scrolls Online. Either one'd keep me up till hell froze over. And I'd use Cookie as my intruder gauge. If she lay there asleep and contented then I had nothing to worry about. If she sat up all of a sudden looking like a rat had crawled up her arse then we most likely had some fool trying to sneak up on the bedroom door. Or the window.

I kicked off with The Witcher. I've got headphones for optimum in-game audio but that night I left them aside and played mostly with the volume down. I didn't want to miss that bell being set off. I didn't want to miss Cookie making some mewling sound.

As I played, I wondered where dad and Louise were. Probably dug down in some council meeting that was running over time. Probably discussing the alleged fertiliser spill, the ramifications, the logistics of cleaning it all up, the cost to the local economy, etc. Also, I considered Emily. I guess she was still at Kate's party. But I sort of wished she and Mark would stumble back to the Inn together, get friendly in her bedroom for the rest of the night. I mean, ordinarily I wouldn't have given two shits about Louise or Emily's whereabouts but that night I thought I'd be better off if there were others around. Safety in numbers and that sort of thing.

My first yawn hit me about twenty minutes into my gaming. My second one rose up a few minutes later. I sat up straight in the bean bag, so I wasn't slumped or lying down, so I wouldn't feel too comfortable. I knew I should've gone and fixed myself a double strength coffee but that would've meant leaving my room. I'd have to unpack the mask from the chest and take it with me. All I kept thinking about was that fiend in his crocodile suit. And how the CCTV cameras hadn't captured him entering or leaving. And how maybe he was waiting for me somewhere outside my bedroom door, in the shadows.

Fuck Jake, you're being paranoid.

Best way to be tonight, a second voice in my mind insisted. Less chance of fucking this whole thing up.

As it turned out though, being paranoid wasn't enough to keep me from falling asleep. I remember sitting there yawning for a third and fourth time but confident I'd stay awake. And then...

Well, I must've dozed off.

6

I remember standing by the window. I'd dragged the curtain aside and was peering into the street. I'd heard something strange. A fluttering sound. But looking out all I saw was the drumming rain, pushed by the flurrying wind and the streetlamps had almost vanished amidst the torrents. But that damn octopus on that sign across the street, well, its tentacles now looked to be moving somehow. And thick red drool looked to be dribbling from its mouth. And it watched me. Its large goggling eyes were seeing me.

I went to step away from the window. And that's when I saw them.

The Charweed girls.

Across the street, standing side by side in the gloom behind the flower bed that runs between the hedge and the Barnacled Octopus. The both of them were drenched to the bone but they didn't seem to care. They never moved. Never shied away from the rain pelting their faces. And above them that damn octopus suddenly writhed and spat and my skin went cold as I realised it now suddenly possessed the head of a wolf.

And that's when the Charweeds began to chant.

'Jake, Jake, dead as dust,

Tomorrow your bones will turn to rust...'

Jake, Jake, soon you'll fall,

And then your heart shall beat no more.'

Then just like scrambling spiders, they scurried across Castle Grove and came scuttling up the outside walls toward my bedroom window.

I stumbled back from the window. Grabbing my cricket bat. The curtain was still drawn. I could see the dark night beyond and the swirling black clouds and the rain spattering the glass.

At any moment the Charweeds would appear and come scrambling headfirst through the fucking window, and behind them that wolf-octopus thing would burst through and gobble me up.

But...

Nothing happened. The stormy night continued to rage, fat rain drops peppered the window pane.

I sat there huddled against the far wall with my cricket bat, waiting... waiting... I had this dreadful feeling the witch girls were clinging like beetles to the side of the Inn, one on either side of my window, waiting for me to stick my head out to see where they'd got to. I remember wondering if I'd latched the fucking window lock. And I was about to get up and sneak across to check when a hideous wolf face appeared right there, leering in at me.

7

I jolted awake and sat bolt upright, throwing my bat around the dark. I was still on the bean bag. The TV was still on. I looked about room, holding my breath. Then I jumped to my feet, and flicked on the light. Holding my bat back, I gazed at the window.

It was shut. The curtains pulled across them. Cookie lay asleep on my bed. The time was 4am.

8

Between five and six I began to get ready for my foray to the Archway. I dragged the chest out, relieved to find the mask thing still in its satchel.

I pulled on my jeans and sneakers, slipped into my shirt and jacket. When I was ready to leave I stood there grasping my cricket bat, considering the window. I moved toward it. Then carefully I reached out and peeled back the curtain. I leaned forward and peered into the street.

Still it rained, not as heavy as it had, and the street lamps glowed a dull sorry yellow in the gloomy deluge. Castle Grove was empty. And the boring old sign at the Barnacled Octopus was just that, a boring old sign with nothing but a goggle eyed octopus.

I turned and made for the bedroom door, grabbing my phone as I went. And just before I slotted it in my pocket I noticed there was a missed call.

From Hayley.

At 2:30am.

It troubled me that I'd slept through it. It troubled me that she'd been awake at that time. Was something the matter? Had something happened to her?

I quickly thumbed the voice mail button and listened to her message.

Hi Jake, Mum wouldn't tell me why she went to see you. All she said was there's something important you have to do. But listen, I just woke from a terrible dream. It was so... real. You have to believe me. I've just been lying here trying to push it out of my mind but for some reason it just won't leave me. I can't help but think it's some sort of terrible premonition. It sounds silly I know, but promise me, whatever you've got to do, you'll be careful. What I saw was terrible. It's out to stop you, Jake. The thing from my dream, this monster. Whatever it is. The same thing that killed the Mortons... I fear it's coming to kill you.

9

Five minutes later I'm striding up Castle Grove in the morning dark, huddled into my coat, my boots stomping through puddles in the cobblestones. The gutters ran like brooks—small waterfalls would've been spilling off the cliffs hundreds of feet into the ocean. I barely noticed the downpour or the chill. I just kept running Hayley's message through my thoughts.

It wasn't long before thoughts of Goon filled my mind. I couldn't help wondering if somehow he'd witnessed the exchange between me and Liberty? If so, was it likely that he'd been waiting outside the Inn all night? For all I knew, the mad prick was trailing me even then. After what he'd done to me in Staten's shop I wouldn't have put it past him to rush out of the dark and try and muscle the mask from me.

Well, let him try, I thought. Because what he didn't know was that I'd come prepared. I had one of Dad's old police truncheons tucked in my jacket ready for the first fucker who came at me. Except I wasn't so sure how a truncheon would go against a tiger. Perhaps if I managed to get a good hit against its face before it attacked, I might scare it off. Anyway, I was banking on ol' Mother Nature for that. Cats don't favour rain too much. So as long as that rule stayed true then I had nothing to fear...

Except... except there was still Hayley's voice message. And Mark's wild claims messing with my mind. Damn wolf-octopuses, and giant monsters and walking trees. It all just kept eating at me. It wouldn't leave me alone. But I just had to try and ignore it. I just kept pushing up Castle Grove, trying not to think about... And soon, well, as the Archway began to materialise from the gloom, my thoughts turned to other things.

It loomed like a ghost, its long hump like the spine of some chalk-white spectre. Beyond it, the Coddington Lane streetlamps did their best to stave off the morning dark. I began to wonder if in some older time, Mum and Liberty had approached the Arch at such a time of day. When the world was just as dark and damp and moody. When the threat of something charging at them from the predawn gloom ran just as high. Actually, I could've done with someone alongside me right then. A partner. To watch my back. As it was, it was just me. Jittery and looking about, every dank shadow threatening to throw out some snarling hungry underworld denizen.

10

I reached the Arch and looked about. Making certain I was alone. I circled it, studying the shadows amongst the crumbled Chest Stones, studying the stone gargoyles who both seemed to eye me from the dark, their stone eyes glistening wet.

The rain clouds had begun to thin a bit; the early morning sunlight was doing its best to spike through the dark soupy sky. But the drizzle kept drumming down. A blessing I suppose as it deterred any possible prowling cat and kept people indoors and out of my hair. But old Fanny'd be along soon enough, rain or not, to open up his souvenir stall for another day's trade. (Whether he had any actual business would remain to be seen.) And rain didn't keep the farmers indoors either; in a little while they'd all be lugging produce to the market. I didn't want one of them tapping me on the shoulder asking what I was up to. I wanted to be done and dusted before they all rolled by.

11

So, I had Liberty Ruckerson's satchel slung over my shoulder and I now reached in and tentatively felt for the edges of the mask thing. I didn't want my hands anywhere near its mouth. I grimaced as my damp fingers closed over its dry, scratchy skin. Slowly I dragged it out.

The Coddington Lane street lamps burned small holes in the gloom and, using their scant illumination, I held the mask before me to get another look at it. Those three eye holes seemed to watch me, illuminated from behind by the faint light. It was an eerie effect, as if the face was awakening, returning to life. I had to keep telling myself that it was just a fucking mask, not someone's face. But it didn't do much good.

I noticed something then. Amidst the tattoos. There were words inked into the skin along the jaw line, words I hadn't noticed before: MIRAS DER AN VEISDER, MIRAS VARTHEGYO.

Veisder.

What Liberty had called it. What it was named in Mum's diary.

The words seemed so clear and defined under the dull lamp lights. I wondered what they meant. Instructions perhaps? On how to use the object? If so, I couldn't translate them. But did it really matter? I mean, Hayley had suggested that when you put the damn mask thing on and looked through it you saw some pretty strange stuff. I still didn't really know what she meant by that. But just maybe, if it was supposed to help you find a secret doorway, well it was sort of self-explanatory really. It was a mask after all. You just put it on and look around, right?

So without hanging about, with one more look around to make sure no one had crept up on me, I lifted the thing to my face...

12

I gasped and held my breath. Hayley had been right. This was bizarre.

I watched in awe as a hundred faces or more with tortured eyes and silent screaming mouths swirled madly through the murky rain clouds. I gazed wide-eyed at smoky yellow wraiths swimming lazily amongst them, as if they were ferrying the souls of the damned off to purgatory.

I pulled the mask from my face, utterly fascinated. The sky reverted to its mass of gloomy clouds and drizzling rain. No ghostly apparitions to be seen.

I studied the surface of the mask again. This Veisder thing. Were there fancy lenses at work here? Something that might project such peculiar images onto my eyes? Send phantom signals directly to my brain? Certainly didn't appear so. I mean, the three eye sockets were empty. I could poke my fingers right through them without resistance.

I put the object back to my face again and this time swung both the Archway and the village into view. I was so staggered by what I saw I nearly fell backwards.

Something glared back at me. Hovering above the entire settlement of Burnchess. While the quiet wailing faces swept through the sky, a gigantic three-eyed face gazed down upon the region. It looked somehow like the scrawny gormless faces of the witches on the front cover of that book Goon'd left in Staten's shop.

Aghast I dragged the mask off my face again. With the naked eye I saw nothing beyond the Archway except the thatched cottages and smoke wisps flurrying from the chimney tops up into the murky rain clouds. Certainly no enormous god-like face hovering above Burnchess. And still no doorway.

Mindful of the time ticking away, I donned the mask again, trying my best to ignore the colossal haggard face in the sky. I began a slow lap of the monument, surveying every possible angle of the Archway. And it was while I was doing this that I became aware of something odd. Strange dark shadows poised, or moving around me, just outside my periphery. They gave me the chills. What the fuck they were? They stood taller than me. They had eyes that glowed like embers. But when I turned to face them they swept from view. And when I tipped the mask up to scan my vicinity with naked eyes they simply disappeared. I turned around slowly, suspiciously, eyeing off every little corner and shadow, wondering where they'd gone.

I put the mask back to my face. It took a moment or two but they materialised again. And once more, they remained only on the far periphery of my vision.

You're being paranoid, I told myself. You're just seeing things. If someone else was here you'd have heard them scamper off.

I willed myself to relax. Taking a few steadying breaths. I turned my attention back on the Archway. And this time I spotted something.

At first I thought it must've been a spotlight. Someone flashing a torch beam on the stonework of the Arch near the gargoyle. But it wasn't. No, a portion of the Arch itself rippled as if sunlight was striking through the surface of pond. I strode over immediately.

Without the Veisder thing on my face, the rippling light didn't exist. Without the Veisder, the spot in question was nothing more than a relief carving of two warhorses. Two such objects in amongst a zillion others.

With the Veisder back over my eyes, the war horses faded away beneath a pattern of fluorescent seams cut deep into the stone. I stood there studying the intricate designs, fascinated by small aqua-marine pulses rippling through each one. I wasn't surprised to discover the pattern formed yet another three-eyed face.

Looking at it, something occurred to me. If I'd had Staten's antique skull in my possession, would it fit there? Face-first I mean, against the pattern of indents. Would it act like a doorknob? Could it turn? Would something happen? Would a door suddenly swing out from the monument and reveal a darkened twisting spider-infested stairway leading down beneath the village?

It was perplexing to say the least. Because no matter how much I studied the vicinity around these shimmering lights, there was absolutely nothing to indicate any sort of actual doorway.

So, like Liberty had said: it was secret, hidden. Concealed. I touched it, the area hiding the indents, the area that pulsed in curious white light. I pushed it. Hard. If there was a doorway maybe there'd be some give. But the stone refused to budge. Liberty's words came back to me again: '...the Veisder is one part of a three part key mechanism... You must acquire the remaining pieces.'

Okay, but how was I meant to go about getting hold of the other segments? More than likely, Goon had the skull, the one stolen from Staten's. But what of that other thing: the Scrivinas, the six-fingered hand that I'd seen in Mum's diary? Safe to assume it remained hidden. Probably concealed somewhere inside the Hare Of The Dog because that must've been what Goon'd been hunting for that night he'd broken in dressed in that suit.

Something else occurred to me now. Liberty Sweetwater and the so-called Crimson Wraith. Well, they'd once both stood here side by side beneath this Archway. But as what? Cohorts? Club members? I don't know, but the thought of it sent a cold finger of ice up my spine. Could it be that Goon and lil miss Sweetwater (a.k.a. Mrs Ruckerson) were actually in cahoots? Could they be playing me? What if Goon'd hit a dead end in his search for the third piece of the key? The Scrivinas? If so, maybe he was banking on me finding it for him. Maybe they hoped I'd also locate the doorway.

If this was the case then I was playing straight into their—

A sudden gust of wind made me look around—and I came aware of a figure suddenly at my shoulder.

Goon.

13

I stepped backwards slowly. I didn't want to let on he'd startled me. But I felt pure panic. He'd snuck up on me so deftly. I hadn't even heard him.

His head was bowed ever so slightly and his dark lizard eyes watched me, teeth snarling in a wolfish grin, rain dripping off his chin and nose. 'Morning, Jake lad. I must say, yer up rather early.'

I shrugged, trying to make out my heart wasn't thumping like mad. 'So are you.'

His eyes went to the Veisder in my grip. I shifted it behind my back. And I reached for the police truncheon in my jacket.

He moved like a flash of light, the heel of his palm punching into my jaw, his knee thumping up into my ribcage. Stars crossed my eyesight at the same time as the air emptied from my lungs. Before I knew what was happening I'd been dumped heavily into the cobblestones.

I lay there stunned and gagging.

Goon bent and talked at my ear; rain ran down his greasy cheeks. 'Okay. Tell me something, Jake. If I were to ask how yer'd like ta die this morning, how do yer think yer'd reply?'

I felt an ice-cold blade slide along my throat. I didn't dare move. I could only think of Morton. Is this how he felt at the end? Complete paralysing fear?

'Hey, Jake lad? Any thoughts? How yer wanna leave this world? Or yer just wanna leave it up ter me? Speak up if yer care to. Cos it's now or never, Jake. But I must say, I been lookin' forward to this for quite some time. And the beauty is of course if I do it right I'll avoid any blame. The finger'll be pointed squarely at that tiger they think is runnin' round out there. And if I do it right, it ain't gunna be no open casket either. Understand? Once I'm done, yer ain't gunna be so pretty-looking. Yer gunna look a real mess. Yer dad ain't gunna wanna see yer. Just as well yer dear old mum ain't ere, eh?'

I struggled like a pig at the mention of my mum. But he held me down.

'Ey, easy there, Jake lad, easy there. Don't fight me, yer hear? Yer ain't gunna win. Yer just ain't.' He breathed deeply, as if enjoying himself. 'Now listen, yer remember that snivelling old Morton, don't yer? That's right, the stupid twat that never shut up. Well listen, if yer like, I'll make it so yer look summat like him by the time I'm done. That all right? You'll be famous, Jake lad. You'll be splashed all over town.'

He pulled his arm high above my neck. And I saw it then. Gripped in his fist, a long curved blade glinting in the street lamps, dripping with rain.

'No,' I gurgled. 'Please.'

But he wound back his arm ready26 to plunge that knife deep into my throat... but just he was about to, he was interrupted; the sound of an ox cart could be heard trundling down Coddington Lane.

He looked up. And in an abrupt swish of rushing air he was gone.

14

Faint-headed I squirmed onto my belly. I strained to suck breath into my lungs; it felt like sucking sand through thick gauze. I lifted my head and caught sight of Goon fleeing across the car park near the barley mill. Behind me, oblivious to my floundering, came Farmer Beechworth, pipe hanging out the corner of his mouth. As I struggled to my knees a sense of dread flushed through me at the realisation I no longer had the mask. Goon'd cleared off with it.

Rasping, hissing... I staggered to my feet, doubled over as I lurched forward, stumbling into the side of the Arch, spinning around almost drunkenly, banged into the gargoyle statue. But disoriented or not... I forced myself onward.

Thing is, he'd passed the barley mill by the time I'd gathered up any sort of momentum. And my lungs ached like they'd been filled with mud. The drizzle kept spilling down but the sky was certainly lighter now, with the sunrise splitting through the cloud. As I chased him, my breath slowly returned to a more manageable rhythm. I watched him racing toward the southern side of the derelict steam bus which lies in a thick carpet of weeds and brambles beyond the Mill. An odd move I thought—veering in the direction of the Village Green. Effectively that was steering toward Burnchess. I read it as a ploy to try and shrug me—there's no way he'd run into the village. So I guessed he'd either come out the other end and double back, or he'd cut left and disappear into the woodland behind the village stables.

So I planned on meeting him cutting him off in a bone-crunching tackle.

Gripping the truncheon, I took a bee-line straight across the car park, adrenalin and anger fuelling me. I sped past the northern side of the Mill, raced on toward the steam bus ready to cut Goon off in his tracks, looking forward to seeing the look of surprise on his fuck-ugly face.

But when I got there it was me who got the surprise.

I'd second-guessed his move without a hitch. He had cut left after skirting the steam bus. But he hadn't rushed behind the stables. Somehow he was suddenly two hundred metres ahead of me, racing past the eastern verge of the Seven Ghosts woodland.

'What the fuck.'

I went after him. But it was clear the scrawny prick had me pegged. I kept on his tail as best I could, my throat still aching, burning. But I couldn't catch him. His pace seemed unnatural; he ran like a gazelle. I guess I trailed him for about ten minutes out across Strangler's Vale but all the while he gained ground on me.

I lost him on the Lambeth Road out beyond Farmer Gruff's farm. That's about two or three miles east-north-east of Burnchess. He'd been about half a mile ahead by then. I saw him hurdle the low stone wall, dash across the road and vanish headlong into the looming mass of Wolfcrag Forest.

I pulled up at the wall, panting, gazing forlornly at the edge of the woods, my lungs burning. I couldn't go further. There've been rumours as long as I've lived about some deranged nutter who calls that Forest home; stories about this crazy guy who was abused as a kid and had his nose sawn off by his old man. Everyone calls him the Pigman.

They say this drifter was stupid enough to stray in there one year, and this Pigman nutter got him and took him into his den and tied him to the wall and raped him for four months and cut off his ears and ate his balls. If you've grown up in Burnchess then there's one thing you know never to do: You NEVER enter Wolfcrag Forest. Ever.

15

One thing pushed me though. That damn Veisder. I couldn't lose it. I couldn't let Goon get away with it. I had to chase him down. And still I hesitated. I stood there panting, gazing across the road at the fringe of the Forest, a soft breeze whispering through the trees, murmuring eerily away through the dark quiet woodland. When I finally got up the will power to hop the wall I froze.

By then dawn had broken across the sky in a spectacular bloody mess; yellow as scrambled egg and streaked the colour of blood. It cast a strange orange light along the damp Lambeth Road. Behind me I heard sparrows twittering on the vale. And finches played leapfrog along the wall. But in that peculiar dawn light, hidden beneath the fringe of the woodland, directly across the road from me in the morning shadows, stood two chilling figures.

The Charweed sisters.

I dropped instantly for cover behind the wall and cowered amidst the grass and the mud.

A trap. I'd walked straight into it. You fool, Jake, you stupid fool! Oh, I knew that's what it was. And it isn't any wonder how quickly the pursuit of Goon abandoned my mind. If it came down to it, I had the bulk to outmuscle those little bitches. And I could've done them some serious damage with that truncheon. But something about them spooked the hell out of me. Was it the ghostly way they'd moved that night on the Green? And how easily they'd sapped my consciousness? Or was it simply about what me and Mark had seen in their Greenhouse of Horrors? I couldn't tell. But every instinct yelled at me to flee.

I smudged the sweat from my neck. Tried calming my breathing. Just get outta here, Jake, I whispered to myself, searching for the flattest escape route back across Strangler's. I sucked back two or three huge gulps and ground my boots into the soft earth like a starter's block, to make certain I wouldn't slip the moment I took off.

I counted, one...

And two...

And...

Something stopped me: a noise...

A whistle of air...

Then instantly in the muddy earth and thistles before me there appeared two pairs of pale, bandy, skinny legs with grotty feet full of troll-toes and twisted nails.

I looked up, and gazed straight into the insane, idiot eyes of the Charweeds.

16

I gasped and scrambled backwards along the wall, dropping the truncheon in my panic. Their haunting white goggling eyes, glaring at me as I went, and their black hair like spider's thread, like tendrils, reaching for me.

'Jake, Jake, now you'll scream,

For chasing things to realms unseen.

Jake, Jake, here comes the Flood,

For now the Strangler drinks your blood.'

I screeched and left the wall, bolting out across the vale toward Farmer Gruff's property, hauling arse through mucky earth and wet grass; sprinting mindlessly, breathlessly, desperately.

Their singing stopped but I kept running. Panting and bolting, running as fast as I could. As I went, I threw my face over my shoulder, expecting them to be right there on my tail.

But they were gone.

Confused, I came to an awkward halt, turning around, panting, squinting, all light-headed, my hands propped on my knees. They were nowhere to be seen. I should've been ecstatic but all I felt was a deep, terrified suspicion.

Then behind me a sudden sound like blustering wind.

I whirled about.

Nothing there. Just the Gruff place in the distance toward the sea cliffs, and Burnchess further around the coast.

But a new sound now cut the air. A high pitched twittering. Like a bat. Just like the sound I'd heard that night on the Village Green.

This time it came from the edge of Wolfcrag.

I turned again and straightened, eyeing the woodland, my shaking hand shielding the sun from my eyes. And now I saw it. Some hideous shape on the Lambeth road.

Mostly it was hidden beyond the wall. Twittering horribly. Wailing like a tormented cat. And grunting. At first all I could see was its ragged spine beyond the edge of the stonework, like a shark's fin cutting through the surface of water. Surely it was Goon playing games in his monster suit.

But then it came lumbering over the wall... and my eyes bulged. I was struck frozen with terror. It couldn't be someone in a monster suit. The morning sun beams slanting through the cloud highlighted it in crisp detail and it was black as tar and massive. Like a rhino. And multi-legged as if it were a giant spider, or an octopus. It had corkscrew horns jutting back from the sides of its skull. And where its mouth should've been crab mandibles nibbled the air, and a dozen gleaming red eyes, bunched together like a tarantula's, watched me.

I almost choked with fear. It was a prank. Surely a prank.

But its eyes gleamed and it snorted...

And then it began to run towards me.

17

Get outta here, Jake, a voice screeched in my mind. Run!

I turned and sprinted in simple blind panic, charging for my life through the grass and mud. All I could hear was my breathing. Nothing else. Not the moaning wind, not my footfalls. Just my racing breath.

Yet, its pounding footfalls... I could hear them now not far behind. Great beastly claws thudding the earth. And its laboured breaths like a manic pig. Whatever the hell it was, it was gaining on me fast.

Part of me wanted to turn and face it. Grab it and put a stop to this charade. But another more primitive part of brain told me to keep running. This was no man in a suit; no cat either. This thing was something else, something alien. Some dark, twisted evil that had no place on our world. But my legs were burning. My lungs were crying.

Suddenly its lunging paws were deafening as thunder, its splutters and gargles sending all the hairs on the back of my neck on end. It was behind me, dead behind me.

'Leave me alone!' I screeched, not looking back. 'Whoever you are, leave me alone!'

The galloping was so thunderous now I couldn't even hear my breath any more. Nothing but thudding, booming footfalls, and the panting of this thing so close to me now it could've ripped my head straight off my shoulders.

Finally, with my lungs about to burst, my brain gushing with adrenalin, I spun around.

I'm not sure why. I guess I thought there was nothing else I could do. Turn and face it. Go eye to eye with it.

But a final split-second realisation told me I'd done the wrong thing. This wasn't a prank. This thing was real, and far more hideous than I could've imagined. It raced at me, this monstrous black beast, towering above me, cold multiple eyes glowing orange inside its oil-black face and I had the cold, terrible understanding that I was about to die.

I thought of Kate. I thought of Dad. And finally I thought of Mum. I reached out a pleading hand to her spirit...

A mere second later, that hulking spider-faced creature slammed into me like a train through a glasshouse.

At first I was only aware of my screams. Nothing else. Just me howling and howling as that thing raked my body back and forth like a hound with a doll. I came aware of my belly popping open and my ropey guts flipping off into the air like loose hosepipe. My leg snapped and then the entire length of it from toe to hip was wrenched away and off it went, flinging end over end through the sky. Claws punctured my neck and I gurgled and choked on hot, gummy blood.

As my eyes were squeezed from my skull there was one last echoing scream. Whether it came from me or the monster I'll never know.

But that's when the lights went out on my life.

~ PART TWO ~

THE DOORWAY

THE REANIMATED

1

EXACTLY WHAT me and Mark witnessed in the Greenhouse of Horrors went something like this.

Near the end of May last year, almost fifteen months back, Mark called to say he needed to see me. He says, 'Jake, I don't exactly know how to say this, but something really weird has just flown into the garden.'

Me and Hayley had planned that bike ride through Hell's Edge. You know, the one that scorching day last summer when she stripped off her shirt and all she wore beneath was that hot bikini top. I told him down the phone line, 'Look, mate, I've got plans—'

'No seriously, Jake,' he says, 'you've gotta see this, it's totally bizarre.'

'Just tell me what it is.'

'Brutha, you wouldn't believe me if I did.'

2

So, I'd grabbed my dirt bike and driven over to his place. I found him sitting at the table in the shed, a flower prodded into his afro. He saluted me as I strolled round the corner. I had my hands in my pockets and a stalk of grass jabbed in my gob. I made a point of checking my watch, like, whatever he was going to show me he had to be quick because I had my date with Hayley in an hour.

There was a wooden crate on the table with a grotty rug thrown over the top. 'You're gonna think this is some trick,' he says, 'but I swear it isn't.'

I checked my watch again. 'Well, go on then. Show us.'

He peered under the rug carefully, like the crate's full of zombie rats that are going to scamper over our faces the minute he lifts the lid.

'Come round this side,' he says, 'take a look.'

I went round, bent low, peered in... I saw these small glistening black eyes looking back at me. There was this hushed sound like a chicken clucking on her eggs. 'That a chicken?'

He shook his head and lifted the rug a bit higher, letting more hazy sunlight sneak in.

I saw now a small black crow. But something wasn't right. 'What the hell's wrong with it?'

'How the hell should I know?'

'Lift the rug off, I gotta see this.'

He did and the bird cawed and flapped awkwardly from the crate, flapping awkwardly like a butterfly. It managed to get itself to the ceiling where it caught hold of one of the old wooden beams covered in mouse shit and hung there upside down like a bat.

I realised after about five seconds that it wasn't upside down at all. It just had its legs that way, poking upwards from either side of its spine. And its wings grew from where its legs should've been. And its head, well, it was the right way up but at the wrong end.

'What the hell did you do to it?'

'I haven't done anything to it,' Mark says. 'That's how it flew into the garden.'

I moved right under it to get a closer look. I laughed. 'Bullshit, Mark, it's some clever wind-up toy from Japan or some place. You got it off eBay, or something.'

He didn't say anything.

I watched him closely. 'Come on, Mark. Tell me. It didn't fly into the garden, did it? Where'd you get it?'

He scratched his stubble. 'Okay, it's like this: I sort of stole it.'

3

The Greenhouse of Horrors lies out on the Howling, overlooking the rambler's trails, smack between the tar-black Charweed cottage and the overhanging southern fringe of Hell's Edge. That's where he said he found it.

He said he'd been out that way the evening prior, testing his dad's telescope: a brand-new Saxon Refractor. He said it's so powerful that if you set it up on the Howling just outside Biffon's piggery and aimed it south-west you could get a decent look at the topless girls twenty miles away on Fensallow Beach.

He said he'd just set up the telescope when he noticed movement inside that greenhouse. 'So I turned the scope on them,' he'd said. 'And I saw the Charweeds. And then I saw these weird birds. There must've been a hundred of them. They were all flapping about inside that greenhouse. But they must've been escaping somehow cos this one I found snared in brambles. So I just grabbed it and ran.'

I was still waiting for the punchline. I was still waiting for the, 'Oh by the way, Jake, smile, you're on YouTube's Most Fucking Gullible,' or some shit.

4

Anyway, thing is, I wanted to see this shit for myself. So we took our dirt bikes and drove out to the Charweed place for a look. We parked back near Biffon's farm and crept along the wild blackberry hedges till we had to get down on all fours and crawl amidst the thistles. We kept as low as we could until we were a good fifty feet from the greenhouse and that's when we saw them: the black shapes flapping about inside.

'There,' Mark said. 'What did I tell you? The crows.'

I didn't say anything; instead I edged forward for a closer look. Mark followed.

The Charweed wheelbarrows were empty. They sat flecked in blood and fur in the tall grass at the front of the greenhouse, which was behind the main cottage. Foolishly I took that to mean the Charweed girls weren't home.

Keeping low we pushed through the high tangled weeds and wild roses, disturbing grass moths by the hundreds and a handful of mantis, and emerged at the misted eastern wall.

I'd never been so close to the place. But was surprised how large it stood. I'd say about eight to ten metres long, three to four wide, with a high sloping glass ceiling. There was a strong odour too. A musky fecund stench of plant matter and soil, seeping through the wall. Beads of condensation covered the inner glass.

Inside there stood maybe two rows of tall pitcher plants down the middle and giant Fly Traps along the side walls. Fly Traps like none I'd ever seen; big enough to snare a cat. And all the upside down/back-to-front crows flapped about like they'd been jacked up on amphetamines.

'See, I told you,' Mark said again, like I hadn't heard him the first time.

That's when we spotted the abominations: half-chicken and half-hare things sewn together, and strange critters with the heads of trout and the bodies of lambs, and weird conglomerations of pheasants, rabbits and lizards. All of them, twenty or more, hanging dead from hooks and nails like horrific Frankenstein experiments.

Then Mark hisses, 'Holy shit, they're in there!' and my skin went like ice when I saw them. The Charweed girls.

My instinct was to get out of there as fast as I could but what they were doing struck me with such dread fascination I couldn't move.

They had a living fox bucking around, kicking and squirming with its legs trussed, maybe to prevent it bolting if it got free of their long, bony fingers. One of the ghoul girls (and I still don't know where she drew such strength with her scrawny arms) held it down on a large wooden block, a blood splattered block speckled with old bits of flesh and bone and guts.

The second sister came forward with a glistening toothed saw and without warning she hacked the serrated blade straight through the fox's throat, cracking bone and gristle, blood gushing like mad, mercilessly sawing its head completely off.

It was the most disturbing, repulsive thing I'd ever witnessed; that poor beast flailing and kicking its bound legs, blood spraying about like a hose, its snout reeling open, letting out the most pitiful squeal you ever heard in your life. In the end I couldn't look. Mark too. We both turned away and Mark threw up his breakfast—half-digested lumps of sausage meat and toast with a warm afterbirth of yellow porridge.

When I dared look back I found the girls had fetched what I assumed were the remains of an earlier slaughter—the torso of some octopus species. Headless, of course. Decapitated. It must've been done day before because it looked stiff as a plank.

The limbs of the fox were still twitching when the sisters took up several loose strands of coarse twine and, using a curved rusting needle, began sewing its head (its jaws still yawning open and shut) onto the neck of the octopus.

Mark palmed vomit off his chin as the girls carried their 'creation' to another workbench that contained a long seed trough filled with dark soil. Here they laid down the Frankenstein octopus-fox thing. (Its head had stopped squirming by then.) One of the girls walked off. We watched her moving behind a row of enormous pitcher plants. Pitcher plants whose carnivorous pods (and this surely had to be my imagination) appeared to sway hungrily toward her as she ambled by.

When she returned she carried a peculiar milk-white orchid, its wispy branches looping like worms around her arms, and its bony roots clamped like chicken claws around a chunk of mossy wood.

The second girl leaned over the Frankenfox thing, wielding a razor sharp metal scoop. She dug it deep into the octopus belly and pulled out a dollop of guts. She repeated this twice more, excavating a deep meaty hollow. The first girl then wrestled the white orchid, roots and all, off its perch and promptly planted it into the cavity.

They stepped back, wiped their grubby hands on their dresses, and moved to another area of the greenhouse.

5

We followed, keeping low, along the edge of the outside glass wall. We saw another trough of soil where there lay five or six dead foxtopus things. Each of them with stark bloodied stitch seams twined around their necks where their fox heads joined their octopus bodies. Not one of these nightmarish critters was without a strange white orchid growing from their bellies with milky white tendrils webbing and worming into their mouths and nostrils and every orifice you could think of.

The sisters prised open the eyelids of the closest of these critters. Then pulled back its jowls and pressed their thumbs against its gums. They held their ear to its small torso, perhaps checking for a heartbeat.

While we watched, the blood-shot eyes on one of those hideous creatures suddenly snapped open...

'Holy shit,' Mark hissed, 'did you see that? It just opened its damn eyes.'

I shook my head, not believing it. 'No way. It couldn't have.'

But its eyes had come open and its head moved. And the beast was looking about, checking out its surroundings. Now its octopus legs began to squirm about.

I kept thinking I'm seeing things. I kept thinking I was having some sort of fucked up delusion.

The girls began picking the ghostly white plant from its flesh, tugging it out of its throat and nostrils, dragging it free as it struggled to find purchase with its slimy grey arms. It looked awkward and dizzy, but as the seconds ticked by it moved with a certain fluidity. You could almost kid yourself it wasn't some abomination, that it hadn't been spliced together from two separate beasts. That those witches had pulled it out of the ocean just as it was.

It nipped at them with its fox mouth and drew upright, its tentacles sliming about like restless vipers. It barked or coughed, it was hard to tell which. Then it thrust up its jaws and howled the most pitiful howl you've ever heard, almost as if it knew some great injustice had been done to it.

All the while me and Mark just crouched there, bug-eyed, mouths ajar, silent, in awe.

That's when it saw us and abruptly it stopped moving. And its eyes widened and its snout yawned open and its lips drew back, exposing its teeth, and it snarled. Without any warning it sprang from the bench and came squirming across the floor toward us, flinging itself head first into the glass, its rabid fox fangs dripping drool and its mouth spraying blood and its eyes as red as a demon's.

Well, that's when me and Mark squealed and ran.

6

So, that's what swirled about my head when I awoke on Strangler's Vale. (That terrible memory which I think I had mostly buried deep at the back of my mind.) Because for some unknown fucking reason, I had one of those white orchids growing straight out of my stomach.

Its vine-like branches had spread all over me. Around my legs and about my arms and across my chest. I could feel them up my neck like sticky spider's web. I could feel them knotted inside my ears, and up my nose. I also had this weird sensation that it'd also wormed its way down inside my wedding tool and up my rear. But not only that. It'd pushed its way into my mouth and down my throat.

That explained why the hell I hadn't taken a single breath since I'd woken.

In a panic I gripped the gnarled clump of branches hanging out of my mouth and yanked hard. But I might as well have been trying to wrench a leg off a horse. It didn't budge. I gnawed desperately at the thick callused wood with my teeth but it was tough as old roots. My head was going dizzy. In desperation I clasped my fingers around the huge toadstool trunk that disappeared into my guts and just yanked the fuck out of it.

It gave a smidgen, it even groaned, but didn't give.

I yanked again and again...

And finally this mighty swatch of blood-coloured roots ripped free.

But still it wasn't out of me and I had to keep tugging it and tugging it and it just kept coming, strands and strands of it. And the thick stem that'd choked off my airwaves suddenly turned as soft as marshmallow and it seemed to rot. Just like that. In an instant. I dragged the stinking mass of roots out of my throat and I sat there gasping for air and choking and spluttering, with bits of my innards bursting up from a whopping crater in my belly.

Panting, I stared in disbelief at this huge hole. My belly just hanging open. I could see my fucking intestines. I thought I'd faint with the shock of it.

I pushed my hands against either side of my belly, ignoring the gathering flies, trying to heave the hole shut. I sat there gasping for like two minutes, just trying to get myself under control. I guess I sort of expected to just die or something. I kept repeating, 'Please don't die, please don't die,' like my body had some say in it. I kept telling myself, 'Just get back to Burnchess, Dr Smith'll sew you up, just get home.'

If I had to walk, I'd hold my belly shut the whole way home. That's what I was going to do. But I felt so dizzy. I felt like passing out. I didn't want to get to the point where I was half conscious, trailing ribbons of guts around my ankles. Probably I'd be dead before then but I just kept on repeating, 'don't die, don't die, don't die.'

Spitting flecks of that heinous plant off my lips, I willed myself to climb to my feet. I struggled over onto my knees. Still gripping my stomach. I stayed in that position for a moment. Gathering my strength. Steadying my breath. Dribbles of spit carried flaky bits of bark down my neck. I wondered how I was going to do this. To put myself on my feet with my hands occupied. I dragged my leg forward and planted my foot and I rested that way for a bit. With the effort, the hole in my stomach threatened to squish out its contents. I kept it clamped but gravity just wanted to pull it open and have everything out on the ground. A tourniquet, I thought distantly. My jeans.

Good idea. I'd tie strips around my midriff. I'd clench it all shut and hurry back to Burnchess. They'd seal me up. Dr Smith. Somebody. They'd seal me up, I'd be okay, they'd seal me, I wouldn't die—

But something weird began to happen. And, watching it, my eyes almost popped from my face.

The hole was closing somehow.

I had my head hung, staring at this. I was so engrossed I wasn't aware I'd overbalanced until I began to fall. I turned just in time to land on my shoulder and roll onto my back. I grimaced. Everything ached. My legs, my ribs, my back, my neck. But grunting, I lifted my head and gazed down at my stomach.

The hole grew smaller as I watched. I don't know how. Some invisible force was miraculously dragging the edges together and the skin and muscle somehow merged, sealing the gaping tear.

7

I dropped my head back to the muddy ground and just breathed and breathed. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or worried about what I'd just seen. When I finally got my breath under control, as soon as my heart felt like it wasn't going to blow up, I lifted my head and eyed my belly again.

I frowned at a large rounded welt just below my sternum, right there where the skin had matted together in a wrinkled, knotted bump. I lifted my hand and prodded it, poked it, stretched it with my fingers half expecting it to tear. But it was tight and numb and if anyone had've laid eyes on it right then they would've thought it was a wound that'd healed months ago.

I lay there, eyes shut, relishing the cool ocean breeze, and just breathing.

I lifted my head again and gazed about, still unsure where I was. I saw a house maybe half a mile away. It took me several moments to recognise it as the Gruff place. Owned by Farmer John Gruff and his wife Polly. What the hell am I doing here? I kept asking myself.

Grimacing, groaning, straining, I pulled myself back into a sitting position. I coughed up another load of spit. I spat it into the grass and saw over my shoulder the dark green border of Wolfcrag Forest hiding there beyond the wall that skirts the Lambeth Road.

I felt an instant sense of unease. As if something dark and primitive lurked there. I swallowed deeply. I couldn't remove my eyes from the fringe of the woodland. Why did it fascinate me so much? Why did it make me feel so damn nervous?

Get the fuck outta here, Jake, a voice in my mind screamed. Just get outta here. Now.

I managed to stand, dizzy-like, disoriented, gripping my arms around my chest as though it was mid-winter and a deep freeze had seeped into my limbs. My feet were bare and my jacket lost. My jeans and shirt were ripped to tatters. I was still seeing everything in blue and white. I went to walk and that's when I noticed the ring of strange bug-eyed creatures about me—a dozen of them standing in a circle.

Each of them were no more than a foot tall. They had beetle eyes and dragonfly wings. And they all stared out across the Vale, each one clasping a daisy that fluttered peacefully in the wind.

I was seeing things, surely. I was see—

I frowned.

They were statuettes.

I stepped forward and poked one with an unsteady toe. It felt wooden. Or like stone.

I had no idea why they were here. Or who put them there. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing in the middle of Strangler's Vale. All I wanted was to get the fuck out of there and home. So, under the blistering midday sun I stepped out of the circle, and shivering, took one last look back toward Wolfcrag Forest.

8

A large commotion was going on when I ambled tiredly back into Castle Grove. A hundred people or more milled about outside the Hare Of The Dog, gabbling madly until Dad, standing at the head of them, appealed for calm. 'Now listen here,' he called. 'The second wave of search parties will be conducted as follows.'

I spotted Mark. Then Emily—weirdly, she was sobbing. Then Kate. Had something happened to Louise? I then realised it was Kate who was bawling; Emily wasn't sobbing so much as consoling her.

I nudged my way toward Mark and said weakly at his shoulder, 'What's going on, mate?'

He turned his head and reeled back when he saw me, his jaw aghast like he'd seen a ghost. Kate too. She just gasped and jammed her hand over her mouth. And everyone, suddenly seeing me, looked shocked, and stumbled backward like I was some mad ape who'd just crawled out of a diseased monkey house.

Kate raced over, wailing, 'Jake, oh Jake, you're alive!' And then yelling, 'Oh, my God, you're bleeding!' and then she suddenly screeches at the top of her lungs, 'Oh, my God! He's been attacked!'

Louise came pushing through the crowd (crying too—what the hell was wrong with these people?) and squealing, 'Oh, my God, Jake, what happened! Oh, Charles, quick he's been impaled!' and Dad was there grabbing me, tearing off the remains of my shirt.

Weakly I tried saying, 'Dad, I'm okay, I'm okay,' but he wouldn't have it.

'What attacked you, Jake? What the hell attacked you?! Where have you been?'

I looked down to see what he was talking about and I saw it. The blood. All through my torn clothes, all over my arms and chest and feet. A sudden dizziness gushed through my head. My chin lolled upwards and the sky washed out of my eyes.

9

When my eyelids came open I looked about and found myself lying on a cot in a white sterile room. On the wall above a desk hung an anatomical chart of the human skeletal and muscular systems. Beside that an eye chart. I heard the faint chirp of sparrows beyond the windows. Other than that it was very hushed in here, very tranquil. Stiffly I rolled my head to the side, wondering where the hell I was.

Voices somewhere beyond the door. One of them sounded like Dr Smith, village physician. Tall, bushy grey hair, slight lisp when he spoke. 'Jake seems to be suffering from exposure,' I heard him saying, 'and dehydration, but other than that he appears to be perfectly fine.'

'What about the blood?' I picked that as Dad's voice.

'I've taken a sample. At this stage I have to assume it's not his for like I said, there are no wounds, nor cuts. Therefore we have to assume it's from some other organism. Once results come back in we'll have a clearer idea.'

'He's okay to take home then?' That was Louise. (Sounding unusually motherly.)

'I should think so. He displays some peculiar welts and some heavy bruising but other than borderline malnourishment, he's seems perfectly healthy.'

10

I was helped to the upstairs living room of the Hare Of The Dog. I could mostly walk on my own by then. The pub chefs'd prepped me a ploughman's doorstop and I munched the sandwich like it was the last meal on earth.

Dad steered me to the day lounge and I sat with my back to the vast panoramic window. Mum had that window fitted when I was about five. The view from there is significant: the Drop Off; the sparkling blue waters of Clover Bay about seven miles east; and the cricket pitch like a pale UFO runway through the centre of the Village Green.

As a kid, the view always fired my imagination, because you can quite clearly see the ruins of two Chess Stone towers from there; one of them poised smack on the north-east cliff edge where the village wall used to stand, and the other one to the south-east precariously balanced on 'Lucifer's Stack'—an immense pinnacle of rock a few hundred feet high that juts straight out of the ocean. (That too is where the village wall once stood—before the crumbling cliffs got swallowed up by the ocean.)

What you can also see from that window, interestingly enough, is Strangler's Vale. And Wolfcrag Forest. And that's the prime reason I couldn't look.

I put the plate aside (leaving nothing but crumbs and sesame seeds and morsels of lettuce and ham which Scuppers wanted to get at) and I lay down as giddy as hell.

They all stood there: Dad, Louise and Emily. All looking down at me. I lay there in my boxer shorts, a blanket pulled to my neck.

'You up to talking?' Dad asked eventually.

I rolled to my side and drank water from the corner of my mouth. I dragged my knees to my belly and lay there foetal-like. Emily stood in the background, arms folded tight, nudging the side of her specs nervously with her knuckle. (She'd never admit it but she had dried tears on her cheeks and I still didn't even know what the matter was.)

'Jake.' Dad's voice, stern now. 'Are you up to talking?'

I looked at none of them. Just lay there staring at the floor, the blanket yanked to my chin. You could hear the wall clock ticking in the background.

Dad must've taken me for being obstinate because he comes on all cranky like. 'Jake, please tell me why I've had to waste time and manpower organising search parties to go out and look for you?'

I did look at him this time. 'Search parties?' I blinked at all three of them. I laughed. 'What are you talking about?' My voice was a bit croaky.

'Answer the question, Jake.' That was Louise. All that worry she'd had earlier had all shoved off her face now.

I pondered the wall clock. It was out of my view, but I couldn't help wondering what the time was. I made it barely mid-afternoon. Some days me and Mark went off fishing till sundown and when you got home you never got more than a Good day out, was it?

'I'm waiting for an answer.' Dad again, stony-faced as granite.

I managed another slurp of water. I wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist. 'I just... I went for a stroll.'

You could hear Emily scoff.

'Seriously, I don't know what the big deal is.' Other than feeling like death warmed up.

Dad huffed angrily, plucking up a copy of the Burnchess Gazette from the coffee table. He turned it toward me. I eyed it blankly. Till I saw what it was and then my jaw hung open.

Mysterious Disappearance Of Jake Crassly

—Have You Seen Him?

I was completely dumbfounded. I simply stared at this wide colour photo of me on the front page. 'Bloody hell, what the hell am I doing on there?'

'That's what I want you to tell me,' Dad said, arms folded.

Hell, had the village become so paranoid a bloke couldn't bugger off for a morning stroll without being declared a missing person? 'Look, honestly, I don't know what the big deal is. I've been gone for like two hours.'

'Jake, you've been gone for almost four days!' That was Louise, white as dough.

I felt the blood drain from my face. 'Four days?' I studied the date on the paper. Sunday August 12th.

'No one's seen you since Thursday morning,' Emily put in.

Thursday morning?

'That was four days ago.'

I lay there gazing in disbelief at the date. August 12th. Sunday. I'd been gone Thursday, Friday and all of Saturday. They all watched me, awaiting an answer.

I sat up and finally faced the warm sunny day out there beyond the window. Way over there, Strangler's Vale. What the hell happened to me out there? Four days? It couldn't be right. Surely. I'd only left that morning. But the newspaper... the date. It was unbelievable.

I didn't know what to tell them. My head throbbed. My belly hurt. One of my legs had pins and needles to the hilt. I looked up at their waiting faces.

Louise then tried the sympathetic approach, kneeling down, getting her face level with mine. (Something Mum would've done.) She goes, 'Look, sweetheart—'

Sweetheart?

'—we've been worried sick. The day you vanished there was... there was another attack.'

Dad finished for her. 'Jake, Percival Fanneray was found dead.' His eyes wouldn't leave me. 'He was discovered at his souvenir stand.'

I studied his face for a long while. When I knew he wasn't bullshitting I began nibbling my nails. Hell, old Fanny'd bitten the turf. I was too numb to feel anything.

'Do you know anything about Fanneray's murder?'

I looked up at Dad. 'Why would I know anything about Fanneray's murder?'

'Do you?'

'Of course I don't.'

'Are you certain?'

'Yep.' I rolled my eyes, irritated.

'How did you come by all that blood?'

I looked up at him. Did he think I had old Fanny's blood on my hands?

Dad asked again. 'Jake, how did you come by all that blood?'

I stood up and kicked away the blanket. 'Look dad, I can't do this right now.' I made to leave, stumbled. Dad put out a steadying hand and I took it as an attempt to prevent me walking off. Irritated I threw his arm aside.

I saw the disappointment on his face. I hadn't meant for it to be taken that way. 'Dad, I... I'm answering no more questions right now. Okay? I'm sorry, but I gotta rest. I need to get my head round this.'

THE DEMONS

1

I SAT in the shower. Searing hot water gushed down my neck and shoulders but my bones felt like sticks of knotted ice. I huddled there gazing at my belly. Like an old scar, that huge rounded welt cut into my skin where that weird orchid had stuck out.

I still thought it'd been some sort of nightmare. My head wrestled with ghost images of that gaping hole in my gut. And not only that, if I shut my eyes, I kept seeing a dismembered leg... over and over... hurtling through the morning sky.

It'd been the same after exams. Me and Mark went clubbing with these girls from school in Plymouth. Cocktail night at the Jupiter Club had us sucking back Quick Fucks and Slippery Nipples and the trance music and strobe lights had taken us to like another state of consciousness. The Jupiter Girls dancing on the podiums with their tits bouncing hypnotically and their tight glittering shorts hugging the contours of their groins helped a little bit too, I might add.

But then next thing you remember, you're opening your eyes. You're death warmed up on someone's living room floor. There's a bunch of you crashed out. Killer sunlight's pouring through the window and some idiot's groaning Turn the fucking lights off. Other than that your ears are ringing in the morning silence. Your tongue tastes like you've licked out a dog's arse. Your head's thumping and you barely recall a thing about last night: just ghost images of some chick you pashed. Or Mark vomiting in the gutter with a half-eaten Mean Dog gripped in one hand. Or passing out in the taxi at 4 am stinking of booze and cigs and sweat.

That's how I felt right then with water drizzling down my face: nothing but an unforgiving whistling in my ears and a pounding head and all these bizarre hellish ghost images.

2

I sat by my bedroom window studying an odd pattern of scarred flesh around the top of my leg. In the mirror I could see faint red marks around my throat. Tears welled in the corner of my eyes. Electric Feel by MGNT played out on my phone as an acute sensation of terror gripped me. It sent me completely prone for a few moments. I felt my eyes bulging. I felt as if a plastic bag had been pulled over my head, like I couldn't breathe. I screeched, as if trying to kick-start my lungs into operation. Air finally poured back into my chest. And panting, I slumped against the wall, bawling like a kid.

I didn't leave my room. I didn't want anyone to see me. I just sat there with the door locked, Cookie keeping me company, tears running down my neck.

3

I slept for fifteen hours straight that night. The deepest, dreamless sleep I've ever known. Though I have a vague memory of Dad coming in late in the evening. And hearing Louise telling him, 'The blood found on Jake's clothes... the tests conducted by Dr Smith suggest it's his.'

But even that might've been some fleeting subconscious blip.

I awoke next morning after 10. Cookie lay by my ribs, dreaming cat dreams: Cookie, Empress of Burnchess high upon her throne, her human slaves delivering her birds and salmon and human offerings of liver and heart. I felt drained, disoriented. Not really knowing where I was. I lay there, my throat dry as bone, looking about, expecting... expecting... what? Something... someone... (Mum?)...to be standing there... watching me.

Except for Cookie, I was alone.

4

I sat up. It seemed to take forever. The muscles in my stomach groaned. I ached all over. Like someone had put my bones under a pounding sledge hammer. Cookie gave me a look, like, Oh, I thought you were dead. She sprang to the desk, licking the fur on her hind leg where I must've touched it, tainted it.

Yawning I got up and guzzled water. My legs ached. My right one in particular. Right up to where the bone joined my hip. As if I'd dislocated it. As if I'd fractured it. I wiped my lips with my knuckles. Pulled the curtain back, squinted against the harsh, glaring daylight as though it was some awful vision. After my eyes adjusted I gazed into the street, my brow furrowing. Pedestrians strolled here and there. I kept back a bit, fearing someone (something) might see me, might want to clamber up and snatch me.

In reverse, yesterday's memories trickled through my mind: waking up in the clinic... stumbling back into Burnchess bloodied from foot to face... finding myself on Strangler's Vale.

Strangler's Vale.

I scratched my head as I studied Farmer Stowe's ox cart trundle by in the sunny street. What the hell had I been doing out there? What'd happened to me? Three days on the vale? Was it true?

I yawned again. Squeezing my eyes shut.

I saw a note from Hayley sitting on my bedside table. I must've been round when I'd been asleep. She must've been back in town.

I'm glad you're home. I was so worried about you. I thought something terrible had happened to you. I thought my nightmare had come true. Please ring me when you're feeling better.

Love, Hayley

I dressed (slowly) and went downstairs, decked out in fresh jeans and fresh t-shirt. (I'd forgotten to zip my fly, and my t-shirt was inside out but I wouldn't have given two shits if someone'd told me.) I walked down to the restaurant, slowly like, all my body aching. Louise was plonked at one of the tables with a bunch of knobs from the Village Council. I left.

5

I trudged into Lost Worlds still aching and Mrs K almost had a chicken. 'Oh my giddy aunt! You're alive!'

She wouldn't stop fussing. She was mad. Making sure I was comfortable at the booth by the windows, making sure I was okay. 'Oh, I'm so glad you're safe and sound,' she said, 'But I won't pry and ask what happened. I'm sure everyone has been asking. So, I won't bother you. But I want you to have some hot coffee. And a bacon and egg Majestic. On the house, of course,' she stressed, 'on the house!'

Mark arrived not long after. He must've got word from someone in the street that I'd been spotted ambling toward the Lost Worlds. He came over and sat down, just watching me across the table. When he said, 'Bloody hell, Jake, you look like shit,' I barely heard him.

The grub turned up. Mark sat there in his purple t-shirt, watching me eat. I barely acknowledged him. I piled mouthfuls of that fifty thousand calorie heart attack sandwich down my neck.

After about three minutes I stopped eating. I just stared at Mark. Quietly I said to him, 'What day is it?'

'Monday,' he tells me.

'Monday?'

He nods.

I scratched my eyebrow. 'What month?'

'What month?' he asks staring at me. 'Are you serious?'

I bit my lip. Nodded, confused. Why wouldn't I be serious?'

'August,' he tells me.

I breathe for a couple of moments. I feel like lying down. 'Can you tell me what happened?'

He looks at me like I'm mad. 'Jake, where did you disappear to?'

I gazed at him distantly. Strangler's Vale, I thought. Something odd about Strangler's Vale. But what? I glanced around at Mrs K again. I shook my head. 'I can't remember,' I said to him. 'I can't remember a thing. Can you tell me what's going on?'

He gave me this weird look.

'If someone just told me, Mark, I know I'd be okay. I know I'd remember.'

'Told you what?'

I blinked at him. 'I don't know. I keep getting these images of Strangler's Vale. And—

(a leg... a human leg flipping through the air)

'—and, holy shit, the Archway. The bloody Archway.' I stared into space a moment. None of it made sense. So many gaps in my memory. I scratched the top of my tingling leg. Three fucking aspirins and it still ached to buggery! 'Is it true about Mr Fanneray?'

He frowned and nodded at the same time. 'Brutha, keep your voice down. You're scaring the wildlife.'

I looked around. Patrons, locals mainly, watching me. 'Is it true?' I demanded, lowering my voice a little.

He spoke softly. 'Yeah. The poor sod was found dead the day you vanished. They fenced off the entire Archway. They're saying forensics literally had to mop his body off the pavers. Now the authorities are spooked cos so far it's the closest death in proximity to the village. We've been on high alert since you vanished.' He gazed into the street for a while. Watching ox carts trundle by. 'There was even talk about a curfew. No one out in public after 9 pm at night. But the pubs kicked up a stink.'

I followed his eye into the street and Scuppers was suddenly barking against the outside window, claws scratching against the glass, tail wagging like mad making me jumped, making my heart thump. Behind me across the café floor I could hear footsteps approaching.

Before I could look around, Emily dropped herself in the seat beside Mark, glaring at me across the table; her eyes looking large, bug-like and ugly through her glasses. 'Okay, out with it, Jake! Three days absent. Where the hell were you?'

I gazed at her with blank eyes. I didn't have the energy to sit here and put up with her shit. I was out of there. But suddenly Kate plonks herself at my hip, blocking my exit, sitting on her ankle, sandy-blonde hair flung over one shoulder, her temple resting in her palm, her smoky-green eyes watching me, her free hand clasping mine. 'Jake, we were so worried about you. We thought you'd been attacked.' There was this tear glistening in her eye. It hadn't spilt. She looked ever so beautiful it hurt... it really hurt. I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to find my lips on her mouth, feel her warmth. Forget everything.

Emily was less sympathetic. 'Come on, Jake. I'm waiting.'

I shrugged. Hung my chin, gazed at the table top. 'I honestly can't tell you.'

Emily scoffed.

'It's true,' I hissed at her. 'The last thing I remember is—'

(the leg)

'—is I'm on Strangler's Vale. That's all. I don't know what I was doing there. I don't know how I got there. Nothing. Okay?'

She leaned back in her seat, arms folded, suspicious. 'What about all that blood you were soaked in? They're now saying it was yours. But look at you! Not a single scratch. How's that possible?'

I grumbled out a tired, frustrated laugh. 'I don't know, Em. Okay? I just don't know.' I stared at the table top again. Kate had her arms around me, my head pulled to her neck.

Emily gave me a disbelieving roll of the eyes. I didn't give a shit.

6

I returned to the Inn. It was one of those glorious summer days outside but I couldn't think of being anywhere worse. The idea of being out there in the wide open spaces spooked me. I had the window shut and could hear the lonely squeak of the pub sign out there shifting in the breeze—I imagined that damn zombie hare with its hungry bloodshot eyes gazing up at me. I imagined the octopus on the sign across the street. It all made me shudder. I went to call Hayley. She'd sent me some texts. But then I didn't call her. I couldn't think straight. I put my headphones on so I couldn't hear that screeching sign and sat there staring at the floor, crying, listening to MGNT sing Kids.

Later Kate came up to see me. I was sitting in the dark. Curtain shut. The first thing she said was, 'Oh, bloody hell, Jake, let's get a window open.'

She crossed the room and dragged the curtain aside, pushing the window out, and I squinted and grimaced as light poured in. I wanted to tell her Leave it shut. But I didn't speak. Maybe with Kate there I'd be safe. I'd convinced myself something was hiding on the roof. Some huge creature with a big fat hairy body, and dripping fangs and its demented goggling eyes, waiting for me.

The curtain fluttered in the warm summer breeze. Afternoon sunlight slanted across the floor. She turned and gave me this sympathetic look and came and sat by me, just watching my face.

'You poor thing,' she whispered. 'You're in a really bad way, aren't you?'

I couldn't look at her. She gazed into my face with those glass-green eyes of hers. Her blonde hair hanging over her shoulders, the tips catching the breeze. She took my hand and held it tight.

I watched our hands clasped together. Thinking how wonderful it felt.

'Jake, I don't know what's happened between us lately,' she said softly. 'But it seems we've grown really distant. I don't know why.'

You know full well the reason, I thought.

'I just wanted to let you know, these last three days, when you were missing, it made me realise how much you mean to me.' She shrugged. 'Maybe we've drifted apart cos you've found Hayley and I've... well, you know.' Her eyes fell away. She sighed. 'Jake, I just hope we're still friends, that's all.' She watched me, blinking once or twice. 'I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is, I'm here. If you ever need to talk things out. I'm here for you. Okay?'

I eyed her for a second. Her gorgeous dimpled smile. I nodded and she stroked the side of my head. Her touch felt so warm, so wonderful. I could feel it all the way to the middle of my chest. Where it ached and toyed with me.

'We've always been there for each other,' she said. 'Haven't we, hey? Ever since we were little.'

I smiled sadly and nodded. 'Yeah.'

She hugged me and held me and I shut my eyes and breathed her in and for the shortest moment tried not let the thoughts of Strangler's Vale or Corey Waterson ruin it.

She whispered, 'I was so scared, Jake.' She sounded close to tears now. 'I thought I'd lost you. I thought you'd been taken. I couldn't bear it. I kept thinking, Jake's gone, I've lost my dearest friend. Everyone kept saying stuff about a serial killer. That's all I could think about. That someone had you somewhere. I felt so powerless.'

She sniffled and she let me go to wipe her nose. Then she gripped my hands and stared at my face, our noses almost touching. 'You're like a brother to me, Jake. You know that? You've always looked out for me. I don't think I've ever let you know how much you mean to me.'

I swallowed and looked down at our hands. Her fingers guided my chin upwards; she wanted to see my eyes.

'You mean the world to me, Jake, okay. Don't forget that. I need you to know this. Okay?' There were tears in her eyes. Her fingers squeezed my hands hard. 'No matter who I'm with or what happens, that's what you mean to me. I'm always here if you need to talk about things. I'm serious.'

We eyed each other. I nodded.

She moved her face forward... to hug me, I guess. But I don't know what I was thinking because for some reason I pushed my mouth onto hers.

There was an awkward kiss for about half a second. Before she gently pulled away, looking a little embarrassed. 'Whoa, Jake, I think we ought to leave it there.'

I felt like an idiot, felt totally embarrassed. I didn't know what to do. I mumbled, 'Sorry, Kate. I—' We were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Dad's muffled voice says, 'Jake, you mind if I have a word?'

Kate squeezed my knee and stood. 'Guess I'll be going.' She touched the side of my face with her palm.

Dad came in. Saw Kate. 'Oh, sorry. I didn't know you guys—'

'It's all right, Mr Crassly,' Kate told him. 'I was just leaving.'

She walked out without looking back.

7

Dad came in and shut the door. I turned my head to the window and watched the clouds drifting across the sky. I could smell Kate on my face. Could still feel the warmth and wetness of her lips on mine. I felt ashamed about what'd just happened.

Dad stood there. 'How are you feeling?'

'Dunno.' I shrugged. 'Tired, I guess.'

From the corner of my eye, I saw him nod.

'Listen, Jake, look, I just wanted to apologise for the way I acted yesterday. When you came back to us. I admit... I was a bit over the top. I shouldn't have carried on the way I did.'

I nodded. I didn't entirely care.

He crouched down in front of me. 'I was worried sick, that's all. After the Morton business... after finding Mister Fanneray the way we did... I mean, I have to admit, I had grave fears. I'm just extremely relieved to have you home, to have you back in one piece.' He squeezed my shoulder.

'It's all right, Dad. I know you woulda been feeling pretty strung out. You don't have to explain.'

He stayed silent. I thought with the apology out of the way he'd bugger off. I just wanted to be left on my own. But he stayed put. Cookie watched him from across the room where she lay on top of the old toy chest.

'Listen, do you mind me asking: have you had any further recollection of what happened?'

I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the clouds.

He paused for a few moments. Then said, 'The reason I ask, well, there's something I'd like to discuss with you, if that's all right.' He paused again, as if expecting some sort of objection. 'It might be too early, but just tell me if you think you need more time.'

I shrugged.

'I've had an idea how we might be able to jog your memory. If you're interested.'

I didn't take my eyes off the sky. 'Really?'

'Memory regression,' he says. 'Using hypnosis.'

I didn't react for a long while. Then I nodded.

'Melanie Black has offered to conduct the operation. If you agree to participating, of course. I'm hoping it might be helpful for your own peace of mind. And it may also assist our investigations into the brutal slaying of Percival Fanneray.'

Which is the real incentive here, isn't it? I thought.

He let the idea settle. I continued to watch the sky. I didn't speak.

'There's growing speculation we may be dealing with something other than a simple cat,' he admitted, 'and if you happened to see what attacked you then hypnosis may bring that out and finally allow us to get a handle on exactly what we're contending with.'

I didn't actually give a rat's one way or the other. Not right then. Not with my head so tired and jaded.

'If you'd rather not go through with such a procedure, if you think it's too early, then just say. I'll fully understand. But I stress, we're at a complete loss. Until we curb these killings and track down the perpetrator, we may never have an answer. So, that's why I come to you now. Rather than waiting. Hypnosis may achieve nothing. But it's a base I think we ought to cover. Sooner than later.'

I don't really know what I was thinking. But some burning part of me actually hungered to find out what'd happened to me, why I'd found myself on the Vale.

So I agreed.

THE REGRESSION

1

THE FIRST session was conducted the next day, down in the interrogation room of the police station. Generally that's the room counsellor Melanie Black works out of. Otherwise she has no true place to practise of her own. She had me sit on the couch. Dad was present. That was all. Just the three of us.

She got me to shut my eyes and she talked some drivel to start with about getting me to relax, to concentrate on her voice. It was very soft though, very calming. Still, I knew for certain I wasn't going to go under. I just felt too wired, too conscious of her and Dad sitting there staring at me like I was some exotic bird in a cage.

She kept talking, almost whispering. Eventually I felt my breath deepen. At one stage I actually thought I might be dropping off to sleep. I could still hear her, but it was like she wasn't in the room anymore—like she was outside the building.

'Jake, I want to take you back to the morning you disappeared,' she said after a while. 'Can you remember that morning? Can you remember where you were?'

It was weird. I could see Castle Grove, in the rain and gloom. I looked about. I could see the Burnchess Archway. Her voice was saying, 'Can you tell me where you are?'

I just sort of answered automatically, mechanically. 'I'm at the Archway.'

'The Archway? You mean the Burnchess Archway?'

'Yes.'

'What are you doing there?'

'I'm not sure. I'm looking for something. A doorway or something.'

A pause. 'Did you say a doorway?'

'Yeah.'

'Can you explain that?'

'Not really. I'm just looking for this doorway. I don't know what it looks like.'

'What type of doorway?'

'Don't know. I only know it's s'posed to lead into the catacombs.'

A long pause. 'Jake, what time of day is it?'

'Not sure. The sun looks like it's coming up. After five maybe.'

'Is there anyone else with you?'

'No.'

'Is Mr Fanneray there?'

'No. Just me.'

'Are you certain?'

'Yeah.'

I didn't hear her voice for a while. Then she says, 'Can you tell me a bit more about this doorway.'

'No.'

'Why?'

'Goon's here.'

Another pause. 'Radford Goon?'

'Yes.'

'Is he helping you?'

It was weird because I remember sitting there and it got really hard to breath all of a sudden. It felt like Goon had his hands dug into my throat.

'Jake? Are you okay?'

'I... I can't talk. He's strangling me.'

'Who's strangling you, Jake?'

'I can't breathe! I can't breathe! He's got a knife at my neck!'

'It's okay. Just relax. I need you to relax. You're breathing fine. Nice calm breaths, now. Nice and easy.'

After a bit I felt my respiration come easier.

'What is Mr Goon doing now, Jake?'

'He... he's running. He's stolen the artefact.'

Another pause. 'Sorry, Jake, I missed that. Did you say artefact?'

'The Veisder. He's stolen it! I can't let him have it.'

'Jake, what is this Vys-dar?'

'I dunno. A mask. He's gonna destroy the village.'

'Destroy the village? As in Burnchess village?'

'Yes.'

'Are you certain? Why would Goon want to do something like that?'

'Cos he thinks we killed his daughter.'

'Jake, can you explain clearly this Vys-dar? I'd like you to describe it please.'

'It's a mask. It's hideous.'

A long pause. I was running. Hard. Panting.

'What are you doing, Jake?

'I'm on Strangler's Vale. I can see Goon.'

'Strangler's Vale?'

'He's heading for the damn forest. I've gotta catch him!'

'Is this Wolfcrag Forest, Jake?'

I didn't answer.

'Jake, do you hear me?'

'Yes.'

'Is this Wolfcrag Forest?'

'Yes.'

'Where is Goon?'

No answer.

'Jake, where is Goon?'

No answer.

'Jake?'

'Holy shit!'

'What is it, Jake?'

'The Charweed girls! It's a trap. I've gotta leave!'

'Jake, it's okay, relax. Calm breaths. Nice calm breaths. Did you say the Charweed girls are there?'

'Yes. I gotta get away. They're gonna get me, I just know it! They're gonna get me!'

'Jake, try to calm down now. It's okay, none of this is happening. Do you hear me? None of this is happening. Now, listen, why do you think the Charweed girls are going to get you?'

'I don't know. Holy shit! They're in front of me! Holy shit, they wanna kill me, they're tellin' me they wanna kill me! LET ME OUTTA HERE! LET ME OUTTA HERE, THEY'RE GONNA KILL ME!'

2

I recall Melanie Black saying, 'In three you'll be awake. Three. Two. One,' and then I'm sitting there looking about, disoriented, dazed, panting, wondering where the hell I am.

3

Dad and me sat on a bench facing the Village Green, idly watching a Fanneray cricket tribute match—our boys were taking on the lads from Lambeth. Burnchess was batting; we'd only just sat when one of our lads smashed a six over the cliffs—they'd never be getting that ball back. Squid food. The fact Strangler's Vale lay north-east of us round the coast, within full view, hadn't escaped me. It'd been Dad's idea to sit here. 'Get some fresh air,' he'd said. But I knew there was more to it. Dad's a copper. Detective Inspector, of all things. This was simply part of his bigger investigative scheme. If I could see the Vale then perhaps all the better to stimulate my brain and help agitate any memories Mel Black hadn't yet been able to stir to the surface.

But as far as I was concerned she'd stirred up quite enough shit as it was. I'd clearly seen Goon hovering over me by the Archway, gripping that knife above my neck. I recalled now how he'd been talking to me. Asking me how I wanted to die. But before the hypnosis I'd had no recollection of this whatsoever. None at all. Nothing about chasing him to Strangler's Vale. Nothing about the Charweed girls who'd been there to meet me. Nothing about losing that mask thing.

'Going by what was revealed this morning,' Dad said optimistically, 'I guess I'll have to turn some attention to Mr Goon and the Charweed sisters.'

I didn't feel like talking. I just wanted to slowly process everything. Alone. In a quiet place away from people.

'Even so,' Dad said, 'I think we've got quite a way to go. Preliminary forensic work on both Percival Fanneray and the Mortons suggest they were all dealt with by a razor sharp implement. However, things have been compounded somewhat by the brutal nature of their murders. Cause of death in homicide cases involving a blade or knife are ordinarily determined by the presence of stab wounds. Or at least by the nature of stab wounds. In both the Morton and Fanneray case this has been difficult to determine. Their deaths were particularly ah... violent.'

He was talking to me like I was one of his colleagues. Not his son.

'Of course, forensics aren't ruling out the possibility that these deaths were perpetrated by another large cat. But so far, few aspects about these deaths point to such an animal. As such, forensics have made little to no headway in determining cause and mode of death.'

I reminded him about Goon's knife. 'He was ready to stab me with it. I have no doubt about that.'

'Which is why I'll be bringing him in for questioning. However, the perplexing thing in your case is this: you exhibit no physical scars from your ordeal. Yet, tests performed by Dr Smith suggest the blood you were covered in when you returned was your own. So, what we need to ascertain is how you came by all that blood when, looking at you, you barely carry a scratch. One such wild possibility suggests it was drawn from you. Without you knowing. Via a hypodermic.' He watched me carefully, maybe waiting to see if this jogged more shit of my head. 'If so, then either through accident or deliberate action, you were covered in it.'

I didn't respond. I'd hardly been listening. It was too much to digest.

'If this is the case then it might be great cause for concern as it would mean that we are not simply dealing with a large game cat but rather with an unhinged individual. Dealing with a wild animal is one thing. Dealing with a psychotic criminal mind is a far more frightening and complex proposition.'

My head ached. 'You think we've got a serial killer after all?'

'I won't be so rash as to jump to that conclusion, Jake. But I am now open to all possibilities. If you were indeed kidnapped then hypnosis may reveal the perpetrator. And consequently, that person or persons, may be able to assist us with our investigations into the murders of Albert and Gladys Morton, and Percival Fanneray.' He shrugged. 'The fact is, Percival's demise might be locked away in your memory. After all, I'm told Farmer Beechworth witnessed you at the Archway on the morning of Percival's death.'

I didn't look at him. 'I didn't kill Mr Fanneray if that's what you're thinking.'

I felt his glare cast across me like flames. 'Jake, I don't for a moment believe you did.'

I said nothing.

'What I'm trying to get at is the cause of your blood loss; we are still yet to determine exactly what happened. And your whereabouts during that seventy-two hour period remains an ongoing mystery.'

I knew where this was heading. He wanted me to agree to go back under, face another round of memory regression. But in my mind, I already knew what it'd show. The Charweeds. Attacking me. There was no doubt in my mind now that, for whatever bizarre reason, they'd tried taking me out of the fucking picture.

'I don't wish to pressure you, Jake,' Dad said. 'Ultimately the decision is yours, but I think we need to have another go at bringing your memories to the surface. However, if you think it'll be too painful then it's something you must think about very carefully.'

I did and I didn't. Want to do it, that is. I didn't want to face it again. But at the same time, a part of me needed to know what the hell the Charweeds had done to me. For my own peace of mind.

4

The second session took place the following morning. 9 am. The smell of coffee wafted through the police station. Once again Dad was present, sitting patiently at the back of the interrogation room. Melanie sat before me. I was on the couch. To my left the curtains fluttered in the open windows. Out there, beyond the graveyard, I could see the church.

Melanie kicked off by saying she wanted to take me back to the morning of my disappearance.

As before, I believed I was never going to go under. But her soothing voice helped draw me away from the police station, helped pull me right out of the village. I recall closing my eyes, feeling dreamy, tired. My breath deepened. I heard her saying, 'Jake, I want you to go back to Wolfcrag Forest, the morning you disappeared. I want you tell me what happened to you on Strangler's Vale.'

5

I recalled the Charweeds standing right in front of me, I recalled their grubby troll feet. And I remember panicking and then running. Scrambling backwards along the wall for a bit before racing out across the Vale. And then... well, I couldn't hear them.

'The Charweed girls,' I remember saying quietly.

'What about them?' Melanie asked.

'I can't see them. They're gone.'

There was a pause. 'Are you certain?'

'Yes.'

'Are you still on Strangler's Vale?'

'Yeah. I'm looking back at the Forest. I can't see the Charweeds anywhere.'

'Did you see which way they went? Did they retreat into the woods?'

'I don't know. I don't know where they've gone.' This thoroughly confused me. I was certain they were on my tail.

'Are there any signs of Radford Goon?'

'No.'

'So, am I right in understanding you're on your own again?'

'Yes.'

I went silent for a long while. In my mind I was gazing at Wolfcrag. When Mel asked me if I was okay I simply said, 'Something's wrong.'

'What is it, Jake?'

'I don't know. Something's there.'

'Can you tell me what you see?'

'Something on the Lambeth road. I don't know. It's huge. Behind the wall.'

'Can you tell me what it is, please, Jake?'

I remember a brief pause. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing.

'Jake? Can you describe it, please?'

'Hell, I... I don't know. Some sort of animal.'

'What sort of animal?'

'Holy shit, it's climbing over the wall! Holy fuck, it's massive!'

'Jake, it's okay, just relax. Breathe deep.' Another pause. 'Can you describe it for me, please?'

'I... I can't.' I stopped speaking for another moment or two. Until I remember saying almost pleadingly, 'Please, I gotta get outta here!'

'Can you describe what you're seeing, Jake?'

'No. A monster. Bloody hell, it's coming toward me.'

Then Dad was asking, 'Jake, is it the same thing you saw in Emily's room that night?'

'No. It's different. It's huge. Holy shit! It's... it's like a giant gorilla. But it's got horns. Oh, shit, it's seen me! It's seen me!'

'Jake, it's okay, just relax. It's okay. Calm breaths now, nice and—'

'No, it's coming toward me! Oh shit, I gotta get outta here! I gotta get outta here!'

Dad's voice again, 'Jake, it's all right. Everything's all right. Can you tell us what this thing is?'

'No! Get me outta here! Please!'

I heard Mel saying, 'Jake, it's okay, you're quite safe.'

'No! You don't understand! It's running straight at me! It's gonna kill me! It's gonna kill me!'

'Okay, Jake, I'm going to bring you out now. In three you'll be awake,' and she started the count, but I was running, screeching.

I remember turning and seeing a huge monster lumbering toward me, then ploughing through me and my leg being torn completely from my body and flipping away into the sky. Then my guts were dragged from my midriff like a hose of sausage meat. Then fangs or claws clutched my windpipe and cracked my neck and I screamed and screamed!

6

I opened my eyes and found myself flailing about on the floor. The couch had turned on its side. Mel and Dad were trying to subdue me, grabbing at my flapping arms and legs, attempting to cradle my head as I jigged about in a wild fit.

THE BURNING

1

I WAS meant to start back at work that week but Staten told me to take the time off. It was just as well. I hadn't built the courage to leave the Inn in about two days. The hypnosis bullshit had put a paranoid corkscrew up my arse. I was barely able to leave my room at meal times. Even then I strayed only as far as the family kitchen and never down to the ground floor bar.

Hayley kept texting me and calling me. But I wasn't ever in any sort of talkative mood. She said she just wanted to know if I was okay. I'd just told her I was. One time, she told me she'd come over if I wanted. I just said, 'Yeah... okay... whatever,' and then we were silent. Eventually I told her, 'I'm sorry for sounding so distant.' I didn't want her to feel like I was going off her. But I didn't know what else to say. I actually didn't feel like seeing her. I don't know why. I didn't want to see anyone. She must've sensed it in my voice, because she said she'd give me some time. She told me to call her if I needed someone to talk to. That she was thinking of me.

She hung up and I sat there in the silence. The Inn was empty as an old tin can those days, but I'd convinced myself that fire-eyed ghosts stalked the darkened corridors outside my room. I'd stare at the ceiling listening for noises and I'd jump every time a night bird twittered at the window, tremble every time the walls creaked or groaned. All I could imagine were those silent, abandoned guest rooms on the floors below. I kept thinking something was down there... hiding... waiting in the shadows... biding its time.

One afternoon I'd dozed off and woke with a start, glaring at the wardrobe, believing some monster had slipped in there while I'd been asleep. It was huddled in there watching me through the crack.

I approached the wardrobe with my cricket bat. I ripped the door open and flung the bat wildly around the wardrobe cavity.

There was nothing in there but jeans and jackets hanging from coat hangers.

2

Dad brought dinner up to my room a couple of times. It was a nice gesture but each time he visited he wanted to talk about what'd happened, forever attempting to get to the bottom of the beastly thing I'd apparently encountered on the Vale. Still, at least he remained understanding of my condition. Or at least pretended to. When it came to that, Emily was a different story. She'd expected everyone to be at her beck and call the day following that moron sneaking into her room, but she made no bones about the fact she was jealous of me sucking up all the damn attention. She even kicked open my door one time, hissing, 'I know you're putting it on, Jake. Why don't you be a man and try toughening up a little!'

One evening, while Dad and I sat munching beer-battered haddock in my room, he said, 'Listen, Jake, I know you don't need me continuously harping on about it but if I could just verify one thing. Specifically, what you saw on Strangler's Vale.'

I felt a bit irked he had to keep revisiting this. I chewed down a mouthful of fish; the meat warm and moist, the batter crunchy and oily. I nodded as if to say, Get on with it then.

'When you came out of your second hypnosis session you described the creature you saw as being something like... like an ape. A gorilla, perhaps.'

I stopped chewing. The memory still painful.

'Do you still hold to that idea, Jake? Do you still believe that's what you saw?'

I swallowed. Shrugged. 'Dad, it's the only way I can describe it.' I saw it again in my mind's eye, a vague hulking shadow coming at me. If I thought about it, it didn't really resemble an ape at all. Only that it was huge and dark. 'The only thing I'm certain about is it wasn't a cat,' I told him. 'That's the only thing I know for sure.'

3

Kate and Mark came round first thing Saturday morning. I didn't feel like seeing either of them, especially Kate seeing as she'd been away with Wankerboy. They'd been across to Redruth together for some athletics meet at Carn Brea and then bodysurfing at his parents' 'beach house' on Carbis Bay in St. Ives. (All while I'd been going through hell.) But Mark and her came in, Kate carrying the Burnchess Gazette and Mark saying, 'You didn't tell us you were attacked by a gorilla.'

I was on my bean bag in front of the telly playing The Witcher. I frowned at him not even sure if I'd heard him right.

Kate offered me the paper. 'Here, take a look.'

On the front page a large grainy photo showed off a great ape with a caption reading: JAKE CRASSLY ATTACKED BY ROGUE GORILLA. I put down my Xbox controller and took the paper. The image looked like some stock photo. A gorilla in a zoo somewhere. The article claimed that I'd been attacked and dragged into Wolfcrag Forest by a gorilla. The gorilla had apparently escaped the Chingola Wildlife Reserve two days prior. Once again, Chingola management were yet to comment. No-one was credited with the information about my attack. It simply quoted an 'unnamed source'. It said "an unnamed source states that in a classified interview with Jake Crassly, Mister Crassly declared he'd been attacked by a large gorilla on Strangler's Vale and was dragged into Wolfcrag Forest. He was last seen on August 9 but was found stumbling delirious and bloodied four days later on Castle Grove. His whereabouts during this period remains a mystery..."

I put the paper down. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through it. Dad or Melanie Black. They were the only souls who could have leaked this shit to the paper. And how on earth the paper had come up with the bit about me being dragged into the woods was anyone's guess.

'So, is that what attacked you?' Mark asked.

I didn't answer. My head was a complete howling whirlwind of noise right then. If Mark asked me again I'd fucking scream at him.

Either Kate motioned for him to quit it or what happened next stole his attention. From somewhere down Castle Grove there came the sound of sirens.

It was an unusual noise, police sirens ringing out across the village. We all looked around at each other. Kate and Mark then rushed to the window. I remained in the bean bag. The sound gave me a sense of deep unease. What's happened now? I wondered. Has someone else been murdered?

The 400cc Suzuki police trail bikes came screaming up Castle Grove past the Hare Of The Dog. The wail really screwed into my ears. I didn't bother getting up and watch them race by but I saw their red and blue lights flash against the ceiling of my bedroom.

'It's all of them,' I heard Mark report gravely. Which is to say it was not only Dad and Finch but that knob Constable Newson as well. Whatever was going on, it must've been serious.

Kate's phone rang just after they'd screeched away toward the Arch. Mark and I both watched her face as she took the call. It was brief. Barely ten seconds after she received it she hung up. 'That was Emily. Apparently something's happening on Strangler's Vale. Come on.'

They both hurried from my room. But I wasn't so eager. If anything, I felt a mild panic. If something terrible was going down, particularly on the Vale, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I listened to the police sirens droning away into the distance. And I enjoyed a short almost surreal moment of pure quiet. I could hear the sparrows chirping outside. I could hear the gulls over the cliffs. The curtain rippled and flapped quietly in the breeze.

4

Eventually I ambled into the lounge room on the other side of the Inn where some days ago I lay on the couch, fresh back from the Vale, facing interrogation by Dad, Louise and Emily.

Kate and Mark both there, pressed against the large panoramic window. I joined them, gazing north-east where the dark green belt of Wolfcrag Forest darkened the horizon. A huge swell of people had assembled near the north-eastern quadrant of the Village Green, all peering toward Strangler's Vale. About two miles away on the Vale itself, a large lorry billowed black smoke into the stark blue sky.

Curiosity got the better of me. I went to the Celestron telescope stationed on its tripod by the window. I brought the burning vehicle into view just as the three police trail bikes zoomed onto the scene. I caught sight of what looked to be one of the Lambeth fire trucks gushing vast amounts of foam over it. Yet the stricken lorry continued to spew heavy fumes into the atmosphere. And amidst the foam, the flames and the smoke, I could just make out the large print along its side.

'Chingola Reserve,' I murmured.

'It must've crashed,' Kate suggested.

But Mark had a more chilling idea. 'Maybe it was attacked.'

5

My phone rang, obliterating the silence, making my heart thump. When I reached for it there was a number I didn't recognise. I stepped back from the telescope and put the phone to my ear. Suspicious, I said, 'Hello?'

'Dr Smith here. Is that Jake Crassly?'

Dr Smith? What the hell did he want? 'Yeah, it's me.'

'Oh, Jake, hope I'm not bothering you, lad. I meant to ring you a number of days ago. I have the results back from your blood tests, you see.'

At first I hadn't a damn clue what he was talking about. 'Blood tests?'

'Yes, though I have to admit there is something strange about your sample. Pathology have detected a peculiar anomaly, one might say.'

'An anomaly?'

'Yes. Look, if you don't mind I think it would be a good idea to drop by so we could discuss it.'

I stood at the window, gazing toward Strangler's. 'I'd rather discuss it over the phone if that's all right.'

There was a long pause.

'Right Very well then. So, as I said, pathology detected an anomaly in your blood. Traces of two separate tropane alkaloids. Atropine and scopolamine.'

I sighed. 'And for those of us who didn't do chemistry at school, what the hell are they?'

'Nitrogenous organic compounds. Found in a number of plants. Atropine can be found in plants such as deadly nightshade and mandrake. Scopolamine in Angel's Trumpet and henbane. Both are common in Devil's Trumpet.'

'Plants?'

'Yes.'

'So, what are they? What do they do?'

'Well, some have positive medicinal qualities of course. Such as in the production of certain drugs. Morphine, for example. But high doses can cause severe risks to health. Respiratory arrest, coma, even heart failure aren't uncommon.'

'I had this stuff in my system?'

'Yes, and I must say you're awfully lucky to be alive. Now tell me, you claim to have a three day memory black-out. Is that right?'

'Yeah. So I've been told.'

'Right, well I think this may go some way to explaining it. And perhaps it's why you were so disoriented on your return. You see, other symptoms of atropine intoxication include delirium. And hallucinations.'

'Hallucinations?'

'Yes. Actually, atropine is one of the very few substances that can cause hallucinations so real they're impossible to distinguish from reality.'

I frowned at the floor, thinking long and hard about the morning I'd vanished.

'Look, I know you kids are into some pretty wild stuff these days, but it would be remiss of me not to warn you about the dangers of experimenting with such substances.'

I laughed tiredly, offended-like. 'Believe me, Dr Smith, I might've toked the odd spliff here and there, or munched the occasional Goblin mushroom but that's about as hard as it gets for me.'

He seemed to take a while absorbing this.

'I'm serious,' I told him.

'So this begs the question: how on earth did you come to have these alkaloids in your system?'

I thought I could hear him drumming his fingertips on his desk.

'You say your last memory is of Strangler's Vale?'

I squeezed my brow with my thumb and forefinger. 'Yep.'

'Might you have ventured into Wolfcrag Forest?'

I shrugged. I felt like saying Well, according to today's paper I was dragged in there by a fucking gorilla! But all I said, was, 'Maybe. I dunno. I can't actually remember. Why?'

'As you may or may not know, Wolfcrag is renowned for its abundance of Devil's Trumpet.'

I blinked at the window, in the direction of Wolfcrag Forest.

'Tell me, can you recall ingesting, inadvertently or otherwise, any such plant material?'

I shook my head. 'No.' Not like I would have if I'd been in any sane state of mind. But he had me thinking: what about that milk-white plant I'd pulled from my belly? That gripping, suffocating thing that'd thought nothing of stuffing itself inside every opening to my body. Was that a member of this Devil Strumpet species or whatever he'd called it?

After the phone call I just stood there in silence watching the smoke continue to pour into the atmosphere. Kate and Mark were looking at me, waiting to hear who'd called.

I didn't want to discuss it. But all I kept thinking was, maybe I'd been dragged into that woodland beyond my will.

And if so, by who?

6

In time, the burning Chingola truck would come to be one of those much talked about community events. Like when that twin engine Cessna went down near the Hangman Islands killing all eight on board and their personal belongings washed up on Reaper's Beach for the next five weeks. Or that time the Horsefall abseiling and climbing club, the Rockheads, had four of its members plummet to their bone-snapping, gut-splashing deaths after parts of the cliff edge along Massacre Point gave way.

The only thing we didn't know at the time was the truck's connection to Goon.

As far back as the Sharkfin farm incident Goon'd been spotted loitering about the vicinity of Chingola. He'd been observed attempting to cut a hole through the fence around one of the primate enclosures. (Actions that had been conveniently kept from the public.) Initially, rangers hadn't been able to identify him because he'd been wearing a mask. Some guise resembling a wolf. But they uncovered CCTV footage from a few days prior clearly showing Goon surveying the reserve whilst carrying the mask in question.

What was also kept from the public were the reports that two days before I went missing, Goon infiltrated the Chingola complex and managed to liberate a pair of chimpanzees from the specialist animal clinic. (I thought maybe it was one of these damn monkeys that I'd seen chasing me across Strangler's Vale while I'd been tripping out on those hallucinogens.) Apparently CCTV footage clearly showed Goon in his 'wolf suit'. (I never saw images of this footage but I wondered if it was the same suit he'd worn the night he broke into the Inn). After rounding up the pair of 'escapees' Chingola management fronted up to the Burnchess Police Station with the footage. Thus exonerating themselves of any accusations of 'mismanagement'.

Dad and Finch then decided to put a covert tag on Goon. (When Dad heard me mention Goon during the hypnosis sessions, I guess he finally thought he was on to something.) But Goon may have suspected as much, because as it turns out, the burning Chingola truck was rumoured to be an elaborate set-up to eliminate the members of the Burnchess police force.

An hour before Kate and Mark came over with the morning paper that Saturday morning, a mass break-out of mandrills from Chingola had occurred. Gates around their enclosure had been discovered torn completely away from the outside.

The Chingola truck had sped after them in an attempt to round them up. But in the mayhem the driver ploughed into a ditch, rupturing the fuel line and, allegedly, the leaking diesel ignited on the engine mount. (We were told later that investigations into the incident revealed that fuel lines had been sabotaged and that a fire in the engine had actually caused the truck to crash in the first place.)

In any case, flames rapidly swamped the cabin, burning the driver's head bald and singing the freckles off his skin before he managed to unclip his seatbelt and scramble free. Fire trucks sped out from Lambeth, getting the inferno under control and Farmer Stowe was good enough to rush the driver to the burns unit at Royal Lambeth.

While all this'd been going on, Goon was spotted trailing the mandrills into Wolfcrag Forest. Some observers say he actually herded them in that direction. Whatever the truth, Constable Newson was ordered to remain with the burning truck while Dad and Finch went after him.

What happened next is fuzzy at best. Wolfcrag is a strange place. Dark and creepy and empty. Full of deep gullies and small caves and dotted with cursed medieval ruins that folk say are riddled with ghosts. Mark'll tell you trolls live in there. And Werewolves. And the Pigman of course. And people say if you're not careful, the call of the Nightjars will drag you in there like the call of sirens and your soul'll be lost forever.

But I remember that day for one thing. That was the day Goon drove Dad dead into a tree.

THE APES

1

ME, KATE and Mark drove to Lambeth hospital in Kate's mum's Peugeot hatchback. Emily'd taken off with Louise in Dad's Rover Metro. They'd offered me a ride but I didn't want to be stuck with the two Sanders girls.

Kate drove. We took the Brandywine road to the north of Wolfcrag Forest—it'd added fifteen minutes to the trip but I'd insisted. The thought of taking the Lambeth Road worried me. I mean, it skirted Strangler's Vale, the last place seen the Charweeds and Goon and that monster.

We veered onto the Chingola road at the fork before the Harris farm and met up with the Lambeth road beyond the reserve, three miles on from Wolfcrag; the three of us silent the whole way.

2

The sight of the Royal Lambeth Hospital swinging into view on the corner of The Narrows and Eastbourne Road was like a noose tightening around my throat. It looked, and still does, like an old spa resort, the eastern and western wings curving away from the main entrance through lush, well-kept gardens; and the view of the coastline was as spectacular as ever. But for me, the place will always be synonymous with Mum's cancer. Every chemo session happened there. Every bout of radiotherapy. I could smell the place even before we left the car. That ultra-sterile smell of Dettol... reminding me somehow of slow brutal death.

Kate dropped me off at the entrance. But I stood there numb in front of the automatic doors. I couldn't bring myself to enter. Couldn't move. Mark must've told Kate to go in with me because next thing he was driving the Peugeot away to the parking lot and she was gripping my hand. Together, we passed through the sliding doors into the belly of the hospital.

The smells ran instantly up my nostrils like some sort of acid vapour, taking my thoughts back several years to the morning we'd rocked up here after discovering Mum'd had that tumour in her chest. Doctors had said her prognosis was good. (Do they tell everyone that?) We'd pulled into the car park and Dad'd commented, 'Oh well, it's a nice view of the ocean at least.' Like that's all that mattered. Like we were having a snug little holiday by the sea. Like we were going to be enjoying the ocean views and the docks and the rolling coastline over bacon and eggs and buttered chemotherapy every fucking morning.

3

Kate led me to the front desk. Distantly I heard her asking after Inspector Crassly. All I remembered is how heavy my chest felt. Like it'd been stuffed with cold wet cardboard. I felt confused. Disoriented. I had this weird urge to rush up to Ward B and find Mum recovering from her latest bout of chemical flush in one of the rooms with a view of the sea. I had to keep reminding myself she hadn't been in Ward B for almost three years now.

Kate squeezed my hand. 'He'll be okay, Jake. He's a tough bastard, your dad.'

But it was Mum I kept thinking of. Her nausea, the catheters, the Fentanyl opioid lollypops, the oxygen machine they'd let her take home to the Inn, and the semi-conscious state she'd been reduced to when the pain got to the point where it barely allowed her to find sleep. How bad were Dad's injuries? Would he live? Would it be like Mum all over again? All that insufferable management? Could I do it? Could I be there for him as he'd been on call for Mum every single second of every single day? Did I have the energy, the will, to cope with that sort of existence?

4

We found Emily and Louise on the second floor, Louise looking drawn and anxious. Emily looking determined, wired. She was bugging the staff at the nurse's station. I heard one of them tell her, 'Please, take a seat. We'll provide details as they come to hand.'

She turned around and saw us and put on this distraught face as if it was her dad in there fighting for his life. She strode over and gripped Kate in a hug. Kate just sort of held her, consoling-like. And that was it. I looked at Emily, looked at Louise, wondering if someone would care to tell me what the hell was going on with my dad.

Louise fidgeted with her handbag, gazing at the floor, nibbling her lip. Emily kept her head in the crook of Kate's neck.

Holy shit, had he died? Is that why they weren't speaking? Had the accident killed him?

'Is anyone gonna tell me what the fuck's going on?'

'Oh, don't swear, Jake, please.' Louise said it with this voice like maybe I shouldn't even be there.

I blinked at her. 'Maybe no one heard me. So, I'll ask the question again: what the fuck is going on with Dad?' For a second I thought neither of them was going to answer.

I moved for the nurse's station and Emily snapped, 'He's in surgery.' She said it like I expected to see him right now. Like I shouldn't be so bloody impatient.

I shut my eyes and dug my fingers into my temples. 'Just tell me what happened. Okay. Somebody just tell me what bloody happened!'

Emily sighed and finally let go of Kate. 'He crashed his trail bike into a gully. He's not in a good state. He's got head trauma.'

'Head trauma?' I blinked at her. I felt my chest sag. I went to the nurse's station. I asked them straight out. 'I'm Charlie Crassly's son... is he going to survive?'

The more senior of the two nurses sitting there under the fluorescent white panel in the ceiling put his pen down, took off his spectacles and said, 'We'll provide all details as they come to hand. I'm sorry, but there's nothing more we can tell you at this time.'

5

Mark found us. He stood there looking uncertain, as if he feared Dad'd already hit the long road. Kate quietly filled him in as Emily took herself a sustained hug, her head cradled in his neck. About a zillion years later she let him go and he came over and squeezed my shoulder. I was sitting there away from Louise and Emily in one of the plastic chairs, blindly watching Schwarzenegger's Predator on a TV hanging on a bracket high on the wall; the sound was so low it might as well have been on mute.

Mark crouched there in front of me. 'Chin up, brutha,' he said. 'If there's one bloke who'll pull through something like this, it's your old man. You gotta believe that. He's a tough prick.'

I hardly heard him.

My phone rang. It was Sergeant Finch. Ringing to express her regret at what'd happened. To see how I was doing. All I could say was, 'What the hell went down in that damn Forest?' She claimed she didn't know. They'd been pursuing Goon. They'd split up in an attempt to drive him into an ambush. It hadn't worked. When she found Dad, his bike was a mangled mess and he was unconscious and bleeding at the bottom of a ravine.

6

When Dad came out of surgery they had him in ICU. He was still unconscious but they let in immediate family members to see him. Technically that meant just me. Except Louise and Emily piled in ahead of me. They moved to either side of his bed. As I came into the room behind them I just gazed at him, shocked.

It was like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise in there. Banks of monitors bleeping around the top of his bed, small lights blinking on and off. He was barely recognisable with the bandages around his head and a cast on both legs. His face was like puff pastry. The flesh around his right eye seemed to hang like a swollen egg, a dark purple stitched-up slit hovering over his eye-socket. To top it off a respiration mask was clamped over his mouth and nose like he had to be assisted to breathe. And a great mass of cords and nodes were suckered to his chest and temples and wrists. He looked like some sort of astronaut freshly dragged from a downed capsule.

I was pretty scared when I saw all this. For about a minute all I did was stand there gawking at him, thinking, This can't be happening, this can't be happening. I thought of Mum right at the end, close to death. When she'd been reduced to nothing but an unconscious mind roaming the empty corridors of a wracked and broken body. That's how Dad looked. Like he'd already gone.

Louise touched his arm and leaned close to his cheek. I heard her whispering, 'It's me, sweetheart. Louise. You're okay now. We're all here. You're okay now. Just rest.'

I stayed at the end of his bed thinking it should've been Mum at his side. Not the two Sanders morons. Louise's whisperings did nothing to stir him. One of the nurses came round and told us sympathetically that we'd likely be in for a long wait. Perhaps it was a roundabout way of saying maybe we should all go home.

7

The nurse was right. Dad didn't wake up for three days. And it was three days where I did nothing. I either slept in the hospital waiting room, heaped uncomfortably in those hard plastic chairs, or I moped about those white sterile halls, watching crappy day time TV. A couple of times me and Mark and Kate just went and sat out on the benches overlooking the ocean. Hayley too; she arrived unexpectedly on the afternoon of the first day. It was amazing to see her. It felt like we hadn't seen each other in months. She was still up in St Austell. Her parents still had some issue about her being in Burnchess. Which was probably justified with all the shit going on.

We all just sat out there chatting long into the evening. I didn't even care about trying to get Kate jealous. It was just nice to be surrounded by friends. We discussed the truck incident. We talked about the possibility of gorillas and mandrills roaming Wolfcrag Forest. I was still only just getting over my own ordeal but having this was like a welcome distraction.

Though as I sat there, more than once I found my thoughts drifting back to Dr Smith's phone call. About his claims that some powerful hallucinogen had been detected in my blood. With a shudder I thought again of that white plant growing out of my belly. Had that not been real then? Had I simply imagined it? And what about that giant fucking spider thing that'd chased me across Strangler's? Had it really been some Chingola ape? Had my intoxicated mind simply turned it into some nightmare monstrosity?

I still couldn't seem to think clearly on the subject. I hated Dr Smith for throwing all that extra shit on my plate. Yet... the more I considered what he'd told me, the more I began to feel a sense of relief. If it'd just been my mind playing tricks thanks to some fucked up drug induced state then I could live with that. It made sense if I thought about it. If I shuffled the pieces of this jigsaw together then the Charweeds seemed to sit right in the middle. If I'd been dragged into Wolfcrag then it must've been by them. I mean, they were the last fuckers I'd seen. They'd stood right in front of me at the wall on the Lambeth Road. Who's to say they hadn't injected me with some mind bending shit right then and there. And if so, then that monster that'd chased me down had been nothing but some demon thrown out by my own imagination.

As for Goon, well he fit in the story somewhere. I still couldn't work out where. If he was truly out to wipe Burnchess off the map then, who knows, maybe he'd recruited the Charweed girls to help him.

The blood though. All that blood I'd been caked in on my return to Burnchess. That was the one thing I couldn't fit into the puzzle. I'd been told that it'd been mine. If I'd simply imagined being attacked (and I certainly had not cuts or wounds to prove that anyone or anything had actually carved a blade through me) then where had the blood come from? The only thing I could think of was that it was more Charweed mischief. This one year, a dog, an English setter owned by old Stan Norris, was blamed for the slaughter of some black lambs that the Charweeds had been keeping. Well, a few days later that dog turned up dead out near their cottage. It'd been drained completely of blood. People naturally pointed their finger at the Charweeds of course but the matter was never resolved. I couldn't help thinking about that incident now. Perhaps they'd been in the midst of doing something similar to me. Draining me of my blood. But maybe it'd gone wrong. Or they'd been disturbed mid practice. And what they'd sucked out of my veins had somehow gushed all over me.

8

Me and Hayley were on Lambeth beach when Dad finally woke. We'd gone for a stroll. Hayley holding my hand. It felt really nice. I realised how much I'd missed her. People were swimming, kids were playing football, couples were eating fish and chips. The Lambeth Arms had its fair share of summer patrons. All sitting in the splotchy sunshine in the beer garden across the road, sipping lager or wine. Gulls hung about. Squealing and squawking.

Me and Hayley had taken off our shoes and had strolled through the cool waves. At one end of the beach there's this mighty chunk of rock that juts out of the earth called the Gorgon's Hump. Where the tide laps at it there's this ring of seaweed and sea moss and limpets stuck to it. We climbed our way to the top and just sat there on the smooth stone gazing out to sea.

'I've really missed you,' Hayley said to me.

I smiled at her. 'I've missed you too.'

She held my hand and squeezed my fingers. 'So many times I was going to just leave Nan's house and catch the bus to Burnchess. And then when I heard you were missing I was physically ill. I just thought the worst.'

I sighed. Touched by the distress on her face. 'Yeah, things have been quite nuts.'

She laughed. 'That's an understatement.'

We kissed then. She'd been leaning into me. Our faces were close, we were gazing into each other's eyes, so it just sort of happened. She tasted amazing. It was wild just to be able to kiss her. After everything that'd happened. It was such a sweet distraction to all this shit. I just wanted to take her home and get into bed with her. I wanted to be in bed with her for a week.

My phone rang. I almost didn't answer it. But when I did I saw it was Mark. He said five words: 'Your dad's just woken up.'

9

Ten minutes later I was at Dad's bed side just watching him. He was still groggy. And hadn't woken fully. But he was getting there. It was like something dead returning to life. He groaned and squirmed but he was doped to the eyeballs on morphine so it wasn't any wonder. Emily stood there on the opposite side of the bed. And far as I can recall, Louise was hurrying back from the shops. His eyes came open and his head lolled about, as if trying to make sense of where he was. 'Whaaar ammm I?' he kept groaning. 'Whaaar am Iyy?'

I told him, 'Dad, it's okay, you're in hospital. You had an accident. It's okay.'

He seemed to be rolling in and out of consciousness, moaning like a cut dog. Emily alerted the doctor on duty. And it was then that Dad weakly gripped my wrist. 'Finch,' he groaned. 'Finch! Th-that you?'

'No, Dad, it's me, Jake. Just calm down. You're all right.'

He lay his head back on the pillow. His eyes were shut. But he was moaning.

Emily took his other hand and gently stroked the back of it. She leaned forward. 'It's okay,' she said softly at his ear. 'Just relax. You're in hospital. Jake and I are here with you, try to relax.'

He tried to open his eyes but the effort seemed monumental. He groaned again. Went silent. Moaned. And then he was whispering something. Emily and me both glanced at each other. We leaned close.

'E-everyone out of B-Burnchess... Everyone ouuut... Get G-Goon... someone get Goon... He, he's trying ta brainwash... h-he wants to plant a fer-fertiliser bomb in the catacombs... he'll bring the village down... he'll bring it down... someone must stop him...'

A nurse pushed through the door and I got the idea she didn't like what she was seeing because Dad stopped mumbling now and suddenly kicked into some crazy bed jive, his body jerking like mad. She ordered us to leave. I yelled, 'What the hell's wrong?'

There was a big red button on the wall near his cot and the nurse, in her crisp blue uniform, smacked it with her palm. I expected an alarm to start bleating. But it was silent. And yet, about eight seconds later, a huge rush of hospital staff came piling into ICU.

Me and Emily were hustled from the room. We sat with Hayley and Mark and Kate out in the hall. By then Louise was back from Waitrose demanding what'd happened.

Finally a doctor introduced herself as Doctor Marion Atwood. She looked old, somewhere in her thirties. She sat beside us with a grave look in her eyes. 'Are you Inspector Crassly's children?'

I glanced at Emily. She wasn't, but what did it matter. Louise said, 'I'm his partner, I deman—'

'Look, can you just tell us what's happened?' I cut in anxiously.

Dr Atwood crossed her leg over the other, clasped her hands in her lap. 'Firstly let me stress that your father's condition has stabilised.'

Oh, I'd heard that sort of crap when Mum was ill.

'And we expect him to pull through. However for his own care we have placed him in an induced coma.'

'A coma?' I blinked madly. 'Why?'

'It's a precautionary measure. Victims of head trauma are at risk of secondary injury. Trust me, he's far safer being under than if he were awake.' She studied our eyes for a moment. 'Now listen, I'm told he was chatting when he came round.'

Don't know if you'd call it chatting, I thought.

'Was this so?'

I shrugged. 'Sort of.'

'Yes. He was talking,' Emily said.

Atwood appeared to relax. 'Good, that's what I wanted to hear. It's a positive sign. It would suggest to me that he hasn't sustained any major brain damage.' She smiled slightly like this news was meant to perk us up. 'Certainly he's not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. But I've dealt with many patients in a similar condition. Going on past experience I'd say your father's prognosis is good.'

10

Two hours later Mark and Kate and me followed Emily through the double doors of the Burnchess police station. By then Hayley had driven back to St Austell. She'd told me to keep safe. I told her I would. We'd hugged and she'd driven away from the front of Lambeth Royal and I had this lump in my throat like I didn't want her to go.

I was still thinking about that as we stomped up the steps of the police station in Burnchess and shoved our way through the front doors. The place sat empty except for auxiliary cop Peg Rendell sitting there filling out her desk with her dump truck belly. She was snacking on a Jumnut (one of those jumbo doughnuts you get down at the Sticky Grooves bakery).

Emily didn't even say hi. She just snapped, 'Where's Sergeant Finch?'

Peg Rendell pointed to Dad's office, her mouth full.

We all immediately veered that way with Peg's muffled voice trailing us: 'But she's in a private meeting. She doesn't wish to be disturbed!'

We ignored her, shoving through the door with the plaque on the frosted glass window reading Detective Inspector Charles Crassly.

Finch was seated at Dad's desk, gazing blankly through the open window. Warm summer breeze tickled the hem of the curtains. She looked around slowly as we pushed the door shut behind us. I don't know if I picked it straight off the hilt, but something wasn't right. Finch looked like she'd just awoken from a weekend beer-a-thon. And she most certainly wasn't in a private meeting, as far as we could see. There was no-one else there but her.

'We've just come from Royal Lambeth,' Emily told her, 'where your chief inspector currently lies in a coma. Now listen, we need to ask you: are you aware that Goon's going to plant a fertiliser bomb beneath the village? Did you know about this? Has the village council been informed?'

Finch sat there looking from Emily to Kate to Mark to me and back to Emily. 'Fertiliser bomb?'

'Yes,' Emily said.

Finch appeared thoughtful, her fingers tapping the desk. Otherwise she didn't respond.

That's when Mark nudges me and points to a familiar file sitting on the edge of the desk. The one Emily had dug up from someplace.

FILE #072 - THE VANISHING OF CARENZA GOON. [J.G.—2000/01, 2008]

And then the craziest thing happened. A rasping voice behind us says, 'I think it's about time yer all left.'

We jumped and spun around and who the hell should we see standing there but Radford fucking Goon.

11

He looked as smug as could be. But as I got over my initial shock I felt a volcanic urge to just kick his fucking face in.

But I didn't. I didn't even dare move. Seeing him in Dad's office, looking so calm, put me on edge. And he watched me with some measure of curiosity, as if wondering how I could possibly be standing there.

He stepped from the small kitchenette carrying two mugs of tea. He strode across the room, still eyeing me. We all moved aside as he came by, like fish steering clear of a shark. He put down a mug on Dad's desk in front of Finch and turned that folder over. He stunk like tar soap and beer sweat.

He turned around, a thin hateful smile curling the corner of his mouth, slurping his beverage a mere metre from my face. 'Tell me, lad, how did yer do it?'

I watched his crow eyes and that scarred skin. 'Do what?' I said angrily.

'Why, somehow yer seem to have escaped the demon. I watched it run yer down, boy. Saw it draw out yer stuffing. What trick has put yer here and not in the morgue?'

'So, it was you!' I said through gritted teeth, going forward, my face in his face. He didn't flinch. He simply smiled. Mark pulled me back but I shrugged his hand away. 'You hearin' this, Finch?' I spat. 'This prick says he watched me being attacked. He must know why I went missing. And where I was.'

Finch simply eyed me, unblinking, like she'd been slapped hard across the chops with a cricket bat.

I stepped to Dad's desk. 'Finch! Did you not hear what Goon just said?'

She looked up as if she didn't recognise me. 'I'm sorry. But I'm on a very busy schedule, Jake. I have many enquiries to make.' Her voice had a dull, lifeless quality to it. 'I'd ask that you lot come back later.'

Emily ignored her. Instead she turned to Goon. 'We know what you're up to,' she says to him. 'We know you want destroy Burnchess as revenge for your daughter's disappearance. You want to set a bomb in the catacombs below the village. Blow us all sky high. So have you planted it yet? Go on, tell me, have you?'

He looked agitated, angry. The way he looked, I expected him to lash out at her. He didn't speak.

'You haven't have you?' Emily says. 'You haven't been able to get down there, have you? Well, let me tell you, you won't be. We're going to stop you from getting into the catacombs, stop you setting your little bomb. You hear me? We're going to stop you.'

He looked as though he was about to grab her and throw her into the wall. But the rest of us dragged her back before he could act. He simply stood there, eyeing us, his face twitching.

12

We stood across the road from the police station under the eaves of the Castle Arms Hotel. Gazing back at the cop station like it was some diseased monkey house. 'What the hell is going on with Finch?' Emily wondered aloud. She had her glasses off, she was massaging the bridge of her nose.

'I've got no bloody idea,' I told her. I was still fuming. I couldn't stand still.

'Goon's done something to her,' Kate says. 'Did you see her in there?'

'Agreed,' said Emily. 'No way she'd let that freak in there ordinarily. Not even for a legitimate meeting.'

'She'd conduct it in the conference room if that was the case,' I told them.

'And if she was in any sane state of mind,' Mark said, 'she'd have bundled him straight into the lock up if he tried anything funny.'

Emily sighed, deep in thought. 'He's brainwashed her. You remember what Dad told us when he awoke, Jake. Goon's on a campaign to brainwash the lot of us. Remember that?'

I studied her face before turning back to the police station. 'Yeah. Yeah, you're right. He's fucking well brainwashed her.'

'And did you lot see that report sitting on the desk?' Mark said.

Emily nodded. 'Yes, it's the one I gave to Dad.' She put her glasses back. 'So, what the hell are we going to do?'

'Well, where's Constable Newson?' Kate wondered. 'He should be bloody well helping Finch, for a start.'

'Good point,' Emily said. 'Maybe we ought to find him. Find him and tell him what Dad told us. Then we'll tell him to get down to the station and arrest Goon. Then we'll need to inform Mum and the village council. If Goon's already placed his bomb then the village will have to be evacuated.'

13

We found Newson sitting on the roof of Woodpigeon Cottage on Grimspawn Lane. When we asked what the hell he was doing he didn't really have an answer. He merely panned his hand across the scene in front of him. 'It's beautiful,' he mumbled with one eye half shut. 'The view. I can see beyond the Hangman Islands from here. You oughta come up and see for yourselves. Did you know there are mermaids out there today?'

'Newson, did you hear us?' Emily repeated. 'Goon's planning to blow up the village. And right now he's down at the station coercing Finch.'

Newson barely seemed to care. And wouldn't come down. 'But the mermaids,' he insisted, 'you ought to come up and see for yourselves. No one wants to believe me, but they're out there, I swear.'

'I fear Goon's already gotten to him,' Kate said gravely. 'I mean, just look at him.'

'Right then,' Emily said. 'We need to alert all members of the council board before Goon gets to them as well.'

But it took one phone call to Louise to discover the council had been disbanded for the remainder of summer.

'Disbanded?' we heard Emily say to her mum. 'Honestly? Oh my God.'

When she was done talking she hung up and said, 'I don't believe it. Mum says she's just had a phone call from Mr Bogwood who claims the council met three hours ago to decide Burnchess would benefit from no further meetings until winter.'

'But that's unheard of,' Kate said.

'I know it's unheard of,' Emily told her, looking flabbergasted. 'So, Mum's returning to Burnchess to see what's going on.'

'This is Goon's doing,' Mark said. 'I'll bet any money on it.'

'Yeah, but what should we do about it?' I asked.

'I have no idea,' Emily said.

'Well, we can't let Goon get away with this,' Kate said. 'We've got to stop him somehow.'

Emily nodded. 'Yes, you're right.' She looked around the empty streets. 'But how? I mean, it's obvious Goon's not going to listen to us. And if we're not careful he might try his brainwashing tricks on us. And even if Mum gets the council back together, somehow I don't think that's going to be enough to stop him. So we need higher authority here.' She looked at each of us. 'Superintendent Tennant,' she says suddenly. 'That's what we'll do. We'll notify Superintendent Tennant. If it takes the weight of the Horsefall police to bring this nutter under control then that's how it's got to be.' She was walking now. We were following.

'So, you're going there now?' I asked.

'That's right. I'm going to drive over to Horsefall right now and explain to Tennant exactly what's going on. That's what I'm going to do. And if I have to make up some story that Dad requested him then I will.'

'You want me to come with you?' Kate asked.

'Yes, okay,' Emily said. 'Why not? The more the merrier.' She glanced around at me and Mark. 'What about you pair? If we present a united front then Tennant will have no choice but to listen to us.'

'Actually, Em,' I said, 'shouldn't one of us stay here to try and spread the word about a potential bomb? I mean, okay we don't know for sure if Goon's managed to arm one yet, but what if he has? Best scenario is we get everyone out of the village. Just clear the place out. Until we've had some sort of bomb disposal expert come and scope the village out.'

Emily looked thoughtful. She frowned. She says, 'Actually, Jake, that's a bloody good idea.'

I was surprised to hear her say it. Actually praising me for something.

She turned to Mark. 'Mark, why don't you stay with Jake. Spread the word. Both of you. Tell as many people as you can and get them to spread the word as well. The more people who know about Goon's plans, the better. If Goon does manage to set this bomb of his then we're going to lower the risk of people losing their lives.' She turned to Kate. 'Your mum still in London?'

'Yes. Thank God.'

'And, Mark, your dad?'

'Overnighting up near Taunton.'

'Good. Right then, at least we don't have them to worry about. Okay let's do this shall we? How about we meet back at the Hare Of The Dog in three hours? That should give Kate and I enough time to get to Horsefall, put our case to Tennant and get back again.' She went to move off but then stopped and regarded me and Mark again. 'Oh, and be careful won't you. Goon's already divided and conquered the police. We don't want him doing that to us.'

14

First place me and Mark decided to go was the Hare Of The Dog. It's one of the more popular spots in town for locals and folk in general to hang out. As good a place as any to kick off our little bomb awareness campaign. So, we moved up Castle Grove, keeping our eye out for Goon, or for any ghastly monstrosity that might be hiding in the shadows. I still didn't feel entirely comfortable being out on those streets. Not after my recent ordeal. There'd been no word yet on those mandrills that'd allegedly escaped Chingola the day of that truck crash. No word on their capture, their whereabouts, nothing. I didn't even know if mandrills were vicious or not. All I knew is that if they suddenly came charging down Castle Grove, I was going to scream. (As for gorillas, jungle cats, demon spider-monsters, even the Charweeds, well, none of that even bore thinking about!)

Turns out we weren't the only ones on the street. Which surprised me for some reason. There were still people going about their daily errands and farmers were still lugging their produce to the market. Which was still open for business. Most of the vendors seemed happy to stay though they had barely anyone to sell to. Actually there were more shops open than I'd thought there'd be.

We detoured through the market as we went, telling stall vendors about Goon and his bomb plans. That police were asking people to clear out while it was being sorted out. The thing that surprised us though was that no-one seemed to give a shit. They all sat there as if we were telling something like scientists had discovered a new shade of blue, you know something really mundane and irrelevant. We found ourselves having to repeat what we were saying.

Even then it made little difference.

So, in the Hare Of The Dog I decided to ramp things up a bit. I took to the band stage and fired up one of the microphones and said, 'Ah, excuse me everyone, I'd like to make an announcement.'

As we'd hoped, there were quite a few patrons having lunch or tucking into pints that day. They all looked around at me when I called for their attention. I said, 'Okay, until further notice, the police have asked that people evacuate the village because Radford Goon has set a bomb in the catacombs and when it detonates there's likely to be heavy causalities unless Burnchess is evacuated.'

I expected there to be mass movement and panic. But no-one moved. They all just sat there eyeing me as if I was reciting some particularly boring poetry. And when I was done they turned back to their drinks and their lunch.

I tapped the mic and coughed into it loudly. 'Ah, did you all not hear me? I said, we have an emergency situation. A bomb has been primed to blow Burnchess to bits and you're all going to die if you don't get out of the village.' I thought that ought to do it but again no-one moved. People just sat there flicking through papers and chatting about the weather.

It left me puzzled. And I just stood there for a few moments wondering what the hell to do. Across the room I spotted Hogshead sitting at the bar. I went and sat beside him. He was tucking into a pint. 'Day off?' I asked him. 'Or you on duty?'

He looked around at me. 'On duty,' he said merrily, his cheeks all rosy like he'd been on the piss most of the day. 'Oh, I say, nice speech yer gave just then, lad. What was it in aid of again?'

'Hogshead, you have to listen to me, Goon's going to set a bomb to blow up Burnchess, okay.'

'Oh, that's nice.'

'I'm serious. You have to get out of town.'

He looks at me like he's considering this. But then he says, 'Oh, I meant to ask, Jake lad, did yer happen to see the will-o'-the-wisps t'other night? Spectacular sight, it were.'

Me and Mark glanced at each other. 'Will-o'-the-wisps?' I asked.

'Yeah, did yer see 'em, lad?'

'Will-o'-the-wisps?' I asked again.

'Aye, two nights ago, it were.'

'I wasn't here two nights ago. I've been in Lambeth. I expect you heard about dad.'

He looked away. 'Yeah. Such a shame. Give him my best, won't yer.'

I frowned at Mark. I clapped Hogshead on the shoulder and left the bar. Outside, I said to Mark. 'I'm beginning to think Goon's got to more than just the police.'

'You and me both,' Marks says.

We head up to the Amazing World Of Books. We find Staten slumped in one of the lounge suites staring into space, his twisted fingers resting in his lap. We come in (and I can't help glancing at the cabinet where that skull'd been) and I suggest Mark stay by the door. 'You know, as look out,' I tell him. 'In case Goon decides to drop by.'

'Good idea,' he says and stays there while I walk down to the reading area to see if Staten's okay. 'Staten?' I say. 'You all right?'

He looked up at me and appeared to nod.

That was a relief. 'Good. I thought maybe Goon'd got to you too.'

He shook his head.

'Right, listen, speaking of Goon, we think he's planning to bring the village down in catastrophic bomb blast so we're trying to get people out of town to a safe distance. Okay? Emily's gone to fetch Tennant so it might be a good idea to come with us and sit this out till the Horsefall constabulary get here.'

He looked up at me and gazed at me sort of blankly. 'Oh... Jake... I didn't see you come in.' He peered over his shoulder as if I might've snuck in the back way. 'Did you see them?' he asked.

I frowned. 'See what?'

'Will-o'-the-wisps. Hundreds of them.'

I kept frowning. 'Will-o'-the-wisps?'

'Yes. In the street. Two or three nights ago. We all saw them. The whole village actually.'

I shake my head.

'A shame you missed them,' he says. 'All about the village they were, like neon blue fireflies. It was such an awesome sight. Singing into people's ears they went, singing sweet little songs.'

I sighed. And sat on the couch opposite, watching him, trying to collect my thoughts. 'So Goon's got you too.'

15

I thought of Jones then. I wondered if he could shed any light on this Willow the Wisp shit. Wondered if he could shed any light on Goon's activities. He wasn't answering his phone of course. Actually a posh female voice told me, 'The mobile phone you are trying to contact is currently switched off.'

So, I called Muldoon. 'He's still off work, I'm afraid,' Muldoon tells me.

'Do you know where he is?'

'Sorry, lad, he hasn't made his whereabouts known to me.'

I thought back to that day we'd pulled up outside the Temple Ash Inn on the Spitfire and Muldoon handing Jones that package. I just felt he knew where the fuck Jones was but wasn't telling me.

Well, I'll go and find him, I thought.

Jones lives at the top of the village near the northern strip of Warrior's Path. There's a grassy laneway that comes off Castle Grove called Throatslitters13. It skirts the backs of a bunch of cottages, running under the pear and orange trees. You can access his front door from there, through a small wooden gate and along a paved garden path that winds between topiary hedges sculpted to look like monsters sitting on their haunches.

Me and Mark went up there and banged on his door for a while. His door was locked so you couldn't get in. I even called through the mail slot. 'Jones, are you in there?' Everything was locked up and the curtains on his windows were all shut so we couldn't see inside. I thought about smashing the glass when my phone rang. I jumped. It was Emily. When I answered, she says, 'Jake, we've got problems.'

THE MEETING

1

THE TALLEST part of what remains of Burnchess castle is the antechamber of the Great Keep which stands at a height of about seven metres. Like the castle, most of the Keep's long been toppled into the ocean but many of the ground-level arched windows and thick stone walls still stand amidst the weeds, giving you a bit of a picture of the original layout. The entrance still stands, although the portcullis is long gone (raided for scrap metal no doubt) and a recently built footbridge has been erected where the much larger, much wider medieval drawbridge used to span the moat. (The moat, at its deepest, plunged down to about three metres and it's said witches were drowned there.) Nowadays, while you can still see the moat's faint outline, it's all but filled in and covered over in a soft carpet of grass and weeds and flowers.

As you come in through the castle entrance you'll cross the empty bailey with its dusty stone pavers and pass an empty pond and you'll notice part of the ceiling of the antechamber (being also the floor of the first level) remains steadfast. These days it's used more as a spacious viewing platform. To get up there you climb the flight of stone steps on the eastern side which wind up through an arched doorway.

Up there, once you step onto the platform the hefty gusts will try to flip you into the sky. There's nothing to shield you with all the old walls weathered away if it does. It's bare as Grandad's scalp and open to all the elements. And you have to be dead careful because along the southern edge, near the two sets of public telescopes aimed at the Hangman Islands, there's a two hundred foot drop where the ruins overhang the cliffs. And if you topple off there you're sushi. Which is why the council erected the steel railing. But if you topple over that railing you're still going to be sushi.

It was two hours later that me, Kate, Mark and Emily found ourselves there—on the viewing area, on our arses, all facing the village that inclined gently away northward toward the Archway at the opposite end of Castle Grove.

I sipped a beer. Mark'd lugged down a six pack of Raw City. Slugging some helped calm my nerves a tad. But we were exposed there, I thought. Easy pickings for... well, just easy pickings. 'Does anyone else think we shouldn't be sitting here?'

No one answered. I watched Kate because ordinarily she might've sided with me. But she looked distracted, no doubt with everything that'd been going on. So I said to Mark, 'Mark, wotta ya think? We safe sitting here or what?'

After we'd told Emily about the strange reports of will-o'-the-wisps, how people seemed to be congregating in certain locations of Burnchess, she'd suggested that if they were all under Goon's spell then they were likely to be his ears as well. So she'd insisted our get-together happen outside, away from where people were likely to hear us. But with me and Mark jittery about our exposure we might build a case to taking this meeting indoors. But Mark just shrugged. Sipped his beer and shrugged. He didn't look at me either. Something was eating him. Maybe with all them monkeys allegedly running around it'd dispelled his Frankenbeast ideas. Or perhaps, like Kate, he was just plain worried about what Good had planned for us all.

Steaming pizza lay between us. The girls'd picked it up from Stinaski's Pizza across the road near the Castle Arms Hotel. They all ate. I wasn't the least bit hungry.

2

'Superintendent Tennant isn't sending us reinforcements,' Emily finally declared. 'That's the first thing I need to say. He claims he spoke to Finch on the phone and she assured him everything was fine down our way. Even when I warned him that our so-called authorities are being systematically brainwashed he didn't appear to care. So I told him about Goon and the fertiliser bomb and collapsing the village. He thought I was being stupid. I could see it in his face. He was also at pains to emphasise he's tired of people crying wolf whenever it comes to Goon, and that if we're all so sure Goon's the menace we make him out to be then perhaps once and for all we might find sufficient evidence to back up our claims. Or else leave matters to the relevant authorities. He gave me a smarmy grin and that's where he left things.

'So, this is it.' She smiled. A smile filled more with irony than with humour, and she regarded Mark and me. 'And if what you pair told us about everyone being under some spell, then I'm afraid, we're truly on our own. And we have to work out what the hell we're going to do.'

We all looked about at each other. No-one saying anything. Some villagers moved about Castle Grove. It was strange watching them. It was like they were now Goon's spies or something.

Emily sighed. 'Look, I'm open to ideas. But here's one suggestion. Tennant called for evidence. So, if evidence is what he wants then I say we set about finding enough for him to choke on. The thing is, whatever we do, we're going to have to work fast. If we're to believe the Carenza report, then we've little more than a week before Goon makes his attempt on the village.'

'A week?' I asked.

'Yes, on the 24th of August it'll be the twentieth anniversary of Carenza Goon's disappearance. That's D Day. The day Goon plans to dump Burnchess into the sea.'

'And who's to say he won't strike before that date?' Kate asked.

'Exactly. Which is why we need to come up with some sort of plan of attack as quick as we can.'

I shrugged. 'I say fuck the evidence, Em. I'm all for cutting the head off the snake before it bites.'

'What do you mean?'

'Like Kate says, Goon might strike early. Probably before we get anything on him, right? So I say we find him, kick his head in and put him in hospital. You want him stopped, well I see no better way than that.'

Mark seemed to like that plan, demonstrating as much with a stern faced nod and a fist bump. But Emily refused to run with it. 'Oh yeah, that's constructive, Jake. Get him even more riled up than he already is while we get done for assault. Brilliant idea.'

'Nobody to do us for assault though is there, Em,' I reminded her. 'There's no-one running the show here now. Look about. It's just us.'

'Well, I don't care, Jake, we're not going to kick anyone's head in. All right? We're not going to act like dogs. That'd make us little better than Goon.'

I sipped my Raw City, watching Scuppers playing down there in the centre of the ruined castle bailey, chasing a manky old tennis ball around the dusty rubble-strewn bowl that once served as the castle pond. He flopped down on his belly and started chewing it. Gnawing bits off and spitting them out... gnawing bits off, spitting them out. I shrugged. 'You wanted my opinion, Em.' I glanced at the old cartwheel scar on my forearm. 'Far as I'm concerned, Goon's well overdue for a good head kicking.'

'Somebody else with a more constructive plan?' Emily asked the air.

'What if there's a way to stop him making his way down to the catacombs?' Kate said. 'One that doesn't involve braining him.'

'I'm all ears,' Emily told her.

'In that report you found, it stated that he's looking for some key that'll get him into the catacombs?'

'That's right.'

'Right then, what if he hasn't found this particular key yet?

We sat there eyeing Kate, thoughtful.

'Yeah, that's a good point,' Mark said.

'I mean, if he had,' Kate continued, 'he'd be down in the catacombs by now. So if we find it before he does, then his campaign's as good as over.'

'Maybe that's why he's hypnotising everyone,' Mark said. 'To keep enough people in town for when he blows the place up. Maybe he thought he'd have gotten down to the catacombs by now. Or maybe he's been down there already and is just biding his time.'

'Yeah, well there're three bits to that key,' I reminded them. 'I mean, that's what it stated in that report, didn't it?'

'That's right,' Emily confirmed.

'Okay,' I said, 'well as far as I know, Goon's got two pieces.'

Emily eyed me suspicious like. 'How would you know that?'

I shrugged. 'I saw him carrying them. I saw him trying to use them.'

They all turned and watched me.

'You saw him with two pieces of the key?' Emily asked.

'Yep.'

'Where?' she challenged. 'When?'

I pointed with my beer. 'The day I went missing. At the Archway.'

Their heads swivelled in that direction.

'That's where the doorway is.'

Emily frowned. 'The doorway? Into the catacombs?'

'Yeah. It's at the Arch.'

'How could you possibly know that?'

Sounded like I'd hit a raw nerve. Perhaps for once I'd outsmarted her. 'I found a book in Staten's shop. All about old Burnchess explorers. One was this bloke called Sir Robertson Popcorn or something. He mapped the catacomb network. It said how he got in was a doorway concealed on the archway.' This wasn't entirely true of course. The book in question had no details on how old Popcorn or whatever his name was had accessed the catacombs. But Emily didn't need to know that. 'That's also how I know they were parts of this key. They matched pictures in that book.' Emily bought it, I think. Most of it at least.

'And you saw Goon trying to open this door?'

'Yep.' Another fib but who was counting?

Emily looked puzzled. She gazed toward the far end of Castle Grove, looking at the Archway. Now she looked back at me. 'What exactly were you doing there?'

I frowned at her like it was obvious. 'Trailing him.'

'Trailing him?'

'Yeah. I saw him snooping about and had to know what he was up to.' More little white lies. If I remember it correctly (and my head was still fuzzy about that particular morning) I'd been at the Archway simply trying to locate a hidden doorway. Goon'd turned up while I was there. Still, fib or not, what did I care? I was making my point.

They wanted to see it then. The doorway. 'Can you show us it?' Emily said challengingly.

'What? The doorway?'

'Yes.'

I told her it was almost impossible to make out. But the three of them wanted to make up their own minds. So next thing I know we're headed for the Archway at other end of Burnchess.

When we reached it, I realised it was the first time I'd been there since the morning I'd vanished. I felt nervous. I was acutely aware of Fanny's souvenir cart behind us. All shut up and silent. I didn't want to look. I recalled Mark saying his remains'd had to be washed off the cobbles. The thought sickened me. More so now that I stood right where he'd been murdered. Every mark, every stain, I imagined was his dried blood.

Strange though, the longer we were there, images forced their way back into my mind. About that morning before I'd vanished. I'd had that mask with me. That thing Liberty Ruckerson had given me. I remembered I'd put it on. I'd seen strange tortured faces flowing through the clouds, yellow ghost things swirling about them. I'd even seen some enormous face hovering there above Burnchess.

The thing that troubled me though was that I couldn't tell whether or not I'd really seen that shit or maybe it'd all been part of some greater hallucination.

When the others asked me to point out the door, I had to gather myself. I actually felt nauseated as I stood there. Too much of that morning was coming back to me. And far too quickly for my liking. Kate noticed. I caught her watching me, a concerned frown on her face. But I didn't want them asking questions. I swallowed and simply told them, 'I don't know where the doorway is exactly, but this is where I saw him. Goon. Trying to work the keys into the stonework.'

We stood at the western end of the structure, the huge gargoyle statue watching us. And when they realised there wasn't a visible doorway to be seen they all looked at me like I was making this up.

'I told you it was hidden,' I said, like that was the best excuse I had. 'That's why we've never noticed it before.' I saw Emily looking at me from the corner of her eye.

'There's not even a keyhole,' she pointed out.

I shrugged. 'I know.' Another memory slithered through my thoughts. I was holding that mask to my face and seeing a bright pulse of aqua marine light. I remembered when I inspected this light, it showed off the indent of a three-eyed face in the stone work. One that, for some reason, could not be seen with the naked eye, even, as it turned out, in broad daylight.

They watched me, waiting for some explanation. 'Look,' I told them. 'All I know is, Goon had two bits of this key. Whether or not he's managed to claim the third piece in the meantime, I don't know. All I know is, that morning Goon never got the doorway open.'

'Why?' Emily asked.

'I don't know. I think I spooked him. Because when he saw me he ran. I thought I ought to follow him. So I trailed him across Strangler's Vale but he vanished into Wolfcrag Forest. That's the last I remember.' (Except for the spider-monster-ape-thing, which, of course, I told them nothing about.)

They were sceptical. I could see it. I didn't care. I shrugged as if to say take it or leave it. Scuppers had trailed us up Castle Grove. He flicked the tennis ball back and forth like a dead rat before it flung off into the daisies that swayed with the sea breeze near Fanny's deserted souvenir stand. Scuppers tore after it. For the moment Coddington Lane and the parking lot outside the Barley Mill coach terminal lay deserted.

'Look,' I said, 'all I'm trying to say is, yeah maybe Goon doesn't have the full set of keys yet. But I'm certain he's at least got two bits.'

'So,' Mark said, 'we start searching for the third bit then. Simple.'

'And leave Goon unguarded?' Emily asked. 'No way. I don't want to let him out of our sight. If what you say is true, Jake,' and she sent me a look like she still didn't fully believe me, 'then it's been quite some days since you saw him here at the Archway. We have to assume that in that time Goon may have acquired the final piece of the key. That means we need eyes on him at all times. If there's no-one else to help us then it's up to us to stop him going through with his plans.'

I shrugged. 'Right, well why don't we split up then? One lot search for the third piece of the key, and one lot keep an eye on him.'

'Yes, already thought of that,' Emily said with a smug grin. 'But keeping him under surveillance without him noticing us is going to be the trick, isn't it? Or have you forgotten how crafty he is?'

'Actually,' Kate said, 'I've just thought of something.' She pointed to a structure across the village. 'The Henbane Clock Tower.'

We all followed her finger.

'From the top you can probably see directly into Goon's garden, right?'

Emily frowned at the distant tower. 'Yes, I think you might be right.'

'So, why don't we keep a watch on him from up there?'

We considered this for a few moments.

'Like a stakeout?' Mark asked.

Emily's eyes gleamed. 'Yes, what a brilliant idea.

'Whenever he leaves his cottage we'll know,' Kate went on. 'Up there we won't ever have to let him out of our sight.'

Emily's eyes sparkled. You could see her thoughts ticking over like fire through dry brush. 'Yes. Brilliant. While we try and determine where the final piece of this key is, we'll put surveillance on him twenty-four hours a day. We'll photograph anything suspicious. We'll detail all his movements and build a case against him.'

I grinned. 'Yeah and in the meantime, if he makes his move to destroy the village, the four of us meet him with cricket bats.'

'Yeah,' Mark said, 'and brain him.'

'Brilliant idea,' I agreed. 'Goodnight. End of story.'

THE STAKEOUT

1

THE HENBANE Clock Tower is a pretty fucking weird looking thing. It matches nothing else in the entire Burnchess region. It's about sixty to seventy feet in height with a cone-shaped roof and it's got red ivy growing all over it. Its outer walls are made of jagged stone blocks with downward poking iron prongs sticking out of them. The creepy thing is the seven or eight life-sized statues attached to it. We're told they're representations of the lizard-like Henbane witches. They all look as if they're clambering up the stonework. (Mum used to tell me that they'd wriggle to life and eat you if you weren't indoors by tea time.)

History texts are hazy as to who actually built the place. People say the witches inhabited it from the early part of the 1700s until their mass execution in 1793. Folks say they added the exterior sculptures themselves. Or that their remains are stuffed inside those sculptures. Which allegedly explains the terrifying screams you often hear coming from inside that old clock tower. (Although, there's a sound argument it's nothing more than the wailing wind.) But I guess that could be one of the reasons why the place has been locked up and undisturbed for close to a hundred years. Because no-one wants to go near the place.

2

First thing we had to do was gain access to the tower and work out if we really could see into Goon's garden from there. But you can't just go waltzing into the clock tower anytime you feel like it. It's closed off by a thick iron door at its base and as far as I know that door hasn't been unlocked or opened for a hundred years. But there's a key. One that remains in the possession of the village council's heritage division. But Louise, being head of local council has access to it. And well, with the council temporarily out of action, Emily conveniently 'borrowed' it.

Next thing was to get a fix on Goon's position. Like Emily'd said, we didn't want him seeing us making our way into the tower. So, initially we thought we'd split up. To, you know, search for him. But I told them, 'No point. This time of day, he's likely to be up at the Wrotting Worm.'

Having said that, it wasn't as if it was business as usual in old Burnchess town. Goon could've been anywhere. But if he was at a dead end looking for the last bit of the key, or if he was biding his time before detonating his bomb, then maybe he was down the pub as usual.

Sure enough, when me and Mark strolled up Blackcross Lane passed the Wrotting Worm pub, there he was, sitting with his back to us, in his usual spot: the darkened corner beyond the end of the bar.

Strange when I saw him, I still just felt this fucking rage. It astounded me that he could just sit there so arrogantly and enjoy a beer without a care in the world. While Dad lay in a coma in Lambeth Royal. While everyone was fucked over. While Burnchess was in peril. I just wanted to charge in there and yell at all the punters, let them know Goon was actively planning their deaths. If only they knew, I kept thinking, if only they bloody well knew. But no doubt he had the whole place under his spell and they wouldn't have listened to us even if we'd yelled at the top of our lungs.

I had this idea that me and Mark ought to hide somewhere and ambush Goon on his way home. We didn't have to tell Emily about it. I figured me and Mark could take him. Rush him and knock his head into next week. Either that or we could tie him up and interrogate him. Demand he tell us if and where he placed his fucking bomb.

The thing that stopped me though was the thought of that knife he'd held above my neck. And his uncanny strength.

Mark phoned the girls, told them we'd located Goon, that the way was clear. They made the initial foray into the clock tower and confirmed Kate's suspicion: Goon's garden could indeed be kept under surveillance from that vantage point.

3

After that Emily said we needed to gather ourselves some stakeout essentials. For some reason that was left to me and her. She told Kate to keep guard at the top of the tower and Mark to remain outside the Wrotting Worm where he could keep an eye on Goon's movements. Then me and Emily went back to the Inn and sourced some stuff from Dad's dusty police stores—old model, or obsolete items the village police unit no longer used. Binoculars, sound equipment, etc. She even had us pack water bottles and snacks. Like we were off on some journey and wouldn't be back for days.

When we finally met Kate at the tower we had to push in behind the choking mass of hawthorn hedge surrounding its base. Like Kate said, it's as thick as New Guinea jungle. But that's the only way in. You've got to squeeze your guts (or your arse—depending on which way you tackle it) tight against the stonework and inch your way around the tower wall. Which is brilliant if you're planning some stakeout and don't want some tosser seeing what you're up to. But that hawthorn is like some clawing, suffocating bear; once we'd entered the tower, the scratches on our arms and faces made us look as though we'd been roughed up or mugged.

We took the spiral stairs to the top where it opens onto a covered landing inside the hollow belltower. There's where the inner workings of the old clock have long been gutted and pillaged. Once there, Emily starts hissing orders. 'Right then, Jake, put the tripod and GoPro over there. Kate, position the night-scope and remote-ear here. We'll leave the thermal imager and binoculars on the ledge, and for God's sake, Jake, put that cricket bat away.'

I'd had it slung across my shoulder, ready to take it to Goon if it turned out he'd followed us.

Once we'd set up our gear, Emily got to dictating how the operation should run. 'There'll be two of us stationed here at all times. In shifts of eight hours. The teams as I see them shall be Kate and myself, Jake and Mark. Once one team completes their shift the other team takes over and the team not posted here will be busy trying to unearth any sign of that key. Like I suggested, we conduct this operation twenty-four hours a day until either we find the third piece of key or until, in the event we need to take such measures, we physically restrain Goon and prevent him blowing up his little bomb.'

Does that involve cricket bats? I wondered. Had Emily had a change of heart?

'Oh, and one final thing. I propose that the air-raid siren be our insurance policy,' she said. 'If indeed Goon already possesses each bit of the key and he makes a break for the catacombs and manages to slip under our radar, then we assume he's moving to execute his plan. In such an event, we activate the siren. With the police rendered useless, this'll be the optimum method in shifting people from the village en masse. Agreed?'

The air-raid siren (far as I knew) hadn't sounded since WW2. But it's been village policy to keep it in some sort of working order in case of an emergency—primarily another earthquake. It's one of the first things visitors learn on arrival to our sleepy little hamlet by the sea: that if you time your visit right, you could end up perishing in a mighty cliff collapse. Except the literature doesn't exactly word it so plainly. Leaflets (laid down in every room of every bar and Inn) and warning signs hanging in the streets, specify that in the event of the air-raid siren being activated, people must immediately evacuate the village and advance to the official assembly point. This being along the Brandywine Road beyond the Seven Ghosts Woodland, in the largest of Farmer Beechworth's fields.

Anyway, air raid siren or not, I wasn't certain even a nuclear blast would jog the people of Burnchess out of whatever spell Goon had placed them under. But better to have some plan than none, I guess.

'We start immediately,' Emily says. 'Any questions?'

I didn't have any. But I did need to point one thing before we went any further. 'Look, this key we're all planning to search for. You lot need to know it's not like any ordinary key.'

They looked at me strange.

'The bit we're searching for looks like a dismembered hand.'

They were speechless. Kate even laughed. 'A hand?'

'Yeah. It's got six fingers.'

'A hand?' Emily said.

'Yep. As I just said.'

She wasn't having it. 'A six fingered hand is one of three parts to this key?'

'Sounds unlikely, doesn't it,' I said. 'I didn't quite believe it myself but—'

'A real hand?'

'Bloody hell, yeah.' Then I considered the skull and the so-called mask. I shrugged. 'Maybe. I don't know.'

Emily folded her arms. 'And you were planning on telling us this, when?'

'I just told you. What does it matter?'

She kept watching me with those suspicious eyes of hers. 'How do you know all this stuff, Jake?'

'It's in that book I got from Staten's.'

She smiled. 'Oh, this infamous book again. Actually, I should like to see this book for myself, if you don't mind.'

I shrugged again. 'Sorry but I took it back to Staten's. It's probably been sold by now.'

She watched me with narrowed eyes. 'Really? How convenient.'

4

The first night in the clocktower proved uneventful. I'd gone back to keep Mark company outside the Wrotting Worm and fill him in on how Emily'd decided how this operation was going to be run. Then when Goon finally left the pub we phoned the girls to tell them he was on the move.

We trailed him, ready for action; I thought maybe he'd been waiting until dark before he got up to mischief. But he just went home.

So, Emily and Kate were on watch that first night. They'd drawn the nightshift after losing a coin toss that Emily insisted on having. Which didn't worry me one bit. I was more than happy not to spend any night in that fucking tower if I could help it.

Turns out, Goon barely stirred the entire night. Only once did he get up, we were told. That was to go and piss away all the stout he'd sunk earlier in the evening. Then he went straight back to bed.

While that was going on me and Mark did our bit searching for the key. Well, trying to come up with ideas about where the hell to look for it. I figured if Goon'd broken in to the Inn to search for the missing piece then maybe he had some suspicion that it was hidden somewhere in the Hare Of The Dog.

I thought maybe there might be something in the attic. But I found the attic locked. So maybe that's what Goon had been searching for in Emily's room. The key. Thing was, I'd never known the attic door to be locked. And I didn't know where the fuck dad kept the key. I rang Emily and asked if she knew. She said she didn't. She said she'd call her mum to find out. By then her mum had tried rallying the council members all to no effect. And at a loss she'd returned to Lambeth to be by dad's side, vowing to set things straight once dad had recovered. She claimed the attic key should've been hanging on the hook in the kitchen. But when I went to check, it wasn't there.

5

Next morning me and Mark relieved the girls at six. They went off to catch up on some sleep before they did their part in the search for the key. Before they departed, Emily wanted precise details on where we'd searched so far. 'We don't want to be going over ground you've already covered,' she argued. Mark had been keeping a careful log on all that shit. Our search had been centred primarily on the Inn. The upstairs lounge room and bedrooms. The shed. Any rooms not currently occupied by tourist morons. (Which were most of them.) The downstairs store rooms. I'd even rung Hayley, mostly to just chat, but also to ask her if her parents kept any such weird artefacts. Mark passed all this info over to Emily and we were left to keep watch on Goon.

Spying on the village madman, this peculiar window into the bloke's life, was sort of intriguing. He got up roundabout 6:30 and fixed a cup of tea and sipped it at the iron table in his garden with sparrows chirping about the lawn. He had a folder with him. He pulled out its contents and leafed through several bits of paper. I got the binoculars to my eyes to see if I could catch any details. But the dawn light made it difficult to see.

'What do you think he's got there?' Mark asked.

'Your guess is as good as mine.'

After that Goon was back inside enjoying slices of black pudding on toast with fried onion. He had the radio on. We could hear it through his kitchen window.

When he was done he washed up and seemed to vanish for a while. Thing is, we couldn't find him anywhere. The last we'd seen was Goon leaving the kitchen and moving down his hallway.

'He's got a basement, remember,' I said. But I couldn't help thinking that maybe he'd fucking run off somehow.

Just as we were deciding whether or not one of us ought to go and scope out the side street, Goon suddenly shuffled back into view carrying a wooden box of some sort. He lumped it onto his dining table. Then slowly, methodically, he began sorting through it.

Maybe he'd been down in his basement.

Again I watched him through the binoculars. He was removing objects one by one from that box. They looked strange, exotic. Miniature elephants carved from wood with tiny drawers that slid out from their bellies. Spoons of bone or ivory with faces of ghouls etched into their scoops. Knives with rusted blades shaped like licks of flame. A statuette of what appeared to be a monkey who had cut off its own face; it gripped a blade in one hand and its face in the other, holding it in such a way that it gazed back at itself. There were dried fish, one eating another eating another eating another. A toad (desiccated or wooden it was difficult to tell) with what seemed to be a human foetus in its belly. (Fake no doubt, but still ghastly.) And a couple of masks. I sat up when I saw these, thinking one of them must've been the Veisder he'd stolen off me. But neither of them bore three eye sockets. And one looked more suited to a masquerade ball. Nothing like the Veisder at all.

When Goon dragged out the final item I growled at Mark. 'Holy shit, that's the piece we're looking!' But even though it was a hand, it didn't possess six fingers. And it wasn't all skeletal and creepy looking. It was more puffy, like a gorilla hand that'd been stuffed and preserved. I sighed. 'False alarm.'

Goon stood there running his eyes across this collection. Before he impatiently returned all items to the wooden crate. After that he stomped off to his lounge room, flicked on the telly and began sorting through another couple of boxes. These were filled with files of paper. This is pretty much where he remained for the rest of our shift. Meticulously reading through whatever shit he had down there. He broke only for lunch. Frying himself egg and steak.

'Where do you think he got these boxes and stuff from?' Mark asked.

'Who knows?' I said with a shrug. 'But if he's got everyone in the village under his spell, well, maybe he stole them out of folk's houses without them thinking anything of it.'

Emily and Kate returned to the clock tower at 2pm. We told them what'd gone on. They were intrigued; Emily asked a whole barrage of questions about the items he'd pulled out of the box. She was particularly interested in the gorilla hand. I had to keep telling her it wasn't the key.

That afternoon, after me and Mark'd left, Goon finally gave up on his reading and returned to the pub. Kate had been assigned to keep an eye on him while Emily remained in the clock tower. Emily had this idea that someone had to remain in the tower at all times. She pointed out that if two were trailing him then, thanks to the tall hedge rows bordering his cottage, you ran the risk of losing sight of him once he'd pushed through his gate. 'When he vacates the street for his garden,' she said, 'it's better to have a set of eyes in the sky. That, way he never leaves our sight.'

Goon was still at his favourite watering hole by 10pm when me and Mark returned for the graveyard shift. I opted to go and take over from Kate where she was stationed outside the Wrotting Worm. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to just be able to chat with her for a while, you know, like mates, without that Wankerson tosser around. Like we used to do when we were kids. Apologise that I'd tried to kiss her and stuff. I still wasn't exactly comfortable about walking alone on the empty streets but if it meant being with Kate for a short time then it was worth it.

When I reached her though, all I could think about was her trip away with Wankerson. It made me feel inadequate somehow. I now wished Mark'd come to relieve her instead.

'Any change?' I asked her, finding it hard to look her in the eye.

She shook her head. She was crouched in a spot in the lane where she had a direct view of where Goon sat in the dark at the end of the bar. But the way she was positioned behind the Red Robin shrubs growing tall and bushy in the large ceramic pots outside The Milliner New & Loved Hat shop, it would've been difficult for him to spot her. Even if he ambled straight past her. 'No he just sits there,' she said, 'drinking alone and looking like he has things on his mind.'

I nodded. I looked about nervously.

'You okay?' she asked.

'Yeah. Still getting used to these outdoor spaces again, I guess.'

She took my hand. 'It's alright, Jake. You're quite safe.'

I don't know how she knew that but it made me feel calmer somehow.

'Any luck finding the key?' she asked.

'No.'

She checked the time on her phone. 'Oh well, guess I'll be off then.'

I felt deflated. I'd hoped she might hang around for a while. But I guess she wanted to get home and call old toss pot to see how he was going.

'Good luck,' she said.

After she'd gone I felt vulnerable. Even before the sun went down, the streets presented ominous shadows. I grew paranoid that at any moment I'd hear a noise of swishing air and I'd whirl around to find the Charweeds standing right behind me.

6

Goon left the pub at last drinks. I ducked down behind the shrub and held my breath. But by then he was three sheets to the wind and probably wouldn't have noticed a rocket fired through his ear. Still, as I trailed him home, I kept my distance, just watching him, ready to duck for cover if he happened to glance over his shoulder. More than once I thought about running up and tackling him, dropping him into the cobblestones. But each time, I just had this strange feeling that his drunken stumble was a put on, that somehow he knew I was following him, that he actually wanted me to rush forward so that he could whirl on me at the last second and shove that knife of his up through my ribs.

So I stayed back.

When I made it back to the tower Emily'd left but Mark was there, continuing the watch. Goon'd stumbled indoors and had passed out on his settee.

So, we settled in for the long wait.

Turned out to be another humdrum night. We pretty much sat there till dawn just waiting for Goon to do something, for something to happen. To pass the time Mark began asking me about my disappearance. He wanted to know if anything else'd come back to me. And if I knew yet where the hell I'd been.

I don't know why he kept asking, but it was doing my head in. I kept telling him, 'Mark, honestly mate, I don't wanna talk about it.'

He said, 'Okay, brutha.'

Once sun'd dropped and night crept in Mark then went about aiming the night vision goggles up and down the street.

'Mark,' I said, 'what the hell are you doing? You'll give our position away if you don't sit still.'

'You want me to sit still, brutha, or you want something creeping up on us?,' he said nervously. 'I'm just trying to cover our arses here.'

Him just saying that alarmed me. The image of that spider thing on the Vale kept running through my mind. Watching it scramble over the wall and charging after me. Seeing it right there before it ripped into me. I had images again of flailing intestines and a leg flipping into the sky. It gave me chills just thinking about it. 'Nothing's gonna be creeping up on us, Mark.'

He heard the lack of conviction in my voice. Hell, even I could hear it. If it'd been earlier in the night I would've called Hayley. Just to chat to someone who didn't want to go on about monsters every fucking minute. But I didn't want to wake her. I put on my headphones and played stuff like Faker's This Heart Attack or Eminem's Lose Yourself. To try and take my mind of monsters and the like. I forced my eyes shut. Hallucinations, I kept telling myself, that's all they were, Jake. That creature was never there. It never happened.

7

Next morning when the girls relieved us, Mark'd begun asking me about the upcoming Dead Man's Challenge. It's a local competition with a history going back five hundred years. He wondered if it was still going to be held this year on account of all the shit that'd been going on.

'Dunno, mate,' I said. 'I'd doubt it though.'

When the girls reached the top of the stairs I saw Emily carrying the morning paper and she says, 'Looks like they've captured the mandrills.'

I assumed, her bringing this news meant she and Kate hadn't managed to hunt down the key. If they had, the mandrill stuff would've taken second place over her boasting. But still, the news of the captured monkeys came as some relief. According to the article, Chingola Reserve Management had released a statement declaring that of the fourteen mandrills that'd fled captivity, fourteen had been rounded up and accounted for. I wasn't sure if I fully believed it. Chingola Wildlife Reserve has a history of half-truths. Why change their ways now?

'How are they still in business?' I wanted to know. 'Sooner they close that place down, the better for all of us.'

'I think that's something we're all wondering, Jake,' Kate said.

'Anyway,' Emily said, 'on other matters, Kate and have found the key for the attic.'

I looked up at her. 'Really? Where was it?'

'Turns out, Dad'd put it on his keyring the morning after our break in. Mum found it last night in his personal belongings.'

'So, did you find anything up there then?' I asked.

Emily shrugged. 'Lots of junk but no key. Nothing like the object you described, at any rate. Any developments here?'

Me and Mark relayed the night's events (in other words, nothing) then left the girls to it. Mark went home to catch some Z's and I returned to the Inn.

Emily had given me the attic key so I'd taken some time sifting through the shit up there on my own. I uncovered some interesting stuff. My old Super Nintendo system that Mum bought me when I was a kid. A bunch of old cartridge games to go with it. Mum's X Files DVDs. I even found dad's ancient Steve Austin Six Million Dollar Man doll with the bionic arm and telescopic eye that he'd been given as a kid in the 70s. But like Emily and Kate, I found no key.

By the end of my search I began yawning profusely. So I left the attic and went downstairs to my bedroom. I stayed awake long enough to call Lambeth Royal. I'd been thinking of Dad more or less the entire time since we'd left him. Louise (to her credit, I guess) hadn't vacated Royal Lambeth other than one or two brief stints in Burnchess to see to the shit going down with the council. Stuff she still hadn't been able to rectify. But she told us to call her anytime if we were worried about Dad. But I couldn't. Not her. I actually appreciated her standing vigil at his bedside, but of all people I couldn't bring myself to ring was her.

I phoned Dr Atwood—she'd given me her personal number. When I called (and when I finally got onto her) she explained the verdict was still the same: Dad would likely remain in a coma for some time yet.

I sighed and hung up and lay there staring at the wall. I found myself contemplating the incident that'd put him there. The burning Chingola truck. I remembered him racing onto the Vale on his Suzuki trail bike. The smoke from the burning truck billowing into the blue sky. But the thing my mind kept tormenting me with was something I'd never even witnessed: Goon running Dad into the ravine.

Constantly visualising the incident kept me wired. I thought I wasn't going to get to sleep. But I must've just crashed out because next thing I know it's four hours later and my mobile's ringing.

Groggy, I fumbled for the phone and saw it was Hayley. I smiled tiredly as I put the phone to my ear. 'Hayley, wow, it's nice to hear your voice.'

We didn't chat about much. She asked how I was, how dad was. I asked how she was. She sounded lonely, even a bit pissed off. Something about her parents disagreeing with her idea to come back to Burnchess. I told her it was probably a good idea to stay away at the moment. 'This place is like a ship without its captain,' I told her. 'It's flying blind.' I almost said I'd drive up and see her, before I remembered my stakeout commitments. 'Look, I'd come and visit but no one's running the show here. Without Dad, the place is in the dark. We believe Goon's done something to Finch and Newson. It's a bit of a mess to tell you the truth. We're spying on him actually.'

She laughed. 'Spying on him? What on earth for?'

'Remember that night your mum came and saw me. Well, what she told me confirmed some evidence that Emily uncovered. That Goon wants to destroy Burnchess. So basically we're trying to stop him.'

'Really? Sounds exciting. Well, be careful.' I thought she was going to sign off then. But she said, 'Jake... I miss you.'

I told her, 'Yeah, I miss you too.' Thing is, I wasn't just saying it anymore. I actually meant it.

Afterwards, thinking about her, I lay there trying to get myself motivated for more key hunting. I just wanted to drop everything and drive up to St Austell to be with her. I didn't feel like searching for the damn key. And I didn't want to go on leaving myself vulnerable and exposed in the tower every night. Somehow it all seemed pointless anyway. Goon probably already had that six-fingered hand. Maybe him pulling all that stuff out of that wooden box had been some sort of show. Maybe he knew we were watching him. Which was a worrying thought in itself.

Still, after I said bye to Hayley and hung up, I had an idea...

I fished out mum's diary and sat there contemplating it. I got up and moved to the window. I stood there a few moments, surveying the street. It was sunny out. Such a nice summer's day. I was acutely aware of that octopus sign across the Grove. That damned goggle-eyed octopus... lately it just seemed to be always watching me.

What I wondered though, was Staten. If he'd had that skull, well, maybe he had the hand too. I felt like a twat for not thinking of this earlier.

8

I waited till Mark'd come over before I made a move to Staten's. When we got up to the bookshop there was an OPEN sign on the shop door and Staten himself was busy dusting the shelves; gripping the duster in both hands.

I thought maybe with the shop open for business once more I ought to have been there. You know, seeing as I was an employee and all. When I asked Staten about it he said, 'Oh, no Jake, I don't want you worrying yourself. You're on stress leave, remember. Besides, you're getting stress pay, so I wouldn't concern myself with it.'

'Stress pay?' It was nice to know, but as far as I recall there'd been nothing about stress leave pay in the employment forms that I'd signed when I'd taken on the position. 'I shouldn't think so, Mr Staten,' but Mark nudged me in the ribs like I'd do well to shut up in case Staten changed his mind. I whispered to Mark, 'It's not right though, mate. This business doesn't make enough money as it is.'

'Well, bring it up at a later date,' Mark said. 'We've got other things to think about right now.' Mark winked.

Mark again stood guard by the door and I followed Staten down to the spot where the tea and coffee sat. 'Staten, you mind if I ask you something?' I looked round to make sure Mark was out of ear shot. Then I pulled mum's diary from my jeans and presented an open page to Staten. I wanted him to see the so-called key segments clearly.

He looked down at the pictures.

'You haven't seen something like this six-fingered hand?' I asked. 'Somewhere in your basement?'

He didn't reply. I thought he was ruminating.

'You know, where you dug out that skull. Was there anything like this down there?'

Again he said nothing.

'Staten?'

He looked at me like I'd just entered. Like the last time I was here.

I pointed at the photograph of the six fingered hand. 'This thing. You don't have that somewhere down in your basement? You know, like you had that skull.'

'Hmmm,' he said. 'I don't think so. You're welcome to have a look. Goon was in here some time speaking of something similar. Now, when was that? Yesterday? Day before? I'm not entirely certain but I let him have a look down there. I'm not sure what he found. I'd gone off for some lunch, you see. Mr Goon said he'd mind the shop.'

'What?' I blinked at him, incredulous. 'You let him in your basement while you went off for lunch?'

'Oh yes. He was ever so kind.'

Staten really was under the bloke's spell.

'You're welcome to take a look, Jake.' And he pointed to the door behind the cash register.

9

I'd been through that door only once. It's the door through to Staten's private residence. I'd been there on one of those days not long after starting work there. I'd knocked, not knowing where Staten was and gone through, calling his name. But when he hadn't responded to my call I'd left his cottage alone. It didn't feel right snooping about.

That day he let me through and showed me the stairway down into the cellar. Then he returned to his dusting.

It was dark down there. In his cellar. Even with a couple of small bulbs in the ceiling. It was also a mess. Wooden boxes filled with all sorts of junk. And I couldn't help thinking then of all that stuff I'd seen Goon rifling through. Goon must've helped himself and lifted some boxes of this shit out of there.

I told Mark what I was doing and he came down to help with the search.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we found lots. But not the thing we were after.

10

On the third day of Operation: Peas In A Pod (the name Emily had now branded our little mission) me and Mark were partway through the afternoon/twilight shift when Emily and Kate turned up out of the blue. It was 3:30 in the afternoon on the 21st of August, three days before D Day. Their next shift didn't kick off till 10 pm that night. Me and Mark were munching on burgers and slurping cola. Mark had brought up the Dead Man's Challenge again. I reminded him it was likely to be cancelled with the summer we were having. After that I'd called up Dr Atwood again to get an update on Dad. She said his condition hadn't changed. He still lay comatose in Lambeth Royal and she urged me to be patient.

I couldn't tell why the hell the girls turned up at the tower so early. I thought they'd found something. The last piece of the key maybe. That Emily was there to gloat.

But as they reached the top of the stairwell Emily says, 'What's the situation?'

The sun drifted sluggishly across a glaring blue sky and a muggy wind drifted through the tower carrying a strong salty smell of seaweed. Bugs hissed in the trees. I shrugged. 'Take a look for yourself?'

She studied Goon from the rampart. Goon was where he'd been for the last couple of hours: in his lounge room, on his settee, still going through another box load of files and paper.

'What is he reading?' she wanted to know.

I shrugged. 'Don't know. I've tried focusing the binoculars on him but I haven't been able to work it out yet.'

Emily took up the binoculars, obviously with the belief she'd do a better job.

'You think there's information regarding the whereabouts of the key?' Kate asked.

The fact Kate was even asking this question told us she and Emily had been unsuccessful in rounding up the six fingered hand. 'Me and Mark wondered that too,' I said. 'But Mark's got another theory.'

Emily lowered the binoculars and cast her gaze upon Mark. 'Oh? And what's that then?'

Mark shrugged. 'I'm just throwing out ideas. But say Goon's already found the key. Say he's found it and all this stuff he's doing is nothing but a front.'

Scuppers had followed the girls up the stairs and sat there wiggling his tail for attention, hoping to cop himself some burger meat. When that didn't work, he lay on his belly and put his muzzle on my ankle, watching me with his big dopey eyes. Around us the village lay silent except for the trilling bugs and the sound of the ocean against the cliffs, and the gulls. Farming and fishing folk still manned their market stalls although trade was still a trickle.

'You think he's found it?' Emily asked with a thoughtful tone.

Mark shrugged. 'I don't know, Em. I'm just putting it out there. No-one can find it. So maybe he's got it somewhere.'

'Apparently he was in Staten's yesterday going through the basement,' I told her. 'I've got a feeling he's lifted a lot of stuff out of there. But if he's got a hold of that key, I mean who knows. Maybe he's hidden it somewhere. Maybe he's now just waiting for the big day.'

Emily stood there eyeing me. 'Hidden it?'

'Yeah. Why not?'

'Good. Fair point.'

I could've choked. I mean, another compliment? Two in the space of a few days.

'Actually,' she says, 'I have something here that might give this notion some merit.'

'Really?' I said. I was genuinely surprised. Not only did she seem willing to run with our idea but she had something that might substantiate it?

'Firstly,' she says, 'how far is Chingola Wildlife Reserve situated from Burnchess?'

We watched her, the warm breeze catching the tip of her ponytail. Was this a quiz? Or did she genuinely not know? 'About seven or eight miles,' I told her.

'Seven point three to be exact,' she said. 'And what well-known location is it situated near there?'

'The Ravenwood Crags,' Mark opted.

'No. The other direction. What lies directly south of the Reserve?'

Bored, I chewed down some fries. 'Wolfcrag Forest?' Everyone knew that.

'Exactly. Now look at this.' She presented some yellowed scrap of paper to us.

I took it and ran my eyes over it.

GHOSTSHIP COTTAGE, WOLFCRAG FOREST

—DEEDS TO PROPERTY

Where it stated BUYER'S SIGNATURE, a messy scribble appeared to say Radford Stoker Goon. Dated some thirty years back.

Well, a cottage within Wolfcrag Forest? Who would've thought? Immediately I conjured up this image of some rickety, old, moss covered dwelling in the woods crawling with bugs and worms. I handed the document back to Emily.

'Interesting, don't you think?' Emily asked me. 'Sort of makes sense now why Goon decided to take your dear Dad out of the picture in such violent fashion. Perhaps Charlie came close to discovering Goon's secret hideaway.'

A good point, I thought.

Emily folded her arms. 'I mean, why else would Goon take such drastic measures against a senior officer if he didn't have something to hide?'

'You think he's hiding stuff out at this cottage?' Mark asked.

'Why not?' Emily said. 'If he really has unearthed the third piece of this key then maybe that's where he's concealed it. Alongside the remaining two pieces. And that's not all. What if he's concealing certain explosives there too?'

We all eyed her, fascinated with the suggestion. 'Yeah, that's a bloody good point,' Mark told her.

She went on, directing her gaze at me. 'Perhaps that's where he was heading when you chased him across the Vale.'

Fat lazy flies buzzed about the tower, drawn by the smell of our burgers.

'I'm only speculating of course,' she says, 'but perhaps that's where you were contained the three days you went missing.'

I bit my lip. I didn't even want to imagine being stuck somewhere in those woods, let alone some strange little cottage owned by Goon. But the implication was clear enough: he'd kidnapped me. Drugged me. Held me against my will.

'Nothing like that has been confirmed, Em,' I told her, grimacing. 'It's all just, you know...' My voice trailed away. I saw that spider beast flash through my mind. Just before it tore into me.

My skin turned ice cold.

Just a figment of your mind, Jake, I told myself nervously. Just a figment. Nothing more. But I shuddered in the warm air.

Emily came around and kneeled before me, trying to get eye level with me. When she next spoke, her voice had softened. 'Jake, look, I'm merely speculating. But if this helps jog some memory, if we had some sort of proof that your disappearance was perpetrated by Goon, then we might take an allegation to Tennant and try to get Goon arrested for kidnap and deprivation of liberty.'

I sighed. 'Honestly, Em, I remember nothing. Absolutely nothing.'

She eyed me. I stared at the landing. She stayed kneeling before me for a little while, searching my eyes, searching for some truth.

I shrugged. 'Sorry, Em.'

She nodded, sighed and stood.

'Emily,' Mark said, 'you think we ought to set out and find this cottage then?'

Swallows darted across the sky. Emily gazed back down at Goon. She shook her head. 'No. The best way to find it would be to trail him to it. And the only way we're going to do that is to stay at our post and keep an eye on him and follow him if and when he leaves.'

11

It was almost portentous what Emily said. Goon hadn't left his cottage in like two days. But later that afternoon, after the girls had buggered off, Goon finally up and walked out.

Mark and I jumped into action, scrambling to decide who'd get to remain in the clock tower and who'd be tasked with following. Whoever lost would play follower. I think we were both keen to remain in the tower.

We opted on Rock, Paper, Scissors. Burnchess rules. We were tied one-all when I lucked out after Mark's Shit-Grenade blew my Magic Toad to smithereens. 'Damn it,' I moaned. 'Best of three games?'

'Not likely,' Mark said. 'Oh, and you'd better get a push along, brutha. Goon's making good time.'

Actually, Goon was almost out of sight by the time I hurried out of the tower. And I half hoping that he was simply heading off to quench his thirst at the Wrotting Worm. But he bypassed Blackcross Lane altogether and headed straight up to the carpark outside the barley mill terminal.

It wasn't easy trying to keep hidden from him. He was obviously in a suspicious mood. He kept looking around. I had to keep ducking behind shop corners or trees or hedge rows. I thought I'd been spotted half a dozen times. But he kept pushing on up to the parking lot.

He's got this old black Land Rover. It's a rickety thing that must've seen its heyday in the 80's. But when he kept heading toward the car park I knew that's where he was going. I had to think quick. I didn't have the keys to Dad's car so I wasn't going to be able to tail Goon if he suddenly drove off. I dashed for cover behind the mill. When I peeked around the corner there went Goon, striding between parked cars, on route to his Land Rover.

Fuck, Jake, think!

My pulse quickened. I looked about. A bike. Anything. Once he took off, that'd be it, I'd be stuck here. I mean, what if he was off to this Ghostship place Emily'd told us about? I'd never hear the end of it if I let him out of my sight. But there was nothing hanging about I could use.

I left the cover of the mill and as quietly as I could, and stooping, I dashed for the row of cars in front of me. Goon was unlocking his Land Rover by then. Old style. Key in the slot sort of thing. No electronic fob. He looked around as he did so. I stooped down behind a Fiat Punto. Waited for a moment or two. Next, I heard his door squeak open and then slam shut. Then the engine kicking over.

Holy shit, Jake, whatever you're gonna do, do it quick!

Keeping low, I left the cover of the Fiat and bolted out into the car park, weaving in and out of vehicles, still keeping low, and I came up on the Land Rover. And just as Goon slotted it into gear and pulled away, I didn't even think about what I did, I just leapt onto the back and clung there off the spare tyre, my sneakers wedged on top of the tailgate, keeping my head below the grubby rear window. And with the hard stone cobbles racing by beneath me we left the village via the Lake Road.

12

The route intrigued me, of course. Wolfcrag Forest (and Goon's alleged secret cottage) lay in the opposite direction. So, where exactly was he going?

The vast expanse of Witchthorn Wood drifted by on our right and when we reached it, the towering walls of the maze, swished by on our left.

I began to fear that he must've spotted me as I'd run out and leapt onto his car. That he was driving off some place to dispose of me. I kept thinking I ought to just jump off before we get too far out of Burnchess, before he picked up too much speed. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. For one, I'd probably bloody well kill myself, and the other, well I had to know where he was headed. For all I knew, maybe he'd suddenly uncovered crucial information in all that paperwork he'd been trawling through. Maybe he'd discovered where the third and final bit of the key lay.

So, I just clung there. Trying not to entertain thoughts of falling off and cracking my head open on the roadway. I prayed it wouldn't be a long trip. Yet, we were soon driving by the sparkling waters of Breathless Lake and I kept thinking well, if we stick on the Lake Road, well that comes out on the B7754 which can get you to Horsefall, or if he takes the A390 at the junction we'll end up in fucking Truro or anywhere out in western Cornwall. If that was the case then I was going to look pretty damn conspicuous to other motorists, scooting down the A roads with me clinging to the back. They'd likely be tooting their horns and pulling alongside Goon with their windows down, asking him if he knew there was some fucking twat hanging off the back of his Land Rover. Provided I clung on that long. As it was, my arms and wrists and fingers were already beginning to burn with the effort of gripping onto that spare tyre.

Turns out, our little drive in the country terminated before we reached the B7754, right there on the north west fringe of Witchthorn Wood.

There's an old track that branches from the Lake Road a couple miles west of Breathless Lake. It's overgrown with grass and weeds and thistles and winds north up a short avenue of Monkey Puzzle Trees.

After Goon took the turn-off he began slowing the Land Rover. As he did, I glimpsed ahead, seeing a small meadow out to our west, dotted in daffodils and daisies. But immediately ahead of us a tall iron gate blocked the roadway. And it was beyond the gate that I caught sight of the cottage.

I was instantly curious. It was a double story cottage; converted from an old, stone barn. This was James Gemmel's old place. I hadn't been out this way in years. I almost didn't recognise it being so overgrown in thick rugs of ivy and the garden knotted in tall grass and brambles.

Gemmel, the bloke who used to live there, had been something of a recluse. Tales tell that he was some sort of fuck-ugly mutant, that he'd been born with his face twisted around to the side of his skull. That's why you never saw him. But when we were kids we used to come out here and taunt him, throw eggs over the fence at the cottage, try to get him angry enough to draw him from his cottage. There'd been Egg War I and Egg War II and the Battle Of The Stink Bombs. (I'd even written "war diaries" about our attacks.) We were pretty mean to old Gemmel, I guess, which is probably why he used to burst from his front door (dressed in that ghastly demonic clown mask to hide his features) and charge at the fence with some crazy gun that shot high powered pulses of gas that could knock you to your knees from a hundred yards off. Even after he'd vanished we used to ride our bikes out there and throw stones at the windows. We use to dare each other to climb the fence and sneak inside. The belief was Gemmel had died in that place, perished after some experiment had gone wrong. That his corpse sat there in some old chair, waiting for someone to find him.

Anyway, so Goon pulled his Land Rover up to the gate and he cut the engine. By then I'd dropped to the ground (banging my elbows, scraping my knees), and scrambled up behind the trees and ground-shrubs.

I hid there, ringing blood back into my forearms, fingers and hands, peaking round the side of the tree. Watching Goon.

There was an old chain around the gate hanging with a heavy padlock. I assumed Goon would attempt to unlock it. Instead, after looking about to perhaps make sure he was alone, Goon trailed the fence around to the right.

Out there to the east of the cottage lay Witchthorn Wood. For a few moments I thought that's actually where Goon was headed. I thought Emily must've had it wrong. I thought maybe it wasn't Wolfcrag where Goon had his little secret hideout after all, but here in Witchthorn. But as I kept my eye on Goon I watched him trail the fence line and then he stooped down amidst the tall grass that choked the base of the fence. Next he was crouching on one knee. He looked to be feeling around for something buried in the grass. He must've found something because then he lowered his face below the grass line.

I waited to see what he'd come up with. I was suddenly certain he'd buried something there, the way he looked to be digging at the earth. I scolded myself for not bringing with me some sort of weapon. For all I knew, this is where he'd stashed all three segments of the key. What if he was fetching them to take back to the village? After today, as far as we knew, we still had two days until D Day. But what if he planned to go down into the catacombs early. Set and prime his explosives. If I'd armed myself I could've ambushed the prick and had those keys off him.

A rock, I'm thinking. So I'm scrabbling about for a stone or a sturdy chunk of wood to brain him with and when I look up I realise I no longer see him. I freeze. Where the fuck is he? I'm thinking. I glance over my shoulder in case he's somehow snuck around and flanked me. No sight of him. Just wild grass and trees and shrubs stretching back to the Lake Road and beyond that just the ongoing woodland away toward the Hidden Sea Hills.

I was about to leave my position and scramble up to the spot I'd last seen him when I caught sight of movement.

Inside Gemmel's abandoned garden.

Goon.

He was picking his way through a patch of thick snarling brambles toward the cottage.

I ducked down, keeping him in sight beyond the line of vegetation.

So, he I guess he had some secret way into the garden.

I'd have to remember that.

He walked up to the front door which I noticed now was rocking gently back and forth on the breeze in its door frame. He pulled the door open, which gave stubbornly, and he let himself in.

I waited.

He was in there almost fifteen minutes. When he emerged he held a couple of scraps of paper. Other than that he looked empty handed. Except... well, his jacket seemed to bulge a little more than it had on his way in. Like he had something in there. Like he'd taken something.

He picked his way back through the brambles until he reached the tall iron fence again. Then he stooped down and disappeared for several seconds before emerging on the other side and returned to his Land Rover.

I was in two minds then. Part of me wanted to hide until he'd pissed off—I desperately wanted to know what'd brought him out here to the old Gemmel place. But at the same time, I needed to keep on his tail. His next stop could've been his hidden cottage in Wolfcrag Forest. Or it could've been the catacombs. Either way, I had to stick with him.

Back in his car he turned the engine over, slotted it into reverse, and turned about. Then he shunted it into first and trundled back down the lane. I'd already resumed my position, hanging off the back tyre, wondering where the hell we were off to now.

13

I didn't really have a plan if Goon suddenly took us down some dark track into Wolfcrag. But before I knew it, we were back in Burnchess, pulling up in the car park outside the barley mill terminal.

Confused, I slid off the rear tyre, again squeezing blood back into my arms and fingers, and I crouched there, hiding, watching him walking away.

When I felt it was safe enough to trail him I left my position and scurried from car to car, keeping him in sight. But as he went, it was pretty obvious where the hell he was going. Back to his cottage beneath the clock tower.

14

Mark was sitting there looking down at Goon when I got back. 'Fuck man,' he says, 'I was just about to ring you, brutha. I thought something'd happened to you.'

'Yeah, well you'll never guess where Goon went.'

'Where?'

So I told Mark everything that'd happened. Eagerly telling him as I watched Goon move through his house.

'He took something from the old Gemmel place?' Mark asked, intrigued.

'Yeah, some bits of paper, but I think he's also got something hidden in his coat.'

We watched him until he moved out of sight into his bedroom. When he emerged he'd removed his coat. If he'd had something concealed we missed it.

'Shit,' I said, pissed off. 'Whatever it was, he's fucking hidden it.'

'Did you see it at all?' Mark asked. 'Is it the bit of key we're searching for?'

'Don't know. But I'd put money on it.'

The bits of paper I'd seen him leaving the Gemmel place with he placed on his table. Now he sat down to study them. And he was there for about half an hour, scribbling on a notepad before he stopped what he was doing and slapped his pen down. It was if he'd been working through something. Some problem he couldn't solve. He even consulted a couple of booklets and then more files. But finally he gave up and fetched his coat.

'Shit, he's on the move again,' I said as we both eyed him carefully.

Goon headed for his rear door and pushed out into his garden. As he was striding down his garden path to the gate me and Mark were already conducting another game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

This time Mark got the job of trailing him. Anxious to be the one trailing Goon again, I remained in the tower.

15

After they'd gone (down Warrior's Way in the direction of Castle Grove) I sat there studying Goon's cottage. In particular, the bits of paper from Gemmel's place still lying there on his dining room table. I kept wondering what the hell they contained. No matter how many times I put the binoculars on them it made no difference. They were impossible to read from where I was.

So, what if I go down there? I thought. Break in and check 'em out? The place currently sat unguarded. So it was the perfect opportunity. And while I was there, why not rifle through his bedroom for whatever he'd had hidden beneath his coat?

From my vantage point, it looked easy enough. His garden's a virtual fortress, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of yew hedge which soars twelve feet off the street and runs the entire perimeter around his property. From the tower you can see it's actually over a metre thick. So at street level you'd have a battle trying to crawl through it. Or even peer through it. But the garden gate... it's about seven feet tall, all vertical iron bars with spikes running along the top edge and you'd have a job trying to climb over it. But the twat hadn't padlocked it.

16

I got to my feet. So, I'm gonna do this, I thought. I drew in several deep breaths. I felt like I was about to jump from a plane. Felt nervous as hell. He'll have booby traps, a voice began telling me. Knives that spring from the floor and slice your bollocks off.

Don't be stupid, another voice said, just get down there, don't lose your chance.

But his gate. He'd left it unlocked.

So?

Well, why would he do that? It's unheard of. The bloke's paranoid. He never leaves it unlocked.

He left in a hurry, that's why.

No, he's done it on purpose. He knows we're watching. That's why he left the bits of paper on the table. He wants us to make a play for them.

I checked my watch. It'd been fifteen minutes since Goon had left. The sun was tipping toward the horizon but the summer sky was still basted in a soft creamy-blue. For all I knew Goon was already making his way back. I stood, still wondering what to do, my procrastination making my head hurt.

My phone rang. It was Mark. I answered and there's this sense of urgency in his voice. 'Brutha, Goon's inside Staten's shop again.'

I couldn't believe it. 'Honestly?'

'Yeah.'

'Is Staten there?'

'No. I mean, I don't know. I can't see him.'

I checked my watch. Staten had probably left for the day. Maybe he was down the pub. Or over at Marjorie's. 'How'd Goon get in?'

'The door's unlocked?'

'Unlocked?' It wasn't like Staten not to lock up at the end of the day. 'Okay, don't let Goon out of your sight. Keep your eye on him.'

'Yep, got that part,' Mark says.

I kept eyeing those bits of paper on Goon's table. I felt sort of thrown now. Knowing Goon was snooping about Staten's totally unchecked. What was he doing? What was he looking for?

17

The long twilight cast strong orange streaks across the coastal sky. A cool night breeze curled about my neck. Small bats flitted around the clock tower. In the distance, rooks by the hundreds were soaring and diving madly about the treetops of the Seven Ghosts. Closer by there was a strange groaning noise. Like some animal hidden in the shadows. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise, fearing the emergence of some alien critter from the gloom.

Ordinarily I'd have blamed the rooks. And it took me a while to get a handle on exactly what it was, but once I worked it out I breathed a sigh of relief. The cottage next door to Goon's belongs to Major Cookson. And the old war veteran was in his bathroom tending to his swollen haemorrhoids and there was no doubt that once again he'd mistaken the Tiger Balm gel for the Analsalv.

The girls returned at quarter to ten with no news of having located any key. But maybe it didn't matter anymore. If Goon had it down there then we as good as had it covered. I was still angry at myself for not having the guts to go down to his cottage while he'd been gone. I still hated the way he made me feel so small and pathetic. Anyone else and I would've been down there. Anyone else...

Still, I planned to make up for it. Gemmel's place. If I could make it out there before sunset then we had a chance of having a look about before night fell.

As the girls trudged up the stairwell I was on my feet, stretching my arms, cracking my back, eager to get out of there, conscious of the time. Goon still hadn't moved; sitting at his table with a bunch of books he'd taken from Staten's. Emily and Kate stood there eyeing him and Mark filled them in on what had gone on during our shift—Goon's excursion out to Gemmel's, and Goon's latest trip to Staten's book shop.

'Gemmel's?' Emily asks. 'James Gemmel's old place?'

'Yeah.'

Emily watched us keenly. 'What on earth was he doing out at Gemmel's?'

'We're not sure,' I told her. 'All we know is he returned with some papers from Gemmel's old cottage. And something stuffed into his shirt. Thing is, we don't know what the papers were. We don't know what was in his shirt.'

As Emily asked her inevitable questions, my eyes fell on Kate. She looked gorgeous in the twilight: the pink and yellow sunset tinting both her face and the rise of her breasts; the soft wind tipping her hair. The heat had gone out of the day and the cool air pushed goose bumps onto her skin. It was the first time I felt truly conflicted about my feelings toward both her and Hayley. I missed Hayley, but every time I saw Kate she just did something to me.

When Emily was done drilling us for info, I sighed and bid the girls good night and told Mark to get a push along. We had little over an hour of twilight left. I didn't want to waste it hanging about here.

So, I started down the stairs when I heard Kate say, 'Oh, Mark, before I forget, here's the Challenge booklet. Better take it and study it if we're putting this team together.'

I frowned. Challenge booklet? Putting a team together?

I stopped on the stairs. 'You really think they're still going to run it?' I said to them, my head level with the floor.

I saw Kate shrug. 'Who knows? The council published this booklet before all this stuff with Goon went down. No harm in having a look.'

A booklet didn't mean much, I thought. Still, I couldn't help but feel like the odd one out here. By the sound of it, they'd had some discussions on this matter. It hurt me, I have to say. Primarily because I hadn't been part of these discussions. I don't know why. I mean, Mark'd asked me about it once or twice. But neither Kate nor Emily had bothered to approach me on the matter. I've said since I was a boy that I'd like to give the Dead Man's Challenge a go one day. When I was old enough like. Most of them knew that.

'You need four to a team?' I reminded them, as I started on my way again.

Then I heard it.

Kate's voice. 'I've asked Corey.'

I stopped dead on the stairs. I swallowed. Corey? Surely I hadn't heard her right? I didn't know what to say. I shrugged. 'Oh well. Challenge probably won't go ahead anyway.' I kept trotting down the stairs. I mean, I couldn't look at Kate anymore. It really hurt. I sighed. 'Come on, Mark. Time's ticking.'

18

We took Dad's car. As we sped along the Lake Road, I kept ruminating on Kate and the Challenge. I felt a little bit hurt, actually. I felt excluded. I mean, Kate had gone and asked that twat Wankerson over me. I really felt peeved.

Our headlights cut through the growing dusk. I peered out through the windscreen at the sky. With Witchthorn Wood pushing up against us on one side and the endless wall of Hell's Maze on the other, it already felt as though night had set in. I imagined some dark shape galloping through the woods, keeping abreast with us, grunting and snorting mindlessly, waiting for us to stop the car before it charged in and ripped our heads off.

We passed Breathless Lake, it loomed like the lair of some lake monster, dark, foreboding, haunting. So different from how it appeared during a warm sunny day. Then a few minutes later we reached the lane that lead up to Gemmel's cottage through the avenue of Monkey Puzzle Trees.

We drove up to the gate and I turned the engine off. There was a sudden eerie silence. I thought maybe we ought to just head back to Burnchess and come back tomorrow. When Mark pushed his door open and stepped out I felt pressured to follow.

We stood there beside the car. A cool breeze drifted across the woods to our right, making odd whiny noises through the pine trees. The sun had lowered below some cloud. It already felt dark where we stood although much of the sky was still a dull creamy blue.

'You okay?' Mark asked, gazing at me across the roof of the car.

'Yeah. I'm good.' I look at him. 'Why?'

'You seem a bit quiet, that's all.'

Truthfully, I still couldn't get the Challenge out of my mind. That Kate had asked Wankerson to be one their team. 'No, I'm good.'

He eyed me for a second or two like he didn't believe me then he approached the iron gate and tested the padlock. The rusty old lock that clamped the gate to the fence held pretty tight.

'There's a hole under the fence,' I told him, pointing. 'Follow me.'

We trailed the fence line through deep grass, around to the spot where I believed I'd seen Goon crawl beneath the fence. 'He got in here somewhere.'

We dug around the grass until I felt a hollow in the ground beneath thick grass. 'Here.' I raked away the grass and saw a small dug-out beneath the fence. I went headfirst and dragged myself through. Mark followed.

We emerged on the other side amidst grass and thistles. Then skirting the bramble patch we approached the double story cottage as though we were sneaking up on a sleeping giant. One of the upstairs windows (still shattered by the stones we'd thrown all those years back) had been left uncovered by ivy and it felt like an eye quietly watching us.

The front door was choked in ivy too but like Goon'd done we yanked it aside, and both peered in before we went any further.

Mark fished out the penlight on his keyring and got some light in there. I shone the light from my phone. Before us sat a large empty room. No furniture. Nothing. Just dust and dirt. Peeling wall paper. Squirrel and rat shit on the floor. I made to enter then stopped. Mark bumped into me.

'What's up?' he whispered.

I looked around at him. I whispered back, 'Just had a thought. What if someone's in here?'

He blinked at me. 'Like who?'

'I don't know. Anyone. Maybe that's what Goon was doing here. Came to see someone.'

'Like who?' he whispered again.

'How the fuck should I know?'

Mark looked about. 'Looks deserted, if you ask me.'

'So, why're you whispering?' I asked.

'Cos you're whispering.'

'Only cos you started it.'

'I didn't.'

'You did.'

'Look,' he said, 'the only thing likely to be in here is Gemmel's ghost.'

'Well, shit, that lighten things up a bit then, doesn't it? I feel so much better now.' I sighed and pushed into the room.

It smelled damp in there. But also somehow meaty.

'Fuck, do you smell that?'

'It's the stink of Gemmel's corpse,' Mark said smirking, crossing the room and pushing open the opposite door. It squeaked open and he stepped through.

I couldn't move. Couldn't believe Mark'd just crossed the room without so much as a care. I wanted to yell out and tell him to stop, slow down, tread carefully. But I couldn't speak.

Eventually I decided I'd better follow. I took two steps into that room before I realised the floor was shifting under foot. I looked down and saw tiles chipped and cracked and water-stained and coming unstuck.

Mark'd disappeared into the other room by then. I could still see his penlight flashing about in the dim light. 'Holy shit,' I heard him say. Then his light moved away and I was left there staring at the empty doorway.

'Mark? What is it?'

Only silence came back at me from beyond the door. The illumination from his penlight had faded.

'Mark?' I shone my phone light around. It barely seemed to penetrate the gloom. I looked at the screen. It was almost out of power.

My ears began ringing in the silence.

'Mark? Can you hear me?' Where the fuck was he? Why wasn't he answering?

I forced myself to cross the room. As I went, the tiles kept shifting, as if I was walking across the thick leathery skin of a sleeping monster. I gripped the flaking doorframe to steady myself in the dim light; some sort of bug skittered over my hand. I shuddered and shook it off wildly like it was some beast's fingernails. The next room was darker than the one I'd just crossed. My phone light wasn't lighting anything. I couldn't see Mark anywhere.

'Mark?' I hissed.

No reply.

'Mark, stop fooling around!'

No answer.

I detected another stench in the air. Something animal this time. Wet fur. Rotten breath. I glanced over my shoulder almost expecting to see some hulking shape filling the doorway back there across the room behind me. There was nothing there. Just the wild garden beyond the door frame, caressed gently by the evening breeze.

I turned back to the darkened room before me. I went to call for Mark again but I suddenly thought I'd heard something breathing. Or mewling. Or growling.

Near panic gripped me as I suddenly had this ridiculous idea. The thing that chased me down on the Vale. This is where it lives!

I was suddenly so sure of this. It'd been waiting for me. Goon had lead me here. I'd stepped right into its lair.

My chest heaved. I couldn't breathe. 'Mark?' I hissed. 'Where the fuck are you?' My skin turned hot. Now it was cold. I just wanted to run... but if something had happened to Mark.

Don't be stupid, Jake. That thing was huge. It wouldn't fit in this—

That thing doesn't exist! You're being paranoid. It doesn't exist. It was in your head!

I stuck my head through the doorway. If Mark was in this room, in trouble, I had to get him.

But I couldn't see a fucking thing. I couldn't see any—

A shape came ambling toward me. A huge head and its body lost in the gloom. I almost couldn't move. Petrified. A light flashed in my face. The figure was standing right in front of me, the light illuminating its goggling eyes and its snarling teeth and its—

Mark! Holy shit!

'Mark, you fucking twat! You scared the life out of me!'

He laughed. 'Bloody hell, brutha, you look like you've seen a ghost.' His penlight was still showing off his features in spooky tones of orange and black.

'Not cool, Mark,' I said once I'd regained my breath. 'Not cool. You scared the living shit outta me.'

'Yeah? Well, if you thought that was freaky, come and look at this.'

His penlight guided the way across the gritty, grubby floor and a moment or two later it illuminated some humanoid figure standing across the room. When I saw it I nearly freaked out. 'Whoa, what the fuck is that?!'

'Come and look.'

He walked up and stood before it. Running his light up and down its features. Nothing else stood in this room. Like the first room it was empty except for peeling wallpaper and chipped, water stained tiles and dirt and grime all over the floor.

Eventually I went over. The whining wind was in the roof; perhaps I'd mistaken it for the sounds of the growling. I still couldn't explain the terrible stench. Until Mark said, 'mind the dead hedgehog.' I'd almost put my foot in it. I stepped around it and concentrated on the figure standing against the wall.

It looked to be one of those ancient diving suits. Those old ones made of metal. With the ball shaped helmet and the bulbous limbs. To stave off crushing pressure at great depths.

Mark shone his light through its glass eyeholes. I probably would've screamed if I'd seen eyes blinking back at us. But the suit was empty.

'Pretty cool, eh?' Mark said. I'd barely voiced an opinion before he turned away saying, 'Anyway look, there's a stairway to the second floor.'

I followed him over and gazed up some wooden stairs covered in rotting carpet. Mark began his way up, the stairs creaking underfoot. The smell of mould and dry rot hung on the air.

I followed, my heart beating.

It was more spacious upstairs. More like a loft, like a studio apartment. Except it was grubby and empty. Nothing there but empty old metal bookshelves holding nothing but grime and mouse shit and a long wooden table covered in a fine layer of dust and more mouse shit. There was shattered glass on the floor and scattered stones that must've been sitting here since the days we'd used this place as target practice.

A separate room, possibly once a bedroom, sat empty. So too a bathroom where a water stained bathtub with claw feet sat beneath a broken window smothered in ivy.

At the far end, another flight of stairs climbed into a dusty attic full of cobwebs. It too lay empty. No cardboard boxes full of junk. No wardrobes with rotting clothes. Just empty.

Back on the ground floor we checked the remaining rooms. All vacant except for dust and ivy sneaking through broken windows, a vacant fire place, flaking wallpaper and cracked tiles with crumbling grout, and evidence of the movement of small animals over the years. A picture was slowly forming here: the place was utterly deserted. Anything that'd filled this place, anything that'd once made it homely and warm, had long gone.

'So what the hell was Goon looking for here?' I asked.

'I've got no idea,' Mark said. 'Maybe the bits of paper you saw him with he already had with him. Maybe there was nothing under his coat after all.'

'Maybe. Or maybe he was using this place to hide stuff.'

Behind us that diving suit simply stood there, silent, spooky, watching...

19

Back at the Hare Of The Dog I popped a Red Stripe from the upstairs kitchen then sat in my room.

My head was churning. Exhausted. It tumbled about with thoughts of Goon and Gemmel's house and that diving suit and Kate and the Dead Man's Challenge and Dad still in hospital and the monster on the Vale and how long would my subconscious haunt me with it all?

None of it would leave my head. I drained my first beer then went and fetched a second. Cookie weaved in and out of my legs, meowing and carrying on. I pulled open the cupboard and fetched out a tin of Tuna Prime Fillet. I scooped spoonfuls into her bowl and she sprang to the bench. (Something Louise hates but Cookie's been jumping onto that bench longer than Louise has lived there.) I placed her bowl on the floor then grabbed my second beer. I stood there, leaning against the bench, sipping beer, watching Cookie, thinking, thinking...

What had Goon been doing out there? What had he gone to find? Why had he been to Staten's?

Two days until D-Day. Something was certainly cooking.

My phone rang just as I polished off my third beer. I imagined it was going to be Emily reporting some new intriguing update on Goon. But it wasn't. It was Hayley requesting some FaceTime.

I pressed the button and her face came on screen. 'Hi Hayley.'

She smiled. 'Hiya, Jake, you all right?'

'I am now for seeing you. You?'

'Actually no. I'm in a right mood.' She smiled though it portrayed a touch of angst. 'Well, at least I was. I had a big row with Mum and Dad. I told them I'm coming back to Burnchess even though they insisted it's a foolish idea. They say it's too dangerous. They seem to think I'm six years old or something, like I can't look after myself. I argued, of course, and Mum told me I don't understand exactly what Burnchess is facing. Like she does.'

She might just know more about what's going on than anyone else alive, I thought.

'Anyway,' Hayley says, 'so, I made a stand. I just want to see you, that's all. I'm catching the afternoon bus out of St. Austell to Burnchess tomorrow. They can say what they like.'

I swallowed. I was itching to see her but for once I agreed with her parents. I didn't think it was a good idea. Her coming back.

'Ah, well, that's great.'

'What's up?' she said. 'You don't look so sure.'

'No. I really want to see you. Just that it actually is a bit nuts down this way at the moment.'

'Jake, it's driving me nuts just sitting around here waiting to hear if the Cornwall Wildlife Trust are going to grant me a job or not. I'd rather be with you in Burnchess.'

I swallowed. 'Right then. Well, you can stay here at the Inn if you like. We're still conducting our stake-out on Goon so just letting you know I won't be free all of the time. But I'd love to see you.'

'Good,' she said with a beautiful grin. 'That settles it. I'll be there some time tomorrow afternoon. I think the Spitfire gets in about two thirty thereabouts.'

'Great. I'll meet you at the bus stop if you like.'

'That'd be nice. I can't wait to see you.'

'Me neither. We could do lunch or something. What'd you think?'

'Brilliant,' she said smiling again. 'We'll make it a date then.'

'Okay, brilliant.'

20

Me and Mark were back at the clock tower to relieve the girls by 6 am. I slurped a double-shot coffee to help kick start my brain. I'd sat up awfully late, my mind working overtime on this Goon business. I'd rung Jones again. I thought if there was someone who might know why Goon'd been snooping round the old Gemmel place it had to be Jones. But as usual, Jones wasn't answering. I'd left him yet another a message. I'd said If you still give a shit about this village then ring back and tell me what's Goon's interest in the Gemmel house.

Kate was acting sort of funny when Mark and me reached the clock tower. Not looking at me and stuff. Not saying anything. I knew it must've been something about this Challenge stuff. But truthfully, I was over it. I didn't care. I mean, with Goon up to his mischief the Challenge wouldn't be run anyway. I just ignored her.

Emily asked if we'd had any luck locating the key. Answer was No, of course. I did tell her what we'd found at the Gemmel cottage, although it looked as though Mark'd already filled her in on that front.

The news on Goon was that he hadn't left his house during the night. He'd been up till about two or three going over files and papers, as if cross referencing stuff. Then he'd popped off to bed. I thought there'd be more but that was that. Kate and Emily left the tower.

21

Goon stirred at 9:30 that morning. He found his way to his kitchen where he built himself some weird herbal brew consisting of small obscure lumps that looked like rabbit shit. And the only time he vacated his kitchen was to bugger off a couple of times down into that cellar of his. Then he was back in his kitchen. Staring at the wall.

His kitchen/dining room was a sparse place as far as I could make out from our vantage point. Fridge, oven, table, chairs. That was about the size of it. Cupboard spaces were all out of our view. All he did was sit there and stare, no doubt with a pounding headache.

Me and Mark chatted a bit. But there didn't seem to be much to chat about. Mark tried bringing up the Challenge again, apologising for not telling me their plans sooner, for not telling me about Wankerson. He must've known I'd been stewing about it. But I just said, 'Don't worry about it, mate.'

We took turns dozing. Mark snoozed for an hour or two and one time, when Emily lobbed up without warning to have herself a sticky-beak at how things were going, I had to kick him awake. Emily stayed for like fifteen minutes then went away, telling us to call her if something happened. Like we couldn't handle this shit ourselves.

After she'd gone I just sat there with my thoughts. It wasn't so bad being there during the day. With the sounds of tweeting birds and the sun slanting into the clock tower warming your face, you didn't feel too concerned about things sneaking up on you. But it gave me time to think. About dad. About Staten. About Finch. About Goon. About the Gemmel house. Even Jones. I sent him a series of texts. But I still didn't know where the fuck he was. I seemed to remember someone saying he and Muldoon had been running bus fares out of Horsefall. But the last time I'd spoken to Muldoon he'd said he didn't know where Jones was. I don't even know if that was true anymore.

I rang Dr Atwood. And following a brief conversation I thanked her and hung up. There'd been no change in Dad's condition. He remained in his coma. I sat praying both to Mum's spirit and the great universe that he'd pull through.

Meanwhile, below us, Goon continued to read through stuff. At midday he put it all away and he just sat there staring at a photo of his daughter. I never thought I'd say this, but in that moment I almost felt sorry for the bloke. In that moment he actually looked like a grieving father who'd lost his kid.

Half an hour after our uneventful shift ended at 2 pm I met Hayley as she got off the Spitfire. As the bus rolled to a park, Hayley jumped off and rushed to me, gripping me in a long, squeezing hug. She was like one of three or four people on there. She was draped in a short summer dress and fancy flip-flops and seeing her made me realise how much I'd missed her. She looked so beautiful. So damn sexy. It took the sting out of Kate and the Dead Man's Challenge stuff and all the other shit going on.

I kept my eyes open for Jones while I was there. I was determined to talk to him, to ask him about Goon's connection with Gemmel. But it was obvious he wasn't on board. When I approached Muldoon about Jones's whereabouts (I was hand in hand with Hayley by then) he came over rather short. 'I've no idea where that sod is,' Muldoon says sternly, his thick grey mutton chops almost shaking about. 'But let me say this, if he doesn't return to work soon, he's going find himself out of a bloody job!'

22

We sat in the Lost Worlds cafe for a while. Hayley hadn't had lunch yet. She ate a fresh salad roll. I ate hot chips. I couldn't stop looking at her. I'd forgotten how beautiful she was. Either that or I'd never fully recognised it. Everything about Hayley I suddenly found fascinating, tempting. Like I saw her clearly now. Her short brown hair. The push of her breasts beneath her dress. Her hips. Her legs. The graceful but somehow delicious way she walked. Her stunning smile, a smile that was as much to do with her lips as it was those olive green eyes of hers.

But it wasn't simply what she had on the outside. The thing that made all of her physical characteristics glow so much was her personality. She seemed eternally optimistic, she always seemed to have something positive to say. I wondered if there was anything that could dent her, no mountain too big for her to climb. It was a trait I found so spellbinding, so alluring. But something I felt so envious of. Even so, as I sat there, it was the first time I actually questioned my infatuation with Kate.

Hayley asked me about dad. How was he? Was there any change in his condition? I told her he was still comatose. She told me that he'd pull through. People say that sort of shit all the time, people used to say it with Mum, but Hayley seemed so sure of herself when she said it I couldn't help feel some sense of optimism.

When we were done with lunch we ordered a 99 and shared it. She sucked ice-cream off my finger. Simply licked it off like it was nothing.

She was keen to hear all about our stakeout. So I told her everything, how we believed Goon'd brainwashed everyone, that we'd stationed ourselves in the clock tower to keep an eye on him, how we'd caught him snooping about the old Gemmel place, how we hoped to stop him detonating a bomb in the catacombs below Burnchess.

'You really think he's going to set a bomb?' she asked. 'I mean, it sounds so crazy.'

I shrugged. 'I don't know. Maybe.' I told her how we believed Goon had somehow hypnotised and brainwashed everyone in Burnchess. 'Look outside, I told her. Have you noticed how empty the place is?'

'I thought it was simply because all the tourists have left.'

'Okay, yeah, maybe. But what about Special K? Don't you think she's acting weird?'

Hayley turned and eyed Mrs Kellaher where she stood gazing distantly out the window. 'Well, I did think maybe she's not as talkative as usual. But given what's happened in this town of late...'

'Okay, let's test it.' We finished our ice cream, snapping the Flake in half and sharing it. I got up to pay. At the counter Mrs K slowly typed our lunch items into the till. It seemed as if she couldn't shift out of first gear. As if everything she did she had to really concentrate on. This wasn't like her at all. Usually she gets about the cafe all guns blazing and talking at a million miles an hour.

'Mrs Kellaher,' I said. 'Tell me, the other night, did you happen to see all those will-o'-the-wisps?'

She looked up, her face now all aglow. 'Oh yes, Jake, weren't they wonderful! Such a beautiful sight to behold.'

We paid up and left, strolling down Castle Grove, Hayley taking my hand. I carried her travel bag, slung over my shoulder. 'Right then,' Hayley said grinning, 'what was that all about?'

I told her about Staten. What he claimed to have seen. I told her about Hogshead. About will-o'-the-wisps flying about Burnchess. I told her about the Inn chefs and the bar staff and Mrs. Crane down at the newsagent. How they'd all told similar stories about seeing strange lights, or hearing strange, angelic singing. I told her about Newson. I told her about Finch.

'Goon was really in your dad's office making cups of tea?' Hayley asked.

'Yeah and Finch was like clueless. You know, like nothing was going on up top.'

She smiled, as if on the verge of incredulous laughter. 'Wow, this all sounds so bizarre.'

'I know. And it's not the only bizarre thing either. Believe it or not but you're mum's connected to all of it.'

She frowned and smiled. 'My mum?'

'Yeah. And my mum too, strangely enough.'

She laughed. 'Jake, what on earth are you talking about?'

'Your mum gave me that mask thing. Did you know that? Did she tell you? That night she rode in to the village on that horse. The night you called me. The night before I vanished.'

'She never.'

'She did. She gave me the mask and said it was part of a key that unlocks a secret doorway on the Archway.'

Hayley looked at me like I was nuts. 'A secret doorway?' She laughed. 'Oh, come off it.'

I smiled. 'I know, weird right? But that's what she said. She said this secret doorway opens onto the catacombs.'

'That thing's no key. It's just a weird old mask.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. But your mum and my mum were part of something called the Mortifera? Some club. Did you know that?'

She frowned. 'You asked me about that a week or two ago, right?'

'I did?' I couldn't remember but then a lot of shit had been going.

'Yes.'

'So, what did your mum say? Did you ask her?'

Hayley shrugged. 'All she said was, "So what's the Mortifera then?"'

'Really? That's all she said?'

'Yep.'

If I thought about it, it wasn't as silly as it sounded. Liberty obviously didn't want to discuss it with Hayley. 'Okay then, well I'm gonna show you something that's gonna blow your mind.'

She frowned and smiled. 'Really? What is it?'

'A photo album.'

'Photo album?'

'Yeah. It belonged to my mum.'

'Right.' She looked at me like I was putting all this on, playing some game. 'Okay. Where is it then?'

'Back at the Inn. If you wanna come back to my place I'll show it to you.'

She eyed me funny and laughed. 'Oh... now I get it. You've got something back at your place you want to show me, do you?'

I stopped and smiled. 'Look, it's not like that.' I laughed. 'I assure you.'

She took my hand and locked her eyes on mine. 'Jake, I wouldn't care if it was.'

I felt a hot flush work its way up the skin of my neck. 'Really?'

She answered simply: a seductive cheeky look in her beautiful eyes.

I swallowed and stood. Then pretended to reconsider. 'Okay, look, you can come over, but I warn you, if you try any funny business I'll scream for help.'

She laughed.

I made a silly face. And put on a silly voice. 'I'm serious.'

'Better try and keep my hands to myself then, hadn't I.' Her lips curled into a sexy smile. 'No promises though.'

23

Once again the Inn seemed eerily quiet. The main bar was almost empty. Bar staff stood around waiting to do something. We headed straight up stairs. Once in my room I shut the door and immediately went to fetch mum's diary from the chest beneath the bed. But as I went to kneel down I caught sight of the dirty clothes on the floor and an empty pizza box sitting on my bedside table. My duvet dangled half off the bed, (the linen no doubt needed washing). Muddy shoes'd been kicked across the room. It was just as well I hadn't left any underwear lying around. Still, I was no less embarrassed.

'Holy shit,' I said, 'Sorry about the state of the place. It's not usually like this. Honest.'

She laughed. 'Jake, I'm the last person to go judging people on the state of their room. This is rather tidy actually. Compared to my dorm room back at school, anyway.'

'Really?' I grabbed up armfuls of clothes and stuffed them in my wardrobe. Jammed the old pizza box in there with them. When I was a bit happier (and far less self-conscious) with the state of my room I pushed open the window to let in some fresh air. Sunlight lit the room. A soft breeze rippled the curtains.

'Right, then.' I crouched and dragged out the chest. I pulled the key from my pocket and unlocked the padlock. But when I hefted out the items from the chest, mum's scrapbook wasn't there.

That left me confused. And suspicious.

I picked through the stuff I'd pulled out of the chest. 'Swear this is where I left it,' I said to myself, searching my memory. But it wasn't there. I sat on my bed wondering where the hell it was. What I'd done with it.

Then it came to me. A night or two back, the day after I'd taken it up to Staten's, I'd shifted it to the back of the wardrobe. I'd woken from this strange dream about someone rifling through that chest.

I got up and moved for the wardrobe when Hayley grabbed both my hands, pulled me to her gently and was suddenly kissing me. It was so sudden and unexpected and mind blowing I felt like my head might explode. She gently pushed me against my bed. Before I could argue, before I could say, 'Look, I really ought to find this album,' my intentions betrayed me. I was totally wrapped up in her. I simply wanted her.

We kissed on my bed for the next few minutes, me sprawled there on my back, she lying across me, her breasts pushed against my ribs.

After a while we came up for air. Hayley leaned back and gazed into my eyes for a moment, as if trying to read my thoughts. Did I approve of her ambush? Was I into it or just going through the motions so as not to offend her?

I was more than into it, I felt utterly engrossed. A fire had ignited in my chest. And in my groin if I'm going to be truthful. I'd pretty much forgotten mum's album.

I pulled Hayley back down to me and we were kissing again.

When my bloody phone rang I had my hand on the outside of her thigh; slowly working it up to where her tight knickers curved around her buttocks. I ignored it the first time but when it rang again a few seconds later I thought I'd better see who it was.

It might've been news of dad.

Hayley didn't seem to mind. She just smiled when I said I better fetch it. She slid off me to let me get off the bed, adjusting her dress, shifting it back over the swell of her breasts, sliding it back down over the tops of her legs. She giggled with her hand over her mouth, watching me trying to hide the embarrassing erection that'd made my jeans poke outwards.

I felt awfully ashamed. But her laughter was so infectious, I couldn't help smiling. 'Hey, this is all your fault,' I told her.

When I grabbed up the phone I saw Emily's number. What the hell did she want? The time was just after 4 pm. Six hours before I started my next shift. I said to Hayley, 'Sorry, I gotta take this.' I put the phone to my ear. 'Yeah?'

'Jake. We've got an interesting development. Someone just walked into Goon's garden.'

'Who?'

'Charlton Jones.'

THE VISITOR

1

JONES MOVED through the gate and checked his watch before following the gravel path into Goon's yard. Goon must've known Jones was coming because he stepped from the rear door of his cottage at the very same moment. They eyed each other from opposite ends of the yard—between them, daisies along the verge of the path shook in the summer breeze. Goon indicated the wrought iron table standing at the northern edge of the garden. They moved toward it. Jones sitting at one end. Goon at the other.

All this took place before me and Hayley got to the tower. All that and five minutes of conversation. Still, I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of it. With Hayley seated on the handlebars, I madly pedalled mum's old pushbike (the one with the pink tassels streaming from the hand-grips) up to the tower. I lead Hayley in through the clawing hawthorn hedge and raced to the top.

'...nothing surprises me about spineless rats anymore, Charlton,' Goon hissed as I made it onto the landing. 'The next time we fight yer may have the decency and self-respect to stand yer ground rather than flee like a coward.'

'And perhaps you'd have the same decency to fight fair, Radford. I may have been down for the count this past week, thanks to your cunning, but if I'd not flown when I'd found the chance I daresay I'd not be here this day chatting to you. The Death's Lily you slipped into my beverage before our duel gave you an unfair advantage. Another minute and I would've dropped at your feet asleep. Easy pickings, I'd say. So, my only option was to flee.' He smiled. 'And, here I am, Radford. Alive to fight another day.'

Goon snickered. 'Yer'll not stop me, Charlton,' he rasped. 'This village brings the curse upon itself, yer know.'

Jones sat back, grinning, folding his arms and pointing his finger across the table. 'I have news for you, Radford. I will stop you. It's one consolation I draw from this whole mess. You've thrown fair play down the toilet. Expect it to be returned tenfold. And while we're speaking so openly, why don't you tell me what you've gone and done to the constabulary?'

Goon smirked. 'Oh, I don't know what yer mean, my good friend.'

'You know exactly what I mean,' he spat. 'Inspector Crassly knocked almost through death's door. Sergeant Finch and Constable Newson getting about like brained fowl. Not to mention the members of the village council acting with such uncharacteristic conduct. Disbanded until further notice? And barely a soul concerned about this measure given the current circumstances? My, it's extraordinary what's going on. If I didn't know you so well I'd say it was a mighty curious occurrence.'

'I make no apologies, old friend. In the same way I received no such apology from this town when my dear Carenza was taken from me.' He glared at Jones a while.

'Yes, and speaking of taking things,' Jones said. 'I expect you to return my belongings when all this nonsense done.'

'What belongings?'

'The ones you took from my cottage. I expect you've been going through them in search for, ah, shall we say, certain items.'

I thought of the boxes Goon had recently been picking through.

Goon sniggered. And shook his head. 'Well, this is about all I can stand. Accusations of theft. Ha! It's time yer left.' He stood.

So Jones stood.

And there was a tense moment where they just regarded each other from opposite ends of the table.

Until Goon spoke. 'Let me give yer a word of warning, Charlton. Don't try to stop me. There'll be no second chances next time.'

Jones smiled. 'Advice I won't take, old friend. Until battle again sees us face to face.'

Goon watched him in that detached sort of way. 'Very well. I look forward to the day when yer surprised face gazes up at me from yer decapitated head, Charlton. Now get out.'

Jones left, strolling back along the path and through the gate. As he did (and this might've been just my imagination) he appeared to turn his chin and cast a fleeting glance from the corner of his eye to the top of the tower. I don't know if the others noticed, but it certainly didn't get by me.

2

It was my choice to trail Jones. Emily wanted it, but I was trotting down the stairwell even before Goon's gate'd swung shut. I told them, 'I'll be back soon,' but I was looking at Hayley when I said it.

Once outside, I followed at a distance. Unsure whether I should call out. But when we were out of earshot of Goon's place I couldn't help it. 'Jones! Stop a minute!'

He didn't look around. I was jogging by that point. 'Jones.'

He turned down Cocklebury Lane and swivelled his head, setting his eyes on me. But again he wouldn't stop and talk.

I started running, rounding Cocklebury a few seconds later. I almost stopped dead in my tracks. Jones wasn't hurrying, but he was somehow a huge distance in front, turning down another lane. Again he turned his head and looked straight at me.

'Jones!' I yelled. 'For fuck's sake, stop! We need to talk!'

But he was around the corner and gone.

3

I sprinted and came up on the lane. I don't know if Jones was fully aware but that there was Deadend Deep, a narrow old street ending at the Burnchess First Well. These days the well's neglected. The council filled it in back in '83 after some kid fell in and took a fatal dose of water into his lungs. So it's more ornamental now than functional. But it's really neither, because the lane's a dingy shithole bordered by the backs of rundown shops and rubbish bins. And beyond the well the way is blocked by the crumbled mess of a medieval wall which is heritage listed and can't be touched. Even though it cuts the street in half.

When we were little, me and Mark would use that lane escaping the likes of the hot-headed Mr Rawlins, the sweets seller, whenever he caught us pocketing a bag of sweets on the sly. The trick was to pull the wooden trellis out from behind the Foot & Go shoe shop and use it as a ladder to get yourself up and over the wall, dragging the trellis up behind you in order to strand your pursuer in the lane.

So, when I rounded Deadend Deep and saw Jones had vanished I was certain he'd used that trellis.

I strolled to the dead-end where the well sits, testing the rear exits of the shops as I went. I found all doors were locked tight. The thing that confused me when I reached the end of the lane was I found the trellis hadn't been moved. It stood there in the narrow, darkened alcove between the shop and the old wall.

So where the fuck was Jones?

I turned and regarded the well...

I strolled over and peered in. All I could see was the stagnant body of water over the cement base floating with burger wrappers and Sprite cans and drowned rats. I doubt Jones was holding his breath under that muck. But just to be certain I hung around a few minutes. I pilfered a handful of pebbles from the row of potted plants that lined the backs of the shops. Then I leaned over the edge of the well and pitched the pebbles one by one into the water.

When he didn't appear I turned my face to the roofs of the shops and the ruined stone blocks at the top of the wall. Had he climbed out somehow? Did he have a key for one of the shops?

4

I made my way up to his cottage and stood there rapping on the door, calling through the mail slot, 'I know you're in there, Jones. Come out and talk.' But he didn't show himself. So I banged on his windows and peered inside but like last time all the curtains blocked any view. I got out my phone and thumbed his number. Again that message about his mobile being currently switched off.

I wasn't put off. I headed over to the barley mill knowing the Spitfire hadn't yet left; earlier when I'd met Hayley, I'd overheard Muldoon saying there wasn't another trip scheduled to leave town for another full day.

Sure enough Muldoon sat in the small cottage attached to the mill building reading the paper and enjoying a wee gin with the cricket blaring from the wireless.

I stood in the open doorway and knocked on the door and he answered with a curious frown. 'Oh, Jake lad, what can I do for you this time o' the afternoon?'

'I saw Jones not a quarter of an hour back. Are you hiding him?'

He almost choked on his gin. 'Jones? Hiding him?'

'Don't mess me around today, Muldoon,' I said with a sigh. 'I don't have the patience. Tell me what's going on. Where is he?'

'Like I said to you earlier, lad, I haven't seen Jones in days. Like I said, if he doesn't show his face soon he'll have his name permanently written off the roster.' He fetched his coat and trudged from the cottage and I trailed him back to Jones' place.

Muldoon banged on the door just as I had. And yelled through the mail slot. 'I say, Jones, if you're in there then hear me out. You've been shirking your responsibilities for nigh on a week now and if you don't return to work soon I'll have no choice but to terminate your employment. You hear me? If you value your job then show yourself for God's sake.'

It went on like this for a wee bit of time, while I stood there, watching, waiting. If Jones was hidden inside, he never showed; and if Muldoon actually knew of Jones' whereabouts he was putting on a pretty good show of pretending he didn't.

5

'I think he's bunkered down in his house,' I told the others back at the clock tower. 'But who knows? He's not answering his phone either.'

Emily was playing back footage on the Go Pro. She'd managed to record the entire conversation, the remote ear doing a fine job of picking out the audio. I watched it over her shoulder. She looked around at me. 'Now can you see why I wanted the use of the Go Pro?' She spoke like I'd ridiculed the idea.

Hayley, out of sight behind Emily, raised a humoured eyebrow at me; an obvious reaction to Emily's snippy comment.

'This is exactly the sort of thing we're after,' Emily said, slotting the Go Pro into her pocket, and moving for the stairs. 'Right, I'm going for a drive.'

'Where to?' Kate asked.

'Why, to shove this down Superintendent Tennant's throat, of course.'

THE NIGHTSTALKER

1

I SAT in the clock tower that night, chewing pizza, sipping beer, and thinking of Hayley. We'd taken out the dirt bike after the stuff at the tower, Hayley and me. Not like I was meant to be out wasting time on joyrides. Obviously I was meant to be off searching for that fucking key. Emily wanted me and Mark back at the Gemmel place, believing Goon may have actually stashed it out there. But the way I figured it, we were pretty much at a dead end when it came to finding that last piece. If Goon really was in his cottage going over maps and trawling through strange files, then hell, let him find the key for us if he didn't have it already. As long as we kept our eyes on him then he couldn't get away. Not from the four of us. And if he ended up actually finding the last piece and tried bolting he'd be met with my cricket bat. (I hadn't told Emily that part yet, but I was serious about that now. Goon was going to cop it.) And if he actually managed to slip our net and bolt, well, we had Kate on our side, fastest girl at Plymouth College. If she couldn't catch him, no one could. And besides, we knew where he'd be heading anyway. The Arch. The minute he ran, all we had to do was meet him up there. Simple.

In the meantime though, we still had that GoPro footage. Hopefully it'd be enough to tempt Tennant over to Burnchess for a little inspection tour. And if that happened, Goon might just be out of our hair and off to the lock-up quicker than a famished dog onto a slab of beef.

We took the bike, Hayley riding pillion, out to Gallows Hill. That's north of Burnchess by a handful of miles. Just off the Horsefall Road. Gallows is the highest point up that way. It stands higher than Sunken Ship Rise by a couple hundred feet. There's an old stone circle up there. But it's not very prominent. Most of the stones have sunk into the earth, just a foot or two of their tips remain above ground, and most of them are choked in thick grass. But generally, the site is abandoned. You don't often get many people up there. Which is what we were banking on.

We parked the bike and sat enjoying the warm summer wind; no one else was around. You can see for miles up there. You can see the cliffs along the distant coastline, stretching east and west, the dark smudge of ocean far off in the hazy blue. You can see the checkerboard fields rolling away in all directions. You feel like a bird. Occasionally a jetliner leaves vast vapour trails across the sky above.

We lay in the grass staring up into the atmosphere. Chatting. Holding hands but talking and joking and laughing. I hadn't felt so vibrant and alive for years. I rolled onto my side and watched her as she spoke. I ran a blade of grass gently along her neck. I desperately wanted to kiss her. I really wanted to—

She watched me, the sun on her face. She guided my chin to hers and our lips touched. Softly. Delicately. She kissed my top lip, then my bottom lip. I felt her wet tongue touch both of them. I felt that fire ignite inside me again.

Soon we lay there just snogging. Our fingers were interlocked, clenched together. The way her dress draped across her curves, the way the wind ruffled it, lifting it, giving me flashes of her upper thighs, giving me the occasional glimpse of her underwear. I was dying to touch her. Her breasts. Her hips. Her groin. I won't lie. Everything about her was so impossible to ignore. But I held back. I didn't want to push it, ruin it. Besides, she gave no indication that she desired anything further just yet. I've learnt that sometimes it's better just letting a girl make the first move. Girls are different creatures to blokes. Blokes are up for it any minute of the day. Girls mostly like to take their time. They want to know that you're interested in more than what they've got hidden beneath their bra and pants.

Anyway, I surprised myself; kissing somehow seemed more than enough as it was. Rolling our tongues together, sucking each other's lips, me kissing her neck. We were that sickening couple you see smooching away that make you vomit. But I didn't care. That was how we spent much of our afternoon. It was bloody brilliant.

That night, I could still smell her on me as I sat there in the tower. I felt great. Like I'd had a brief holiday from all this shit. And somehow, after being with Hayley, I even felt better about dad. Hayley just had this way of making me feel positive. That the world wasn't as bad a place as I thought it was. That's mostly why I'd brought up the bottles of beer. I wanted to enjoy the feeling. Really savour it. But it was also a way of telling Mark I didn't hold a grudge over the Challenge stuff. He admitted he'd have been gutted too if he'd been in my shoes. He gave me a bit of a man-hug, even apologising for the way he'd handled the whole thing. 'I could've done it better, brutha,' he said. 'Me and you've always said we'd do the Challenge together. And simple fact of the matter is I should've asked you first. I just got caught up in things.'

If I read between the lines here it meant Emily had approached him about doing it together, and having feelings toward her he'd been stuck between the old rock and a hard place. He hadn't wanted to disappoint her. His heart had acted before his head. But I could appreciate that. I don't know, maybe I would've done the same thing if Hayley'd come to me with a similar request. I like to think I wouldn't, but who knows.

I told him it was okay. 'Look, it's likely it's not going ahead anyway,' I told him. 'I mean, the village is in a right state.'

'I guess me and Kate and Em have just been speaking about it to pass the time,' he told me. 'To, you know, pretend everything's normal. That we're not facing all this weird shit.'

We sat and enjoyed a couple of drinks together. Mark was keen to hear details of me and Hayley's afternoon. Had I felt her up and stuff. Had she shown me her "baps". 'Seriously mate,' I told him, 'I think I'm falling for her.'

He grinned wide and laughed. 'Jakey's in love!' and he offered his fist and I bumped it with mine.

It made up for the telling off I'd copped from Emily earlier—when I'd clocked on, she'd been there waiting for me. I was a few minutes late. I'd been up to the Off Licence to buy the beers and then I'd hidden them in Mrs. Reilly's garden on my way over; I certainly didn't need Emily seeing them. But once I'd climbed to the top she'd said, 'Have a nice afternoon did we?'

I'd shrugged. I'd told her, 'Yeah.'

She went on like I hadn't spoken. 'Well, while the rest of us were hard at work either here in the tower or digging for this key, you run off chasing after Hayley.' Then she goes, 'Oh and while we're on the subject of Hayley, what the hell were you thinking bringing her up into the tower earlier today?'

I had no answer other than to tell her Hayley could be trusted. I didn't see what her problem was. She'd told me we couldn't afford to put a single spanner in the works at this point. I'd told her no-one was putting a spanner in anything. I'd told her she ought to learn to relax a bit or else she'd give herself a fucking hernia.

Up until that point I'd considered getting Hayley to the tower to sit with us if she wanted. But after that, I'd texted Hayley to tell her that maybe it was better she stay at the Inn tonight. That Emily was in a right cranky state about me bringing her to the tower that afternoon.

After Emily had gone Mark told me she had her knickers in a knot because her trip to Superintendent Tennant hadn't gone the way she'd planned. To put it plainly, Tennant hadn't been available. Some arson attack over in Truro or someplace had dragged him from the office. When Emily'd demanded he be notified of her visit, the auxiliary staff had simply said if she thought it was so vital then she would be advised to leave a copy of the GoPro footage and Tennant would be notified in due course. She didn't trust them not to lose it.

When she came walking out the door she spotted Detective Chief Inspector Ted Sutton, and shoved the footage in his face instead. Considering he'd had quite a bit to do with Burnchess across the summer with all the slaughters and killings and whatnot, shoving it in his face was probably a good move. He viewed it at least. But he'd told Emily, 'Finch needs to see this,' and Emily was apparently like, 'well, of course she needs to bloody well see it, but since Inspector Crassly's accident, Finch and Newson have abandoned their posts, the council has mysteriously disbanded and there's no one of authority left in Burnchess! Don't any of you know this?! Do you even comprehend what I'm trying to tell you?! Do any of you listen?!'

He'd appeared sceptical at this news but promised he'd personally call Finch and urge her to review the footage.

'It'll be no use!' Emily'd snapped at him. 'Why else do you think I've come all the way up here to Horsefall? Burnchess is a ghost ship!'

He'd told her he'd try Finch and Newson, and if what Emily had told him proved correct then he promised to have someone over to Burnchess by that night. At the latest.

But it never happened. No one showed up. Emily'd rung him back to find out what the hell was going on. He stressed the fires in Truro had proved far more devastating than first anticipated. 'If we can spare the manpower,' he told her, 'we'll have officers to Burnchess first thing in the morning. And failing that, then I'll try to get there myself.'

2

That night was the evening of 22nd of August. The sky ran with wisps of pink and blue, and a moon as fat and full and yellow as a raging abscess rose beyond the trees like the eye of a demon come to spy on us. Night birds twittered in the trees, or passed silently across the darkening sky. Me and Hayley texted each other for a little while. She'd tease me by saying she was alone in my empty bed, in just her nighty, that if I was there with her she might be forced to do all sorts of unspeakable things to me. I'd texted back saying I was in a cold, hard, uncomfortable tower, that if she gave me any more of that sort of talk I'd be forced to do all sorts of unspeakable things to myself. She sent back a laughing emoji. Roundabout 11pm she wished me good night and said she was off to sleep.

'Slepp tyt,' I texted. 'C U in tha mrnin.'

Goon sat in the gloom of his kitchen late into the evening, all house lights flicked off. It got difficult to see him as the long summer twilight drained from his cottage and inky night slithered in. The glowing moon didn't help operations with the night vision goggles. But I gathered some sense of Goon's form and whereabouts with the thermal imaging camera, standing out in reds and greens, blues and yellows, just sitting there, tapping the table, never shifting. Maybe thinking of Jones. Maybe thinking of his daughter. Who knows?

Mark had been a sleep for a little while by then. Four bottles of Raw City lay empty by his sleeping bag. I could only imagine what Emily would've said if she saw the bottles lying about. She'd be furious. I'd remove them by morning. She'd never know.

3

Goon left his table after midnight. I tracked him through his cottage via the thermal imager. I watched him tumble into bed. He didn't move so I guessed he was off to sleep.

It seemed strange. Him just going to bed. I'd expected another excursion, trailing him to some out of the way spot while he snooped about for whatever it was he was looking for. During the day he'd apparently sat around writing stuff at his table. Kate and Emily'd both tried focusing our binoculars on his work but was never able to work out what he was scribbling. Now there he lay. Like he'd exhausted all his options.

I sat back and yawned. I had my sleeping bag bunched about my shoulders. I nibbled leftover pizza and thought of Hayley again. She'd agreed to stay at the Inn. It'd been my idea. And not an entirely selfish one either. There were people at the Inn. Bar staff and punters. Emily and Kate were there too. It was the safest place for her. I'd told her to call me if she got bored. Or if anything weird happened. Like if she saw some twat in a monster suit snooping about. In the morning I planned to go over and check on Dad. Thought it might be nice for me and Hayley to go for a drive. I'd already suggested we could do brunch in Lambeth or something. Emily'd have something to say about me shirking my responsibilities. But hell, at the end of the day, I was still dealing with my vanishing. She needed to cut me a bit of slack.

I sighed, mosquitoes buzzed about my neck. I slurped more beer, thinking of my afternoon with Hayley. I would've given anything to be tucked up in my bed with her right then. The soft wind tipped my hair and chilled my face. I studied the rear garden of Goon's cottage. The area was drenched in moonlight. The yew hedge cast long black shadows.

4

A little while later I checked my watch. It was closing in on 1 am. The breeze grew more and more chilly round my neck. I turned and grabbed my woolly hat and pulled it down past my ears. Mark was still asleep. I watched him for a few moments. His big fucking afro squashed down around his forehead and drool on his mouth. In the dim light his hair looked like a fucking tyre stuck on his head. I smiled and snapped a photo with my phone. When the flash went off I quickly looked down at Goon. The thermal imager showed he was still in bed asleep.

I put my phone away and considered Mark again. It occurred to me then that he hadn't mentioned any monster shit for a few days. Actually I don't think he'd spoken about it since my grand return. I wondered why. Either he'd shut up about it for my sake. Or the Charweeds hadn't fucked with his brain since they'd done their part in kidnapping me. Whatever the case, I was glad for it.

I smiled again, watching him. I realised how much his friendship meant to me, even though he's a big fucking twat sometimes.

I was still smiling when I checked on Goon again and realised something had changed.

There was no thermal image of Goon in bed.

He was gone.

I held my breath and immediately scanned his house.

He was nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

Had he left? I surveyed his garden. But I hadn't heard his gate.

I snatched up Dad's night vision goggles. The world turned a bright luminescent green and again I scanned Goon's yard. Nothing but the iron table and the looming hedges. And the latched gate.

Surely I would've heard him if he'd gone somewhere.

I switched back to the thermal imager, panned it across his house. I couldn't pick out a single heat signature anywhere. That's when an unsettling thought hit me: what if I couldn't pick up a heat signature because he'd slipped into that monster suit?

The breeze whispered around my ears. An owl hooted somewhere, ghost-like. I almost kicked Mark awake in anxiety when a flash of colour crossed the screen...

...There! In his kitchen.

A figure.

I steadied the thermal imager on the shape. It was Goon, but not in his suit. He was standing at his kitchen window.

He was looking up at me.

5

I froze. I ducked back into the clock tower. My skin crawling. He was looking up at me. He'd seen me. I couldn't believe it. He'd seen me.

What should I do? What should I do?

I peered back over the ledge. I thought he'd come for me now. Bolt from his cottage with a bubbling rage and come charging up the belltower. Where would I run? I'd have to fight him off. Grab my cricket bat and bludgeon his face in.

But when I looked back, I watched him step back from the window... like a spider retreating slyly into the shadows.

I held my breath. Waiting. Watching.

He turned for his fridge, pulled it open, dragged out a jug and started drinking.

I frowned. I held a keen eye on him. Watching as he left the kitchen... Watching him through his lounge room. Watching him return to his bedroom.

He lay down again. Rolled over once, twice, then settled. His legs twitched. Then he was motionless.

I was utterly confused. Had he seen me? Had he been looking up at me? I could've sworn he had. He was looking dead at me.

So what was he doing then? He was back in bed. It didn't make sense. Was he trying to trick me? Lull me? I just kept my eye on him. I knew any moment he'd leave his bed. That he'd do something about me.

Yet he just lay there. It made no sense.

6

By twenty to two he still hadn't budged. I hadn't taken my eyes off him once the whole time. The moonlight shifted around. The night birds had long fallen silent. I checked my watch again. Mark was snoring. Listening to him made my eyelids feel heavy. We'd agreed to take turns keeping watch while the other dozed. I was to rouse him at two. But maybe I could wake him early; pretend I'd got the time wrong. The stress of wondering what the hell Goon was up to was beginning to burn me out.

But Goon never moved.

Clouds passed silently across the moon like black wraiths. I yawned. My eyelids flickered closed for a second... then my head nodded forward...

I snapped awake, my chin flying upwards. Somehow I was convinced one of the witch sculptures had clambered up the outer wall of the clock tower. I edged forward and stuck my head beyond the rampart. As expected (hoped) the witch carvings remained where they were, solid and stationary; their frozen beaked noses and beady eyes staring up at me in the moon glare. I checked my watch. 1:47. Goon was still in bed.

I slapped my cheeks with both palms. 'Stay awake, Jake,' I told myself, 'just stay awake, stop dozing.'

I gazed about Goon's garden again. Yawned once more. Scratched my head, listening to the chirping bugs.

And I shut my eyes...

7

A lonely breeze whistled by my ears. It felt so peaceful. Everything seemed so quiet. Without me even knowing it, morning had swung around; the sun was out in a clear sky. I got up and gazed out from the clock tower expecting to see people getting about their day but to my complete shock the village was gone. In its place, I looked out upon grasslands as far as the eye could see.

Intrigued, frightened, I went down the stairwell and out the door, looking about. There was just empty swathes of grass dancing in a soft whispering wind going on for miles and miles. I circled the tower. Nothing but grass in every direction. What the hell?

A number of dark figures appeared on the horizon. I shielded the sun from my eyes, trying to make them out. They looked like some sort of oxen. Or horses.

Actually they were bigger than horses. Much bigger. And black as fresh bitumen. I took a step backwards. Whatever they were, they'd seen me and were now scampering toward the tower.

I retreated inside and slammed the door. It wouldn't lock. I had to chock it shut with an old candle sconce I tore off the wall.

I fled upstairs and peered out of the belltower. A sensation of dread sunk through me from head to toe. They were spider things. A dozen of them. Grunting, squealing, galloping toward me.

I grabbed Mark's shoulders and shook him so vigorously he should've awoken in an instant. But his body lay there limp and cold and lifeless. 'Mark, wake up, we're in danger!' I dragged his face into the sunlight and shrieked. It wasn't Mark. It was Dad. How the hell had he got here? How the hell was I going to get him out? I shook him. 'Dad! Wake up! We gotta go!'

I turned and again peered over the top of the rampart.

I realised the creatures weren't spider things at all. But mandrills. Squealing, yapping, screeching, clambering up the stone work to get at me. Terrified, I scrambled backwards, waiting for them to come pouring into the belltower

But what came over weren't mandrills...

What wriggled over, nails squealing like bone on tin, were the Charweeds...

8

I awoke with a yell, tangled in my sleeping bag, sitting upright, looking around, blinking, panting. The belltower hung in night gloom, the upper reaches bathed in creamy moonlight. Across from me Mark still slept.

I sighed. A fucking dream, I murmured.

I turned to look for Goon again... And that's when I caught sight of a shape hunched next to Mark.

I frowned.

Something sat there. I could see its eyes looking back at me.

My skin went cold, I scrambled backward. 'Who's there?!'

It just watched me.

'Who's there?'

The figure rose suddenly. It stepped toward me. Then spoke. 'Be calm, lad.'

I held my breath.

'It's just me.'

I blinked as though sand had been thrown in my face. I recognised that voice.

Now I saw his face.

Charlton Jones.

9

'Jones,' I spluttered. I could barely get the word out. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

He came to my side and peered down into Goon's garden. I moved away from him like he was diseased, wondering how the hell he'd got up here with the iron door locked and all. 'Better question, lad, is what you're doing here.'

I swallowed, the shock of his sudden presence still heaving adrenalin through my veins. 'That's none of your business.' I shook the last of my dream from my head. I took a guzzle of water, pushing hair out of my eyes. I palmed dribbles off my chin and eyed Jones, still struggling to comprehend exactly what he was doing there.

At last he turned and looked me over. 'To answer your question, lad, I am here to offer you a warning. My intention was to see you much earlier than today, but I've been waylaid.'

I swallowed. 'Waylaid?'

'Yes. I've been battling beasts from another world, lad, trying to make life easier for you and every other damn thankless soul in this town. And thanks to me the monster that attacked you on Strangler's Vale is dead. But I've only wounded the snake, so to speak, not taken off its head. More of those beasts will keep pushing through. One by one. What's more, I've had Goon hindering my path every step of the way and while it burns me to admit it, I was tricked. The day before he tried to bump off your father in Wolfcrag, we fought and I fell to a warlock's curse that I didn't know Goon had the knowledge to wield. I underestimated him. The real bitch of it is, I'm still bespelled. I cannot stand against him until the enchantments he placed on me wear off or are overturned. If I do, the curse will kill me. And I find that he's been able to run great mischief through Burnchess in my absence.

'So, I must stress, it's time for you to step up and make your play, Jake. You've got to get through that Doorway ahead of him. You must hack the head from the serpent and put a stop to all this.'

I looked at him dumbly. 'Jones, what the fuck are you talking about?'

He sighed. 'Listen, damn you! I've been battling demons. And I'm not talking metaphorically. Real demons, Jake. Monsters. Like the beast that took you apart on the Vale. You must—'

'No, I wasn't attacked by anything. I was seeing things. I dreamt it all. I was drugged.'

'You fool. What attacked you was one of the evil Bucca from Forgottenworld.'

I watched his eyes. 'Forgotten World?' I laughed. 'What the hell have you been smoking! Nothing attacked me. I was hallucinating. Ask Doctor Smith. He'll tell you.'

He eyed me closely. 'Right so tell me then, how did you come by those brutal scars?'

'Scars?' I frowned. 'What brutal scars?'

He sat down and leaned against the wall behind him. 'The scars on your hand.'

'What fuckin' sca—?' The moonlight slanted through the landing and across my body, illuminating my hands and arms. What I saw stunned me. What I saw made me gasp.

The backs of my knuckles looked cut with white neon slashes. My wrists and forearms glowed white with a great array of scar tissue. 'What the hell?' I reeled backwards. 'What the fuck have you done?'

'Don't panic.'

I yanked up my sleeve and in the wash of moonlight my entire arm was aglow with scars. 'What's going on?' My voice trembled. 'What have you done?' I tore my jacket from my body, pulling up my shirt. I was shocked. From neck to waist I was hacksawed in a thousand luminous cuts. 'Jones, what the hell have you done?'

He gripped my mad flailing arms and held my face steady. 'Jake, you were missing for three days because you suffered an horrific attack.'

'No. I was tripping out. Ask Dr Smith. I was on something. Some drug he called atropine or something. You ask him. That's what he said. You ask him!'

'You were attacked by a magical creature, Jake. These sorts of scars can only been seen under a full moon. That's how I know.'

'No! You've done something to me! You and Goon and those horrible Charweeds.'

Without another word he moved himself into the moonbeams and I gasped.

10

Under the wash of moonlight a jagged glowing scar ran from the small of Jones' throat all the way up to his left ear. Another slanted from his right eye, through his nose and down to the top of his mouth. Glowing claw marks were slashed across one cheek, others around the back of his scalp. 'It's okay, Jake. I've been there myself. It's okay. You need to calm yourself down.'

I couldn't calm down. Couldn't even speak, couldn't move. Couldn't take my eyes off my arms and torso. I must be dreaming again, I thought. No other explanation for it. I'm dreaming!

'You aren't dreaming, lad.'

My eyes snapped to his. Had he just read my thoughts? How the hell had he done that? 'What's going on?' I demanded.

'Like I said, you were attacked by one of the Bucca. And by some quirk of fate, magic has saved you from certain death.'

He was full of shit. 'Magic?' I shoved him aside and backed up against the opposite wall. I sat there gathering my breath, taking in the mysterious marks slashed across me. Jones sat down again, getting comfortable, drawing his knees up and resting his forearms across them. He just sat there watching me.

'Am I diseased?' I asked. 'Is that what these marks are? Or am I just hallucinating again?' I kept wondering about what Dr Smith had told me regarding the Devil's Trumpet plant and atropine and scopolamine and ultra-realistic hallucinations.

He laughed quietly, then shook his head. 'No Jake, you're not diseased, and you're not hallucinating. And if you haven't already, you may yet suffer the occasional bout of narcolepsy. Otherwise you're healing.'

'Narcolepsy?' Was he serious? I watched him with narrowed eyes, my forehead tight with wrinkles. 'Jones, you're making no sense.' I shook my head. 'I wasn't attacked by anything. It's Devil's Trumpet, that's all it is. You ask Dr Smith. I was hallucinating or some shit.'

'Trust me, Jake, you weren't hallucinating. But that is beside the point. I want to know how you sit here before me. Living and breathing. When you trailed me yesterday I thought you were some damned ghost doing Goon's bidding. But here you are. Alive. How is it possible?'

He was speaking in riddles. I didn't understand one thing he was saying. 'Jones, stop! Just stop talking. I don't know what you're up to but you're twisting my fucking brain into knots.'

He ignored me. 'On Strangler's Vale. What is your last memory?'

'What?'

'Your last memory, Jake, what is it?'

I retreated out of the moon17 beams. I didn't want to see those glowing slashes on me. But Jones was dredging all this shit up from my mind. That monster on Strangler's Vale. Chasing me... Gashing me... Ripping me apart. 'Jones. Please, you gotta stop this.'

'Why? Because it's too painful to revisit? Why, you should be rejoicing. You have life. Someone gave you a second chance. Someone's looking out for you. Who was it?'

I grimaced. The memories were making me feel ill. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Right then, tell me this. When you awoke, were you covered in a weblike plant?'

I couldn't breathe for several moments. Then spluttered as my chest forced me to inhale. When I got myself under control I wiped my mouth. 'What... how... how did you know?'

'Was it milky pale? Was it down your throat?'

'You're reading my mind. That's what you're doing. You're reading my mind.'

'Jake, listen. I don't understand just how you came by its aid. But this plant is something I have not seen nor heard of in this world before.'

'This world?' I laughed. I felt like I was going out of my mind. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'It's called the Lazarus Weed by some. But the Henbane Witches knew it as Dedhoryans. To rise again. Basically it has a peculiar ability to reanimate dead tissue at a cellular level. The Henbane Witches utilised it in the Middle Ages to bring life back to their stillborn. But Dedhoryans is not of our world, Jake. Hence the reason I'm so intrigued.'

None of this made sense. I refused to listen.

'You should be aware, Jake, you'll carry around those scars for the rest of your life. So if you wish to avoid any awkward questions I'd suggest you either cover up during future full moons or stay indoors. You should also be aware that you've come through a fatal ordeal and although, by intervention I am still yet to fathom, you have strayed through it with your life intact. Next time you may not be so darn lucky.' He suddenly reached forward and grabbed my collar, shaking me violently. 'Are you listening to me, Jake? You've got to be careful! I can't stress this enough.'

I tried to shrug his grip but he was a tough bastard, rooted to the stonework like an old tree.

'Listen to me or I'll chuck you from this bloody tower!' he growled. 'You are far too important to the overall mission. Understand? I can only do so much. It's you and Emily who must play the big part in all of this. In the destiny of Burnchess Village and our world. I cannot have your safety jeopardised! Do you understand me, Jake?'

I watched his eyes. Hell, I almost laughed. 'I don't understand you anymore. I really don't. You might as well be speaking Chinese. Now, get off me. I've got work to do.'

'My business here is not yet done.' He pushed me aside and sat back against the wall. 'I've come to warn you of something.' His searing eyes grilled me. 'But first I need to know if the Veisder is safe.'

I just stared at him.

'Answer me, lad. You went missing for three days. You vanished the very morning after you met with Liberty.'

I'd almost forgotten that word, Veisder. But in my mind's eye I was back at the Archway watching Goon run off with it. That mask thing.

'Jake, do you need me to jog your memory?'

'Look, I've hidden it, now get off my fuckin' case.' I couldn't look him in the eye. But perhaps he knew I'd lost it. Read my mind. I made a great show of checking my watch. 'This conversation's over with. I'm serious.'

He eyed me slyly. 'Jake, listen. Goon now knows the whereabouts of the Scrivinas.'

My gaze fixed on him. 'The Scrivinas?'

'Yes. The last piece of the Boneraker Key.'

I'd never heard of anything called the Boneraker. It threw me for a second. 'Boneraker?'

'The Forgottenworld name for the Burnchess Archway.'

I shook my head. 'Well shit, why didn't you just say that then?'

He ignored me. 'Listen to me very carefully. If you haven't done something foolish and misplaced the Veisder then all's well. But if you've somehow given it up to Goon tell me now. Because Goon's going after the Scrivinas this very night and if he gets his claws on it and utilises it in conjunction with the other pieces to slip through the Doorway, then I assure you, come sunrise, this village is doomed.'

As if on cue Goon's garden gate squeaked open bringing me to my feet; he was heading out again, I needed to wake Mark.

But as I gazed down there I was struck by confusion: Goon came ambling along his garden, not heading out, but returning from somewhere. By the time I managed to comprehend exactly what was going on, he was unlocking his cottage door and stepping inside.

DOOMSDAY EVE

1

NEXT MORNING Emily and Kate turned up a good thirty minutes before their shift was due to kick off. I knew Emily had a bug up her arse the moment I saw her because they came up the stairs (Emily leading the way) and she had this damn look on her face. And straight off the bat she wants to know if Goon happened to leave his cottage in the night.

Mark and me glanced at each other. The truth of it was we'd been asleep. And we'd only just woken up at the sound of the iron door banging open and the girls clumping up the stairwell. Now we both stood there still trying to stifle yawns even as the girls watched us.

'I'm waiting for an answer.'

I glanced down at Goon, yawning into my palm. I shrugged. (Which was a disguised stretch of the shoulders if truth be told.) As far as I knew, Mark'd slept through the night. I'd been awake for part of it but then what? I was having trouble remembering. I had a feeling something had happened. Something weird. Then it came to me: Jones'd been here. That's right. I remembered now. He'd been right here in the tower. And he'd told me something that had utterly terrified me... what he believed happened to me on the Vale. Some magical beast had killed me. And that somehow I'd been returned to life. I recalled the bizarre glowing gash marks on my hands and arms. I didn't want to look down and make it obvious but could the others see them? Were those scars glowing even now? I rolled my sleeves down to hide anything that might be showing.

'What's up with the pair of you this morning?' Emily asked almost flabbergasted. 'Can neither of you answer a simple question? If you were both awake through the night you'd know whether or not Goon left his cottage, right? So, tell me, did Goon vacate his cottage or not?'

I remembered Goon coming back from somewhere. Coming back through his gate. I knew now that Jones'd had me distracted in the tower. And I knew then that because of Jones, Goon'd slipped under our guard and alluded us. Even so, how was I meant to answer? Did I want to stand there and cop a grilling from Emily? Not particularly. So I said, 'No. Goon, ah, was here all night. He didn't go anywhere. Isn't that right, Mark?'

Mark nodded. Although he remained speechless. And he looked awfully sheepish.

Emily straightened her specs and sighed. 'All right, Kate, tell this pair what your mother witnessed at four this morning.'

Our attention turned to Kate. She stood there gazing down at Goon. Her skin looked pale. Her eyes still puffy with sleep. Her hair roughly brushed and dragged hastily into a pony tail. Typical Kate: looked gorgeous without even trying.

'Right then,' she says, gathering her thoughts. 'Okay, at four this morning, Mum woke to the sounds of a disturbance next door to our house. When she went to the kitchen window and peered out, she saw someone clambering out of Mrs Tipnal's pantry window. She says she only had a brief glimpse of this person but believes it was Goon. She said he was carrying something... an item she only noticed when he passed under the streetlamp.'

I was intrigued and concerned. Remembering now what Jones had told me last night. That Goon was going after the Scrivinas.

'Mum went over to see if Mrs Tipnal was okay,' Kate told us. 'Poor old Mrs Tipnal wasn't even aware she'd been burgled.'

'Probably on account of her being a senile old battle-axe,' I suggested, which earned me a glare from Emily.

'Anyway, so Mum told Mrs Tipnal that she'd witnessed Goon climbing out of her window and Mrs Tipnal went straight to an old chest in her study. That's when she confirmed something had indeed been stolen.'

I almost didn't want to know. But I had to ask the question. 'What was it?'

Emily held a photograph out to me or Mark, whoever wanted it. I was closer. I grabbed it. 'Mrs Tipnal calls it the Hand Of Armageddon.'

As soon as I saw it I knew. It was the six-fingered hand featured in Mum's scrapbook. The so-called Scrivinas.

I could feel Emily's gaze drilling the side of my face, wanting an explanation as to why and how Goon had been allowed to roam unchecked across Burnchess at four in the morning.

My brain churned for a passable excuse. 'Okay, look.' I spoke in a sort of conceding tone of voice. 'This wasn't Goon.' I shook the photo in the air. 'He didn't steal this. Alone, I mean. He had help.'

Emily sighed. 'What are you talking about?'

I considered what I was about to say. Then just said it. 'Jones was here last night.' I pointed at her feet. 'Standing right where you are now.'

Emily looked down at her sneakers; Kate and Mark did the same. Then all eyes returned to me. I stepped to the rampart and gazed at Goon's cottage. It was obvious now: Jones'd been acting as decoy. Plain and simple. Why else would he have told me all that bullshit about fighting off monsters and witch plants and how I might now be prone to narcolepsy while healing from some nasty animal attack? And Mark simply hadn't woken during the late night visit because Jones'd drugged him. He must've drugged me too because I still couldn't recall him leaving.

I looked around at Kate and eyed her closely. 'You say that your mum saw Goon at four am?'

She shrugged. 'That's what mum said.'

'Okay. Like I said, Jones was here telling me how we had to stop Goon cos Goon'd found out where the Scrivinas was.'

They looked confused. 'The what?' Emily asked.

I indicated the item in the photo. 'The Scrivinas. It's the name of this hand thing. Jones distracted me while Goon went after it.'

Emily eyed me closely. Suspiciously. She was obviously having a hard time believing this. 'Jones?'

'Yeah.'

'Did you witness any of this, Mark?'

He shook his head. 'No.'

'Cos Jones drugged him,' I told her. 'Don't you get it? He must've drugged me too.'

She and Kate both looked at me sceptical.

'I'm telling you, Jones and Goon are in cahoots. The argument they were going on with yesterday afternoon... that was all for show. Did none of you lot see Jones when he left? He looked straight up here at us. I swear. That means he knows we're watching, listening. Which means Goon knows too. They hammed up the whole conversation to fool us. Oh, and get this, Goon stood watching me through his kitchen window last night.'

Emily went to the rampart. Stood there gazing down at him. 'He was watching you?'

'Yes. He knows we're up here.'

The look on her face told me she didn't believe a single word I was saying. 'What's Jones got to gain by helping Goon?'

'I don't know.'

She turned and watched me a while. Then returned her eye back to Goon's cottage. She didn't speak for a good while but I knew her mind was churning. 'Jake, why do I get the feeling you're simply trying to cover up your blunder?' She folded her arms and eyed me over her shoulder. 'Jones just materialised up here? With the iron door locked?' She shook her head. 'He drugs both you and Mark? But you see him here and Mark doesn't? And then he keeps your attention while Goon slips off into the night?' She smiled. 'My guess is you dreamed this all up. I mean, look at the beer bottles lying around. You pair had a regular little session up here last night. Admit it. You both got blind drunk and passed out.'

'We had one or two beers, Em. Hardly enough to make us blotto.'

She wasn't buying it.

'I'm not backing down from this,' I told her. 'Jones was here.' I looked to Kate for some support.

Emily sighed. 'Look, Jake, I'm sorry but whichever way you try and sell it the fact remains: Goon slipped under your radar and stole that object. If this village goes under then you're accountable.'

2

So... big deal. Emily didn't believe me. It was hardly a surprise. Didn't make me feel any less pissed off though.

'Thanks for backing me up, mate,' I said to Mark as we squeezed our way out of the base of the clock tower. 'Nothing like a united front.'

He looked at me sideways. 'Wotta you talking about, brutha?'

'What am I talking about?' I grinned like I'd just taken a hit of crack. 'You don't think I see what's going on?'

He frowned, pretending to be confused.

'Fuck off, Mark, don't give me that look. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You'd rather keep Emily on side than jeopardise getting in her pants. No bro's before ho's if there's pussy involved, right?'

He scoffed. 'What the fuck are you going on about?'

I whined at him: 'The fuck are ya going on about?'

He stopped in the road, hands planted on his hips, glaring at me like I'm a complete wanker.

'Yeah, I know about you 'n' her, mate,' I told him. 'It's hardly a secret. Snogging at the end of school ball. Don't deny it. She's got you on a string, mate. Like all that Challenge business.'

He waved me off like a fly. 'Yeah, whatever, Jake.' He laughed and walked off, his big afro lolling about as he shook his head.

'I'm serious,' I called after him. 'But anyway, good luck with her, mate. Stick both inches up her if that's all ya care about!'

He snorted and grinned. 'Brutha, go fuck yourself.'

'No, you fuck yourself first, dickhead.'

He stopped and came back at me, pointing his finger at my face, almost stabbing me in the eye. 'You're the dickhead!'

'And you're a fucking wanker, mate, so wotta ya gonna do about it?'

He threw his hand in the air. In hindsight, I think he was about to simply wave me off, dismiss me in disgust and walk away. But right then I thought he was trying to clip me across the head. So without thinking about it, I shifted into self-defence mode and wrangled him into a head lock. His afro felt like an angry bear, smothering the air out of my face, smelling of sweat and shampoo.

In no time though he hooked his fingers into my nostrils and dragged my head aside and rammed his elbow into my ribs. I spluttered as he wriggled out of my grip. We went to ground in an awkward wrestle but Mark's done Judo since he was like four and before I could screech, 'Ouch, that fucking hurts! he laid down a pretty serious Ippon move and flipped me onto my back. Then he jumped on top of me, digging his knee into my throat.

'I told you to wake me,' he seethed, holding me down, his sweat dripping in my face. 'But you didn't! Okay? So stop being a fuckin' girl about it!'

I was gagging for air by the time he got off me. I lay there on the cobbles spluttering, wiping spit off my mouth, watching him walk away.

3

I let him go. I didn't care. It was wasted energy worrying about him. What I really needed to do was find some way to implicate Jones. I just knew he'd orchestrated Goon's little excursion last night. But I had no way to prove it. I believed we needed resources on his tail. This wasn't a single-target stakeout job anymore. We were being outwitted and outplayed like those knobs on Survivor. And it all pointed to Jones.

So where the hell was I supposed to find any incriminating evidence? Because Emily wasn't going to believe a word of it until I unearthed something concrete.

Well, what about the file room at the police station?

4

The deal with the police station, is that it runs on certain rigid protocols calling for a station attendant to be present at all times during hours of operation; that being from 6 am to 5 pm. When the doors are bolted shut at 5, auxiliary officer Peg Rendell rolls her considerable belly home in the station wheelbarrow (that's a bit of a fib, but another year or two and I swear it'll be a reality), and the three musketeers—Dad, Finch and Newson—retire for the day, remaining on call throughout the night.

But since Goon had done his number on town authorities the police station had become something of an abandoned outpost. So when I got down there that muggy August morning it was how I'd hoped it'd be: as deserted as a ghost house.

I came up the front steps and the doors hung unlocked, swinging in the sticky breeze. Behind me the Castle intersection lay abandoned. Matter of fact I hadn't seen a soul my entire way down the Grove. No farmers, no market folk, no buzz of distant motorbikes. Just ravens along the rooftops. And gulls assembled in the roadway waiting for hot chips.

I pushed through the doors and stood there just inside, looking about. The main bulk of the building consists of an open plan office used by Finch, Newson and Peg Rendell. Peg's a human dumpster so you don't go leaving food lying around. (Once when I was twelve I had this piglet called Spare Rib and one day he vanished after I'd taken him down the station to show him off to the gorgeous Sergeant Hannah Grosset who used to work there. That was the last time I saw Spare Rib. Ask anyone, fat Peggy Rendell scoffed him when no one was looking. There's no other explanation for it.)

Dad's office is the only private office. It sits at the right-hand end of the building. And there's a set of men's and women's lavatories between Peg's desk and the short hallway that runs to the rear door. Branching off this hallway is the file room and next to that the village lockup.

As far as I could see from where I stood, no one was present. No Finch, no Newson, no creampuff-munching Rendell either. Piggy Rendell should have been there at the very least. And either one of Finch or Newson, depending on the roster. But since Goon had done his work, the place had become a ghost ship.

I strolled over and knocked on the toilet doors. Maybe Peg was delivering a multi-car shit-train. I called out: 'Hello, anyone here? It's just me. Jake Crassly.'

No reply.

I checked the interrogation room, wincing as I recalled the painful hypnosis sessions. It sat empty except for a fly buzzing madly against the window pane, hoping for a way out. I moved back toward Dad's office, calling out again. 'Hello? Finch? Peg? Anyone here?'

Again no reply. It was 6:15 am.

5

The door to Dad's office stood open but I called out, 'Knock knock?' before I went in. When I pushed through the door, from first appearances, the office looked empty. But when I turned around I jumped at the sight of a figure standing there watching me.

Then I relaxed.

It was just my reflection in the mirror hanging against the locker.

I gathered my breath. Calmed my nerves. Then considered my scars...

I dragged up my shirt and studied the reflection of my belly. There were no glowing hack marks. None on my hands and arms either. Just long red welts that seemed to stretch around my neck and thigh.

Jones' voice echoed in my head: You were attacked by a magical creature, Jake. These sorts of scars can only been seen under a full moon.

I ignored the voice.

I went over to the kitchenette almost expecting Goon to jump out at me. But it was deserted. No Piggy (I mean Peggy) in there stuffing her face with the expensive crème biscuits that are kept for official visits.

I turned and gazed across Dad's office. I'd last seen Finch... when? Two days ago? Three? Four? I couldn't remember. She'd been with Goon. Right in this very office. Goon had messed her brain up. Yet... where was she?

I fished out my phone. Dialled her number. After several rings her voicemail kicked in: 'You have reached the phone of Sergeant Wendy Finch. I am unable to take your call at the moment but if you would care to leave a message and a return number I'll get back to you as soon as I am able. Alternatively you may call Detective Inspector Charles Crassly or Detective Constable Newson.'

It beeped and I said, 'Finch, it's Jake Crassly. Um, not sure if you know, but the police station is deserted. Just letting you know in case you still give a shit.'

I hung up and stood there staring at Dad's desk. I went over. His desk looked unusually bare. A desk phone, a plastic in-tray, and a pewter mug holding some pens. There was a photo of him and me and Mum in a silver frame Mum gave him one Christmas. I felt a million miles from the day that photo had been snapped. It brought me a sad smile. Seeing us all together in that other life.

On the other side of his desk there stood a photo of him and Louise. I turned it face down.

I pulled open his drawer. A small brass key lay in there. I took it and left the office.

6

I came down the short hall leading to the back of the police station. The filing room door is on the right. I went to use the key but I found the door standing open about an inch. I nudged it further with my palm. Let it swing inward before I stuck my head round for a look.

'Hello?' I stepped inside. No one here either, it seemed. It smelled of old paper and cardboard. All sort of stuffy. In the centre of the room ran three bays of shelving. I had no idea why the room sat unlocked when protocol dictates it remain bolted at all times. No doubt Goon'd had something to do with. Anyway, I didn't waste time. I headed straight for the letter J. All files appeared to be arranged in strict order and I found J easily enough.

Ultimately, I found nothing on Jones.

I started again from the top. Again with no luck.

I stood back, letting my eyes roam the J's in case there was something I was missing. But there was nothing. Maybe I'd been wrong about Jones. Maybe there was nothing on him after all.

I checked my watch then moved around the other side of the bay to check out the G's. Nothing on James Gemmel either. But I did uncover a thick file on Goon. I plucked it out without hesitation. I expected (hoped) to find something about salted corpses in his basement. Or how he'd murdered his own daughter. There was nothing of the sort. Just a couple of minor misdemeanours such as speeding fines and causing a public disturbance on the Spitfire some years back.

It closed with a brief mention of the massacre of 2001 and the disappearance of his Carenza. But there was nothing else. I slotted the file back and found my way to the other side of the bay. This time I ran my eyes over the M section.

I located a file: Massacre, Seven Ghosts, Burnchess—August 2001.

I dragged it out and flipped it open. There was a single sheet of A4 in there with police letterhead and the Royal Police Coat Of Arms watermark. This is what it said:

Investigations into Burnchess Massacre.

(Status: unsolved)

It has come to my attention during investigations into the massacre that took place on August 30th this year (2001) that the cultists who have set up a commune within Witchthorn Wood near the Temple Ash Inn, may hold key information as to the identity of the perpetrator(s). Subsequent questioning of this group has uncovered little to no new information. Except for one possible lead.

On the 17th November this year (2001) I was approached by two individuals from the aforementioned cult who requested to remain anonymous for agreeing to pass on 'crucial information'. They purported that there is the presence of a second cult, one that calls itself the Mort Afera. It is their belief that this second cult is responsible for the Burnchess Massacre at the Seven Ghosts. They intimated that I might wish to chat with Burnchess residents Charlton Jones (a possible ringleader) or Radford Goon.

Both men (Jones and Goon) agreed to be interviewed. However, at this time I have insufficient evidence to suspect either man of any involvement. (The transcripts of both these interviews are attached to this file.)

In concluding, while autopsies remain inconclusive, the case into the massacre of 5 children which took place at the Seven Ghosts late on the evening of August 30th remains ongoing.

Signed: Detective Chief Inspector Colin Layman

November 21st, 2001

7

I searched excitedly for the transcripts mentioned in the report. But they weren't present. I then stood there reading through the report again. Mort Afera? I wondered, when I was done. Surely he meant Mortifera. If so, what did it mean? In terms of my mother's involvement, I mean. Were she and Liberty somehow connected to the massacre at Seven Ghosts?

I couldn't accept that. There had to be more to it. Perhaps Goon and Jones had some connection to it. Maybe they were responsible for the deaths of those kids. And for all I knew, it was Jones getting about in that monster suit, not Goon. Maybe it'd actually been Jones in Emily's room that night. The more I pondered that idea the more it made sense now. And it explained how he knew so much, how he'd rightfully predicted we'd have a so-called 'visitor' to the Inn during that period. It explained why he kept refusing to tell me what the fuck was going on. Because he couldn't tell me anything without implicating himself. I knew now: we'd had it all wrong. It wasn't Goon we were after. It was Jones.

8

I left the police station that morning as the first growl of thunder rumbled in from the Hidden Sea. It was humid as ever and a storm wind was building, plucking at trees, tearing at leaves. When I got back to the clock tower the sky overhead shone with burning sunlight but west beyond Hell's Edge the heavens were bruised as plums and great burping thunder rumbled from the sky.

I bounded up the stairwell and Kate and Emily barely turned to acknowledge me. Both were gazing intently down at Goon's cottage.

Dripping sweat, I took the file from my pocket and flapped it in the air to gain their attention. 'Okay, listen up. I've got something on Jones.'

Emily shooshed me. And Kate murmured, 'Oh, my God, what's he up to now?'

I frowned and stepped over to see what was going on.

Goon had dragged something onto his dining table. A dark wooden box about the size of a brief case... actually, about the same size as that Warchest Louise gave Dad for his birthday, if I thought about it. And while we watched, he slowly withdrew each of the three stolen artefacts.

The three-eyed skull from Staten's.

The mummified mask/face thing.

And that black six-fingered hand.

'What the hell is going on?' Kate whispered again.

He had a backpack with him. We watched him stuff each artefact inside. Then he placed the backpack on his dining table and left the room. It was the first I'd noticed he'd changed clothes. Long dark trousers and scuffed black boots. Black shirt. And on the back of the chair hung that dark travelling cloak. While we watched, he moved round his cottage shutting all curtains.

'He's preparing to leave,' Emily said.

'Emily, listen,' I stressed. 'Jones is the hidden player here. He's doing something behind the scenes. This is all too convenient. Here. Look.'

I held the file out to her. She took it impatiently as if she didn't have time for it. But once she read it she said, 'Where the hell did you get this?'

I shrugged. I though she would've known. 'The filing room at the police station.'

She looked at me horrified. 'Oh, my God, you stole police property?'

'I didn't steal it, Em. I borrowed it.'

'But this is police information, Jake.'

'Hey, don't come over all high and mighty with me. I know that's where you somehow got that Carenza report.'

She looked totally taken aback. 'I did not.'

'Bullshit, Emily.'

When she didn't argue the point further, I knew that she had.

'Look,' I said, 'it doesn't matter. Point is we've gotta have someone go after Jones.'

'No.'

Her blunt response surprised me. 'Em, we have to. He's the ringleader here.'

'Jake, listen. If what you say is true, if he's truly aligned himself with Goon then why do you think he paid you a midnight visit? To distract us. To divide us. If he thinks he's going to drag our scent off Goon that easily then he has seriously underestimated us.'

9

The storm clouds came chugging in from the west, already dumping heavy grey rain across Hell's Edge. Smaller drops started to plink against the tiles on the roof of the tower. Thunder rumbled. Goon came back into his kitchen. He scrawled something in big letters on a long plank of board we'd seen leaning against the kitchen wall. When he was done he approached his kitchen window.

And looked up at us.

It was so unexpected it took us all by complete surprise. The three of us just froze.

He grinned, happy to have our undivided attention and held the sign to his window.

you have thirty minutes to prevent Armageddon!

He left the plank of wood there on the inside sill (his message left deliberately in full view) and he turned and hitched the backpack over his shoulders and promptly headed for the kitchen doorway.

10

We stood in stunned silence, watching him move out of sight into his lounge room.

'Oh, my God,' Kate said. 'What the hell just happened?'

'I told you, him and Jones are working together; they've known we've been here all along.'

Emily wasn't listening, pulling on her coat and heading for the stairwell.

'Emily! Did you hear what I just said?'

She whirled at me. 'It doesn't matter now, Jake? Can't you see what's going on?'

I frowned at her. What was she talking about?

'It's obvious,' she spat. 'We're too late. Goon's already been down to the catacombs. He must've gone down there last night when you and Mark were sleeping! He's already set the bomb.'

I blinked down at the cottage.

'Why else would he show us that message?' she stressed, moving onto the stairs.

'No,' I told her, 'he's bluffing.'

'Bluffing? Oh come off it!'

'No, it's a ploy to draw us outta the tower.'

She stopped where she was, eyeing me coldly.

I studied Goon's house, wondering where he was. Had he left yet? He wasn't in his garden. He must still be inside. Rain had begun to batter down now, forming a dull grey haze across Burnchess. 'Look. He still hasn't left. If he'd truly armed his bomb he'd be on his fucking horse by now.'

'Not if he's planning to go down with the ship,' she declared.

That idea almost choked me. 'Down with the ship?'

'Yes. Why wouldn't he? He's got nothing to lose, right?'

'Oh, my God,' Kate said, realising what Emily had just said. 'What do we do then?'

'The last option open to us,' Emily told her. 'We sound the air-raid siren and try and get everyone out of town.'

THE DOORWAY

1

WE CAME out of the base of the tower like soldiers into a war zone, the spattering rain flicking at our faces. I half-expected Goon to be waiting to ambush us with a butcher's knife but the street was deserted. Still, I was confident he hadn't gone anywhere yet, certain we would've heard the squeal of his gate in the confines of the stairwell, even under the din of the storm. Still, with Emily and me continuing to exchange words we would've been hard pressed to hear anything, I guess.

'Emily, would you just listen to me for one second? If he knows we've been watching him he probably knows our plan to sound the alarm, right?'

'So? I don't see what you're getting at!' she argued, flustered, thunder shaking the sky, droplets of water covering the lenses of her glasses.

'Well, it's obvious. He wants to distract us. He wants us to run off and sound the alarm so we're not around to stop him climbing down into the catacombs.'

She wasn't listening.

'Emily, listen to me. I'm serious.'

'Jake, we need to stick to our plan. We need to get that siren blaring.'

I felt exasperated. 'You pair go,' I said defiantly. 'It doesn't take three of us to operate the alarm. I'm staying here. If he leaves his house once that alarm sounds, I'm gonna ambush the fucker.' I had the cricket bat gripped tight in my fist.

I turned for Goon's property and suddenly spotted him trudging down his garden path through the hazy deluge.

'Shit.' I side-stepped quickly to my right, ducking behind the hedge outside the gate, hiding, gesturing to the girls that they might want to do the same.

I don't know if Goon thought we'd be waiting there in hiding but he came through the gate gazing up at the clock tower like he expected us to still be goggling down at him.

That was his first mistake. I swung the bat upward with all my pent up anger and caught him in the solar plexus. He gave this almighty HOOOMFF! and he fell to his knees.

I jumped on him, hurling my arm round his slimy neck, yelling at the girls to wrestle off his back pack. I had this brilliant notion that if we took back the three bits of the key, we'd be able to get down into the catacombs and disarm the bomb.

Briefly I had Goon pinned down in a choking headlock. 'The backpack!' I yelled at Emily but the girls were wary and hesitated. When they finally acted it was too late.

Goon twisted from my grip and swung his bag at the girls as they rushed him. It caught Emily across the face, knocking her glasses free as she peeled off into the gate. I struggled to keep him contained but he twisted again and spun around, flinging his bag at me quick as a spark, clipping my forehead. I hit the ground. My senses went white. Rain drummed around my face. I lay there struggling to regain my faculties. The storm suddenly seemed far away. I looked about trying to get my bearings. That's when I heard a squeal.

Grimacing, I rolled over.

Goon had one arm round Kate's throat and had her wrist twisted behind her back. He had his backpack again slung over his shoulders.

Kate winced, fighting pain. On the soaking cobbles at the base of the gate Emily lay groaning, rain splatting her cheeks, her eyes rolling about.

I stood there clasping my cricket bat, cursing myself for going for his ribs and not smashing my bat over his head and knocking him into next week.

'I will have my revenge, Jake lad,' Goon rasped with a grin. 'I won't be stopped by the likes of yer sneaky wretches.'

'Let her go!'

'She's coming with me, I'm afraid,' he snickered. 'For insurance, you might say.'

Kate was still grimacing, struggling for air while his arm choked off her windpipe.

'Let her go now,' I yelled at him, 'or your life won't be worth living, I swear.'

He laughed and began dragging her, her neck bent at a horrific angle.

'Goon!' I roared. 'Let her go!'

He smiled. 'Make me.'

The thing he hadn't factored in was Kate. She's not one of Cornwall's best young athletes for nothing. She's tenacious and tough and if you get on her bad side she'll put you on your arse. She got an arm free and grabbed a handful of Goon's greasy hair, yanking his head back. It was with such strength I thought his neck was would snap. It took him by complete surprise. You could see it on his face. Then with her other hand, Kate punched him square in the face.

Seizing the moment, I rushed forward. But he saw me coming. With his nose bleeding, he let go of Kate and slung his pack at my head. I anticipated it and dived at his knees.

The bugger was quick though. He sprung aside, dragging Kate into me as he went. My forehead clipped her hip, spinning me, toppling her. Tangled we crashed heavily into the cobbles. Goon could've bolted then. Could've got away. I'd seen him run. None of us would've caught him. Maybe only Kate.

But he had hate in his eyes. He rushed back at me, pulling a long inward curving blade from the inside of his jacket and snatching me up by the collar. He dragged me across the spitting wet cobblestones; away from the girls. Emily had come round. She still looked dazed, but both her and Kate were watching on with gaping eyes.

My temples pumped with adrenalin. My heart pounded. I couldn't see Goon, but the tip of his blade hovered in front of my throat. I heard him sniggering, 'I'll bleed yer, Jake lad. I've been looking forward to this for a long time I can tell yer. And when the village falls down no one'll know that yer died like a cut pig. Yer only witnesses will be dead. Sunk to the bottom of old Hockmarsh.'

He was just about speak again, when I heard someone yell, 'Oy, fuckface!'

And when Goon turned to see who'd snuck up behind us, there came a dull smacking sound (like thick meaty knuckles right-hooking a jaw bone) and Goon flopped loosely into the road.

2

I looked up to see Mark's big PNG frame and his sodden afro filling my vision. Breathing heavily, he held out a hand and dragged me up. I gathered my breath, turned to see if the girls were okay. Kate stood, helping Emily to her feet. Both still looked dazed. 'Everyone okay?' I asked.

They nodded, though a tad stunned. I looked down at Goon who lay unconscious in the flurrying rain. Around us trees swayed to and fro in the gathering wind. Loose leaves spat about, swatting our faces and arms. Lightning cracked half a mile away. The storm was almost directly overhead by now.

I turned and looked at Mark, my eyes squinting against the downpour. I sensed some simmering tension between us from our earlier altercation. But I held my hand out to him. 'Thanks, mate.' He didn't shake my hand. He simply ruffled my sodden hair. So, I was forgiven.

'I mean, obviously I could've taken him myself,' I reminded him.

'Sure, brutha,' he said. 'Looks like you had things well in control.'

Emily fetched her glasses, rubbing her cheek where Goon'd hit her.

'So how'd you lot finally drag the rat out of his hole?' Mark asked.

'We didn't,' Emily said. 'He slithered out on his own accord.'

'Yeah, Emily thinks he's already been down into the catacombs and set his bomb.'

Mark's eyes grew. 'No way. Are you serious?'

'Look, we don't know for certain but I don't want to take any chances. Okay?' Wild wind gusts lashed her hair. 'So we need to sound the air-raid siren and evacuate the village.'

Kate was busy tying her hair back. 'Best leave that part to me then. We've already wasted crucial minutes taking Goon down.'

'Are you certain?' Emily asked her. 'Do you know how to set it off?'

Kate nods. 'Yes.'

'Okay then,' Emily said giving her a quick hug. 'Go as fast as you can.'

'No fear of that,' Kate told her. 'I'll see you all at the assembly area. Be sure you all make it.' She turned to leave.

'Kate,' I said. She turned and watched me, walking backwards, eager to get moving, squinting as rain spat off her nose. 'You think I should come with you?'

'Why?' She shook her head. 'You'll only slow me down.'

I nodded. 'Okay. But be quick.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Yes, I know.'

I looked at my watch. 'Cos if what Goon said is true we've only got another twenty-five minutes before the bomb goes off.' But she was already sprinting away. That hurt, watching her Asics sneakers splashing away through the water without her even looking back at me, without wishing me to be safe.

'Okay,' I said with a sigh, 'let's get moving.'

Emily dragged the backpack from Goon's limp body now. She handed it to me. 'Go,' she said. 'Both of you. I'll meet you at Beechworth's.'

We eyed her, curious. 'Why, where are you going?' Mark asked.

'Back to the Inn. I've got to fetch Scuppers. I won't leave him.'

Mark frowned at her. 'Emily, there's no time.'

'I'm not leaving him, Mark. He's the last thing my dad—my real dad—gave to me.'

I suddenly thought of Hayley. And Cookie. 'Em, I'm coming with you.'

Mark sent us both an exasperated look.

I shrugged at him. 'Hayley's there, mate. Cookie too. Mum'd never forgive me if something happened to Cookie. And I'd never forgive myself if something happened to Hayley.' I handed him the backpack and glanced at my watch again, showed him my wrist. 'We've got twenty-four minutes. It's plenty of time. You take the bag. It's got the three pieces of the key. Get to the muster point. We'll meet you there.' By then I'd well and truly abandoned any idea of being a hero and getting into the catacombs to disarm that bomb.

'And what do we do with him?' Mark asked, pointing at Goon.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Leave the prick here. Let him go down with the village.'

'No,' Emily said, appalled. 'We won't do any such thing. We take him with us and hand him over to authorities.'

I scoffed. Typical Emily. I was about to tell her what I thought about her idea when unexpectedly, my phone rang. Hayley's number showed on my screen. I answered. The raging storm made it sound like she was on the moon. 'Hayley, it's okay,' I told her. 'We're evacuating the village. We've got about twenty minutes. Can you locate Cookie. I need to grab her and taker her with us.'

There was just static on the line.

'Hayley? Can you hear me?'

'Jake... zczzclcl... don't know what's going on... zccczll...'

I yelled into the receiver, 'Hayley, listen to me, you have to evacuate Burnchess.'

'Jake, Goon... zccl... idnapped m... zczzlc... don't know exactly where... zzzcll... I am... zzczl... nside some... cave... zzlcc...'

'Hayley, it's difficult to hear you. But listen, you've gotta get outta Burnchess. Can you round up Cookie and Scuppers? We need to take them to the evacuation point.'

Nothing but heavy static.

'Hayley? Can you hear me?'

...zccllzz...

Mark and Emily were watching me, eager to be moving.

'Hayley!' I shouted against the roar of the deluge, thumbing shut my free ear. 'Hayley? Are you still there?' I was just about to hang up. If she was at the Inn I'd find her.

But then here voice again. '... been trying to reach somebody for ages... zclzl... the first time I've got a signal... Jake, you have to help me... please... cllzz... I'm tied up next to... zzclzc... explosive... bomb... zclxz... he said... would detonate...'

The line cut dead. 'Hayley!' I yelled as lightning crackled off through the sky. 'Hayley, can you hear me?'

No reply. Immediately I attempted to call back.

'Jake,' Emily said, 'what's wrong?'

I didn't hear her.

'Jake!' Emily snapped. 'What is it?'

My eyes suddenly caught Emily's, rain tumbling harder and the sky immediately overhead began bursting with heavy eruptions of thunder. Instinctively we ducked. 'Em, I think you're right. Goon's already been into the catacombs. And I think he took Hayley with him.'

Both Emily's and Mark's eyes bulged.

'Hayley said something about a bomb. I've gotta go after her. I can't leave her down there.' I glanced at Mark and back at Emily, rain pelting our heads. They were both considering this. Both in two minds.

'Look,' I told them, 'this isn't up for discussion. You guys fetch Scuppers and Cookie. I'm going after Hayley. I'll see you at the assembly area.' I took Goon's backpack from Mark.

'Jake, wait,' Emily pleaded.

There was a foreign look in her eyes I didn't recognise. In fact, it was so alien I thought I must've been simply misreading it. She actually looked... concerned. For my safety.

'I know you have to do this,' she said, 'but they say there's miles of caves down there. You don't know where she is. She could be anywhere. You need to realise you're going to be seriously pushed for time before the explosive goes off.'

'Emily, I don't wanna hear it. I'm doing this. If I don't try I'll never forgive myself.' The sodden backpack slumped in my arms and even under the hammering storm we all heard the strange chinking noise from inside. As if the bag contained rocks. My brow creased over. I tore the pack open and out tumbled three house bricks.

The artefacts that would get me into the catacombs were nowhere in sight.

Sprawled on the ground, Goon looked up at us and began to snigger.

3

I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up. 'Where are they?' I yelled at his face, wind gushing around us. 'Where are the artefacts?'

He just lay there smiling, enjoying my anger. 'Time's ticking, boy,' he rasped.

I shoved him back to the roadway. 'Mark,' I said, 'hold this worm till I get back. Don't give him an inch.'

'Where are you going?' Emily demanded.

'To dig up the bloody artefacts! Now go, get to the Inn, fetch Scuppers and Cookie. I'll meet you at Beechworth's.' I turned and rushed at Goon's gate, ramming it open with my shoulder. I remember the moment well, because that's exactly the moment the eerie, ghost wail of the air-raid siren began to peel across the village. I tumbled into the hedge, aware that behind me people had come to their windows, peering out into the storm, wondering—with the siren and all—what the hell was going on.

I pushed myself through the storm gloom, down the cobbled garden path where water ran like a brook. In fact the entire lawn had flooded to the ankle, cold water seeping through my sneakers, sogging my socks, drenching my toes. Behind me the gate squealed shut and somewhere back in the street Mark was busy tying Goon's wrists and ankles behind his back using the straps from the backpack; his blade kicked across the road.

By the time I came up on the cottage door the time was 8:38. Twenty-two minutes till the village went down. I kicked the door open, the siren blaring. Lightning flashed, illuminating Goon's front room, giving me a moment to scope the place.

Mostly satisfied there were no booby traps I stepped inside, snaking my hand along the wall, searching for a light switch. The room flared white, as lightning crackled through the heavens. Then my fingers found a switch. I flicked it on and, in the ceiling—behind a milky light casing layered with dead bugs—a bulb came to life, giving off only a dull luminescence. Still, it was enough for me to get my bearings.

The room was fairly basic, the was floor covered in a thick faded carpet, and dark leather lounge chairs faced an old TV with a rabbit-ear digital aerial. A bookcase stood along the far wall stocked with dusty old books. And from every wall there hung a hundred portrait photos of one little girl. Carenza.

Still, I could think of only one thing: where the fuck those artefacts were? We'd watched Goon placing them in his backpack. Then we'd watched him leave his kitchen with that backpack slung over his shoulder. Had he swapped it for the one with the bricks between there and the cottage door?

Across the room stood the open kitchen doorway. For all we knew he'd left the first bag in the kitchen. I began to cross the room when there came a blinding flare of white light from beyond the cottage. It was accompanied by a deafening concussive roar that made me yelp, and as the sound of thunder rumbled into the distance the bulb in the ceiling flickered out, plunging me into a grey darkness.

I halted, allowing my eyesight adjust. I looked about, suspicious, thinking maybe Goon had wrestled his way from Mark, that he'd somehow cut the power.

I had to push the idea from my mind. I went forward, slowly navigating my way around the furniture. The din of the storm was subdued the further in I went, but the noise of rain battering the slate roof tiles came at me like a never-ending drum roll. In the background, the siren droned on and on. If the village council had done their drills properly, if folk had read their evacuation leaflets, then people ought to have been fleeing their houses in droves and charging toward the northern end of the village, past the Archway and onward to Farmer Beechworth's field. But if Goon's spell was still upon them then everyone was pretty much fucked.

I made it to the kitchen doorway without incident. But a sharp rushing noise made me whirl around. For a split second, as the heavens flashed, the entire lounge room lit up, framing the empty rear doorway.

There was no one there.

The cottage dipped back into gloom. I didn't move. What had I heard? The sound of the heaving wind? The bark of distant thunder? I could've been sure I'd heard someone running up behind me.

I backed toward the kitchen, stepped through the doorway. Dull storm light cast itself through the kitchen windows. I turned from the lounge room and hurried toward the dining table.

I saw it straight away: a second backpack lying on the floor near the wall. I snatched it up, tore it open and saw all three segments of the key.

That's when I heard it. Another sudden sound from the lounge room... something heavy being shoved over. (The book case? One of the lounge chairs? The TV?) I spun back to the kitchen doorway and gasped as a darkened figure ambled toward me.

I didn't even think. I grabbed the closest kitchen chair, swung it upwards and smashed the shape across the face. Whoever it was spluttered blood, a tooth flew from their lips, and they went down hard.

For a split second I feared I'd hit Mark. Or worse, Emily. But Goon's groaning, bleeding face stared up at me. I measured a kick to his ribs and he doubled up. I thought if I'd had more time I'd have dug about for some twine and tied the prick down. But Hayley. I had to get to her. I had to—

I saw them. Cable ties on the kitchen bench. I didn't think. I grabbed them, crouched and bunched Goon's ankles together and wound the ties around them and zipped them up so tight they cut into his skin. I did the same with his wrists, linking them and securing them to the cable ties around his feet. 'Let's see you get out of that!'

Taking the backpack I leaped over him and cut back into the lounge room, tearing through the stodgy darkness, across the worn carpet, the rear doorway only metres away lit faintly by the storm sky. But in the pale light, not seeing it, I crashed headlong into the settee. It sent me sprawling like a sack of cabbages. I piled shoulder-first into the floor, grimacing.

I rolled to my knees, went to get up, but somehow Goon was suddenly there, racing toward me with unnatural speed, the cable ties I'd deployed inexplicably gone. I tried swinging my leg round to ward him off with my heel, but he returned the kick I'd given him in the kitchen, booting me full in the guts, expelling all air from my lungs. I collapsed in a gagging heap, spluttering, groaning.

He took me by the hair, viciously dragged me up, flinging me hard at the wall, my scalp felt like it'd been completely torn off. I got fully airborne and hurtled into the wallpaper halfway to the ceiling, banging my head and then dropping hard into the floor. Instantly I saw white. My ears rang. The backpack had slid off my shoulders.

Goon stood over me, leering at me, panting, his lip bleeding where I'd whacked him with the chair, his nose still a mess from where Kate had punched him. I watched him with blurred vision, my senses shot. I tried getting to my feet but I felt like all punch-drunk like, my head a fog and my limbs heavy as mud. My cheek and nose were crammed against the rug, I could barely lift my face.

Yet, I saw something enter the rear door. Someone's legs, sneakers tip-toeing toward us.

It was Emily. And she swung one of those bricks like a baseball bat into the back of Goon's head. There was a dull thud against the sound of the teeming rain and Goon collapsed at my face.

4

Emily yanked up the backpack. 'Come on.' She grabbed my arm and dragged me out the rear door, back into the storm.

The driving rain pelted my scalp and face, freshening my senses slightly; my skin stung where Goon'd yanked out a fistful of hair. We splotched across the flooded yard, rammed open the gate. I looked around wondering where the hell Mark'd got to.

Emily had her phone to her ear. 'Drat it, he's not answering!'

'Who?'

'Who do you think? Mark.'

'Where is he?'

'I don't know.' She tried his number again. 'Goon lashed out at us. He threw me into the hedge but what he did with Mark I don't know. I just hope he's okay.'

Where we stood we looked about. Mark was nowhere to be seen.

She jammed her phone back in her pocket. 'No answer,' she says. 'Right, come on! We haven't got time to stand around.'

'What about Cookie and Scuppers?'

'I saw Hogshead with them in the back of his cart. They're okay. Now come on, we've got to keep moving.'

We ran like maniacs, rain pelting our faces, storm winds throwing leaves and twigs and dismembered branches across the road. No other soul could be seen. Had everyone left? Had they all evacuated to Beechworth's? Or were they still sitting indoors under Goon's spell?

I looked behind. Except for heaving storm debris the roadway was empty.

Emily's phone rang faintly in the roar of the storm. She jabbed the phone to her ear, yelling, 'Kate, where are you? Are you okay?' I saw her nod, and yell, 'Oh God, what a bloody relief. We'll meet you at Beechworth's.' She hung up. 'That was Kate. She found Mark walking around dazed and disoriented. But he's okay, they're making their way to the farm.'

We charged toward the top of the village. According to my watch we were down to eighteen minutes. Even then I thought we might make it. Get into the catacombs, locate Hayley and get out in time to race for the muster point.

As we reached the top of the village where Warrior's Way becomes the village square, where the World War 2 commemorative statue stands, the great white Archway loomed. Beyond it, bunches of people seemed to be fleeing through the woodland of the Seven Ghosts. It seemed some folk had heeded the siren.

One of the magnificent Ghosts had come down, its topmost branches had narrowly missed crashing through the Archway. And it had completely obliterated Fanneray's souvenir stall. The metal frame had torn through the tarpaulin roof, and snow domes and key rings and fridge magnets lay spat about. It seemed an awful blow to the bloke's memory.

We charged up to the Archway and I fumbled inside the backpack for the artefacts. I was still feeling groggy by that stage but I said to Emily, 'Okay, run. Get outta here! I'll find Hayley. I'll meet you at the assembly spot.'

She stopped and watched me, panting, her hair sodden, sticking to her skin. 'What? No, Jake. It's too dangerous. We don't have enough time.'

'Emily, I've gotta try. I'll never forgive myself if I don't.'

She looked flustered. 'Well, I'm not going to leave you,' she said defiantly. 'Someone's got to stay here in case Goon comes. Who else is going to fight him off?'

'You'll need back-up, Em. Goon's a freak. You'll need Mark. Probably even Kate.'

She already had her phone to her ear. 'So who do you think I'm calling?'

5

I lifted out the mask and put the fuck ugly thing on. Emily looked at me strangely, her glasses all wet and fogging over. There was no time to explain what I was doing. I heard her suddenly talking to Kate, telling her to get some able bodied people to the Arch.

By then I spotted the target: the mysterious array of fluorescent seams gouged into the stone that formed a three-eyed face; each seam pulsed with aqua-marine ripples.

I didn't exactly want to touch it (no more than I wanted to touch that mask) but I fetched the skull from my bag and wiggled it face-first against the pattern. I'd assumed all along that, like a key notched into a hole, it would slot effortlessly into the grooves. There was a moment of panic when it wouldn't fix in place, when it simply slipped about and wouldn't lock in.

I turned it face-out and tried jamming the back of its head into the hollow instead. That seemed to work. It seemed to wedge itself straight in like an egg into an eggcup, its little impish face leering out at me.

I tested it, careful not to touch its teeth. But it wouldn't budge. I clipped the Veisder over it—something I'd pondered since the day I'd seen the images of the two items in Mum's diary. When they fit together smoothly it left no doubt in my mind that the face had indeed been skinned from that skull. Yet when I tried turning them they still refused to budge.

I removed the six-fingered hand from the backpack, wondering how it completed the set.

'Oh, my God, Jake,' Emily blurted, 'Goon's coming.'

I peered around the side of the Arch and saw him. I was flabbergasted. Couldn't he just die like a normal person?

Admittedly, he didn't look in a good state though. He reached the top of Warrior's Walk, a hundred feet from us, staggering, stumbling, looking groggy, blood ran down his face and neck.

I ignored him. If I worried about that fucker I'd never get to Hayley. I turned the mummified hand over in my palm, its long ugly fingers scraping against my forearm. It was upside down in my grasp when something caught my eye. Grooved into its palm there seemed to be the indent of a three-eyed face. I turned it round to get a clearer look. Then moving quickly I flipped it over and slotted it against the mask.

With a bit of wiggling I had them slotted together. The grizzly assembly resembled a hand squashed up against someone's nose.

Yet, when I tried turning it, it wouldn't move.

'Fuck. What now?' I tried turning it again. It didn't budge.

I went to shift it a third time but as I go to grip it, the assembly suddenly shudders.

Emily and me both gasp as the fingers of that ghastly looking hand suddenly come to life. Flexing in and out, as if loosening its joints. And then each digit curls inwards, squeezing the mask to the skull as tight as someone clasping a priceless rock. Then it freezes there, the tips of all but one of those long black nails slotting into small dark grooves within the stone work of the Arch. The one digit that remains unchanged however, the index finger, pokes outwards as stiff as fossilised bone. And in that same moment a new pattern of neon scrawls appears.

It was impossible to know what they meant at first, to grasp their purpose. Until Emily said, 'Oh, my God, Jake, look at it. Are they words?'

She was right. As the luminescence brightened and consolidated, it was obvious—in the stonework circling the key assembly were a collection of words arranged like numbers around a clock face.

CHESSBURN ROUGHSIKE GERENIA VÄSSGUND

HARROWSGATE DENNOCH BRIGSAIL POINT

'Holy shit,' I hissed, 'look at that!'

Still, what did it mean? We stood there waiting for something to happen. And meanwhile, Goon stumbled onward. Rain kept splattering down. Impatiently Emily grabbed the assembly and turned it...

It moved without effort this time, turning clockwise. A large disc of stone around the assembly shifting with it about an inch so that the tip of the long, gnarled index finger now pointed at CHESSBURN.

That's as far as it turned.

Now something even more weird happened. The region surrounding the key assembly suddenly fractured. An aperture opened as the stonework wound around like a wheel. And then that portion of stone retreated, dragging our hard-found artefacts into the Archway and completely swallowing them.

Now a low rumble sounds from deep within the Archway. And it's here that I notice Goon has stopped in his tracks. He's watching the Arch as if something terrible is about to happen.

'Oh, my God,' Emily said with gaping eyes. 'What on earth was that?' She didn't want to know what I was thinking. I had images of a waking monster, something huge, something demonic.

A heavy flash of blue light seared our eyes for an instant and behind us lightning slammed into another of the Ghosts, cracking branches halfway up its bough and throwing out a hundred shards of wood in every direction. We dived forward as wood splinters a metre long came zinging past our heads.

We slammed into the ground beneath the Arch, covering our heads as flecks of bark peppered the area, nicking our arms and the backs of our necks. Another bolt of lightning touched down about a hundred metres away, and instead of thunder this time I heard nightmarish sounds: squeals and screeches and wails.

Squinting, I looked up. Goon was nowhere to be seen now. He must've bolted. So much for going down with his bomb. The rumbles in the earth beneath the Archway continued. A sudden terrifying thought gripped me. Had we inadvertently set off the explosives? Is that what the sound was? Had that been Goon's plan all along? Is that what it was? The catacombs already caving in? It was probably simpler that way, if I thought about. One tiny spark to get things rolling and a catastrophic domino effect'd take care of the rest.

'Emily,' I said picking myself off the cobbles and resting on my knees, 'I think we're too late.' I could've cried. All I could think about was Hayley, stuck down there alone, stranded. She'd be the first to die. 'Em. I don't know what to do. It's already happening.'

'We've got to leave then, Jake,' she said, getting back on her feet. 'There's nothing more we can do here.'

She was right but hearing it sank my heart. What would I say to Hayley's mum? What would I tell her? I climbed to my feet, exhausted and demoralised, and a deep guttural growl came from somewhere in the pounding rain to our right. I looked around. Saw nothing. But around the side of the Arch where we'd assembled the three artefacts against the stonework I suddenly noticed a shadow standing in the deluge. A huge hulking figure. My skin went cold. 'Emily,' I said softly, desperately, 'can you see that?'

She trailed my gaze and as she did a pair of gleaming yellow eyes appeared at the head of the shadow, watching us through the rain.

'Holy shit, Em, can you see it?' I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Emily saw it all right, but she wasn't believing it. She was bulging eyed and struck silent.

It moved and stepped toward us.

And when we saw what it was, we both screamed.

~ PART THREE ~

STRANGEWORLD

THE SAVAGE GARDEN

1

RAIN FLICKED off tall, curved horns. Long, grubby, sabre-tooth fangs gnashed at bugs. The surface of the monster that stood before us looked like glistening, swamp-green, snake scales. It had wings of greenish leather that shifted in the deluge like the wings of a goose. And its vast down-turned vulture's beak had plump, warted cow nostrils that puffed out wisps of yellow smoke.

'What is it?' Emily whispered, sounding both fascinated and terrified.

I couldn't speak. Could barely even breathe. For an instant I believed the spider thing from the Vale had found me. But this thing, whatever it was, was something else, something different.

'Ayah garrun marayh!'

Me and Emily both blinked.

'Garrun marayh!'

I glanced sideways at Emily. Her eyes were boggling. 'Did you just hear that?' I hissed at her. 'Is it speaking?'

She blinked dumbly like she hadn't heard me.

'Em?' I backed away as it came closer. But Emily seemed planted to the spot. 'Em! Move!' I grabbed her and dragged her out of its reach.

The thing stopped moving and watched us.

I just wanted to run. That's all I wanted to do but my fucking legs felt like jelly.

'Em, what do we do?'

I saw her frowning. And she's got this weird look in her eyes. Like something's just occurred to her. Then she whispers, 'Oh, my God, Jake, it's someone in a suit.'

I blinked. Someone in a suit? 'No way, Em, get back.'

She ignored me. And before I know it she's speaking to it. 'I don't care who you are,' she says, 'but don't come any closer! You hear me?'

I eyed the thing as it stood there regarding us through the deluge. The proportions weren't right. The sheer size of it dictated it would've required at least two people just to fill it, if indeed it was a suit. It looked like a giant bat. Some weird, exotic specimen they must've dragged kicking and screaming out of the Congo or the Amazon or some other dark forgotten place. Some creature they'd had hidden at Chingola.

'Jake,' Emily said, 'he must've come up from the catacombs. He's trying to stop us getting to Hayley.'

'Harg ryna!' it said gruffly, its head cocked. 'You speak the tongue of the Strangeworld!'

I blinked. And frowned. Okay, I thought, so maybe it is just some twat in a suit.

'We don't have time for your nonsense,' Emily said.

It jabbed a talon at us. The gas pumping from its nose carried the acrid smell of pine tar. 'Illegal travellers! The Empress will not be pleased!'

There came another grunt from behind us and I whirled around in time to see a second figure standing right there at our backs. A spitting image of the first with wings and fangs and taloned hooves except it bragged slitted cat's eyes and a wolf's snout, and mud-coloured scales instead of green.

'Oh, another one,' Emily laughed. 'Brilliant.'

The rumblings in the Archway had stopped by then and I checked my watch. If Goon was sticking to his plan, if the catacombs hadn't already begun to collapse in on themselves then we had about ten minutes before Burnchess went under. Was there still time to find Hayley?

I stepped away from the Arch, the first joker eyeing me suspiciously.

'I'll wager they aren't carrying passports,' it said to the second.

'A reasonable point,' the other replied, the one with the cat's eyes and dog's snout. 'Do you carry passports? If so, show us.'

Emily saw what I was attempting. 'Go, Jake,' she said. 'Get round him. Find the bloody door.'

I almost did, almost scampered around, hoping, expecting to find some gaping trapdoor in the earth, leading down into the catacombs, but then I saw it, a third figure. And I couldn't believe it. Simply couldn't believe it. Every muscle in my body just froze.

Here stood the fiend I'd caught in Emily's room. The thing me and Mark'd seen vanish into thin air out at Sharkfin's farm. The enigma with the plughole eyes and crocodile snout. The entity from Mum's diary. The so-called Crimson Wraith.

2

It stood on Castle Grove fifteen metres from us, Burnchess at its back. But strangely enough that wasn't the least of it. Something beyond its shoulder shook me even more. Something seemed fundamentally wrong with the village. If Burnchess had've collapsed then it would have been a tragic thing to report. Yet it would also have made sense.

What I saw there made no stark sense whatsoever.

The storm had finally begun to push out to sea, huge blueberry clouds taking their angry fuss in the direction of the Hangman Islands, lightning cracking across Hockmarsh Channel's frothy waves. But Burnchess hadn't toppled and dragged its thousand residents squealing and howling into the ocean. No, some part of reality had shifted.

The castle ruins... way off at the opposite end of the village. Well, now that the storm was drifting off, they drifted into the sunlight. Put simply, the ruins were gone. Totally and utterly gone. What stood in their place... well, I couldn't explain it. It was immense. A castle. A towering stone juggernaut perched on the edge of the Massacre Point cliffs. Complete and unbroken. No crumbling stones or brickwork, no worn-down entrance that opened onto weed-strewn ruins and views of the islands. Nothing but a high stone wall surrounding tall, gracious towers that rose high into the morning sky where flags flapped and sailed in the brisk ocean gusts on tall battlements.

'What the fuck?' I said below my breath.

I heard Emily say, 'Oh my God.'

And when I turned and saw her, I noticed she was gazing at the top of the Archway. When I looked I saw what she was staring at. And I was equally aghast. At either end of the Archway there were guard towers. Looming over us. And standing on top of these were the Chess Stones I'd only ever seen in Burnchess history books. They looked incredible actually. Statues of mysterious and magnificent knights, standing fully intact, as if they'd been carved from stone only yesterday. And that wasn't all. The village wall stretched out from either end of the Archway full and tall and impenetrable; not in crumbled blocks, not knocked over, no patches where it'd been quarried over the centuries or bits raided by stone robbers, no vacant thoroughfares full of weeds. And it looked as though it encircled the entire village, all the way around as far as I could make out, one great impenetrable barrier, interspersed by grand sentry towers and even more Chess Stones. Guardsmen paced its length back and forth; and those in close proximity to the Archway gazed down at us as with curiosity and perhaps a little suspicion.

Again I whispered, 'What the fuck?' A mere few moments back, as we'd made our way to the Arch, as I'd fitted the three artefacts into the stonework, none of this stuff existed. It had all simply sat there as I've always known it: tumbled down and ruined.

'What the hell's going on?' Emily murmured. She'd taken off her smudged specs to get a clearer look.

'I've absolutely no idea.'

3

Emily's bedroom fiend, the so-called Crimson Wraith, snagged our attention again. Standing there watching us. A peculiar stand-off now between us and it. What were we meant to do?

As if in answer the so-called wraith lifted its arms and gripped its head. Then proceeded to twist its head left and right.

What the hell it was doing?

But a few moments later it tore its very own head from its shoulders...

We both gasped, wondering what bizarre ritual was playing out...

Except... a human face appeared from beneath. The face of a blonde wavy-haired ponce in a monster suit, holding his 'head' at his side, like a fireman with a helmet.

He looked a bit older than us. Not by much though. Early-twenties, I'd have said. Maybe a bit older. He stood taller than us too. With a slightly bigger build than me. He had a dimpled smile and smouldering brown eyes with a smooth, square jaw and ruffled dirty blond hair. The sort of wanker girls go weak at the knees for, I guess. I could tell instantly he thought he was bit of a God's gift to the universe. The way he stood. The way he grinned. The way his eyes oozed longingly at Emily.

'Forgive me,' he said energetically. 'I do not mean to startle you. But I forget sometimes I am in this ruddy thing!' He laughed and shook the mask about as if to emphasise his point, as if it was all frightfully good fun. It was evident now that this whole Crimson Wraith thing really was just a suit. And this bloke began shrugging the remainder of it from himself. Underneath he wore a beige cotton thigh-length tunic with laces at the collar and a thick leather belt at the hips. Dusty worn black leather boots poked out of the bottoms of long black pants that had golden eyelets running up the outside of each leg and leather drawstrings woven through each one.

'It helps me get about your world, see,' he said, folding his suit up (somehow down to the mere size of a wallet) before jamming it inside something of a cowhide satchel slung about his shoulders. 'In a manner of speaking.'

He ruffled his mop of hair before planting his hands on his hips and proceeded to give Emily the most smarmy, vomitous smile you've ever seen in your life. He swaggered forward then with his chest puffed out. A proud exaggerated strut in his step and the way the breeze pushed his tunic against both his chest and midriff, you could see he was lean and well-muscled. 'I am LanceAsh,' he quipped. 'LanceAsh of the Edmark.' He pushed his hand toward Emily.

She refused to take it. 'Stop where you are!' she spat. 'We haven't got time to muck about. I don't know who you are, but eight minutes from now this village will be swimming with sharks. Okay?'

He looked taken aback. Maybe he wasn't so keen on girls bossing him about.

Still, it didn't kill off his arrogant grin. But he did as requested and stopped where he was, folding his arms proudly across his chest. 'Trust me, fine lady, I mean you no harm. But you are right. Time is short.' He pointed east. 'The Empress flies in from Skärradness, you see, and she is expecting to meet you both for a gathering of great importance. So, really, we should not delay.'

'Shut up,' Emily told him, 'I know what you're up to. You're stalling us.'

The strange monsters that'd greeted us initially ambled back into our view now. The one with the bulging cow eyes, growled, 'LanceAsh, we should send them back. Illegal travellers. No passports, no luggage. That's mighty suspicious if you ask me.'

This LanceAsh git shook his head thoughtfully. 'Oh, I think not, Slugg. These are our special guests. The Mortifera. Invited personally by Empress JennElise herself.'

I frowned. That strange word again. Mortifera.

'Jake,' Emily seethed, pushing past me. 'Ignore these fools, they must be working with Goon. We need to stay focused. Come on.'

I backed up, keeping an eye on this slimy LanceAsh bloke. None of them moved as I trailed Emily past the spot where the three artefacts had sunk into the Archway. Large wasp things buzzed about the air.

'There must be a door here somewhere,' Emily murmured at me as the three newcomers simply watched us from where they stood beneath the Archway. We were near the area where one of the guard towers usually lies scattered about in a state of crumbled stone blocks and weeds. But the guard tower wasn't in pieces—as we'd already seen, it towered above us, casting a long shadow. Guards gazed inquisitively down at us from behind the tall crenelated parapet.

'Em,' I said, confused staring at the spot where the gargoyle statue ordinarily stood. 'I don't know if this means anything but the gargoyle statue isn't here.'

'So?' she snapped irritably.

I glanced back at the monsters... over there with that ponce at the Arch entrance, all of them still standing there watching us. The more I studied the pair of bat creatures, the more I realised they looked exactly like the missing statues.

'What about the stone wall?' I whispered to Emily. 'Look at it. It's not the least bit crumbled. And the castle. Did you see it? How do you explain it? It's like proper huge and everything.'

Emily scrabbled her fingernails desperately at the Archway as if like magic the doorway might reveal itself.

'Emily?'

'What?'

'Don't you think it's weird?

She grabbed my shoulders, stared into my eyes intently, desperately. 'Jake, listen. Don't you see what's happening?'

I blinked at her. 'No. What?'

'Goon's corrupted our minds. When we ambushed him.'

'Wotta you talking about?'

'I don't know. He's used wolfsbane or something. I'm sure of it. We're hallucinating. That's the only explanation.'

'Hallucinating?'

'Yes!'

I raised my palm... and lightly smacked my face. I even slapped the wall. Everything felt solid, real.

Emily stood back, exasperated, checking her watch. 'Listen, it's five minutes before the bomb goes off. We can't save Hayley. We've got to leave.'

I hardly heard Emily because I suddenly noticed Fanneray's crushed stall was no longer there. Neither was the downed Ghost. And the Woodland of the Seven Ghosts looked vastly different. Wild and untamed and filled with alien animal screeches and hoots. And all along Coddington Lane the row of lampposts were festooned with giant purple pitcher plants. Pitcher plants that were slowly creaking open, blooming extraordinary orange-blue flowers. Five seconds later the air was filled with six-legged flying rodents.

'Emily,' I gasped, 'are you seeing this?'

The rodents began landing on the flowers, filling their bellies with sweet nectar. But just as suddenly, grizzly-looking pelican-beaks snapped up from beneath and began gobbling them down.

It didn't end there. A band of cackling monkey critters charged from nearby bushes, ambushing the nearest flower, driving barbed spears through its fat fleshy bulb, scattering the airborne rodents, and without warning the remaining alleged plants burst from the lampposts, taking to the skies in droves—large exotic birds on orange-blue wings, flapping like mad.

It was breathtaking, the whole lot of it, primates wrestling their writhing, struggling prey across the cobblestones, dicing off its long-beaked head, dragging its wiggling, bleeding carcass up into the trees.

I think, for me, that was the moment I knew we'd come down the rabbit hole, that was the moment I felt like Max who'd sailed in and out of weeks in his little sailing boat to land on the shores of the Wild Things. Emily believed we were hallucinating, but no way. It wasn't possible. Whatever had become of Burnchess... well our village lay far behind us now.

4

I hadn't seen him approach, but somehow LanceAsh now stood right there beside us, leaning against the Arch, arms folded, smile beaming.

He searched Emily up and down like she was some edible dish he couldn't wait to get his mouth onto. 'What can I say?' he said. 'Welcome to Chessburn.' He watched us, apparently amused, indicating the large insects zipping about our heads. 'Ignore the Bloodwasps. You give them the chance they will suck four gallons of blood out of you. But otherwise they are innocent, harmless critters.' He clapped his palms together. 'Anyhow, let us not linger, especially out here in the savage gardens beyond the wall. I would recommend you follow me to safe ground. It is getting on, after all.' He pushed away from the Archway.

'Ignore him, Jake,' Emily warned. 'He's not actually real.'

I eyed the monkey beasts up there in the boughs. The troop of strange, gangly-limbed critters frantically tearing their catch to bits. They feasted now (blood matted in their fur), and bird guts flopped from branch to branch, splatting like wet spaghetti onto the cobblestones.

The spot where the souvenir stalls should've been lay vacant. I wanted to see villagers still fleeing through the Seven Ghosts to Farmer Beechworth's. To ground me back in reality. But there was nothing like that. Just the Seven Ghosts as I've never seen them—skyscraping giants poking hundreds of metres into the morning sky teeming with all sorts of screeching flying critters. And all about us wild untamed vegetation—vines and creepers and pitcher plants and fly traps—and the calls of strange birds and the piercing hiss of bugs in the steaming grass. It was as if we truly were on the doorstep to some unknown, exotic jungle.

I turned to LanceAsh. The pair of gargoyles had wandered up behind him. I couldn't help staring at them. I knew they were real. That somehow they weren't pranksters in suits, but breathing creatures of flesh and blood. I mean, the idea blew my fucking mind but I knew they were no illusion.

'Listen,' I said to them all, 'I don't know what the hell's going on. I really don't. But I've got a friend in peril. She's been kidnapped and tied up in the cave system beneath Burnchess. We have—' I checked my watch. 'We have two minutes to get her out.'

'Oh?' this LanceAsh bloke said feigning curiosity. 'Two minutes?'

'Till the village collapses.'

'Jake,' Emily stressed, clapping her hands in front of my face. 'None of this is real. None of this is happening. Get a grip!'

LanceAsh stood there, arms still folded, a sympathetic look in his light-brown eyes as he studied Emily's face. 'If this is about that fool Goon, fear not, we have him covered.'

The Bugwasp things (whatever he'd called them) zipped about my face. I swished them aside. 'Got him covered? What do you mean?'

'We know of his oath to spill your Burnchess village seaward. But alas, you may be surprised to learn this is not his agenda.'

'I can't hear you,' Emily declared stubbornly. 'You're not real.'

I ignored her rant. 'Not his agenda? What do you mean?'

'Why, he wants your Burnchess gone, no question. But not in the manner you have been lead to believe.'

I frowned. How the hell did this bloke know what I did or didn't believe? 'I've seen the report. He's going to set off an explosive. I need to get to my friend Hayley.'

'Listen to me. Your lady friend is safe.'

'No,' I said, 'she's tied up.'

'She is not. Your friend Goon had some time to fill her mind with rot like he has done lately to so many of your townsfolk. But she is well, I can assure you. She has made it to the assembly point in your farmer's field.' He smiled. 'Now, if you would just come along, all will be explained.'

'Just come along?' Emily spat manically. 'Oh, yeah, let's go with the creepy stranger! What a brilliant idea!'

'Look, I shall explain as we go,' he said. 'I promise. Though we have precious little time to dilly-dally.'

Emily rolled her eyes. 'We're not going anywhere with you. Come on, Jake. Stop talking to this lunatic and let's find the doorway.'

I didn't move.

'Jake! Come on!'

LanceAsh stepped in front of her, blocking her path, their noses almost touching. (Something he seemed to relish.) 'By all means, sweet girl, leave,' he told her softly, gazing deep into her eyes. 'Go on. You are free to go. Allow me to remind you however, that while the Gate in the centre of the Great Labyrinth remains under peril you shall never be safe. The killings and murders in your village will go on. And on. And on. They shall also grow ever more frequent. With no way to close the Gates the hordes will clamber through in ever greater numbers. And your friend Goon, if he speeds up the process as is his wont, will see your village doomed before your summer is through.' He grinned at her face, their lips barely an inch apart. 'Is that what you want?'

'Go away!' she screeched at him, shoving him aside.

He stumbled, but steadied himself.

'I'll find this Doorway whether you like it or not,' Emily snapped, barging her way past him. 'Now leave me alone!'

He grinned. 'Oh but the Doorway is already open, m'lass. Look around, you have, without even knowing it, stepped through. I thought someone as smart as you would have realised that by now.' He smiled at her, as if unimpressed. 'Now hear me, the Empress has invited you here personally and if I do not deliver you to her then I am likely to lose my head. Understand? So, the way I see it, you have little to no choice.'

Emily smirked at him. 'Oh, I've always got a choice.'

He sighed. 'Very well. I have been patient. But I am afraid I can wait no longer.' He stepped back. 'Cognatus! Do as you will.'

5

CHK here A flash of searing blue light burst from the sky. But it was silent. No booming percussion. No thunderous explosion. What followed though was a dull ringing sound deep in my head as if someone had smashed a gong right at my ear. I looked up, wondering what the hell had just happened. That's when I spied the magnificent silver raven perched at the crest of the Archway.

It was fascinating. It reflected all the colours around it: the rose-bloom sky, the snot-green jungle, the chalk-white Arch. There was something peculiar in the way it gazed at us. And for a moment I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. No birds, no bugs. It'd cleared all thoughts from my head. All I remember feeling is a strange sense of peace, a weird sense of complete calm. It was as if the whole bomb in the catacombs no longer mattered. Like I suddenly didn't give a shit. Like some catastrophe playing out on a movie.

The raven swooped away. Fast. I watched it, mesmerised, as it streaked serenely, silently, into the sky, blurred as a rocket. Emily watched it too, utterly fascinated, eyes wide, mouth ajar. When her eyes dropped to LanceAsh it was as though she'd just awoken from an afternoon dream. Slightly disoriented. Sleepy. But also as if her mind had been washed of all concerns.

LanceAsh took her hand. She blinked curiously but didn't object. 'Please,' he said softly. 'I honestly mean you no harm. Your village will remain standing. No one shall die today. I promise. But you must come. Both of you. To the castle. It is of the utmost urgency.'

With our clothes and hair still damp from the rain, we were led through the Arch and into the confines of this bizarre new village. Behind us the gargoyles had resumed their positions by the arch; although they still eyed us keenly, suspiciously. Blankly we watched LanceAsh extract the Scrivinas, the Crogen and the Veisder from this side of the Archway. As if they'd folded their way right through the stonework.

'Keep these safe,' he said, shoving them into my hands. 'Now, no time to waste; to the castle we ride.'

CHESSBURN

1

HE LET out a high pitched whistle and not a moment later a freakish beast galloped over from the grassy village Green beyond the barley mill.

It was both grotesque and bizarre and oddly shaped; the offspring of a horse and giraffe if there could be one. Except it trotted toward us on a flurry of eight legs. Its horse head burned with red eyes and sprouting from the sides of its jaw were these down-turned horns and dangling antennae. From head to hoof (hooves that looked like multi-digit gorilla hands) the creature stood fifteen feet off the earth.

'This is Muxzhüm,' LanceAsh announced. 'My grand and faithful Firecolt.'

Its skin was transparent. Its guts, muscles and bones were on full display. The contents in its stomach were obvious too, half-chewed fish things and twisted birds. Its organs pumped yellow blood through gnarled black veins. Critters swam in there, bulging-eyed tadpole creatures with two sets of rear legs.

LanceAsh uttered a peculiar clicking sound, before saying, 'Muxzhüm! Httukka!' The Firecolt bent its eight legs and crouched... awkward like a camel.

'Now, if you would climb aboard we shall get going.'

We didn't budge. The large Bloodbugs kept flinging themselves at that beast, its whip-like tail swatting at them constantly. LanceAsh hurried us forward. 'Come now, climb aboard.'

A lengthy saddle with room enough for three, maybe four, riders lay strapped along its spine. It was as dark as tinted wood and scaled with what looked like snakeskin. LanceAsh gave it a double slap, emphasising his order.

Since the raven I'd felt awfully numb, almost heavy somehow. With some effort I dragged myself up, digging my boot into the stirrup, hoisting my leg over. The beast's skin felt tough as salted cowhide.

I settled into the saddle (my wet jeans creaking on the snake leather), and LanceAsh held his hand out for Emily. With her damp, matted hair she still looked more or less dazed, taking his hand without question and climbing on. LanceAsh settled swiftly in behind her, smelling her hair, his thighs cradling her hips. 'Muxzhüm,' he yelled. 'Gee-up boy, away to Gudrun's Fort!'

2

If I squinted I could almost forget where I was, almost convinced myself I wasn't actually on the back of some giraffe-beast with ape hands. Because, structurally, this village looked so similar to Burnchess. When I opened my eyes though I was bombarded by the reality of it all. The trees growing directly from the walls of places like the Lost Worlds Café or the Wrotting Worm Inn, the root systems weaving about the brickwork like matted pythons. The Barnacled Octopus stood smothered in nests of dark twirling vines, strung with yellow cacoons, teeming with strange bugs.

At the Hare Of The Dog, giant butterflies were perched along the railing around the rooftop garden. And from what should've been my bedroom window, a tree with a narrow twisted trunk grew high into the air dangling with curling ivy. At street level more of those weird translucent Firecolts stood tethered to hitching posts along the outer wall.

Massive pot plants as big as cars sat dug into the sides of the Grove, covered in soft carpets of moss, sprouting enormous ferns and flowers. Strange little people peered at us over the rims of these pots, bug-eyed critters with high bony ears and bony fingers. An old woman (she looked like us except for the red eyes and horns) smacked a bloated Bloodwasp against a wall with a mallet and it exploded like a balloon filled with mucus.

That was perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this place: the strange alien people. Some looked like us, human that is, but not human: their limbs were either too long, or they had eyes in their cheeks or they walked on all fours like cats, or like that old woman, they sprouted devil horns. Others were covered in fish scales, and some seemed to have faces on the sides of their heads where their ears should've been. There were ones with blackened hollows in their eye sockets and no eyes to speak of. Ones with lizard skin and black tongues. And those who stood as tall and lanky as lampposts. All these 'people' openly pointed at us and stopped what they were doing to goggle.

I kept wondering if Emily was right. That maybe we were fucking well hallucinating or something. For all I knew, we were merely strolling up Castle Grove tripping off our heads and didn't even know it.

'What is this place?' I heard Emily ask, sounding both fascinated and frightened. 'Where are we? It looks like Burnchess, but... I don't understand.'

'You passed through the Boneraker Gate,' LanceAsh told her. 'With one single step its ancient magic has allowed you to walk across worlds.'

'Yes, but where the hell are we?' I asked.

He swept his palm over the village. 'Why, this is Chessburn. In the world of Forgotten.'

'Forgotten?' I said.

'Aye. Some of the ancient folk still call it by its elder names, Crowshørde or Deepgarden. But call it Forgotten, please. All modern folks do.'

Emily looked pale, sitting there either ill or just plain confounded. She held her arms about her body, her damp clothes and the ocean breeze had brought out a decent display of goosebumps on her skin. 'Is any of this real?' she murmured.

'Real?' LanceAsh laughed. 'Of course it is bloody real.'

'So, what's happened then? Have we travelled back in time? Is this the Middle Ages?'

'Time? An interesting concept. No. Look at it more as if you have taken a step sideways. We are neither behind nor before you in time.'

I blinked skyward, gargantuan birds circled high on the morning thermals. 'A parallel world?'

'If that helps you deal with it. But it is not strictly parallel either. Not in the sense you may think. There are no versions of you over here. And no versions of us over there. If anything I would suggest you view the situation as follows: our worlds are one and the same. Or at least they once were. We branch from the same root of history, you see. Both our villages were once the same entity. Hence why they look so strikingly similar.'

'The same world?' Emily scoffed. 'I wouldn't think so.'

'It is but true, m'lass. Right up until the Great Meteorite strike of 1223 we were but the same village. That cataclysmic event not only formed the great Kitwei Plains of the Western Core Lands but completely divided our worlds, smashing open dimensions in space that hadn't previously existed, thus sending your village off on an entirely separate tangent through history. We now remain merely separate chapters of the one book. We are the same seabed, one whose tide has gone out, the other whose tide has swept in. We are of the same shore, one whose world has allowed magic to flourish, the other having allowed it to die. I have even heard stories of other worlds than ours across the Void. From the ancient Harstark Manuscripts. But as yet we are unable to establish Doorways to any world but yours.'

We came round the Ring Of Letifer stone circle, passing the market.

'I still don't understand,' I murmured.

He shrugged. 'One day, if we have time, I might find a better way to explain it.'

We sauntered past a monstrous brute being butchered right there in the street. Odd canine creatures with large wings leaped frantically about, gnashing fangs at scarlet gulls the size of vultures. The whole scavenging lot of them fought and scrapped in their hunger to suckle guts and juice from the gutters. The rich metallic smell of blood made my nostrils smart.

Emily couldn't look. But I found it utterly engrossing. At first glance I thought it was a whale. But as we went by I realised its tail looked more like a bunch of squid tentacles. And there was a strip of spines running the entire length of its back. In fact the only aspect that resembled anything of a whale's was its mouth, stretched out as long as our Spitfire bus. But as the local butchers stripped huge slabs of meat from its carcass its head lolled sideways and its jaws dipped open exposing rows of spiny, carnivorous teeth. The poor creature's drum-sized eyes gazed dead and indifferent into the pale morning sky.

'The Mortifera,' I suddenly heard people murmuring as we came trotting by on our mount. 'It's them! They've returned!' And the butchers, huge burly blokes with thighs and arms as thick as wooden beams, downed tools momentarily to watch us, blood trickling around the soles of their hefty boots.

I found that the most unsettling thing I guess, the staring. I can't speak for Emily, but that really bothered me. There was no inconspicuous entrance to this world. Everyone and everything knew we were here. Granted, it seemed as though our arrival had been well anticipated. But I just felt exposed, vulnerable. Like a target.

Our ride went on regardless.

The Firecolt came by what would've been the police station in our world. A brass sign hung above the doors: THE ROYAL WATCHERS OF FORGOTTEN. And beyond that, as we neared the cliffs, the castle (Gudrun's Fort I believe LanceAsh'd called it) loomed tall and imposing. Our necks craned upwards, trying to appreciate its immense scale. It blocked the entire south view of the ocean. The sun gleamed blindingly against the grey stonework, a warm ocean wind scurried about us, throwing leaves and strange insects. The storm had long cleared off by then.

Outside the castle, numerous Firecolts and other strange beasts stood at the heads of elaborately-shaped drays. (Some drays looked as if they'd been grown rather than constructed—like giant hollowed tubas, or gourds.) Other beasts stood hitched along a wooden fence that ran the edge of the moat. It was difficult to tell how many. Possibly a hundred. All snorting and grumbling, some chewing the yellow iris sprouting along the grassy banks where great clusters of dark green reeds grew like spikes. Some of those weird mounts were busy spearing wriggling bunches of fish with barbed tongues. Others gnashed at the clouds of Bloodwasps.

LanceAsh pulled Muxzhüm to a halt at the foot of the drawbridge suspended over the moat. 'We are on foot from here.' He hefted himself off his steed as it lowered its belly to the grass and he held his hand out for Emily. She took it and slid off the beast and stood there, looking as clueless and cheerless as someone who'd just been battered across the face by a plank of wood.

Behind us, the butterflies (with wingspans as wide as hang gliders) had abandoned their perch on the rooftop railing of the Hare Of The Dog and were now flapping like nightmares across the village. The flying-dogs went on squabbling with the vulture critters for blood. Way back there at the opposite end of this strange new town (this weird place LanceAsh'd called Chessburn), beyond the road-bound pot plants and the tall twisting trees and the brilliant Chess Stones, was the Archway, the mysterious portal that'd brought us here.

'What the hell was that thing they were cutting up?' I asked gazing at the crowds back there at the markets waiting for their share of meat.

'A whale,' Emily said sort of dazed but agitated, still clasping her arms about her torso. 'They were cutting up a whale. They should be reported. That's highly illegal.'

'Matter of fact, m'girl,' LanceAsh quipped loftily, his lips held at her ear, 'that beast is known in these parts as the Jëhjhen. One of the great delicacies from the depths of Hockmarsh Trench. You can report its demise to the Empress if you like and she will likely lop off your head for your trouble.' He turned and clip-clopped his way across the worn planks of the drawbridge, impatiently waving us onward. 'Come on now, snap to it.'

Below the bridge, alien fish splashed and flurried in the moat, hungrily trailing our progress. Their jaws grew in lengths longer than their silver green-striped bodies, their darting snake-tongues cut the water's surface, tasting us on the air.

Two castle guards stood at the far end of the drawbridge stationed before a massive iron portcullis. They looked spectacular in glittering silver armour, and pinned to their pauldrons were scarlet capes that blew to and fro in the sea gusts. As we drew near they tilted their spears inwards, effectively blocking our path.

'Aye up, you two,' LanceAsh called, striding confidently forward, his hair flurrying about. 'It be me. Now let us through before I pummel both your heads to mush.' He thrust up his meat hooks as if anticipating a fist fight... then he laughed before clapping both blokes on the shoulder.

'All right, Lancer,' they said, 'who've yer got wiv yer then?'

'Oh, come now, Scrank, you do not recognise the damn Mortifera when they stand before you?'

This Scrank craned his head forward. 'Really? The Mortifera?' He flipped up the squeaking visor of his helmet to get a good look at us.

He passed for human at least. Big nose, big jaw, big forehead. He likely had a beard tucked in there somewhere too with all those whiskers hanging out. 'Well, I never,' he gasped. Like me and Emily had just risen from the dead.

The other one remarked, 'I always fort the Mortifera'd be a bit bigger.'

'Dolt and Scrank,' LanceAsh introduced them to us.

The two sentries made a point of shaking our hands. 'Nice to meet yer,' the one called Dolt said. 'Not every day yer get ter meet the Mortifera in person, yer know.'

'Alright!' LanceAsh abruptly yelled, making Emily jump. 'Let us have this blasted Gate open.'

THE APPOINTMENT

1

A HEFTY chain lay embedded in the mortar, the lower end of it wound around a stone drum. It looked as if both drum and chain had been stuck there rigid for a thousand years. Scrank flipped open a metal compartment in a utilities belt around his waist, withdrawing a small chunk of rock. It made me think of a fossilised bug. He turned and plonked it in a dark recess in the stonework and turned it like a key. The entire length of chain rippled in a dull white luminescence and then simply jangled free.

Scrank now stepped toward the moat, raised his hand and spoke as if uttering some sermon. Almost before he'd begun, a surge of water rolled onto the bank and what emerged was this gigantic fucking crab with blue pincers. It would've dwarfed a small car.

We all stepped backward (me and Emily both bug-eyed) as it trampled through the reeds and up the grass toward the portcullis. It gave off a thick cloying stench of mud and decaying plant matter. Dripping wet and glistening in the sunshine, it took hold of the chain and began to winch it down the wall, the chain spooling neatly about the rotating drum.

Slowly the huge portcullis creaked open.

LanceAsh ducked beneath it before it'd risen barely four feet off the ground and was gone. Emily and me blinked at each other. Seconds later his head reappeared. 'You pair coming or what?'

We passed through the gatehouse, where curious alien eyes watched us through the murder holes above. We emerged inside a leafy bailey. Far above us, flags flapped silently atop four stone towers situated at each corner of the castle. And further out in the open blue sky, those frighteningly large birds wheeled and soared.

On the opposite edge of the bailey there lay a small courtyard lined by tall apple trees (at least that's what they looked like) and beyond that rose the imposing walls of the great rounded keep—part of the ruin, of course, on which me, Emily, Kate and Mark had sat only a few days prior planning our stakeout.

The castle pond (where just the other day in our world Scuppers had been chewing that manky old tennis ball) was filled with blue and white waterlilies. A school of silvery-blue fish massed below the surface watching us nervously with bulbous black eyes. They had beak-like jaws, and short hind legs like with webbed feet lined in talons.

I stopped for a closer look, my thighs pushing up against the raised wall of the pool. As I leaned close every one of those fish began to flit about wildly. Then without any warning, they erupted from the water.

I screeched and flung backward. LanceAsh turned to see what the matter was. The critters shot past my face and came to rest high on the walls of the keep, chittering away boisterously, dripping water, hanging upside down, batlike.

'Beware the Birdkillers, lad,' LanceAsh laughed. 'Gnaw your eyes and tongue out if you're not careful. Now, hurry along.' He pushed through a set of huge wooden doors and was off at a pace.

2

There was an entrance hall immediately through the doors. At the opposite end of the hall giant stained-glass windows looked out across the rolling Celtic Sea glittering in the morning sun; out there, the storm was now reduced to nothing but a small dark blot on the southern horizon.

We crossed the hall diagonally to the western wall, pushed through another set of doors and came down a short passageway. The ceiling was very high up. Strange glowing critters scurried about in the dark. LanceAsh trotted up a set of spiral stairs. 'A word of warning,' he called down. 'You would do well not to stop as we ascend.'

The stairway curled up the centre of the south-western tower. It seemed awfully well lit for a space with no obvious torches or candles. Except I noticed more of those weird glowing critters scurrying about the ceiling. I watched them above us as I went, trying to work out exactly what they were. None of them stopped long enough for me to get a steady look.

Empty passageways with closed arched doorways lead away down darkened corridors on the first, second and third floors. What lay beyond those doors, I could only speculate. Living chambers? Banquet halls? At least that might be what college history texts claimed, in my world. But in this place, this world, it was impossible to know. Torture chambers or coops for giant bats or hatching nurseries for killer monkeys? A stark smell of cold, dry stone accompanied us up the stairwell. And always on the ceiling those glowing, scurrying creatures.

'What the hell are they?' I heard Emily moan from behind me.

'I have no idea,' I told her.

We rounded a landing on the fourth floor, marvelling at a peculiar door that shimmered as if water rippled down its surface.

'Keep going,' LanceAsh ordered, from further up the stairwell. 'That there be the Door That Never Opens. Do not ask me to explain.'

We hurried after him, climbing the final stretch to the roof of the keep. It felt cooler the higher we went; especially with our clothes still a tad damp. Goosebumps prickled my skin. We were almost at the top when Emily let out a squeal. I looked around. She'd stopped dead. Her hand cupped against her mouth.

'What's wrong?' I asked her.

She looked petrified. She refused to speak or move.

LanceAsh's voice echoed from somewhere above: 'Tell me, you have not stopped! What did I say? Do not stop.' I heard his boots clumping back down the stairs. ''Twould be amazing if someone actually listened to me for a change. When the Empress comes to lop off my head for being interminably late I hope you two shall explain why!' He clip-clopped back into view, caught sight of Emily and sighed. 'Oh, I did warn you.'

'What the hell are they?' Emily screeched. 'Get them off!'

I still hadn't a clue what the matter was. But then I saw it. Several of those hideous little creatures clung to clumps of her hair or dangled off the hem of her jacket.

Up close I saw they were leathery little critters with squat upper bodies that reminded me of marmosets. They had two skinny arms. And a pair of long slimy legs that kept curling and twisting about. Their faces were almost featureless, except for two narrow slits that may or may not have served as nostrils. There were several small punctures in the sides of their heads that could've been ears. And nothing but plain fur where eyes should've been. On top of all that, their bare skin glowed a soft sulphurous yellow.

'Get them off me!' Emily griped.

LanceAsh did nothing. Simply leaned against the stairwell wall, arms folded. 'Ignore them,' was all he said and with a sigh moved on.

'Are they dangerous?' Emily called in a quavering voice.

'Oh, highly!' came his jovial reply. 'Their venom will send you to the grave a blithering black blob in minutes. But do not fear, Skavas cannot bite without fangs. And their fangs only appear when their mouths do which, lucky for you, is during the winter months when mating rituals ramp up their aggression about a thousand notches. In the meantime they save the Empress wasting copper on expensive candles. Now, hurry up!'

Emily gave me a paralysed look, as if to say, Don't just stand there, get them off me!

If she cared to know, they were on me too. Squirming through my hair and clothes like lumps of cold liver. But what the hell was I going to do? Scream? Not likely. I wasn't going to let this LanceAsh bloke see me bricking myself. I gritted my teeth and did my best to ignore the little buggers and pressed onwards and upwards.

3

LanceAsh was there at the top of the castle when we spilled out of the stairwell. Emily desperately clawed at these Skava things. All to no use, I might add. They simply squirmed, and mewled aggressively through their nostrils. You couldn't budge them.

'Keep coming, keep coming,' LanceAsh ordered us. He actually looked to be enjoying himself. 'Trust me, they shall jump off once you hit daylight.'

Sure enough, as we stumbled into the sunshine those little imps screeched and dropped to the landing, squirming desperately back to the relative dark of the stairwell.

'I've a good mind to fumigate this entire place!' Emily grumbled, straightening out her hair, readjusting her glasses.

LanceAsh gave her a look. 'Do that and the Empress may just opt to fumigate you.' She went to argue the point but he clipped a sturdy finger straight against her lips. 'No! Shut up! No time to speak.'

He set off again.

Reluctantly we trailed him.

From around the curved wall we grew aware of the sounds of some huge gathering. You could hear garbled conversation and the like. Me and Emily glanced at each other wondering what the fuck we were walking into.

Sure enough as we moved out from behind the curve of the tower and onto the roof of the grand keep we discovered an expansive open-air platform filled with droves of beings seated at a hundred banquet tables.

Me and Emily stopped dead in our tracks.

A thousand eyes turned to watch us. The vast gathering slowly fell quiet. Had we crashed some private party? I took a step backwards. A wide space ran up the middle of the gathering. LanceAsh had already begun his way up this corridor until he noticed we were no longer trailing him. As he retraced his steps to fetch us, some announcer at the head of the gathering suddenly called, 'The Mortifera! Have arrived!'

Every damn soul stood then, as if in honour. I went cold. Vehement applause broke out.

'Looks like your beheadings shall await another day,' LanceAsh told us above the racket, grinning, ushering us forward.

So many strange and ugly-looking sods stood gawking and clapping and cheering us. Some with deep black eye sockets. Others with mouths cupped in masks, tubes snaking off into ears chugging gaseous liquids. Beings with skin that changed colours like cuttlefish. It went on. But unlike the people in the street, all these people were dressed in colourful, exquisite outfits.

LanceAsh lead us to the front of the gathering. Giant smouldering coils had been propped on the tips of tall posts; a soft green smoke lifted into the breeze. They reminded me of the mosquito coils I'd seen at the Port Rum Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica when me and Mum and Dad went there on holiday when I was about twelve. The Bloodwasps seemed less prevalent with the fumes wafting about.

The applause piped down as LanceAsh steered us toward a vacant table at the head of the gathering near the edge of the landing. I was struck by the brilliant view of the village from there, from that height, looking directly north along Castle Grove toward the Archway.

Again, it could so easily have been our village out there: the wispy smoke stacks issuing from cottage chimneys, the soft smoky aroma on the air, the Hell's Edge maze out to our west beyond Farmer Biffon's piggery (whatever the piggery was in that world), the Howling, the distant lighthouse, the soft rise of the Hidden Sea Hills nudging through the morning haze. And in the other direction, to the north-east, Wolfcrag Forest and the damn Vale. And some township that would've been Lambeth on our world, out to the east.

But so much told me this wasn't our village: the jungle beyond the Archway with its vines and creepers and giant pitcher plants and fly catchers and cycads and giant elephant ears, and all those unseen creatures screaming and howling, and the village wall itself circling the village with its guards pacing back and forth along its tall, impenetrable length, and all those Chess Stones standing tall and completely unbroken. (Even the ones on the eastern side of the village, where in our world the cliffs have been eaten away and the ruined Chess Stones stand precariously over the sea.) It all seemed like the lost Angkor temples of Cambodia poking above thick steaming jungle. All somehow too unbelievable.

We sat down, I finally felt my clothes drying out. LanceAsh gazed eastwards towards Strangler's Vale. 'Ha! And not a moment too soon. Empress JennElise approaches.'

I turned and squinted into the haze. Some sort of gigantic bird soared toward us over Wolfcrag Forest. Some massive nightmare creature that instantly made my skin crawl.

'Oh my God,' I heard Emily murmur, fear in her voice. 'What on earth is it?'

From this distance it was difficult to make. Only to say it looked like some massive fucking manta ray gliding toward us. A voice inside me urged me to just get up and run. Something bad was about to happen here.

But as it flew toward us, getting closer and closer, I noticed something strange.

There was an object strung down its back. And it was something so familiar it took me a few moments to wonder if I was seeing things right. 'Is that... is that a bloody aeroplane?'

LanceAsh said nothing. Probably enjoying the look of complete wonderment on my face.

I almost couldn't breathe. 'That's an aeroplane,' I said again. 'On a dragon.'

LanceAsh posted me a puzzled look. 'A dragon?' He grinned. 'A creature from your myths? No, Jake, I am afraid not.' He folded his arms almost proudly. 'That there is what we here call a Deadhound.'

'Deadhound?'

'Indeed.'

Even so, dragon or not, there was still a fucking aeroplane strapped to its back. A fuselage with the wings and tail removed and its entire bulk, from cockpit to aft, glistening a fine silver sheen in the sunshine. As the flying beast drew closer I was surprised to find that I even recognised the model of the plane. It was an old DC3. Just like one of the model aeroplanes I've got gathering dust on the bookshelf in my bedroom.

I knew then I had to be hallucinating. There was no other explanation.

4

The Deadhound, gracious, awesome, with the DC3 strung down its spine, approached at a rapid rate of knots, soaring low over the north-eastern quadrant of the village. It came in over the barley mill and banked, gliding directly toward us. It was one of those moments you know you'll never forget as long as you live. As if discovering living dinosaurs.

Somewhere on our landing, trumpets blasted into song, making me jump. The sound echoed regally across the village. The entire gathering stood again. LanceAsh too, motioning us to do likewise.

The Deadhound reached the castle and at the last second swooped steeply upwards, giving off a deep, grumbling drone, shaking the tankards and mugs, the plates and cutlery on all the tables. The huge birds circling out there in the morning sky now scattered. And the trumpets changed pitch, the tune switching to something quite stirring, something like whale song.

Down it came, this herculean beast, howling with its vast wings outstretched like air-brakes on a Jumbo jet, fluttering wildly. The thunderous down-draft from its beating wings blustered against us, ripping at our hair and clothes. Four massive feathered legs unfolded like landing gear, rear legs touching down first upon the wide wooden platform that stretched from the rampart out over the bailey and moat far below.

Up close the creature reminded me of a gargantuan wolf. It had a mighty canine snout (one that could've swallowed a car whole) filled with fangs, and savage emerald wolf eyes that seemed to watch all of us with some sort of barely controlled hunger. It was covered in a shaggy pelt of grey fur. Had a tail as long as a country lane. And mighty canine paws. There was also a particular doggy smell about it. A stinky odour of wet fur.

That's about where the similarities ended. Other than its four mighty wings it had tusks as long as lamp posts. And claws that'd evolved into long curved talons. And a forked black tongue that flicked back and forth from huge slobbering jowls.

It landed. I simply couldn't take my eyes off it. It was such an awe inspiring sight. I saw movement inside the DC3 cockpit and watched a pilot dressed in flight goggles and a woolly jacket and airman's gloves. He seemed to be thrusting levers back and forth, working a thick set of reins that were strung through wide apertures in the plane's nose cone; reins that were tethered to glistening metal rings pierced through the Deadhound's thick, wet nostrils. When he was satisfied the beast had steadied he threw the reins aside, unbuckled himself, left his seat and vanished from the cockpit.

A few seconds later the forward door thrust open and he appeared in the doorway, kicking down a small flight of steps that unravelled to the platform. He trotted down, secured the door, scratched the thick, furry neck of the Deadhound (as if to say Good boy, job well done) and then stood aside and made himself scarce.

What happened next was a procession of people filing out that door. I'm only guessing but the first lot looked like guardsmen. Four of them. They were dressed in medieval armour and flowing blue capes and helmets hammered out of some sort of blue metal. They carried strange, exotic axes with curved blades so long they looked like they could cleave elephants in half.

Next came what I believe was a pair of hand maidens. Not sure what else they could've been. They were gorgeous-looking women-things with long blonde hair and single eyes, and beneath thin robes, they each looked to have two pairs of breasts. After them, well it was anyone's guess. Advisors maybe. They plodded out dressed in grey gambesons and dark cloaks sporting some sort of coat-of-arms depicting a cross, a dagger and, by the looks of it, the head of one of these Deadhound creatures.

And after them came Empress JennElise herself in all her regal glory.

5

JennElise stood taller than her very own guards. She was easily the tallest woman I'd ever seen. Ten foot? Twelve foot? Not sure but she was close to that mark. She was dressed in vast, flowing robes of gold and blue that waved in the sea breeze, and dark plaited hair came down near enough to her knees.

The wooden steps seemed almost pointless for her long legs. (Begging the question, how the hell had she squeezed inside that plane?) She stepped onto the wooden platform and onto the landing, moving slowly, smiling serenely as her subjects bowed. Once again the trumpets changed pitch. One in particular wailing the most haunting, beautiful tune I've ever heard. I wanted to turn and see for myself where these trumpeters were situated. But I didn't dare budge with the Empress and her entourage approaching.

That silver raven was suddenly present again. I'd not even seen it return. Only I heard a strange squawk echo across the sky and suddenly there it was, swooping to the Empress's side. When it reached her, it uncurled its legs and in a moment of bizarre metamorphosis it actually looked to be walking beside her... at shoulder height. That made it well over ten feet tall. I had to lean sideways to get a better look around LanceAsh's shoulders to make sure it wasn't standing on something.

I looked sideways at Emily. She stood there bewildered. I wondered what she was making of all this shit. I wondered if she still thought we were hallucinating.

The procession reached our table, the music played on. I watched the Empress from the corner of my eye. I have to admit I was completely fascinated by her. I could've stared at her all day; her stunning face, her huge gorgeous eyes; eyes that reminded me of Kate's actually, only bigger and greener—actually they were almost too big. Like lemons.

Her face was pure white like river clay... except when she turned her head, it would change. When she swivelled her neck to acknowledge her subjects the sun caught it and you could see straight through it. Into her skull where it seemed to be full of bizarre concealed segments; like bits that were curved and rotating, bits that looked like spheres dissecting each other, bits that resembled industrial tubing.

I also noticed something peculiar in the way she moved—there was never the slight bob of her head to suggest she was actually walking. It looked more as if she were floating. Or rolling. Except for when she'd stepped out of the plane (and even then I'm not sure I'd seen them) I never saw her feet.

LanceAsh bowed. I watched as she sent him a lofty grin. There was something victorious in that grin, I thought. And I didn't know why.

I pondered her expression and a voice massaged the inside of my head. It felt as though someone had jacked up an amplifier to the centre of my brain and from a long way off someone was speaking into a microphone. 'Do not be afraid, children. I mean you both no harm. You are my honoured guests. I have awaited this day with great anticipation. You are the Chosen Ones, the saviours of our world. Our Mortifera. It is I who should be in awe of you, mae suntah.'

The music lulled and we were just left with the sounds of the wind, the flapping flags, the smells of the salt from the ocean, the musty odour of the coils. The flying Deadhound beast with the DC3 aeroplane stuck on its back, groaned and whined where it sat back there on the platform, snapping lazily at the wasp flies.

I looked about, wondering where the hell that voice'd come from.

JennElise stood with her back to our table, gazing over the gathering. Cognatus stood at her side like a giant stork. It seemed to survey the crowd with its keen eyes. The Empress began to speak, her voice soft as a mouse, yet somehow it carried impressively across the assembly as if the wind itself pushed it.

'I thank you all for your attendance at such late notice, but as you all know, we are nearing a desperate hour and the luxury of time slowly dissipates. Alas, by the blessings of Hvaelen, we gather here to welcome those who have journeyed from afar to fight by our side.'

I glanced at Emily. Emily still looked bewildered, blinking at the crowd, as if, like me, she wasn't quite comprehending exactly what the fuck she was hearing or seeing.

'As you have all no-doubt witnessed,' JennElise continued, 'our saviours from the Otherside have at last arrived to seize the Charon threat by its neck.' She swept her palm in our direction. Abruptly the crowd cheered and applauded, all eyes again on our confused faces. I dropped my eyes. I couldn't watch them when they were all staring at us like that. When the applause died away JennElise spoke once more. 'Warriors from the Otherside, jentah sen, would it be rude of me to ask you to take up the Grimmersows, hewn from the bones of the last Coynchenn? Would you demonstrate the devastating forces these weapons can wield?'

The trumpeters blared again. LanceAsh prompted us softly, 'Right then, one foot in front of the other, follow the Empress.'

I looked around uncertainly. 'What?'

'The Empress would like you to follow her,' LanceAsh repeated.

I finally caught sight of the trumpeters. They were situated a little way from us. Tall creatures who were more stick-insect than human. And the trumpets reminded me of gigantic Swiss alphorns; they were several metres in length and looked like Boeing jet engines at one end. They were so big, each one sat on a green block of stone growing thick in moss and giant purple orchids.

LanceAsh gripped our wrists and hauled us forward. 'Let us not keep the Empress waiting!' he seethed between clenched teeth, grinning ever so happily at the gathering.

Approaching the trumpeters I noticed for the first time a troop of eight castle guards sentried nervously around a huge circular granite slab. It was the size of a car but sat as low as a coffee table. It wasn't situated too far from the trumpeters actually—but behind a chain fence, and well back from the bulk of the gathering.

My nerves didn't abate. All I thought was that the Empress had mentioned weapons. Was that what they were guarding over there? Terrifying armaments? Why did it take eight nervous-looking sentries and a chain fence with a ten-metre perimeter to guard them?

JennElise, flanked by that silver raven Cognatus, veered in that direction. So did me and Emily with that LanceAsh tosser hauling us along. Every face in that crowd just watched us. I felt they were scrutinising our every step.

The trumpets quit when JennElise reached the chain and I felt choked by the sheer weight of the cold silence. It felt like an invisible force against my chest.

She then stood aside. One of her guards, a massive brute, stopped and turned. His frightening masked face trained on us as we ambled to a halt. His mask had been hammered from metal, complete with an extended chin and small slits at the eyes. The edge of his mighty axe flashed little stars of sunlight at my pupils.

What now? I wondered.

He addressed the eight sentries who watched us very keenly. 'Ka'hun tu'ela,' he said. They looked tense, like they didn't trust us being there.

He spoke again more sternly. 'Ka'hun tu'ela!'

They stepped aside, but for a second it was like they weren't going to budge for anybody. And when they did they stood there like they were waiting for any excuse to plant their spears in our guts. But there was a clear path to the chain fence now, to whatever the fuck lay on that slab of granite. The brute with the strange metal mask stepped forward, waving us on. He unhooked the chain, allowing us passage through.

Go to them, mae suntah, came that voice in my head again and I'm guessing Emily received it too, because at the same time we both looked at each other and then across at JennElise who stood there smiling serenely at us. They are all yours, my Mortifera. Make them live again. Demonstrate their might.

I scratched my head, glanced around at LanceAsh. 'What the fuck are we doing,' I said to him. 'I don't understand.'

'Go on,' he urged with a smile. 'I am not permitted to go any closer.'

'Why, what are they?' I asked quietly, hoping the crowd couldn't hear.

'What are they?' He looked bemused by the question. 'Why, for the sake of old Gudrun himself, they are your weapons.'

6

Everything seemed unnaturally loud in those few moments. The sound of the surf against the cliffs. The calls of strange birds along the coast. The flags flapping above us on the battlements. But we went forward... the huge Royal guards taking up defensive positions on either side of JennElise. Cognatus had taken to the air again but the damn bird just hovered there this time, eighteen feet above us with its wings outstretched and never moving... Once again it'd altered its appearance. Organic tubes had formed beneath its wings. They looked like small gun barrels. Was something going to shoot out of there, if we made a wrong fucking move? Would crayon-sized missiles blow our heads off the moment things went pear-shaped?

I didn't like any of this: the guards, Cognatus, the expectant and eager crowd.

We moved beyond the chain fence (chain links like interwoven steel eagle-talons) and closed in on the slab. Sunlight glinted off a pair of peculiar items. But the sight puzzled me. I'd expected swords at the very least. Or axes. Or even some mighty nuclear bomb the way everyone was carrying on.

But the things that lay there were bones. Arm bones. Or leg bones. Perhaps not human bones because they were as long as garden stakes. But bones nonetheless. They were etched in patterns and strange circular holes had been bored through them. Narrow tubing ringed them, embossing them like fossilised worms.

I looked around at LanceAsh.

He made a gesture as if to say Pick one up.

I frowned. I looked back at the bone things and considered LanceAsh's prompt. But I didn't pick one up. 'What's going on here, Em?' I asked her quietly.

She swallowed. 'I don't know, Jake. I don't know if we're hallucinating or dreaming.'

The voice again in our ears: Hesitate no longer!

Off to the side, JennElise suddenly seemed much taller.

Go on. The time is right. Take the Grimmersows, mae suntah! Take them into your grasp and wield them as you would have done five hundred years past in times of the Great War when our lands were smothered by the Charon scourge!

Out in the sky, those giant birds had returned (birds I now realised looked more like those Deadhound things). They wheeled and circled, and Cognatus, with his gun barrels aimed at us, spared them a cautious eye.

I was surprised when Emily simply pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, leaned forward and took one of these so-called weapons into her grip. 'The sooner we show these people how ludicrous this entire charade is the better,' she said. She turn and stood there gripping it like a rolling pin, wearing a completely bored expression like Okay, now what?

JennElise had an ugly, suspicious squint in her eyes. I reached for the other one. But as I took it a blue spark arced between it and my fingers. The guards gasped and hoisted their spears up and into a defensive stance. I went to wrench my hand away but found I couldn't, some force wouldn't allow it and my fingers closed around that creepy thing before I knew what the fuck was going on.

In an instant I saw a flash of these grey white images in my mind. Great oaks being thrust over, roots and all, by cyclonic gales. Of gigantic waves surging hundreds of metres inland across barren coastline, crushing cottages and mills and bridges.

And then, just like that... it was gone. The tingling sensation drained from my veins and the strange visions of destruction left my head. Then, like Emily, I simply stood there simply wondering what to do next.

The Empress' unnaturally large eyes widened. Bring them under your spell!

We watched her blankly. Her royal guardsmen remained pensive, the way they stood with their axes held ready to cut us into chunks if we happened to kill a fly or something. And each of the castle guards who were circled about us backed up a few paces, spears held ready as if they couldn't wait to puncture holes through our ribs. Cognatus stayed hovering where he was, defying gravity, his silver eyes piercing us, organic gun barrels ready to let loose hellfire, I guess.

I glanced at Emily. 'What does she mean, under our spell?'

'Surely you remember how to use them,' came LanceAsh's voice somewhere behind us.

Emily shrugged. 'Or maybe you've got the wrong people.' Her voice was filled with her usual arrogance.

'Tell us what you mean?' JennElise asked aloud in a cold tone.

'You talk like we're familiar with these god-ugly things,' Emily spat. 'But obviously we aren't.'

'Why, you jest!' Empress JennElise spat back.

'Strangely enough,' Emily replied, 'I'm not in a real jesting type of mood right at the minute.'

JennElise roared, 'COMMAND THE BLASTED VINES!' and her mouth hurled open like a shark's and that's all there was for a moment. No bulging lemon eyes, no nose—just a gaping, terrifying, fang-filled mouth with her face completely and utterly swallowed.

We staggered backwards, gasping, gulping, bug-eyed. It was the first time I felt truly alien in that world, truly out of place, truly scared. Had we underestimated LanceAsh and his apparent good nature? Was it nothing more than a sly front? Perhaps in reality we'd fallen in with the wrong crowd in this world. Been enlisted by nutters. To be used as what? Specialist slaves to do their dirty work? Fight some war for them?

JennElise stood there watching us. Her face had returned at least. But she was taller than ever. Close to thirteen or fourteen foot now. And darker. She stood with her back to the sun and her face was cast in deep, deep shadow.

I realised then you could see through her face. Right through it. But this time all the innards of her skull stood out in stark white: white cogs, white pulleys, white levers... and large glowing white bulbs where her eyes should've been.

She's fucking clockwork, I remember thinking.

'Command the vines!' she ordered impatiently with her charcoal face, pointing upwards at the north-eastern tower. 'Command the wind! Or the water in the moat, mah te sen! Call it all to arms I say!'

I was terrified. If we didn't at least try and do what she'd ask she might have her guards open us up. So I lifted my 'weapon' in the direction of the vines climbing up the tower...

As expected, nothing happened. The vines didn't move any more than their leaves were already shaking in the sea breeze. Gale force winds didn't erupt. And as far as I knew, the water in the moat didn't stir.

I was too frightened to speak when I lowered that bone thing for the last time. Emily was the same. Her effort at kicking the vines to life hadn't yielded any more than mine.

JennElise towered over us, her rage like a hellish inferno against our skin. She appeared to ripple, like a water mirage on a scorching summer's day.

One of her advisers stepped forward, whispering something in her ear. (The Empress had to bend quite a way down to hear him.) We heard none of the exchange. Probably didn't matter anyway. They were probably speaking in that weird language we kept hearing. When the adviser stepped aside JennElise straightened and looked at us. Her face was again white as clay and her large lemon-green eyes had returned, regarding us with great sympathy. Finally, she signalled one of her guardsmen.

This is it, I thought. The command to lop off our heads, no doubt. But the guardsman warbled some sort of order to the head of the castle guard, as if to say, We're all done here, you may take back the weapons, and then the castle guard edged forward and he growled out a gruff command: 'Put the Grimmersows back on the slab. Do it veeery carefully!'

We did as we were told and were immediately hustled from the area.

The remaining guards swamped the vicinity around the stone slab and a being dressed in a black shawl and hood came forward, squirreling the so-called 'formidable weapons' into something like a wooden Warchest. Then flanked by the guards, the hooded figure hoisted the chest into her grasp and quickly strode away through a tall, wooden door into the north-eastern tower.

The door closed with a slam!

7

The Empress strode to us and crouched so that her face came down almost level with ours, but crouching she still craned a good three or four feet above us. It was the first time I realised she smelled wonderful. Like the scarlet frangipani flowers Mum'd tucked behind her ears in Jamaica.

She reached out and took our hands. (She had strange fingers—a gaping gash through each palm where a middle finger would've been if they'd been human hands, and she had two long fingers either side of that and a thumb on either sides of those fingers.) 'I am deeply sorry to have wasted your time. We have been mistaken. So terribly mistaken. I take full responsibility. You are obviously not the souls we thought you to be. No, unfortunately you appear to be none but Unchosen Ones, Nen Mortifera. LanceAsh will escort you back to your realm. I wish you both a happy and fruitful life. Nen suntah.'

She stood and without looking at him, said, 'LanceAsh, I shall speak with you later!' LanceAsh bowed courteously. And with that JennElise turned about and walked away, Cognatus again like a giant stalk at her side.

She returned to her 'coach', followed by her entourage, all filing inside. Within the cockpit, the pilot was prepping for take-off. Cognatus the raven sprang into the air and rocketed into the sky—its business here wrapped up. The door to the DC3 fuselage was yanked shut, bolted and locked. The pilot heaved on the studded reins and the Deadhound grumbled and clambered fully around. Another pull on the reins and the Deadhound reeled back its head, and with three mighty thrusts of its vast wings it kicked away from the landing platform and plummeted earthward.

It was out of sight for about a second before it soared upwards into the sky, flapping away across the bay toward Wolfcrag Forest. In no time at all the beast was but a small speck on the horizon.

LanceAsh strolled slowly toward the landing platform, eyeing the Deadhound till it was gone. Around us the large congregation that'd come to watch a miracle that was never to be, slowly began to disperse. And me and Emily simply stood there bewildered, wondering what the hell we were meant to do now.

8

With the gathering all but gone, we moved uncertainly toward LanceAsh. The groan of those beasts in the sky above our heads echoed along the cliff tops. He stood near the low rampart overlooking the village. The flags on the towers above us still waved in the blustering sea breeze. The sky hung empty, save for drifting morning clouds and of course the wild circling Deadhounds. Someone was going round extinguishing the giant mosquito coils.

Emily stood at LanceAsh's side. For the first time since we'd met him LanceAsh looked dispirited. Gone was the cheeky smile, the cocky stance with his arms folded and legs ajar. He leaned against the stone rampart, his chin in hand. He looked across at us. Gave us a wan smile. 'Suppose I best get you pair back home then.'

But Emily had her nose out of joint. 'Actually, I want to know what the hell just happened here.'

He smiled sadly. 'It is a long story.' He hefted his weight from the rampart, and with arms still folded, began to walk away. 'Come, let us get you home.'

'No, I'm sorry,' Emily insisted, standing her ground, 'but I'd seriously like an explanation.'

He stopped and turned and watched us. Finally a small humorous grin tweaked the corner of his mouth. 'You really are the most stubborn, annoying girl.'

'I don't care,' Emily said flatly. 'I want an explanation. We were made to look like fools just now.'

He returned to the parapet, gazing at the deck, scratching his chin. He turned and leaned rump first into the squat wall, one foot crossed over the other. Finally he regarded us. 'You were being tested. That is all. We thought you were someone else.'

'Who?' I asked. 'These Mortifera?'

He nodded. 'That is correct.'

'Who the hell are the Mortifera?'

He shook his head. 'Honestly, it does not matter. If you were the Mortifera the weapons would have worked. Simple as that. End of story.'

I shrugged. 'I think mine almost did. That spark, surely you saw it, I felt something...'

He shrugged. 'That will happen from time to time. Residual energy left in the weapons. Nothing more.'

'Well, come on,' Emily demanded. 'What do those weapons do? Who were we meant to fight?'

'No, really, it is a long story. I am not just saying that to sound dramatic.'

'I don't care,' Emily said. 'We deserve an explanation.'

He sighed and dragged his windy hair off his brow. He shrugged. 'Alright, fair enough...' and he shook his head like we hadn't a clue what we were in for. 'I am going to tell it then. But I would be getting comfortable, if I were you. As you rightly say, you deserve an explanation. So, I might as well tell you everything. From the beginning. But with no interruptions. If you want me to tell it then you have to shut up till I am done. Am I clear?'

We both nodded.

'Right then. Here it is.'

THE CHARON

1

THE STORY of the last great evil began five hundred years ago on February the 20th 1535. And a sunny winter's morn it was by all accounts. Chessburn Village, as it is now, was a thriving coastal community, a major centre for regional trade and commerce and, like now, Chessburn had a royal seat. Like modern day Chessburn, it was a most pleasant little settlement by the sea.

It was at a quarter past eight that particular sunny morning when a strange report came from Spinecrow Village, a village that sat beyond the Hell's Edge maze at the foot of the Hidden Sea Hills.

Unconfirmed reports told of a maniacal killer on the loose. Bodies had been discovered disembowelled on Tigwater Moor. Later reports indicated that further bodies had been located north of Spinecrow, scattered through the reeds of Corritid Creek. Again, all disembowelled.

The chief Chessburn Watchman of the day, a Captain EdAsh, and a squad of his trained Watchers embarked on a hastily convened excursion to Spinecrow to get to the bottom of the matter. And to say they were surprised when they arrived would be a gross understatement.

EdAsh claimed in his reports that when they rode into Spinecrow they found the place deserted. Only the day earlier it had functioned as per normal: people going about their daily business, shopping at the market, trading goods, fishermen returning with full nets, etcetera, etcetera.

An inspection of the village and of the immediate surrounds told him that something dire had indeed transpired in the small hours of the night. The village had been ransacked and its entire population annihilated.

But the bodies of victims were not restricted to Tigwater, nor the reeds of Corritid Creek. EdAsh found them everywhere; slaughtered in their houses, torn to shreds in their beds as they'd slept and slaughtered as they'd tried to flee—the roads in and out of Spinecrow were literally strewn with carcasses.

EdAsh had absolutely no explanation for what happened. The kingdom of the Hidden Sea had no known enemies. It had enjoyed a millennium of virtual peace. And as far as he knew, the members of the Spinecrow Village Council had no gripe with outlying regions, nothing that would elicit such a gruesome backlash. No, a slaughter on such a scale was unexpected and unprecedented.

It was precisely half ten that morning, the 20th of February 1535, that Captain EdAsh received a message by Stealthfalcon about some troubling development back in Chessburn. The village was under attack.

EdAsh cursed his lack of foresight, realising now he had been tricked—with he and the bulk of his Watchmen carrying out duties in Spinecrow, they had left Chessburn almost entirely unguarded. Why should an invading force wish to take Chessburn? Why, in those times, that is where the seat of power for the realm of Forgotten lay with JennElise's father, Emperor Gudrun HarodCharr.

Finding himself in a race against time EdAsh posted a Stealthfalcon ahead to Chessburn with an emergency message for the Emperor, detailing what had gone on in Spinecrow and to enact emergency defence protocols. Meanwhile EdAsh and his men charged homeward on their Firecolts, anticipating that Chessburn might well be rendered to smouldering ruin by some unknown invading horde by the time they got back. However, on their return, the village was a picture of peace. Except for one thing: the carcass of a peculiar entity lying dead at the village entrance; slaughtered by the village guard.

No invading force claimed Chessburn that day. Nor did one materialise.

And the Mystery of the Spinecrow Slaughter, as it came to be known, passed into the pages of history. And chapter one of the Great War had passed.

2

The tale of the Entity however never abated. Its carcass was removed and for the next two months, under armed guard, it was dissected and studied by Royal physicians.

It was a curious-looking animal. It possessed multiple limbs, somewhat like a scorpion, and bragged multiple eyes, like that of a spider. And its mouth, as far as the physicians could conclude, seemed to be made up of mandibles, similar to that of a crab. Its skin was as black as oil and carried the stench of carrion. And it was a huge beast. Greater in bulk than a stud bull. A nightmare thing unlike anything the realm had ever encountered.

By the 31st of March, the physicians were no closer to solving the mysteries of the Beast and so it was decided that details of the Beast's mysterious appearance and puzzling anatomy should be posted without further delay to the great Behemoths.

In those days, the Behemoths lived in Suryavahmun, the city on the Great Plains of Luangwa, right there on the edge of the world, where the lush grasses give way to infinite forests. The Behemoths were, and still are, the great guardians and overseers of Forgottenworld.

The news had a peculiar effect on the Behemoths. Never before had they sent a contingent of inspectors and armed soldiers so hastily to a conflict area. But on the 5th of April send them they did. "The interesting thing to note," EdAsh wrote in his diary, "is this: the Behemoths had no interest in the whole Spinecrow slaughter until learning of the Beast."

And on witnessing the strange entity slain by the village guards, they were gravely concerned... and yet, curiously, would not explain why. EdAsh was made to recount the exact details of the morning of February the 20th. And the precise manner in which the beast had come to be there.

When it was explained that armed guards had assailed the creature on its attempt to infiltrate the village, the Behemoths were most sceptical. EdAsh was promptly informed that such an animal would not fall to the strikes of conventional weapons. That his Gate sentries must have concocted the story. (EdAsh stated in his diaries that he took this to mean the Behemoths must certainly have known what sort of animal they were dealing with; or at the very least, had heard of such a creature.)

Alas, when EdAsh approached the sentries concerned, they finally admitted the animal had merely ambled toward them and died suspiciously on the spot before they had even struck it a single blow.

This did not make the Behemoths any happier about the situation. If anything, it appeared to cause them more consternation. Yet, still they would not disclose their concerns.

EdAsh was made to escort the Behemoths to the village of Spinecrow. He was asked again to explain exactly what he and his men had encountered on that sunny winter's morning of February the 20th.

It is here, in his diaries, that EdAsh—for the first time—described a significant shift in Behemoth demeanour. He described them as becoming "highly nervous": talking in secrecy, conducting closed meetings amongst themselves. All they would declare to EdAsh or to Emperor HarodChar was this: "This invasion will see no end."

By the 2nd of May an entire garrison of Behemoth Gunners, their most fearsome warriors, was posted to Chessburn. They had sentries stationed about the walls of the village, carrying with them Dreadcannons, weapons reserved ordinarily for all-out war.

To say EdAsh was perplexed by this, these measures perhaps being a tad excessive, would be another gross understatement. After all, it had been three months, almost to the day, since the events had occurred in Spinecrow. And in that time there had not been a single hint, anywhere in the realm, of any further unrest.

By now, a Chessburn minority began to whisper that the Mystery of the Spinecrow Slaughter had no relevant or apparent connection with Chessburn. They believed it must have been an isolated incident, something the Spinecrow council, or perhaps even the Spinecrow residents, had brought upon themselves—dodgy dealings with unsavoury groups like the Hoars or the Crabmen were the rumours going round. (After all, there had been minor conflicts between those groups in the past.)

Still, all in all, Chessburn residents were not unwelcoming of their Behemoth guests. At any rate, while the great Behemoths were in town, the fate that had befallen Spinecrow—whether or not Spinecrow had brought it upon itself—was highly unlikely to befall Chessburn.

However, no one could have foreseen the terror that came next. With all the great Behemoth thinkers distracted by the apparent mindless bloodshed in the Hidden Sea region, a second more deadly invasion was about to begin...

On the 18th of May, the Charon, the last great evil, crawled from the dark dens of the world and struck with full force the most unlikely of places... Suryavahmun. The Behemoth home city.

Details of the events that followed are sketchy. EdAsh wrote in his reports that the Behemoths were taken by such surprise that they had precious little time to rally a counterattack. And ultimately a counterattack was never fully realised. Casualties were immense. Historical records suggest as many as a hundred thousand Behemoths perished that day. Savaged and murdered by a relentless and brutal alien force. Even today the ruins of Suryavahmun lie deserted and diseased and overrun by foul things.

Sadly, the Behemoth race, the mighty defenders of Forgottenworld, was all but decimated. On September the 21st EdAsh wrote: "We fear them wiped from existence. We have flown Deadhounds to the skies above Suryavahmun. Our allies, the Uliën, have despatched spies; the Rogues and Werrwulf posted scouts. But our search remains fruitless. The great voice of the Behemoths has fallen silent."

The garrison of Behemoth Gunners, assigned to Chessburn before the sacking of Suryavahmun, remained on guard and highly nervous. Yet swore they would not abandon their post. For, they had assured EdAsh, war would come to Chessburn whether he liked it or not, and that Chessburn had to be defended at all costs. And still, whether through fear or stubbornness, they refused to disclose what this foul threat was.

Thus closed the second chapter of the Great War. And it was here Forgottenworld entered its darkest period.

3

Towns and villages across the world braced themselves for all-out invasion. Rumour and panic were rife. This evil, a true enigma, had come out of nowhere. There was no history of such a destructive phenomenon. The sheer fact that a single force could wipe out the powerful Behemoths in a matter of hours struck cold, cringing horror in people all across the realm. And all people feared one thing: the dark threat would surely soon blight all of Forgottenworld.

'These fears were well founded. The 20th of December heralded the coming of the true Dark Age. It began in Killer's Fell, a small village in the realm of Gorllwyn. Reports stated that overnight a herd of cattle had been mysteriously slaughtered. Carcasses were found at dawn scattered across the village common.

Word of this spread quickly to Chessburn. And the Behemoth Gunners assured both EdAsh and Emperor HarodChar that it was indeed Charon mischief. EdAsh wrote: "I had no choice. I despatched myself and three other Watchers on Deadhound, flying day and night for Gorllwyn. Alas, by the time we reached Killer's Fell it was too late. We were met by nothing more than ruin and murder. The entire population of Killer's Fell lay dismembered, disembowelled, and scattered.

"We did not dare land; we circled the village from the air, surveying the ungodly carnage. And for the first time I lay my eyes upon one of the living enigma. It poised there in the street, peering up at us with its harrowing spider face and demonic eyes; a soulless parody of life, an abomination. But this day we would spot not one, not two, not even three of those things. We laid our sight upon legions of those devilish beasts. Yet, if I declare this was all we were witness to, then I would be lying. For, we were also struck by a new terrorsome phenomenon.

"A winding river of blackness. I can describe it no other way. As though it were the tongue of hell. And carried upon its rotting surface were the village dead, countless bodies of people and animals alike.

"We made it our business to trail this river. For a hundred miles or more. And to our horror we found it sweeping through many villages and towns across that region. All the while along its length floated those that had been slain by the Beasts, floating to a destination unknown. For we could track the river no further than an hour at most, for, mysteriously, our Deadhound grew rapidly fatigued."

All that EdAsh witnessed that day chilled him to the core. He was also left wholly incensed. And on his return to Chessburn he made it his business to demand the Behemoths declare what they knew about this evil. Finally they relented. And told him all.

We know now that in the elder days, in the days before time, there lived a number of ancient races. The Behemoths. The Charon. The Coynchenn. The Jugiter. The Grens. The Gorgg. Others whose names have been lost to history. By the year 1535 there remained but two of these races: the Behemoths and the Coynchenn. Yet the last of the Coynchenn—a magical and peaceful race of sea giants—was dying. And the Charon? Well, until that year, the Behemoths believed them extinct, killed off in the Caneyrian Purge, five millennia previous.

Ultimately, it was a single piece of news the Behemoths imparted to EdAsh that jolted his spirit: "The Charon have awaited this day for five millennia, lying in the dark, gathering strength. Alas, they now cannot be defeated."

EdAsh demanded of them, why?

"The Behemoths can match the Charon in strength," they said, "but it is only the Coynchenn who stand as Charon equal. Together they are dark and light. Eradicate one and the other will flourish. Only light can swathe the dark. The last of the Coynchenn, alas, is dying—and we are powerless to prevent its demise. Its time has come, its age is at end. If the Charon have returned, then we are doomed. For, the Charon is the Plague without bounds, the Plague of endless hunger. It is the Plague that will plunge Forgottenworld into eternal darkness."

EdAsh would not accept this. "If the Coynchenn alone can deal it death," he said, "then surely while the last of the Coynchenn still breathes there is hope!"

However what the Behemoth Gunners told him sank his heart: "The last of the Coynchenn will surely by now be dead. For, the last of the Coynchenn was in a safe, guarded place. And that place was Suryavahmun."

The dark rivers sprouted across the realms of Mrianlach, Skärradness, Brocketsbrae, Sixhills, even as far south as Palemoth. True panic now gripped the world. By the beginning of January 1536, the first exodus of people began. Mass migration out of Forgottenworld—ships sailing westward and southward for the continents of Ravenshørde and Viddiksvall; caravans fleeing eastwards to Gundarven. Sadly it proved a disastrous gamble, one that played directly into Charon hands. With so many people moving together at once, Charon Skrargs—as the Behemoths had termed the Beasts, now numbering in the hundreds of thousands—moved in swarms.

The first half of that year saw the bloodshed of eight hundred thousand people.

Yet life in any guise is stubborn. People began to rally. People began to stand their ground. Regional armies rose up to fight. The Gomm, the Werrwulf, the Rogues, the Gerenian, the Uliën. They battled in the valleys of Penderyn. And on the beachfronts at Green Scarr. They fought on the plains of Hassguard. And across Eradchilus, the hills under the sea.

And so the third chapter, and some say the longest chapter, of the Great War had begun...

4

Battles raged heavily throughout 1536 and 1537 as the Charon Skrargs swept south. With it came heavy losses for the armies of Forgottenworld. Palemoth fell in November 1536. Many of its towns—Gareg Las, Blakemere, Corserine, and Raethgar of the Hampton Barony—were obliterated by the Charon forces. Worryingly, the Charon now had a presence barely ten leagues from Chessburn.

Yet, war had not yet come to Chessburn as the Behemoths had promised. Still, it was only a matter of time...

By the start of 1537 the world had been criss-crossed by Dark Rivers. As the weeks ticked by, rivers sprouted throughout Palemoth, blighting the remaining towns of Roughsike, and Gorgunnock, straying to the doorstep of the Hidden Sea. It was only here, with the threat now so close to Chessburn, that the Behemoth Gunners pushed out to defend the borders of the Hidden Sea province, their thunderous Dreadcannons cutting down the Charon Skrargs in great swathes.

And yet, as the Behemoths had stated, the Skrargs proved impossible to defeat.

"Charon forces continue to grow at an amazing rate," EdAsh wrote. "No matter how many we push back, no matter how many are rendered to stone by the Gunners, they return in greater numbers!"

In February of that year the purpose of the Black Rivers was finally revealed. The Rogues mounted a covert expedition to track the Rivers—flying directly to their source. It was discovered the Rivers all converged at a vast black pit, a gaping chimney, miles wide, cut vertically into the earth.

This was located in a mysterious realm known only as the Vrhûedh; a bitter, lifeless land rife with death and disease and poison.

The Rogues managed to fly into the pit for some way and were witness to the foulest, most sacrilegious treatment of the dead. For it was here all carcasses were being ferried. And here they were spliced, augmented and reconstituted, and returned to life. Although "life" is perhaps the wrong term here. "Undead" would be more apt.

Following this gruesome revelation, a decree went out across Forgottenworld—survivors must, if they could, begin the practice of burning the dead.

It had little effect. The Skrargs were already far too numerous and far too cunning. And adapted far too quickly; they began to change. Charon Shadows emerged sometime during January 1537. And by March, legions of Charon Grotesques stalked the land.

On June the 12th, the battlefront20 finally came to Chessburn. The full force of the Charon assault came from the east, through the Crabmen beaches. The Behemoths had no choice but to stride out and meet them in battle. This proved a cunning ploy by the Charon—for, while the Behemoths and the Watchers were distracted, Charon Shadows, who are most adept at camouflage, swept secretly and quietly through the Great Labyrinth and covertly took up crucial positions within the village itself, hiding themselves within plain view of all—disguised as trees... And so began their long wait. Thus, Chessburn had already been invaded and the Behemoths and the Watchers were none the wiser.

The Charon assault across the Crabmen Beaches lasted three days. Grotesques then flanked from the north. But hand to hand the Behemoths are a tough race to reckon with, and on the 15th of June the Charon were forced to retreat.

EdAsh wrote: "I demanded of the Behemoths: how had they known the Charon fight would ultimately come to Chessburn? I pleaded: How can we fight this Charon together if we have no unity in knowledge? I demand you share your secrets!"

The Behemoths however had precious little information. Yet what they did know they finally imparted. There were ancient documents that foretold of Charon invasion. Once the days of the great Coynchenn came to an end, the Charon would rise up and, unchecked, would spread across the world. But their invasion would culminate with an attack on the journey gates of the Hidden Sea region. Their aim? To infiltrate Strangeworld.

When EdAsh asked, "Why?" the Behemoths had no answer.

Still, it made sense. The only portal open to Strangeworld in those days was the Boneraker Gate. Up until the start of 1537 it had been used as a regular trade route between our worlds. Until of course, trade was ceased due to the threat of war.

Buoyed by the Charon retreat from Chessburn, local armies rallied and joined forces with the Behemoth Gunners in the defence of the region, and the Charon were knocked back further still, through Palemoth, chased from the smouldering ruins of Roughsike and Gareg Las and Gorgunnock.

But the Behemoths should have known better; they should have sensed something was suspicious. The Charon retreat had been far too simple, too easy, almost convenient. Yet, the survivors of the Hidden Sea realm, and those of Palemoth and Rooken Edge were simply relieved to have liberated their land and thus celebrated long and hard.

It was then the stealthy Charon Shadows mobilised.

On June the 20th, four hundred and seventy-eight years ago, the Charon seized Chessburn, decimating ninety percent of its residents, and penetrated the Boneraker Gate, finally bringing war to Earth.

So ended the third chapter of the Great War. And thus began the fourth... and the last.

5

For the first time, humankind was drawn into the conflict. The Charon invasion of a new world had commenced. However, something curious transpired: the Charon appeared to lack power in his new world. Not even the Behemoths understood why.

Nevertheless it proved a decisive point in the history of the war.

Humans are extremely possessive by nature. They do not give up territory very readily. In 1537 royal rulers of England despatched a team of knights to the Hidden Sea region to defend Burnchess from these otherworldly invaders. And with the Charon weakened in Strangeworld, these knights put up a most gallant resistance. But alas, the Charon still went undefeated.

Heartened by the breach of the Boneraker Gate, the Charon swarmed back across Forgottenworld, recapturing Rooken Edge and Palemoth, annihilating the opposing armies like ants. By July, Chessburn and the surrounding region was entirely under Charon control.

All seemed lost. The few remaining Behemoths and Watchmen could not breach the Charon defences. The Gerenian cities beneath the sea were sacked; the towns and airfields of the Rogues were levelled; the subterranean burrows where the Uliën dwell were swarmed; and the Werrwulf Forests burned to the ground.

The Charon conquest of Forgottenworld was complete. The end was close. Alas, what happened next no one could have foreseen... the Charon took an unexpected hit. From the most unexpected place.

6

On August the 17th a sudden and unknown benevolent force rolled into Suryavahmun, completely taking the Charon by surprise.

It was the great and mighty Behemoths. They had been slowly rebuilding, limb by limb, concealed away in the Womb of Yayyashavah, their mythical birthplace. A hundred thousand strong they stormed Suryavahmun and eradicated the ancient city of all Charon.

But the retaking of Suryavahmun was not their primary concern. For, Suryavahmun would forever be a contaminated and tainted place thanks to the everlasting effects of Charon occupation, and the Behemoths knew this. No, they had a secret. All was not yet lost, for, the last of the Coynchenn may have been long dead but its body still lay there, unable to be corrupted by even the most vile of Charon magic. And while its body persisted, it could be utilised.

After death, the remains of the Coynchenn carried a deadly curse: those who touched its flesh would be instantly struck down by Necropsia. A fatal rotting disease that can wipe through a population in minutes. Only human flesh alone has proven immune to its curse.

Here, the Behemoths despatched an envoy to Strangeworld to meet with English rulers. And the envoy explained how the Charon could be eradicated.

By August the 21st, an army of England's most fearsome knights slipped secretly through the Stone Gate and rode out into a destiny unknown.

They were met by Behemoth generals and escorted to Suryavahmun to begin extracting the bones of the last Coynchenn.

Here they fashioned their Grimmersows, mighty weapons, and once complete, this small army of humans rode out against the titanic might of the Charon occupation. And within three months the Charon was completely vanquished.

And thus, the Great War was at an end.

THE PROPHECY

1

ME AND LanceAsh sat with our legs swinging over the end of the landing platform, probably a good two hundred and fifty feet above the bailey. Below us the last of the guests were streaming out of the castle far below, filing past the pond, trudging through the gatehouse, crossing the drawbridge, climbing into those strange carts or onto the backs of Firecolts, mounting all their bizarre steeds, and riding away.

Emily stood back near the rampart, shielding the sun from her eyes, giving me this uneasy look as if to say If you slip off the edge of the platform and plummet to my death what the hell am I going to tell Dad?

LanceAsh sat there, leaning back, hands planted behind him. 'So, now you have heard the story of the Great War.'

'Yes, and I still don't know how it involves us,' Emily said scathingly.

'Oh? Well, allow me to explain,' he told her indicating the village. 'The Chess Stones. I am sure you are aware of them.'

Emily gave him this look, like, Well of course we're aware of them.

'Right... then I give you the Macellarius Knights.'

I eyed the statues, frowning.

'The Knights,' he said again. Like that explained everything. He sighed. 'Bloody hell, has no one told you pair about the Macellarius Knights?'

I shook my head. Emily adjusted her glasses impatiently and looked the other way.

'At the end of the Great War,' LanceAsh went on, 'eight of the human knights who'd helped annihilate the Charon by use of the Grimmersows, chose to remain in Forgotten as sentries of the realm. They called themselves the Macellarius: the butchers. The Chess Stones are their resting place.'

Emily folded her arms and scoffed. 'What complete and utter nonsense.'

'I am afraid it is not. That be their resting place, I promise you.'

She shrugged. 'And what should we care? They're dead. So what?'

LanceAsh watched her carefully. 'By the Empress, you are supposed to be the smart one. They are not dead. Deep magic holds them in stasis. They act as sentries. To be summoned should the Charon ever return.'

'Oh, so they're just going to wake up one day are they?' Emily laughed. 'After what? Five hundred years? Sure, whatever you say.'

'That is the general idea,' LanceAsh told her, gazing wistfully at the statues.

Emily gave me this look. Are you believing any of this?

'Yet, sadly the knowledge of how to bring them back has been lost,' LanceAsh explained. 'The commands were left to an order of human monks called the Dominors. They were given a number of Grimmersows with which to oversee the realms of Forgotten in the absence of the Knights. Passing them down from one generation to the next. And to ultimately utilise these weapons as one part of bringing the Knights out of stasis. Now sadly, the Dominors remain all but extinct. Which is why we have relied on the prophecy of the Mortifera. And it has served us well on several occasions.'

'Oh, so we're not the first idiots to come and be embarrassed in front of you lot then?'

He smiled at her. 'No.' He scratched the back of his neck. 'But I must say, the Mortifera who came before you had no trouble in bringing the Grimmersows to life. And they were also a great deal more polite.'

I pondered Mum's album. So, it was finally explained. The photos of all those people: Carson Rawlins and Abigail May; Buffalo Mitchell and Chillicote Greaves; Rachel Evelyn Maddox (my mum) and Liberty Sweetwater. The Mortiferas of 1927, 1964 and 2001. They'd all been here, they'd all stood before that stone and grasped those bone things and waded into battle. It was hard to picture Mum doing any of that stuff, but then, if it was true, it was bloody impressive.

'Now the Charon is again awake,' LanceAsh went on. 'Snuck beneath our watch and once more wormed its way into your world. I assure you, the Beasts that have been killing livestock in your realm, the creatures that have been murdering your people, are of this Charon. Skrargs, to use their hideous name.'

Here, he pointed at something else. This time toward the stone maze. 'Warrior's Gate,' he tells us. 'Another journey Gate. Like Boneraker, the one that brought you across worlds. Right now, that is where our current problems lie—for that remains the point at which the Skrargs are infiltrating your world. And after all this time we still do not fully understand what it is the Charon seeks from your realm. And alas, for the first time the Charon has managed to snake one of their dark rivers into your world. That substance contaminating Tigwater Moor, the stuff you lot think is fertiliser, is actually part of their deadly scourge. Their Black River. From your world it penetrates Warrior's Gate in the centre of the labyrinth and winds westward from there into the realm of Rooken Edge where it drops into a massive sink hole in the earth. From there we assume it flows via subterranean tunnels all the way to Vrhuêdh, the home of the Charon situated in the barren far north-east of Forgotten.'

I couldn't help thinking of Mark in that moment. All summer he'd been telling me of spotting weird beasts stalking about Burnchess and I hadn't believed him. I felt a bit bad actually. But who would've thought a world like this existed?

'So what do you plan on doing about it?' Emily asked bluntly.

LanceAsh laughed. 'Why, you just saw it, my sweet.' He indicated the empty tables, the deserted trumpets, the now vacant landing and granite slab. 'You were it. The number one ticket items in town. Weapons hewn from the ribs of the last Coynchenn are meant to respond to the Mortifera. This time sadly, they did not.'

'But why us?' I said. 'What made you think we could use those things?'

'I mentioned the Dominors. An order of human monks. Like I told you, after the war it was their primary mission to monitor Forgottenworld for any sign of Charon reawakening. Were they to detect any such sign, they were tasked with bringing the Knights out of their slumber and back into battle.

'There is a stone tablet in the possession of the Behemoths and on it is written a prophecy. It is said the Knights each experienced a peculiar dream before they vanished into stasis, a dream that spoke the very same premonition to each of them. That the Dominors would ultimately die out, leaving no one capable of reanimating the Knights. Yet their dreams declared that once the Dominor flame was extinguished the Charon would surface four more times. And each time two souls would arrive from Strangeworld's Hidden Sea. Souls who would be descendants of the Macellarius Knights.

'Some would be siblings,' LanceAsh explained, 'born to separate parents. Some would be close friends. Parts of the prophecy are so precise it even details age, gender, and sometimes even the physical traits of our Mortifera. Other times it is frustratingly vague. Alas, to dice a long tale short, this time the details pointed to the pair of you. Siblings brought together and born to separate parents... your ages, your physical descriptions.'

'The pair of us?' Emily scoffed. 'Oh, come off it.'

LanceAsh didn't share her amusement. 'I know how it sounds. Yet the prophecy has proven very reliable in the past, my dear.'

'And we were meant to drive back the Charon?' Emily wanted to clarify. 'Using those manky bone things?'

LanceAsh offered a forgiving smile. 'Indeed, that was our hope. But if anything, the process has highlighted our haste. For it would seem you are not the Mortifera at all. And in hindsight we were awfully rash in believing so.'

Emily turned away. 'Yes, well I've heard quite enough of this nonsense thanks very much. The sooner I leave this place the better.'

BEAST AT THE GATE

1

THE RETURN ride to the Archway was a hot, solemn affair. The sun burned down and LanceAsh's Firecolt gave off a stifling odour like boiling chicken; the grubs swimming inside its veins sloshed around sluggishly, tumbling like drunken goldfish.

News must have spread of our failing, because through the village, people watched us go, and gone were the looks of hope and optimism, gone were the waves and the elated smiles. Nothing but beings sullenly, quietly, departing the blood-soaked marketplace, with the twisted glistening bones of the Jëhjhen drying in the sun and being pecked at by numerous scavenger beasts.

I tried gauging LanceAsh's feelings, his mood. Was he as disappointed in us as everyone else seemed to be? I couldn't tell. But he'd certainly gone quiet since we'd left the castle. Not so cocky, not so sure of himself. He was a fool if he didn't see it wasn't our fault though, that you couldn't blame us just because we weren't who everyone thought we were.

Anyway, whatever the case, I had a ton of questions. The morning had been such a fucking whirlwind. I could've bailed him up all day. But he seemed far away in his thoughts so I thought I shouldn't bug him. Yet, there was one thing I had to know.

When I got the nerve up I said, 'LanceAsh, can I ask you something?'

He looked distracted, far away. 'Yes. What is it?'

I didn't know how to put it. I had to think about it for a few moments. Finally I said, 'That strange suit we saw you in... Earlier. When we met you. Well, I need to know... Are you... are you the Crimson Wraith?'

He nodded. 'Some have called me that, yes.'

I paused before my next question. Thinking back to the diary-scrapbook thing Jones had given me. The one that'd allegedly belonged to mum. The one with all those strange photos. 'So... did you know my mother?'

I wasn't sure what sort of answer I'd get but I hadn't expected the small smile that came to his mouth. 'Yes.' He nodded. 'Yes, I knew her well.'

For some reason hearing this surprised me. Even made some part of my soul feel a strange sense of warmth.

'Rachel was a remarkable woman,' he declared.

'Was... was she one of these Mortifera?'

He laughed. 'Indeed she was. And perhaps the finest I have met.' He looked wistful for a moment then. As if recalling great days long gone. He added, 'I must say though, I was devastated to learn of her untimely demise. A sad day for both our worlds, Jake. She was loved by many in Forgotten. She made many a friend here.'

Hearing these words warmed my heart. And intrigued me greatly. I died to know more. Wanted to hear everything she'd ever done here in this world. I mean, it absolutely fascinated me, this secretly life of hers. I'd never even known.

I went to ask if he could tell me some tales of those days. But whether he would've been willing to or not I don't know. And what stopped me asking was a commotion at the Archway.

As we approached, I noticed other so-called Watchers, dressed like LanceAsh, ordering crowds back from the monument. And beyond the village gate, the gargoyles, Slugg and Hawg, were surveying some strange anomaly in the grass across Coddington Lane beneath the sky-scraping Seven Ghosts.

LanceAsh snapped out of his subdued reflective mood and growled, 'Muxzhüm! Tktkt, halt!'

The steed clip-clopped to a standstill and LanceAsh slid from the saddle and dropped the three metres to the ground. 'Stay here,' he ordered us and strode away, calling, 'Alora, what is this?'

A tall blonde woman, dressed in similar garb to LanceAsh, came forward. She spoke low. We couldn't hear a word of it. But LanceAsh didn't look pleased. When she was done he yelled orders, 'Right then, get everyone back! Right back! Send immediate red alerts to the Watchers of Roughsike, Palemoth and Gorgunnock. And for God's sake, alert the Behemoth sentries in the maze!'

He strode back to us. 'Muxzhüm! Drop!' The steed folded its legs and crouched and LanceAsh barked at us, 'Come on, we must get you away from here!'

We didn't move. Stuck there by intense curiosity. 'What's going on?' I asked suspiciously, gazing through the Arch toward the Seven Ghosts.

'We have a situation. Now get off the Firecolt. We must get you home!'

He took us both by the arm, dragging us to the ground. 'Stay with me!' he ordered as we trailed him to the Archway. 'Alora!' he called. 'T. S. Wells! Jude! This could be an infiltration ploy! Guard the Boneraker Gate!'

'What's all the fuss about?' Emily asked looking worried.

He ignored her as we came up on the Archway. 'Jake,' he said. 'The Scrivinas and Crogen! Get this damn portal open.'

I lugged the artefacts from my backpack still wondering what the hell was going on. LanceAsh pointed to a section in the Archway, indicating where the key assembly should slot. This lay in the same area they'd appeared after the portal had opened. (If he'd not been there to point this out I'd have been round the side I'd originally placed them.)

'Hurry now, Jake,' he said drawing his sword. I noticed three other Watchers spaced out across the opposite side of the Archway, each one in defensive positions, swords drawn, all facing Coddington Lane.

Over by the towering Seven Ghosts, Slugg and Hawg guarded the strange shape bunched on the ground. Backed up a tad stood another row of Watchers, arranged around the anomaly in a wide semicircle, swords drawn as if expecting the thing on the ground to attack. Between them and us the large crowd was now hurrying away, as if suddenly understanding what lay there. They came belting past us toward the village, some wailing, others struck silent with fear, some of them humans on all-fours like dogs.

LanceAsh summoned a pair of Watchers who'd been stationed on their Firecolts beyond the wall. 'We need Behemoth Gunners here now!' he growled at them as they approached and immediately they charged west, away from Chessburn toward Hell's Edge.

Intrigued by this whole spectacle I'd hesitated positioning the key assembly.

'Jake, I must say,' LanceAsh said sternly, 'your warrior mother, Rachel, would have had the doorway open long before now!'

I shunted the Crogen, the skull, into the hollow and the second I did the mysterious shape bunched in the grass at the base of the Seven Ghosts suddenly moved, staggering to its feet.

Watching it gave me chills. It was déjà vu. I was transported immediately back to Strangler's Vale. That spider thing that'd attacked me. Here it was, one of its kind. I couldn't be anywhere near it.

'Jake!' LanceAsh yelled. 'Hurry.'

I shoved the Veisder and Scrivinas in place, the bony black fingers of the six-digit hand again curled tight about the skull. Place names lit up in pale neon blue around the assembly. Only one of them I recognised: BURNCHESS. And when I turned the assembly the blackened claw of the index finger stopped right there above it.

'Jake, once you're through, fetch the artefacts immediately to shut the portal! You understand? We will hold it off as best we might, but I fear this Skrarg wishes to trail you through!'

Disturbing noises had begun to sound from the old monument: grumbling from beneath the ground, animals screeching somewhere above.

Any remaining onlookers now turned and fled. Hawg and Slugg backed up, unleashing some sort of hellfire from their mouths, inundating the beast in a wash of roaring blue flame. LanceAsh gave the order to his Watchers to fall in and attack. As they let loose a battle cry and charged forward he shoved me and Emily through the Gate...

2

We stumbled headlong into bright red cordon tape (two strips of it: one at knee height, the other at the chest) and into a mass of people gabbling at a hundred miles an hour. The sudden commotion seriously muddled my wits because one moment I'm seeing a mass of charging Watchers and next, in their place, all these damn nattering village folk who must've run to the Beechworth farm on the initial siren and were now strung out along the cordon, all peering in anticipation toward the village, wondering if it was still going to drop. But lucky for us, they were so caught up in themselves I don't think a single one of them noticed me or Emily abruptly appear out of thin air.

Even so, there was no time to stand around and scratch my head wondering what the fuck was going on, I had to get to the side of the Arch and grab the artefacts. If I didn't shut the portal, if that monster rushed through into all these villagers then it was going to be a massacre of monumental proportions.

I heaved my way through the throng, losing Emily somewhere behind me.

'Back up!' I heard Constable Newson yelling at everyone. 'Stay THIS side of the cordon, the area is NOT yet secure! Do you hear me?!'

I made it to the edge of the Arch, surprised somehow to see the stone gargoyle standing right there in its place before the crumbled Chess Stone, a rigid statue of carved rock, where it has stood guarding Burnchess for centuries. But the thing that surprised me even more was Goon. He stood there too, watching me and right beside him the assembly of artefacts had emerged from the stone work in the Arch.

He grinned maliciously, his greasy hair hanging around his wrinkled, sweating neck. It was a stifling morning, steamy after the belting rain with the ocean breath all wheezed out, but he was clad in a heavy cloak and leather leggings, grieves and boots. He wore something like ribbed leather armour across his chest now. And inside his cloak... I was shocked to see one of those strange bone weapons. A Grimmersow. How could he possibly own one of those? I remember thinking.

Suddenly it dawned on me what he intended. Keep the Gate open, let that beast through.

I rushed at him but was blocked by the crowd. I shoved them desperately aside, stumbling, flailing my arms to stay upright, some of them snapping, 'Here, look out, lad, mind who you're pushing!' But I clawed and heaved and thrust myself through...

But when I reached the key assembly Goon was nowhere to be seen.

He'd grabbed the artefacts and bolted.

I couldn't believe it. I was furious, seething, looking about for him. Waiting for that monstrous spider beast to come bursting through the Doorway and tear us all to pieces.

But, when I looked down at the stonework where the artefacts had folded through the Arch, I couldn't believe what I was seeing—

They were still there... To my utter surprise (and then suspicion) the portal keys were still tucked into the monument. Goon hadn't taken them at all.

3

Confused, I snatched them free, hoping then that the portal had indeed shut. I jammed them into my backpack and whirled around, still looking for Goon. Wondering what was going on?

He was nowhere, but there was so many people... it was hard to tell.

Someone rushed at me through the crowd, throwing themselves at me, almost knocking me to the ground. 'Oh, Jake! I was so worried about you. We couldn't find you anywhere. We thought something had happened.'

Whoever it was had their arms thrust around me, their ear jammed against mine. I arched my head back, trying to get them in sight. It was Hayley.

Then Kate and Mark were there in my face. I pulled Hayley back to arm's length and just stared at her, wide-eyed. 'Holy shit, you're okay? But how'd you escape the catacombs?'

She looked puzzled. 'Catacombs?'

'Yeah. I mean, how'd you get out?'

She laughed, confused. 'What are you talking about?

'Goon. He kidnapped you.'

'Kidnapped me? I've been at the muster point at Beechworth's.'

I watched her face. My head was a blind muddle. I looked around at the crowds of people. 'I... I don't know what's going on.' I threw out a long breath, holding my hair out of my face with both hands, the rucksack still slung over my shoulder, taking stock, relieved to be home, but wondering what the fuck was going on, wondering where Goon had gone, wondering—

'Where's Emily?' Mark asked.

I turned and eyed him like he wasn't really there. 'Emily?' Shit, had she come back through? Had I stranded her beyond the portal?

Suddenly Newson was yelling, 'Oy! Miss Sanders, the area's not secure! Get back here this instant!'

I got up on my toes for a view over the top of everyone's heads. All I could see was Peg Rendell busy rolling out more cordon tape—three ribbons this time, stretching all the way back to the barley mill.

But I spotted Emily striding off down Castle Grove. Kate's like, 'Oh my God. What's she doing? Where's she going? It's too dangerous.'

'Stay here,' I told them. 'I'll fetch her back.' I stooped beneath the tape and set off after her.

'Oy! What are you doing?' Newson's whining voice yelled after me. 'Come back here! We're still on red alert. The area's not secure! Come back now!'

THE VANISHED

1

WE REACHED the Hare Of The Dog. It was deserted. Emily wasn't speaking. She climbed the stairs with me on her tail. 'Did you see Goon?' I kept asking her breathlessly. 'He was there. Just now at the Arch. Did you see him?'

She wouldn't utter a word.

'Emily?'

She climbed the stairs all the way to the rooftop garden refusing to reply. When I clambered through the trapdoor into the hot sunshine she was at the railing peering into the street. I shut the trapdoor and came over, my heart beating as I took in the scene of the village.

Old Burnchess town was in a terrible state—a mess of downed trees and scattered shrubs and torn tiles and thatch. Bits of roofing lay strewn about gardens. Shrubs and flowers had been stripped. Ox carts and motorbikes lay heaved over onto their sides. I briefly thought Goon's bomb must've gone off—that it hadn't been enough to collapse the village but strong enough to have caused some surface damage. Then I recalled the storm; the thunder and lightning and buffeting gales. Was this all nothing but storm damage?

My eyes returned to the Archway. It remained under siege by the mob of panic-stricken villagers, all no doubt wondering if Burnchess was going to plummet into the ocean. And all utterly oblivious to the monster that could have trailed us through the Doorway and torn them to shreds. And that was the part that still twisted knots in my thoughts. Was it possible that right then, in some alternate parallel place, that something else was taking place right there at the Arch? The Royal Watchers of Forgotten fighting off one of those Charon spider things? I wanted to see something: living gargoyles and Watchers on strange Firecolts, if only to substantiate and confirm all that shit we'd witnessed.

But what about the rest of it? The giant butterflies and those humans on all-fours and the buildings climbing with vines and ivy. The gigantic pot plants dug into the street. The twisting trees reaching for the sky from cottage windows. The Bloodwasps and the terrifying sea monster. And the Seven Ghosts as tall as skyscrapers. Were they all really there? On these very streets? In a village that somehow mirrored ours?

I turned my head toward Massacre Point, wanting to see four great towers and flags on battlements and armoured guards in turrets of a castle as large as any I've ever seen. I wanted to see a drawbridge and a moat filled with deep water teeming with murderous striped fish and giant lake crabs. I wanted to see great Deadhounds circling in the sky. But none of that remained. Nothing there except torn branches and thousands of leaves scattered about the castle ruins.

I was short of breath, but tried speaking as calmly as I could. 'Em, did any of that just happen?'

She still wouldn't say anything.

'Emily?'

'No,' she finally spat. 'None of it happened, Jake, okay. None of it.' Sweat glistened on her brow. She looked nervous, rattled. 'Goon drugged us. That's what happened. He drugged us. Everything we saw was a fantasy!'

I blinked at her. Was she right? If so, then we'd never actually been anywhere. The last time we'd physically seen Goon before "Forgottenworld" was when he'd advanced toward us near the Archway. Is that when he'd done it? Somehow fucked with our minds? Made us believe we'd travelled to a place far, far away? For all we knew we'd been sitting there all along at the Archway, just like Newson that day sitting on that roof, sitting there lost in some wild day-dream about stepping through a magic portal and travelling to a fantastic place filled with fantastic things.

I shook my head. 'It was too real, Em. It couldn't have just been in our minds. It was too real.'

She turned and glared at me. 'Listen to me, Jake! It was a hallucination, okay.'

'But Em, it was so real.'

She came over and bent her face at my nose. 'You actually believe we just travelled to some crazy alternate world, do you?'

I stepped backwards, away from the blast of her hot breath and sweating upper lip and freckled nose. (How the hell she'd ever got Mark horny enough to snog her was anyone's guess.) 'Em, I honestly don't know what just happened. Okay? But we weren't drugged. I know that much. Far as I see it now, Goon's just a small speck in all of this. Something... something much bigger's going on.'

'Oh, come off it! You gullible fool.'

'Look around, Emily! It's D-Day and the village is still here!'

'Have you not listened to a word I've said? Goon's not dropping the village until midday! The hour of Carenza's disappearance. Do you hear what I'm saying to you? Goon wanted us to activate the air raid siren. He wants it to look like a false alarm. Don't you see, everyone's already returning from the muster point. Soon they'll all be back in their stupid little cottages, sipping cups of tea without a care in the world. All nice and ready for Goon to blow them all up!'

I shook my head again. 'You're wrong, Emily. Something bigger is going on. The game's changed. All summer the signs have been there, I just ignored them. That time I went missing for three days, I was attacked by the exact sort of monster they were trying to fend off at the Archway just now. Okay? I'm serious.'

She slapped me hard across the cheek. My eyes watered instantly. 'Snap out of it!' she screeched.

She went to slap me again but I blocked her arm this time, yelling at her, 'Stoppit ya psycho!'

She stepped back, spitting hair strands off her lips, dragging it from her face, straightening her specs. 'I'll tell you what I'm going to do!' she spat. 'I'm going to fetch Kate and Mark and we're going to get the hell out of this place. We're going to get the entire Horsefall constabulary over here and we're going to bring down Goon. And if you won't help, then good riddance.'

'Good. Fuck off then!' I turned away and she went off on some rambling tirade that ended with, '...and when this village is saved, it'll be no thanks to you!' She clumped down the stairwell and was gone.

2

I turned back to the railing, my cheek still stinging, my head ringing. I gazed at the Archway again, staring at it for a good minute or more, watching all the village folk milling about, eager to know what the hell was going on, thinking of the see-through Firecolt, thinking of LanceAsh and the gargoyles and the Empress and the four-legged people and the gigantic pot plants and the huge lake crab and the—

'I wouldn't worry about her, Jake.'

I jumped at the sudden voice and whirled around... but I couldn't see a soul; except for buzzing bees over the vegetable patch.

'I'd say she's never been quite so confronted.'

I spun to my left and there, leaning against the rampart...

Charlton Jones.

His sandy hair hung lank and heavy, damp with sweat, against his neck. I blinked at him, almost as if I didn't believe he could be standing there.

'And as a consequence, not quite so confounded.'

'What are you doing here?' I said accusingly, gazing down the side of the Inn wondering how the hell he'd got up here.

He shrugged. I almost expected him to laugh, or throw some snide remark. But actually he simply offered a respectful, commiserating look. 'I just wanted to say, well done for going. I know it mustn't have been easy... not with the way it turned out. But well done.'

I swallowed. Wiped the sweat from my upper lip. I eyed him suspiciously. 'I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.'

There was a long, bloodied scratch down the side of his face, all the way down his neck. Fresh. Like not even an hour or two old. There were weeping lacerations along his arms and bruises on his forehead. He probably wanted me to ask him how he'd got them. But I pretended I hadn't noticed them. And truthfully, I didn't care.

Those sly eyes of his watched me in return. 'I appreciate you must be quite confused at the moment, lad. But it's nothing to be ashamed of. You've had quite the adventure this morning. You stepped through the Boneraker Gate, you've at last set foot upon the mysterious land of Forgotten. And you met the Empress herself. Oh, and, if I can say, you seem to be taking it better than most.'

My pulse quickened. 'You knew?' I spat at him. 'All along you knew.'

'Knew?'

'About that bloody world beyond the Gate! You fuckin' knew!'

'Oh, is this s'posed to be some revelation?' He laughed. 'Of course I bloody knew!'

'And Mum. She knew too!'

'Yes.'

'Why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't someone just tell me?!'

He sighed. That smug grin finally falling off his face. 'Because you refused to believe.'

'No! You should've told me. Straight out.'

He gave me a wry grin. 'I tried, Jake, remember? I did the best I could.'

'When? Never. Name one time!'

'When you came to see me that day in the bus hangar. I recall I spelled it all out quite clearly. And you took me for a fool. Don't deny it.'

I watched him. Then looked away, squeezing my forehead. 'Look, I just want to know what the hell's going on. No more riddles.'

He took a moment. I could see him in my peripheral vision leaning there against the railing, running his fingers through his beard. 'I believe the story of the Great War has been imparted to you, yes?'

'Yeah, so what? Fat load of good that's done to help things.'

He raised a hand, as if to ward off my snips, as if to cool my agitation. 'Calm down. Let me explain things.'

He gave me another moment. I drew in a deep breath. Wiped sweat off my face.

'Now, listen,' he said. 'Think it through. All right? Just think it through. A few months ago I received word that the Charon is once more alive and well. Not the sort of news I wished to hear again in my life time, believe me. Still, there it was. And instead of sweeping across Forgottenworld and attempting to take down the Behemoths as it has done in the past, the Charon's first salvo is to hijack Warrior's Gate inside Hell's Edge and infiltrate our world. A strange ploy. A very strange ploy. You have to appreciate this, Jake. It confounded even the great Behemoths.'

My eyes went to the top of the distant Warrior's Gate statue in the centre of the stone maze. I went to say something but he waved me to silence.

'No, hear this. It's imperative. Without the Dominors, without the Knights, we had no choice but again turn to the Mortifera prophecy as we've done three times prior. As you learned today, all signs of the prophecy pointed to you and Emily. But believe me, our discussions, our meetings, our deliberations lasted months. Our conclusions that you pair were the new Mortifera were hardly rash, I can assure you.

'In the end, the decision was made to approach you first. Emily, it was decided, would be too stubborn, too pigheaded.'

'What, and me too gullible?'

'Not at all, Jake. If I had to describe your character I'd say you're quite strong willed and mostly open minded. However, that being said, after my attempts in the bus terminal, I realised my approach needed to be more subtle. I know you're no fool. You are much like your mother. Therefore trying to get you to instantly believe in a strange alternate world was probably futile. You'll be happy to know your mother was the same. So, you were nudged, offered clues, guided toward the Gate. Fortunately, with the Charon advance slow in our world, with Behemoth sentries eventually arriving to guard the Forgotten side of the Warrior's Gate portal, we believed we had some luxury of time. The hope being, that you would discover the Gateway before they grabbed too much of a foothold.'

'Or killed too many more sods like Fanny and the Mortons?' I asked accusingly.

He sighed. 'I mourn their deaths as much as any in this village of ours, Jake, but you must understand, certain things in war cannot be helped.'

A poor excuse, I thought.

'I do not make excuses, Jake,' he told me with narrow eyes. 'Behind the scenes, away from the public eye, there has been many a battle to keep safe the folk of Burnchess. But often I've had my hands tied. And I cannot be everywhere at once. Let me just say that the body count would've been far greater if I'd not intervened when I was able.'

I watched him, intrigued, and his searing eyes glared at me. I looked away; his stare could drill holes through your face if you let. My gaze returned to the top of the statue stuck there in the middle of Hell's Edge. 'So, Warrior's Gate is a magical doorway too is it?' I asked eventually.

'Aye.' He indicated the Archway. 'Just like the Boneraker.'

'So, why didn't these Charon things just come through the Archway?'

'Think about it. Warrior's Gate is far more discreet. Far easier to move back and forth without being noticed. And here's a secret not many in Forgotten even know: Warrior's Gate was once a covert portal used by smugglers to ferry illegal trade. A practice that went undetected for almost a century. When it was exposed it was shut down. And closed off. But the Charon have been known to corrupt certain Gates, to activate them without the aid of keys. We suspect that's how they've managed to infiltrate Warrior's Gate. But such an operation takes time to orchestrate. Something they would not have been able to do undetected if they'd tried infiltrating Boneraker being that it's always under close watch.'

I considered this. Turned and glanced at him, then cast my eyes away into the street. 'Can you tell me something?' I asked without looking at him.

'Depends on what it is you wish to know and whether or not I have the knowledge to answer.'

That was a fucking sly response if I'd ever heard one. I looked at him. 'Are you and Goon working together?'

He laughed. 'Take a look at the state I'm in, Jake.' He presented his weeping cuts, his scratches, his bruises. 'Does this look like the result of a sound working relationship?'

'I don't know, you tell me.'

'Goon and I may have been acquaintances once but those days are long past, I assure you. Other than the small meeting you witnessed yesterday, the only time Goon and I come together these days is in combat.'

'Combat?' The village bus conductor and a scrawny madman, I couldn't picture it.

'Who else do you think has been trying to physically prevent Goon carrying out his outrageous plans?'

I studied his eyes. I wanted to see lies buried there. Wanted him to flinch, anything to tell me he was full of shit. But I didn't see it.

I showed him my backpack up and down. 'Did you know where these three items were hidden then?'

He shook his head. 'No. I did not. The task to hide them was left to your dear mother fifteen years ago after her time in Forgottenworld came to an end.' He paused for a while, watching the tourists at the Arch. 'But when she... parted us'—his face gave a flicker of pain—'the whereabouts of the Boneraker Keys went with her.'

He drew in a breath as if he meant to say something more but then he stood there a while not saying anything, as if in thought. Then he said, 'Tell me something now if you will. Did you really see Goon at the Archway as you stepped back from Forgotten?'

I frowned. 'Yes. How do you know that?'

'You declared this to Emily just now before she ran off. Are you certain it was him?'

'Yes.'

He watched me with cold, grave eyes. 'How was he dressed?'

'Dressed?'

'Yes, Jake, dressed.'

I shrugged. 'Weird. Some sort of leather outfit. And... well, actually he had one of those bone weapon things. One of those Grimmersows. I saw it holstered beneath his cloak.'

Jones nodded. In the heat of the day the cut by his eye began to weep more blood that ran down his cheek amidst sweat and dirt. 'As I feared.' He smudged the blood from his face.

'Jones, just level with me one time, okay? Is Goon planning to destroy Burnchess or not?'

For a long while it looked as if he hadn't heard me. Eventually his eyes shifted in my direction. 'Yes.' His eyes didn't leave me, that dead-eye stare of his. 'Goon has long wished to see Burnchess come waste. The day of his daughter's vanishing is a sore point for many of us. And the real tale of her disappearance is fuzzy even to me.

'Your mother and I were frequent visitors to Forgottenworld back then. In 2001 I should say. But there were Charon sympathisers even in those days, warlocks and ghouls who wished to call back the Charon for one reason or another. We were all involved in sniffing them out, eradicating them. Myself. LanceAsh and his Watchers. Goon. JennElise. Your mother. Liberty Sweetwater. Many others.' He looked pained again. Maybe even regretful. 'Strange things went down in those days, Jake. Strange magic. People vanished. Minds were erased. And I'm sad to say, in the wash up, Goon's dear Carenza had gone.

'Goon vowed revenge, believing somehow in a ridiculous conspiracy that we'd had something to do with his tragedy. Strange times can throw up strange delusions, Jake. Our minds had been tampered with—Goon's especially. By whom or what, I'm still to learn. But as a consequence, Goon joined the side of the Charon sympathisers. And since then he's made it his mission to raise the Charon from their dark pit in the hope that they'll swamp our world.' He wiped sweat from his neck. 'We have long been concerned that should Goon find the means to return to Forgottenworld then he'd take up his old mission and continue to try and bring the Charon out of their darkness.'

'So, we can thank Goon for all this mess?'

He grinned. 'Not entirely. By all accounts the Charon found a way from the darkness and into our world of its own accord. But it has given Goon the impetus to press on with his plan for village destruction. Like I said, his plan involves throwing open the Journey Gates, of which there are hundreds scattered throughout Forgottenworld, some dormant, some shut, some still operational, and some with potential passageways to our world.'

He paused for a while. As if considering what to say next. He indicated his cuts and bruises. 'As I told you, I come to you this day having been in a bit of a fight. Watching you lot in the clock tower, knowing it was the anniversary of Carenza's disappearance, made it apparent that this would most likely be the day you discovered Forgottenworld. As a precaution I had Goon marked. The concern was he'd try to follow you through. But obviously he knows very well the way is guarded by the gargoyles on the other side. So, he pulled back, bided his time. And waited for your return.

'I anticipated this and confronted him after you and Emily had stepped into Forgottenworld.' He gazed momentarily at the ground, as if embarrassed, ashamed. 'By then I'd managed to throw off the enchantment he'd set on me a week ago. But again he got the better of me. I escaped by the skin of my teeth but have no idea what happened after that. No idea where he went. So, here's the crucial thing I need to know: if you saw him at the Gate, then where is he now?'

Did he expect me to know the answer to that? 'I don't know,' I told him. 'One moment he was there and the next he'd gone.' I tried reading the look in Jones' eyes. But couldn't. 'Why?' I asked him. Yet in a way I already knew. All those people at the Arch, all the mayhem... Had Goon orchestrated it all somehow? 'Shit. You think we helped him get through the Doorway?'

Jones had his arms folded. 'Sadly I think he had it planned all along. He would've known there'd be no possible way he could simply stroll through the Boneraker Gate and into Forgottenworld unchecked. It's guarded on the other side, as you have now seen.'

'So, the prick got us to open it for him.'

'Seems likely.' Jones watched me closely. 'Still, he may have foiled us here and now, Jake, but I doubt he'll be so lucky over there. If the guards didn't snaffle him as soon as he stepped through then you can bet the gargoyles are treating him as afternoon tea right as we speak.'

But that now made me ponder things. 'Jones, I've gotta weird feeling he anticipated the security over there. I think this Doomsday scenario wasn't the only distraction he created.'

Jones eyed me intently. 'What do you mean, lad?'

I palmed the sweat off my cheek. 'You say Goon is working with the Charon?'

'We believe so, yes.'

'Well, before we came back through, there was something weird going on. One of those things—those monsters—was up near the Seven Ghosts. It'd drawn the gargoyles away from the Archway. And the Watchers were about to launch an attack.' I studied his face, keen to know what he thought about that. 'What I'm saying is, it's possible no one was minding the portal when he stepped through.'

He watched me very gravely.

'It's true,' I told him.

He considered this for a long while, gazing toward the Archway, looking pained. 'This is grave news indeed.' He turned away. 'And I should've bloody well anticipated it.' He pondered the situation, arms folded, fingers picking at his beard. 'I'll have LanceAsh warned. The Behemoths'll want to know too of course. If Goon has finally dropped back into Forgotten undetected then trackers will have to be despatched to bring him down.'

I watched him for a while, feeling he had more to say. But he remained quiet, looking more troubled now than I'd seen him for a long time. I said, 'So, what should I do?'

He eyed me sideways. 'Nothing. Hide the artefacts.'

'Then what?'

He shrugged. 'Unfortunately, Jake, you have met Cognatus. If that silver raven has had its way then by tomorrow your memory of Forgottenworld will fade. I'm sorry, but your involvement in all matters of that world is now terminated.'

THE TERMINATED

1

THE REALLY strange thing is I remember going down to my room and hiding the artefacts in the chest under my bed and then grabbing a notebook. I sat there for the next hour or so writing it all down: every detail—from gaining the artefacts, to getting through the Doorway to all the shit that'd gone on at the castle. At the end, in the hope that it'd help jog my memory, I wrote: Check out Mum's scrapbook. But no sooner had I written it all out than I sat there reading it through, wondering what the fuck it all meant.

Emily remained convinced that Goon was still to make his play. She took Dad's car and drove over to Horsefall. Yet, no matter how much she harped on to the authorities that at midday Goon would bring down Burnchess, Inspector Tennant wasn't interested. Apparently he'd learned of the freak storm that'd lashed the coast and had phoned Finch to see if things were okay. Finch, who all of a sudden seemed awoken from whatever spell Goon'd placed on her, had reported structural damage and downed trees and declared that, so far, injuries had been be limited. In other words, nothing she and her colleagues couldn't handle.

As far as Tennant was concerned that was the end of the matter.

I guess the primary thing to report is, come midday, nothing at all happened. Burnchess didn't thunder down into the ocean like Emily'd promised. Thousands of people didn't plummet screaming and wailing into the sea. Matter of fact there were no fatalities that day at all. Finch and Newson (both more alert and lucid than they'd been in days) ascertained that during the storm some folk had ended up with scratches and bruises and the like from wayward branches and falling trees. And a couple of people had been ferried to Lambeth hospital with concussion and broken limbs. But Goon's so called Armageddon never eventuated. As a matter of fact, the only "casualty" that day turned out to be Goon himself.

It took a number of days for the information to be made public but the rumour going round was that Goon'd vanished off the face of the earth. Debra Marsten went so far as to report she'd personally witnessed him being thrown over the edge of the cliffs along the Howling by screeching gales. (But she's been known to indulge in the odd Green Goblin mushroom that you can find growing wild inside Witchthorn Wood so her witness statement didn't hold a great deal of weight.)

I tried recalling the last time I'd personally seen Goon. For some reason things seemed a bit fuzzy. I put it down to concussion that I must've sustained when that lightning bolt sent me over Mrs Slovenski's wall. I remembered our stakeout from the Henbane clock tower, and I remembered Emily and me racing for the Archway at the end of it all with Goon on our tail. But the next thing I recall is standing amongst the crowds at the Archway. I have a vague feeling that's the last time I saw him. Goon. Standing by the Archway with the rest of us.

Missing Person posters were nailed up around the village. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Accompanied by a big colour photo of Goon's ugly mug. On the Monday me and Mark watched Finch and Newson knocking at Goon's door. His garden gate squeaked back and forth in the breeze, still unlatched. And his cottage door hung ajar.

They crossed his sunny lawn, calling his name. They shoved the door open, not wanting to enter in case he was enjoying a nice cup of tea in privacy. But he'd been gone three or four days by then. The fear was he'd been hurt during the storm. Incapacitated. (Decapitated, with any luck.) Perhaps he'd dropped dead inside his cottage and was making a right stink of it.

The village coppers found no trace of him though. But that afternoon, they located a mystery abode within Wolfcrag Forest, suspected to be his, only to declare it abandoned. (By all accounts it'd been abandoned for years.)

'I know what's happened to him,' I heard Emily proclaim one morning as she and Kate tossed an old tennis ball for Scuppers on the Village Green. 'He's dead. He's fallen victim to his own treachery, trying to arm his bomb. Dead as a rusty nail, rotting down there in the catacombs! Good riddance!'

Across the village the final tally of trees dragged out of the ground during the storm numbered in the hundreds. A week after the storm, council crews were still out clearing away the mess. It is rumoured the buzz of chainsaws and wood chippers could be heard as far away as Lambeth. Stonemasons and brick layers had been put to work on several buildings that'd sustained roof and water damage. There was talk that Mrs Cole's entire cottage had been blown two miles out to sea. Which wasn't exactly true, mind you. It' had shifted alright. Two streets from its origin—right where Mr Welsh's house used to sit and it was his house that'd relocated to the ocean.

While the work crews did their part, the police investigations turned to that of the air-raid siren. Namely, who the hell had activated it. And why. Preliminary findings into the air-raid siren went public mid-week. But the public was told that definitive results wouldn't be known for some time due to the siren's control box being destroyed in the storm after a direct lightning strike. They'd ended up bringing in a specialist from Lambeth. He'd suggested that the air-raid siren had most likely self-activated. It's rigged to seismic sensors. In the event of an earth tremor it's designed to give the population sufficient warning of a possible cliff collapse. Trouble is, there hadn't been any seismic tremors recorded on what was fast becoming known as the Day Of The Great Storm. Yet, the assumption was that the particular ferocity of the freak weather system had somehow set it off.

Of course, none of us let on our involvement. And by the following Saturday, it didn't matter anyway. By then my mind was preoccupied with something entirely different. September the 1st was the day Dad came out of his coma.

2

They say he just woke up. That the nurses walked in on their daily check-up and just saw him there, sitting up in bed, watching them.

He sat there for a long while, his eyes opening and closing, slowly focusing on the nurses. He croaked and coughed and cleared his throat and looked around the room. He asked where he was. They told him. He asked why he was there. They told him. Dr Atwood yakked with him for a little while, asking what he remembered; did he know about the crash? He said he didn't know what she was talking about.

Atwood phone us of course and we were over in a shot. Me and Emily and Louise. Atwood told us Dad looked remarkably well considering what he'd been through but warned he'd be confined to hospital for the next couple of weeks. With his fractured femur (amongst his other injuries) he wouldn't exactly be mobile. He'd be given a wheelchair to get around once the swelling went down, and his pain would have to be closely managed. Once his bones began to mend he'd undergo hydrotherapy sessions to help strengthen tissue and to regain mobility. We were warned this would be a long and tedious rehabilitation process. Hospital physiotherapists suggested it'd be six to twelve months before he could walk again. And careful management would be necessary for the year beyond that. He'd also likely be out of work for many months to come.

So you can imagine how shocked we were when we drove up to the turn-around at the Royal Lambeth Hospital and he was actually standing there on the front steps, propped up with crutches. He looked in minimal pain but seeing him there pissed me off. I assumed the hospital must've overdosed him with morphine in order to get him out of there and free up a bed.

Emily pulled the car up near the steps and I was out the door running toward him, thinking any second now he's going to keel forward and face-first into the bitumen. 'Bloody hell, Dad, wotta ya doing on your feet? You should be in a wheel chair.'

He winced as he hobbled down the stairs. 'Nothing's the matter with me.' He grabbed me around the shoulder in a one-armed hug. Emily rushed over, taking his arm, and behind her Louise was like, 'For Pete's sake, Charlie, be careful.'

He used our shoulders to get himself down the steps, his plastered right leg moving far better than it should have been.

I spotted Dr Atwood approaching the sliding doors through the foyer. A male nurse scurrying behind, carrying the bag with all Dad's stuff.

Emily pulled the rear door of the Land Rover open. 'Are you sure you ought to be walking?'

'You shouldn't even be out of bed,' Louise argued.

He grimaced. 'I'm not sure about anything other than I just wish to get home.' One of his hospital slippers tumbled off his foot as he squeezed into the rear seat, me and Emily supporting his legs and arms and back. He laughed, strained. 'I won't say no to the assistance but by God, you're all acting like I'm a blasted invalid.'

'You can't blame us, Dad,' I told him. 'A week ago you were at death's door!' I turned and took a quick word with Dr Atwood. 'How the hell is he possibly up and walking?'

'Honestly, I don't know,' she told me. 'His condition literally appeared to change for the better overnight. Personally I think he needs to stay here until we've conducted the necessary tests to ascertain whether or not he's in a satisfactory condition to be discharged. But I can't explain it.' She shrugged, genuinely lost for words.

'Some sort of miracle,' I heard Louise saying.

I thought of Mum. If there was one thing I'd learned from her battle with old Deadblack, there was no such thing as miracles.

'I'll see him in a week's time,' Atwood said stoically. 'I've arranged an appointment. He'll still require much rest. And no matter how good he feels, he's not to go back to work or do any sort of strenuous exercise for the next month. I've given him his orders but he's such a stubborn old mule it'll have to be up to you lot to enforce them.'

Despite all the fuss, Dad was in a spirited mood on the drive home. I wondered for the second time if they'd drilled him with a monster dose of morphine.

Dad wanted to know everything. What'd been going on in the village? How were Finch and Newson? Was everything okay?

'Dad, do you remember the crash?' I asked, driving, glancing at him over my shoulder.

'No.'

'How about the mandrills?'

That seemed to jog his memory a bit. But Louise kept telling him to rest, that she would fill him in on all news in good time.

I ignored her. 'Do you remember them, Dad? The mandrills?'

He watched the passing fields in thought. 'Vaguely. I recall lots of flames.'

'The Chingola truck,' I told him. 'It was on fire. After that you chased Goon into Wolfcrag Forest. Remember?'

'Nope.'

'Can you remember anything at all?'

Again silence. Then out of the blue he says, 'The Charweeds.'

I almost steered us off the road. 'The Charweeds?' I glared at him in the rear-vision mirror; Emily and Louise gripping their seats. I saw Emily frowning at me, no doubt curious as to why that name should bring on such a response. 'Dad, did you just say the Charweeds?'

He was biting his lip, gazing out the window.

'Dad? Is that what you just said? The Charweeds?'

He nodded very faintly. 'Oh, I'm sure it was just a dream. Quite real though, if I recall. They came to me in hospital, you know. In my dream. They tried choking me. With a weed. A peculiar white weed.' He shook his head, laughing quietly at the absurdity.

'A white weed?'

Dad shook his head. 'Tell you the honest truth, Jake, I'm not sure about anything right now.' He smiled at Louise. 'That morphine really colours things out,' he said. 'But I know one thing. I'm bloody famished.'

Later that afternoon, I called Atwood. I didn't know how to say what was on my mind other than just coming out with it. 'This might sound like a weird question,' I said , 'but you didn't happen to notice a strange white plant in Dad's room while he was there, did you?'

She took a moment to answer. 'A white plant? Well, strange you mention it Jake, because one of the orderlies reported finding something of that description crumpled up on the floor after you father woke from his coma.'

My mouth went dry.

'Why do you ask?' she said. 'What do you know about it?'

But I never answered. I couldn't. I simply hung up.

BLACK WEDNESDAY

1

THE ANNIVERSARY of Mum's death crept up on us almost without warning, coming nearly two weeks after D-Day. On Wednesday, September the 5th, the alarm woke me early at precisely 5 am. Dad had only been out of hospital for four days by then, but he was already off his crutches. He still wore the plaster cast that covered much of his leg, although he kept whining that they should've taken it off, that he really didn't need it. He seemed to be getting about well enough—if a little gingerly. He'd even been into work once or twice against doctor's orders and Finch insisted he be home resting.

We took Dad's Rover Metro and drove east to Clover Bay on the sunrise. It was quiet in the car except for MGNT playing Time To Pretend on the CD deck. Outside, the sunrise shone pale and pink across the passing fields.

Since Dad'd left hospital, he hadn't spoken all that much about what had happened to him. I think maybe because he couldn't remember a lot of it. But one thing that continued to trouble me was his recovery. Had the Charweeds really had something to do with it?

With the days dragging on, I found I just had to know.

I eyed him briefly as we coasted through the morning dark. He tapped his fingers on his knee.

'Dad, you mind if I ask you something?'

'Yeah, go ahead.'

I thought for a moment how I was going to put it. 'Well, when you came out of hospital, when we were driving home...'

He nodded.

'Well, you mentioned something about the Charweeds.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'I did?'

'Yes. You said they came to you in a dream. Do you remember?'

He scratched his brow. 'Well...' He gazed out the window. There wasn't much to see out there that time of day but I guess he was thinking things through. 'See, now that you bring it up... well, yes, I do remember that.'

'You think you can tell me about that dream? I mean, what were those Charweed girls doing?'

He thought a moment. 'Jake, honestly it's all rather vague.'

'Still, could you tell me? I'm just curious that's all.'

Again he seemed to take time thinking about it. He looked across at me. 'It was just a dream, Jake.'

'I know. But I'd like to hear it anyway.'

He seemed to wonder why it mattered so much. He eyed the darkened road ahead, the headlights dipping over the small rises.

'They came in through the window,' he said finally, sighing. 'They were standing beside me. They never said a word. But I thought... I somehow thought one of them had dug a hole out of my stomach.' He laughed quietly. 'It sounds bizarre, I know, but I was terrified. Primarily because I couldn't move. I felt paralysed. The other had in her hand a plant as white as milk. She lifted it into the gash in my belly. Planting it inside me, I guess.' He gave off another soft troubled laugh. 'Bloody hell, it was so real. I remember I couldn't breathe. I thought the plant had sent branches down my throat. I honestly couldn't breathe... but... but then somehow it didn't seem to matter. It felt like it was breathing for me.'

Except for the music there was silence in the car for a while. My skin crawling at what I was hearing.

'D-Do you think you really dreamed it, Dad?' I asked him. 'Do you think... do you think they could've actually been there in the room with you?'

He laughed. 'Oh, come on, Jake. No way.' And he sounded quite uncertain even while he said it. It was the first time I wondered if this was the reason why he'd discharged himself so early. Had the experience spooked him? Had it haunted him as much as the ordeal on Strangler's Vale had haunted me? Had he just wanted out of there in case the Charweeds came back?

I wanted to ask him more. I wanted to know if a strange circular scar had formed on his belly. But I couldn't do it. Because what if it had? What would that mean? That all that shit with the monster on Strangler's Vale really happened? That I'd really been killed?

'You don't think it's strange you've recovered so quickly?' I asked.

He took a while to answer. 'I don't know. Maybe I wasn't hurt as bad as their initial diagnosis indicated. Maybe my legs only sustained hairline fractures. Doctors get things wrong sometimes, Jake.' But even he sounded unconvinced. As if by saying it aloud he could make himself believe it. He leaned over and changed the CD. He didn't want to speak about it anymore. One of his and Mum's favourite songs came on. Thank You by Dido; it's a haunting tune while being somehow beautiful and optimistic. I remember him and Mum singing it to each other in the living room. Drunk. Laughing. Dancing. Cuddling. I remember the rain beyond the windows, falling silently across the Village Green.

I smiled distantly as the fields swept slowly by and I forgot about the Charweeds for a little while. The waning moon lay across Strangler's Vale as we took the Lambeth Road. Ghostly mist hung in the air. The road took us past Wolfcrag Forest, a huge dark looming mass that time of day. I felt my pulse quicken as we rolled by. And then relief as it moved off in the rear-vision mirror. Five9 miles on, we turned right at the fork for Clover Bay.

2

At a quarter to six the sun was already sparkling across the ocean. There was no one else around when we parked. I slung two fold-out picnic chairs over my shoulder and we headed off on the walking trail, Dad taking it slow along the uneven ground. (I stayed near his side in case he stumbled—I still wasn't satisfied he should be walking.) A soft chill wind played around our collars. There was a crisp wet smell off the ocean, and the odour of fresh dew. Sparrows tweeted like mad in the trees back beyond the car park as we made our way to Clover Point.

Clover Point's a hilly headland where Mum loved to take lunch on weekends. Smoked salmon sandwiches. Apple juice. Bags of low salt potato crisps. 'Such a gorgeous view,' she used to say. 'Oh, such a gorgeous view.' My earliest memory, actually, is being with her there. A sunny summer's afternoon when I was about three or four. She had longer hair then. I remember sitting in her lap in the daffodils, she pointing across the bay. 'Jake, can you see the whales? See them there?'

Her hair gusted over my head. I gazed across the bay through the waving strands of her brown hair, smelling the sea and her sweet conditioner. White breakers ran in long regimented lines, crashing against the distant beach. Beyond the opposite point, three or four miles round the coast, you could see the outskirts of Lambeth. 'Look, my little one, the whales. See them?'

I unfolded our seats. Dad'd asked me to pack a thermos and a small bottle of champagne. It was quiet out there. Just the lonely trilling sparrows and gulls and terns as the sun got up. Not even the sound of another car that day. (Which was a change.) As usual, the wide inlet looked beautiful, serene, those gentle white breakers still rolling in as they had that day when I was three. Like no time at all had run away between those distant points in time.

We didn't speak. Just sat there amidst our own thoughts. I knew when it was nearing 6am because Dad was studying his wristwatch, counting down the seconds, and when he looked up I knew, because he swallowed quietly and I heard him sniffle. I turned my head the other way so he couldn't see my face, silent tears trickling from my eyes.

Dad squeezed my shoulder and I got up and walked away. I went and stood at the point where the hill dips away steeply to the ocean so all I could see in my line of sight was the sea. I wiped my cheeks with the sleeve of my shirt. 'We're still with you, Mum,' I whispered to the air and the ocean. 'If you can hear me, we're still with you.' The tears came heavy then. I slouched in the grass and cried, my face dug deep into my palms.

3

Mum's last days on earth began at the hospice in Lambeth. The Burnchess clinic doesn't stock the required pain drugs and whatnot so she spent much of that time there. But Mum's request was she wanted to pass away peacefully at home.

So, we drove in the ambulance with her, all the way back to Burnchess. Dad tried to remain upbeat, whispering to her that he'd ask them to put the siren on if she liked. I remember her smiling weakly; it was a small token of life, I guess. Because she wasn't really with us anymore. She'd been slipping away for hours.

I remember thinking (hoping) that if she could smile, then maybe, somehow she might be getting better. You think those sorts of things. Even at the end. Keep hoping that somehow, somewhere inside her body, something might heal her, that some great miracle will switch on her immune system, kick it to overdrive and CHEW UP THAT FUCKING TUMOUR. That she'll open her eyes, look at you all lucid and ask you what the matter is because she suddenly feels okay.

Mr Hogshead helped carry her upstairs and I held onto her night bag, and her shoes: the Dunlop sneakers with the Velcro straps. (As she became more ill those shoes proved more comfortable and easier for her to put on.) I wanted them near her for when she woke up. When she got up to go to the toilet. When she got up in the morning to take a shower. I fantasised you could call time-out from your death and resume normality for a little while here and there. Like half-time at the footy. Sip some tea. Talk about the news. Comment how the Barnsons at number four had such lovely roses in their garden. Speculate on the week's coming weather. Remark how you really ought to get around to sampling one of Mrs Kelleher's macadamia slices everyone keeps raving about. Then you get back into bed, pull up the duvet, get comfy, and resume the process of your death.

But by that point she hadn't needed her sneakers for about a week, probably wasn't even aware they existed anymore. But I carried them anyway, because they were hers... just in case she woke up... You know...

The reality was, she'd never see another sunrise.

I placed her sneakers by her bed. Then me and Dad sat beside her, chatting quietly, sadly. Chatting to her as if it was Sunday morning around the breakfast table, chatting about normal stuff. About all the places we'd been together and the things she'd seen and done. About the time she had her dress caught in the car door outside Sainsbury's in Plymouth before Dad went to drive off. And the time she slipped over in the mud in the garden wearing her best shorts when she was picking some flowers to decorate the table at the annual council meeting. Dr Atwood said she could still hear us; she told us hearing is the last sense to go, to keep talking to her. So we just talked.

I fell asleep in the chair. When I awoke I was disoriented. I looked around the darkness, the small bedside lamp glowing a hole in the night. I hadn't awoken to a sunny bedroom, curtains drifting on the gentle morning breeze with Mum humming in the bathroom down the hall. I didn't wake up to her smiling face as she sipped her morning cuppa. I'd never wake to that again. All about me hung the heartless, soulless 2am dark, the gloomy demon nightmare called reality.

I sat up and Dad was curled up beside her. He wept into her hair. My breath left me and I couldn't move. I just knew; it'd happened, she'd gone. I couldn't swallow. Couldn't breathe.

But I saw her chest still rising and falling. It seemed irregular, tortured. I went to Dad and gently touched his shoulder. He sniffled and looked around at me. Large bleary eyes blinking up at my face. I'd never seen him cry before. But he didn't try to hide it. He put out his arm and we hugged. The three of us... for the last time.

'We've got to be strong,' he mumbled wetly into my neck. 'It's going to be just you and me now, Jake... Mum'll want us to be strong...' I could feel his snot and tears on my skin and I held him tight. My own tears flowed as I studied Mum's terribly gaunt face, her skin sucked up under her jawbone, the bones in her neck sticking out like sticks under a wet cloth. She was unconscious by then. Deeply unconscious. She'd never awaken.

I cried for her, the deepest, unimaginable sorrow twisting spikes in the pit of my stomach, crying and wondering why this hellish torture had come to us. Why?

I lay down, face to face with her, my forehead to hers. I whispered to her as I sobbed and stroked her stringy hair, 'I love you, Mum... me and Dad are here... we won't leave you... we're right here, with you... you're not alone...'

She drew her last breath at 6 that morning as the sun rose sparkling and golden over the countryside. It happened a minute after Dad'd whispered to her, 'Rachel, it's okay if you need to go now. Fly away with the birds.' As she took in her very last breath, as her chest finally fell still, a mass of finches erupted into song on the roof of the Inn and took off in a frenzy into the fiery morning skies.

4

Dad poured us each a glass of champagne that morning on the hills overlooking Clover Bay and he asked if I was okay.

I smiled sadly. Shrugged. Watched the bubbles rising through the champagne flute. 'Three years,' I said softly. 'So strange to think she's been gone that long already.'

He nodded and put his arm round my shoulder, dragging my head to his. (He's never been much of a hugger. It felt sort of awkward. But kind of nice at the same time.) 'It'll probably be that way for a while yet, I expect.' He let me go and watched my eyes. 'But Mum's not going to want us to be a couple of misery chops for the rest our lives, though, is she? She's probably watching us right now thinking, Oh, come on boys, get it together.'

I smiled. And we laughed quietly. Because it was true. I could see her face. Smiling, shaking her head. The old What-are-we-going-to-do-with-you-pair look in her eyes. We toasted her and drank champagne. I smudged the tears off my face. And watched the waves crashing along the beach.

DEAD MAN'S DRAW

1

IT WAS the balmy Saturday night of September the 8th when the Charweed sisters began their second haunting of me. It was also the very night the Village Council celebrated the draw of the 551st Dead Man's Challenge down at the Village Hall. The place was packed to the eyeballs and heaving like a lunatic asylum, and by 9, half the party had spilled into the street as these things inevitably seem to do, noisy and carrying on beneath the hazy streetlamps with the streamers and balloons and Dead Man's Challenge bunting hanging here and there along the eaves of the Hall.

Hare Of The Dog chefs had arranged finger food: vol-au-vents stuffed with salmon roe, pastry parcels jammed with spicy minced lamb. Drink flowed—beer, cider and cheap French wine—and some of the older folk smoked pipes. The balmy evening was salty with the sea air. Two lively knobs played jazz tunes somewhere in the crowd. There was a tremendous feeling in the air. A real buzz. And it was obvious now since the disappearance of Goon, since the morning of that storm, that the town had reverted to some sense of normality. Not only were people getting on with their lives, the council was again holding its regular meetings (one of their first agenda items had been to get the Challenge back on track), the police station was running as per protocol with all police personnel operating at fully restored and undiminished capacity, and tourists had even again begun filtering back to the region. (Although, I must say, they still bugged me.) But that night, I was swept up in the celebrations and far too drunk to give a shit.

Kate looked gorgeous that evening. (Strictly she's a jeans and sneakers girl, with her hair almost always tied back. I've also never known her to be much into make-up.) But that night she swished about in this luscious blue evening dress, thin straps over her bare shoulders, hair hanging free but the tips fashioned into deliciously elegant curls. Mascara and eyeliner brightened up her beautiful green eyes. And she had heels on her feet, which put her an inch or so taller than me.

The only thing I didn't approve of about her appearance was the thing hanging off her arm—Corey Wankerson. By her invitation, he'd turned up, spruced up like some poncy wanker in his suit and tie. All the girls kept swooning over him the whole night like he'd been delivered by the gods. And he knew it well enough—tall, athletic and fit. And cocky as hell. I couldn't look at him. It made me sick.

My one consolation was Hayley. We didn't leave each other's side all evening. Matter of fact you would've thought our hands had been stapled together. But it was all I could do to keep Kate and that Wankerson freak out of my thoughts. That and the drink, of course. Matter of fact me and Hayley downed enough booze that evening to sink a ship.

We hung around chatting with the likes of Barny Clark and Ben Shefford (big boozers) and Amber Calgarett who looked to be getting chummy with Caleb Blair. Although whenever Mark was nearby I noticed Amber's eyes drinking him in. She'd had a crush on Mark these last few months so when I watched her saunter off for another flute of bubbly I got him aside. 'Mark, Amber's checking you out big time.'

He looked noncommittal. Like that sort of thing happened every day. He slurped his pint of lager. 'Thought she was crooning Blairy.'

'That's a front, mate, and you know it,' I told him. 'She's been eyeing you off all night.'

He shrugged. 'I'll hedge my bets, brutha. But if she wants to see some action tonight she ought to stick with the Blairmeister.'

I shrugged back. 'All right. Just thought I'd let ya know in case you're being slow on the uptake, that's all. But if you're up for getting in her knickers then I'm guessing you've got two more drinks before old Blairwitch works his magic wand on her.'

'Good luck to him,' was all Mark said, grinning, bopping to the jazz tunes, his afro rocking side to side. After that I caught his eyes checking out Emily across the room where she was chatting with Kate and Wankerson. It made sense, I guess. Why risk having Amber hanging around when there was every chance of a four-eyed neurotic Emily Sanders bouncing off his balls by 2am?

2

It was near on ten when Louise, wearing the hat of council chairwoman, tapped her glass and demanded all and sundry shut up. By then half that place was tanked to the ears, so getting them to pipe down and stop waggling their gobs proved a task. She had to jump on the crate at the front of the hall and ring the assembly bell.

When the chatter and laughter died off she began. 'Ladies and gentlemen, I trust you're all having a wonderful evening.'

Some of the more inebriated folk cheered.

'As always, it's nice to see such a large turn-out for this part of our annual celebrations. But let us delay no further. Time has again come for us to draw the venue for this year's Dead Man's Challenge.'

Everyone clapped and cheered. Glasses chinked. Someone burped... loud enough they should've rightly blown the top of their head clean off. It sent a great portion of the crowd into rapturous cheers. Someone yelled, 'I'll drink to that!' and Louise had to ring the bell again to get everyone to shut up.

'Yes, thank you!' she called and the room settled once more. 'Now, before we get underway, we have a small matter to see to first. Recently we have lost three prominent members of our village family. Albert Morton and his wife Gladys. And Percival Fanneray. They were tireless supporters of our annual challenge and this year's competition will be held in their name. I think it only fair we drink a toast to their memory and let surviving family members know our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time.' She held high her flute of bubbly and around her, fellow council members did likewise. Followed by the entire gathering. There was a collective slurp of grog.

'Let us also not forget the unfortunate victims found deceased on the Sharkfin farm. Tourism is the lifeblood of our community and any who travel here to be part of our lives should be confident in the knowledge that their time here be spent in safety and away from harm. So, another toast. To the memory of the four whose lives were cut short under our care. And to their families.'

I hung my chin, staring at the floor, thinking of them all: them, the Mortons, Mr Fanneray. And of Mum too funnily enough.

'Now, without further delay, let us get on with the ceremony,' came Councilman Mr Bogwood's voice, and the crowd came back to life with claps and more cheers. Then as Mr Portland, the village drunkard, fell off his stool, bringing on a fresh round of cheers and laughter, Louise again tapped her glass. 'Okay, come now, quiet please everyone. We'll be here till Christmas at this rate. The second item on the agenda before we get to the draw is the naming of this year's teams. So, again, Mr Bogwood, if you will.'

Old, grumbly, fat arse Bogwood waddled forward and unravelled a scroll and let loose with his bellowing town-crier's voice. 'On the siiiide of the Seasiders... we have firstly the Manta Rays.'

All eyes went to a small group of folk in one corner: Johnny Bray and ex-army wife Petunia, their daughter Deidre and their fat, pimple-faced son Colin. They raised their glasses as the crowd applauded.

'Next, we have... the Seadogs.' As the crowd clapped and whistled, Bogwood pointed them out at the rear of the hall, the bunch of ragtag fishermen: Jem, Stowe, Shag and Gunt—they're a greasy-looking bunch of lads who seem to permanently stink of the very stuff they drag out of the ocean, but in my opinion you can't find a more humble bunch of blokes.

'Next,' boomed Bogwood, 'let's hear it for the Crusted Barnacles.' People hooted the team who'd entered the past five years and come last every time. One-eyed Troop McBean and his brother Chad, and Madeline Bouquemont (daughter of Mrs Barnacle) and her hot, leggy Danish girlfriend Bolga or Belga or something weird like that.

'And finally on the scoresheet for the Seasiders,' bellowed Bogwood with his hefty guts jiggling about like pork lard, 'we have our newest team. The Majestics!'

The crowd cheered and Scuppers howled as Mark, Kate, Emily and that twat Corey stepped forward, raising their glasses in acknowledgment of the applause. Emily soaked up the attention like she thought she was some movie star, and Corey conducted himself like a fucking show pony. Bowing, waving, grinning smugly. All the girls seemed to groan lustfully.

I didn't applaud. I dipped my glass at Mark, and then Kate when she looked over. I even gave a slight dip of my head to Emily who just rolled her eyes me. Maybe because I wasn't clapping or some shit. But I didn't acknowledge Corey.

When the clapping died down Bogwood got on with it. 'Now, the first on the scoresheet from the region of the Inlanders, we have the... Rock Eaters.' Which in my book would've been the team to be associated with if there were any. The all-girl team of Caroline Adders, Joan Hart, Tippy Conners and Fran Marsh. The team the Seadog boys kept gawking at and whispering about all evening long. People cheered and blokes whistled.

'Next we have the Vords,' Bogwood announced and those of the over 60s bowls club went wild where they all sat at one of the long tables. Four of their members, Stan Withers, Gwen Sparks, Link Gardner and Livingstone O'Neill (none of them to be underestimated since they're all ex-professional tri-athletes) acknowledged the cheers with self-conscious waves, and their supporters clapped and hollered and drank to their health.

'The Wild Things,' came next: ex-crim Cotton Mayberry and her husband Monkey Smith and their live-in housemaid and mother of Monkey's second child, Rose Jennsen, and Rose's lover, Stem Wood, who is also Cotton's first son. (It's a mental mind field... and believe me, we've attempted to work through the logistics of their family unit and it's a bit fucking disturbing.)

'Last but certainly not least,' came Bogwood's voice, 'I give you the famous, or should I say infamous, Razorbacks!'

You knew the crowd'd go nuts as the Razorbacks were announced. But it was filled with equal parts jeers. They say the Razorbacks have lost only three challenges in the last twenty years. So, the general idea is you either love them or you hate them. Vic Biffon, his son Judd 'Bulldog' Biffon, and two other rough-looking farmhands, Rat Fontaine and Muggers Black. The reality is they're cheating pricks who happily employ rough-house tactics. So I was looking forward to them bringing Corey's efforts to a rude halt. And if they could rearrange his pretty-boy face while they were at it, then all the better.

3

Louise stepped forward again, calling for hush and then threatening to employ the assembly bell when no one shut up. Everyone eventually piped down. 'Thank you and good luck to all teams. Now for the main event. The drawing of this year's venue.

'It's no secret there's been many classic battles over the years. Who can forget the controversial end to the Challenge of 1995—' (which she wasn't at, by the way) '—when the Razorbacks were beaten on the line after a photo finish declared the now-retired Dominators the victor. Or the Challenge of 2002—' (which she also wasn't at) '—only the seventh Challenge in the history of the competition to be called off after three members of the Zeroes perished in rough surf off Grove Hill Beach.

'Yes, ladies and gentleman, the Dead Man's Challenge can throw up many surprises, both humorous and tragic and these events may not have been so memorable had it not been for the venue in which they were held. Each year, one of eight historical venues is chosen to stage the annual Dead Man's event. These are as follows: Breathless Lake, Witchthorn Wood. The Horsefall Track. Hell's Edge. Ghoul's Lagoon. The Hellfire Caves. The Dead Plains. And of course the aforementioned Grove Hill Beach.

'For those of you who are new to town or have not attended previous competitions let me take a moment or two to explain how a typical Challenge works. Traditionally the Dead Man's event is a contest pitching those of the farming community against residents of the village. Each team accrues points for their region. I shouldn't have to point out that the region with the most points at the end of the contest wins. There are also team awards. The team that scores the highest number of points is obviously declared the annual champion.

'And The Razorbacks, who prevailed in fine form last season at the Hellfire Caves, are, of course, our defending champions.'

More cheers. More jeers.

'Love them or hate them, the Razorbacks are one of the most revered and successful teams in the history of the competition. This season they are hunting a tenth consecutive win. A feat no team has managed to pull off since the competition's inception. Currently they sit equal with the Warmongers of the 1870s and the Knights of the 1630s with nine wins apiece. As yet no team has managed to brag the elusive decade of dominance.

'Now, another point I need to make before we press on: biding by Dead Man's Challenge rules, last year's venue, the Hellfire Caves, remains ineligible as a contender for this year's running. Rules state that unless the seven remaining venues are deemed, for whatever reason, unsuitable, a venue cannot stage a Challenge for two consecutive seasons.

'So this brings us to the draw.'

From the corner of the stage two council members rolled out the Dead Man's face. A huge copper object suspended on a faded brass gyro frame. You couldn't actually tell what it was until they dragged off the black velvet sheet it was draped in. And then I stood there eyeing it rather curiously. This was the first Challenge draw I'd ever attended. (Except for the times when me and Mark were kids peeking through the windows at all the pretty ladies.) But the Dead Man's face had been sculpted in such a way it looked as if two faces had been squished together at the cheek—four eyes, a pair of noses, and one mouth—all occupying the same head... and one long devilish tongue poking out, cork-screwing upwards into a spoon-shaped hollow at the tip. There was also a large circular bore hole through its forehead.

Louise strolled across my view. She held a small leather-lined box. The lid was tipped open. Inside sat eight dull grey iron balls.

'For over half a millennia these ancient cannon shots have determined the fate of every Challenge. Each shot is etched with a name of one of the venues. And this is how it works: seven balls are placed inside the Dead Man's face, excluding the ball pertaining to the previous year's Challenge.

'Once all shots have been entered, the face is rotated eight times. One rotation representing each of the eight venues. After the eighth rotation the face is steadied and four balls will drop into the Dead Man's eye sockets, one ball per socket. These will represent the four final contenders.

'These will then be placed back into the face, all other balls extracted. The face will then be revolved four times. At the end of the fourth rotation two balls will roll into both noses.

'These represent the final two balls. These will be slotted back into the face while the pair of remaining balls will be extracted.

'Here the frame will be pulled into a spin and left to carry out its revolutions without hindrance, allowed to slow of its own accord. Once its momentum slows enough, a single ball will roll from the mouth to the end of the tongue. This final ball will give us this year's Dead Man's Challenge venue.

'I now invite my fellow council members to each take a shot and place them inside the face.'

4

And so, it began. Decked out in their drab ceremonial robes, the procession of seven council members came forward, removing one grey shot each from the velvet-lined casket. As they filed by the Dead Man's face, they slotted their shot into the circular hole in its forehead.

'Charles,' Louise said, 'if you'll now do the honours, please,' and Dad, the recovering Detective Inspector, made his arrival on stage, still without crutches, and all to grand applause from the crowd. He acknowledged them with a self-conscious wave. Then without hanging about, he gripped the edge of the Dead Man's façade and as Louise said, 'Eight revolutions, commence now,' Dad yanked on the gyro frame, pulling it into a spin, and then he stood back.

The face spun to its left, simultaneously tipping forward and Dad counted off eight revolutions. The gathering had gone quiet. You could hear the iron shots clunking noisily inside. People started counting down... four... three... two...

One.

Dad slowed the frame to a halt and there sat the face, glaring at the crowd with its dark hollow eyes and twisting devil's tongue. Balls still bonked about for another second or more before one by one they rolled, plopped, and settled into the four separate eye sockets. The remaining three shots stayed hidden somewhere within the contraption.

'Please, Charles,' Louise said, 'if you will read aloud the results.'

He picked them out and read them one by one. 'Grove Hill Beach... The Horsefall Track... Witchthorn Wood...' And as Dad removed the fourth ball and lifted it to his gaze, I swore his forehead creased ever so slightly. 'The fourth contender,' he announced, 'Hell's Edge Maze.'

There was an immediate electricity in the air—people chatting and murmuring, beer and champagne temporarily forgotten. Dad glanced uneasily at Louise, and Louise, ignoring him, instructed council members Mrs Banbury and Mr Cotly to press on with proceedings. The two council bods came forward to extract the remaining shots from the back of the facade, closing off passage to the eyes, opening chambers that'd see two of the last four shots spill into the nose cavities in the next stage of proceedings.

Old wobbly arse Bogwood took the four remaining shots from Dad and slotted them into the Dead Man's face.

'Again please, Charles,' urged Louise. 'Four revolutions this time.'

Dad grabbed the gyro frame and tugged it into motion, and the crowd, louder this time, yelled, 'FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.'

The shots clumped and banged as Dad pulled the iron contraption to a halt, then out they clunked, one into the left nose and the other in the right. The third remained somewhere within the copper face.

Dad dragged the first free, reading its inscription and holding it up for the crowd. 'Wolfcrag Forest,' he announced. Handing the shot to Bogwood and tugging out the second shot his eyes narrowed. 'Ball number two,' he read. 'Hell's Edge.'

Now the chatter really did get all heated and excited. Someone said, 'Hang on a minute! The Stone Maze? Surely that can't be eligible. Doesn't Sharkfin's fertiliser burn still run through there?'

I'd almost forgotten Sharkfin's alleged fertiliser contamination. I watched the sideways glances of the council members. But proceedings pressed on with the removal of both the Grove Hill Beach and Horsefall Track shots and the two remaining shots re-entered. The whole time the crowd went on yammering and rabbiting, even when Louise tried calling, 'Quiet please!' no one shut up. She rang the bell again, twice and then three times before everyone finally quit it.

'The draw will go on,' she said stiffly and gave a nod to Dad to keep moving with the occasion. He gripped the frame and yanked it round, the copper face spinning left to right and back to front, the balls shifting and rolling around inside. No one said anything. It was deadly silent. Just the gyro frame squeaking ever so quietly and the sounds of the balls, donking and clanking about, and the large copper face appearing and vanishing, appearing and vanishing as it rolled around and around.

It seemed almost a full minute before the contraption finally began to slow. You could hear the balls battering the innards of that thing as they continued to shunt and roll. Then finally the face turned twice more and as it did one of the balls rolled from its silent screaming mouth, down the length of its twisted tongue and as the face came to a halt, the ball spun and came to rest inside the spooned hollow at the tip.

The crowd remained dead quiet. People leaned forward to see if they could read the inscription of the ball. Dad reached for it.

'The final ball,' he announced, closing his palm around it. 'And for the venue of this year's Dead Man's Challenge...' He uncurled his fingers and eyed the inscription on the ball... and with a glance at Louise he held the shot in the air. 'Ladies and gentleman of the council, honoured guests, residents of Burnchess Village and visitors from near and far... I hereby announce that this year's Challenge will be fought out within... Hell's Edge.'

GHOUL'S RETURN

1

I DON'T know how a cup of cold vomit feels tipped down the gullet, but that's how the reaction went. I assume normally you'd get a round of cheers and applause at that stage of the evening as people eagerly welcomed the announcement. You'd get a whole heap of folk spilling ale down their necks in celebration.

But not that night.

Some applauded (perhaps only out of habit or courtesy), others gasped. Most fell silent.

'Hang on a minute!' someone finally yelled. 'That's where the killer fertiliser is.' It was Johnny Bray, looking about, wondering if anyone else thought this a bit weird. He was answered with nothing but murmurs. He said, 'Why, surely the draw's gotta be redone.'

Monkey Smith yelled back, 'Bollocks to that, mate! The venue can't be redrawn.' And Lee Gardner was in agreement. 'Yeah, it's tradition!'

But Madeline Bouquemont didn't share their views. 'No, the slick has contaminated the entire length of the Hell's Edge Spring. It did away with those tourists. Or have you pair forgotten that?'

Johnny Bray agreed. 'Aye, that's right! Sharkfins' bloomin' fertiliser has blighted the whole darn place! We'll all be poisoned. Is that what you want? You want us all dead? No, conduct a redraw, I say!'

'It's Challenge rules, mate,' Vic Biffon boomed angrily, 'and Challenge rules decree once the venue is selected it can't be altered. Like Monkey said, we ain't gonna break with tradition for the likes o' you! And if you insist then we can take this outside!'

'Oh, yeah, and what ya gonna do it about it, ya big oaf?'

'I'll rearrange your face is what I'll do!'

'Oh, is this how we tackle things in this day and age, is it?' screeched Madeline Bouquemont. To which Biffon said, 'Well, your face don't need no rearranging, my sweet; God himself saw to that long ago!' And that's sort of where I remember the so-called festivities erupting into a screaming match as people screeched, yelled and bellowed with fountains of spit flying about every which way.

In the background Dad consulted quietly with the village council. And council members spoke amongst themselves. And Sergeant Finch stood there cautiously, her eyes keeping a keen watch on the crowd in case anyone got to the point where they needed to start throwing their fists about instead of words. Concerned village folk began surging forward to pitch in their two bob's worth, particularly those who objected to the idea of allowing the Challenge to go ahead within the Maze. But the unshakeable traditionalists followed then, offering their rowdy opinion and by the end of it a whole mass of folk were knotted at the front of the hall, pushing and shoving and carrying on like utter pork chops. Actually it was a great spectacle and I probably would've stayed the entire length of the argument if it hadn't been for Hayley.

'Wow, this is so bizarre,' she said laughing. 'Wanna get outta here?'

2

She dragged me out the back of the hall and wasted no time pushing her mouth against mine. Both of us were fairly sloshed by that stage of the night and pretty horned up too if I'm going to be perfectly honest. Haley tasted like butter and moisturiser and Champagne. She took hold of my hand and dragged me off into the dark toward the cemetery. 'Come with me,' she demanded breathlessly, smiling deliciously.

A magnificent balmy summer's wind shook the trees across the dark and empty church grounds, throwing our hair and lifting the hem of Hayley's dress, her white knickers flashing seductively. She dragged me beneath a hawthorn tree. We were surrounded by gravestones pitched about us like quiet watching ghouls, and above us the great bunches of hawthorn berries looked like thick droplets of red wine in that late summer moonlight.

Hayley pulled me to her, her gorgeous smile beckoning me, her dress tight as plastic wrap across her chest, so tight in fact her breasts looked one stitch from bursting free. She flicked her brown hair back, her large eyes sensual, hungry, inviting. Then we were kissing.

And was I surprised when she pulled my hand to her boobs? A little. But it felt good. She mumbled into my mouth, 'Jake, I wanna make love to you.' I almost choked on her tongue.

Here and now? I thought distantly. In the church yard? With hundreds of dead folks lying just below us? 'Really? Here?'

'Here. Wherever.' Smiling, she began unbuttoning the top of her dress. 'I've been thinking about it,' she gasped drunkenly. 'I really want to.' Her breasts were still cupped in her bra. I looked back at the Village Hall, wondering drunkenly if anyone could see us. We were quite a way from it and most of the gathering had spilled into Castle Grove on the opposite side. I guess I didn't want Kate seeing me. But then what did it matter? She was with that idiot. What did I care?

Hayley was unbuckling my belt. She turned my face back to hers and we were kissing again. I slid my hand up her belly till I found her tits. When I did she laughed drunkenly into my lips. Was I going at it wrong? Too clumsy? I let go. 'What?'

'Nothing.' She kept kissing me, unzipping my fly, hooking her thumbs around the waistline of my jeans, and without warning she simply yanked them down. I'm not sure if she expected both them and my boxer shorts to come off, but they did. When she realised what'd happened she clapped her hand over her mouth. An expression of total embarrassment crossed her face. 'Oh, my God,' she said breathlessly. Then she giggled. 'Jake, I'm so sorry.'

My bare buttocks prickled in the balmy summer air. My nuts had turned tight as walnuts but the rest of me was giving a very stiff salute, if you get what I mean. Which is probably what'd got her giggling. Drunk but still somehow self-conscious, I clapped my hand over myself. At the same time I couldn't help laughing along with her. We both just stood there, drunk and giggling.

She pulled me to her, was kissing me again. Her body pushed up against mine. My desire for her rocketed. I sucked her neck. I dragged my hand up the hem of her dress, up the insides of her thighs. I found the soft bulge of her groin. I pressed my fingers against it but as soon as I did she yelped and jerked backwards, watching me horrified.

Confused, I stopped what I was doing. Was I moving too fast? 'Shit, sorry Hayley, I—'

She abruptly let go of me, her face all boggle-eyed. Then screaming, she bolted into the night.

3

Dumbfounded I watched her disappear into the darkness, her dress flailing out behind her. I stood there stark naked from the waist down. Confused as hell.

I bent and pulled my jeans back up, buckled my belt, zipped up my fly. And that's when I heard it.

'Little one shall die.'

I straightened, frowning.

'Little one'll die with rot in her bones.'

A strange odour gushed by me, an odour like mushrooms and mulched leaves and cockroaches.

'You better jump quick and haul that little one home.'

Behind me.

I spun around and gasped. The Charweed girls stood barely a metre away.

'Open her belly, spoon out the gripe,

While the thirst of Black Death sups at her life.'

Above me the heavens went grey. No more stars. No moon. Just a bleary, watery sun the colour of unbeaten egg white. Chess Stones stood out beyond the scrawny shoulders of the Charweeds girls, unruined and proud. Four towers of a brilliant, mighty castle craned against the pale sky. White flies buzzed in front of my eyes. I pitched over onto my hands and knees into the leafy earth. I felt like vomiting. Long tendrils of snot swung from my nostrils. Through bleary eyes I could see earth worms wriggling in and out of the dirt clods. I could see the long grubby claws on the toes of those girls as a great darkness swept through my mind.

4

I opened my eyes. Sunshine shone behind a strange figure looming over me. I panicked. I kicked out at them. I scrambled aside. But then I heard a familiar voice. 'Jake, what are ya doing, brutha, it's me.'

I found cover at the nearest tree, stopped and looked around.

Mark stood there. Puzzled. Watching me.

'Holy shit, mate,' I said in a dull croaky voice, 'you scared the shit outta me.' Sparrows chirped in the trees. Dappled sunlight poured through the leaves. Beyond the trees a brilliant blue sky.

'I've been looking everywhere for you,' he said. 'Another ten minutes and I was gonna call your old man. I thought you went home with Hayley last night.' He took out his phone. I heard him dial Emily. Heard him say. 'Yeah, I've found him. Yeah he's okay.' He hung up.

My head was swimming. I scratched my neck and looked around, squinting in the bright morning sunshine. Behind me gravestones stood perched in the dappled shade. Sparrows flitted about the bird baths. I suddenly realised where I was. 'What the hell?' I had some vague recollection of Hayley and me making out. Then something terrible...

'Hayley says she hasn't seen you since the draw,' Mark told me. 'You ought to give her a call. She's worried sick. She said something about those Charweed girls.'

'The Charweeds?' Shit, that's right. The fucking Charweed witches'd been right here. I looked dead at him. 'Hayley? Holy shit, is she alright?'

'Yeah. She's fine. Why?'

I swallowed. I remembered that weird stuff they were saying. It seemed to ring in my head. 'Little one shall die. Little one'll die with rot in her bones.' It made me shudder.

I looked about. I felt even then they were somewhere close by, hiding in the deep shadows, watching.

'Shit, Mark, have I been out here all night?'

'I don't know. I don't know where you've been. Just glad I've found you.' He checked the time. 'Anyway, brutha, they're about to announce the final verdict on the Dead Man's Challenge. Don't know about you but I'm keen on hearing what they've got to say.'

5

I couldn't have cared less about the Challenge verdict right then but there was no way I was staying in that cemetery any longer. Trailing Mark from the church grounds I looked back suspiciously. The gravestones sat there in their eternal silence, broken only by the twitting birds. And the church itself lay deserted. Vicar Mayberry was probably in there putting up posters of his favourite altar boys. But where were the Charweeds? What the hell had they done with me? For a startling moment I saw them: two hazy indistinct figures poised on the sloping church roof, watching me. But when I stopped and steadied my eyes...there was nothing there except the clear back-drop of blue sky.

6

We strode into full sunshine on Castle Grove (my head still a mess) and even before we came round the corner of the Village Hall you could hear the warbled chatter coming from a large crowd of people. They'd gathered in the street before the front steps, bleary-eyed and nursing hangovers. Mark told me the council hadn't yet made a decision on the venue, not after all the public conjecture regarding the fertiliser. He said the village council'd deliberated through the night.

I wasn't part of the Challenge (plus I'd just been harassed by the village lunatics again) so I didn't exactly care. I took out my phone. I had half-a-dozen missed calls. Mostly from Hayley. I thumbed her number. Put the phone to my ear. My head was pounding. Amidst the crowd, reporters from the Burnchess Gazette waited eagerly with note pads or dictaphones. It looked like many of the competing teams had made an effort to come down and hear the result. Sun shone, seagulls cackled, and waves could be heard crashing against the cliffs. Motorbikes and scooters were parked along the front wall.

The phone rang on Hayley's end twice before she picked up. Straight off the bat she says, 'Jake, don't say anything. I shouldn't have run. I don't know what got into me. You've got every right to be pissed off. But I got spooked. I didn't know what else to do. Just tell me you're okay.'

I took a deep breath. 'Yeah, I'm okay.'

'Oh gosh, what a bloody relief. I'm so sorry.'

Out of the village hall and onto the top of the steps into the morning sunshine came the entire contingent of the Village Council. Behind them strode Dad with Sergeant Finch and Constable Newson trailing.

I shook my head. 'I'm just bloody glad to hear your voice.'

'Really? I thought you'd be pissed off with me.'

'No, not at all. If anything, I'm pissed off with the Charweeds for ruining what was shaping up to be a very intriguing night.'

She laughed. She sounded embarrassed. 'Yes, I must apologise, Jake. I think the drink got the better of me. I didn't mean to, you know, act so weird.'

It brought a smile to my tired face. 'Don't apologise. It was fun.'

'Really?

'Yeah, really. Maybe we could catch up later.'

'I'd love that. I'll make it up to you, I promise.'

Mr Bogwood came forward, the ocean wind tipping his hair. The crowd fell quiet. 'A very good morning to you all. We thank you for your patience in this delicate matter. I know you're all eager to learn our verdict so without any further delay I give you Louise Sanders.'

'Jake, are you still there?' I heard Hayley asked.

'Yeah.' I swallowed, tasting last night's beer. 'I'm still here.'

'Have you eaten yet?'

'Eaten?'

'Breakfast?'

'No. I haven't even been home yet.'

'Oh my God really?'

'Far as I know I slept in the cemetery all night.' I laughed although I wasn't feeling the slightest bit humoured.

'God, that's my fault.'

'No, it's not your fault at all. It's those Charweed girls. They keep doing this to me for some reason. I don't know why.'

'Look, let me make you breakfast. I feel terrible. Come up to my place. Mum and dad are still at Nan's.'

'Honestly Hayley, you don't have to.'

'No, I'll cook us both some pancakes. Any way you like them.'

I smiled tiredly. 'You've got a deal then.'

Slotting my phone away I saw Louise step forward and Bogwood shuffled his great hippo arse out of the way. The crowd remained subdued. No welcoming applause, just silent anticipation as the gulls called in the distance.

'Good morning, everyone,' she says. 'Nice to see so many of you back to hear the announcement. I hope not too many of you are nursing sore heads.' Some laughed. Some grunted. She pressed on. 'Let me begin by saying it's been a very long night. But rest assured, we've made a decision. Firstly, I'll explain how we arrived at our verdict. Challenge rules suggest that if the condition of the drawn venue is for any reason deemed suddenly unsuitable then the venue inscribed on the penultimate shot from the draw shall be declared the venue. In this case that would make it Witchthorn Wood. Similarly, if this venue also proves unsuitable then we'd count back even further. Failing that, the draw would be conducted again—omitting all unsuitable venues.

'However, we've been promised that a full and comprehensive clean-up of the Hell's Edge Spring will be conducted before the day of the Challenge and security barriers will be erected around any offending areas as a measure of added security for all competitors. Furthermore, I have been informed that recent tests carried out on the toxicology of the fertiliser contamination within Hell's Edge indicate an extremely low vapour emission. Meaning, toxic fumes have dropped below any sort of levels that would indicate a threat to human health. Thus, I conclude by announcing that last night's draw will go unchanged.'

The crowd erupted with equal parts cheers and jeers, and much commotion and Louise had to almost yell to be heard. 'I hereby officially declare this year's venue for the Dead Man's Challenge to be Hell's Edge. Good luck to all teams with your preparations. I look forward to an exciting race.'

RACE PREPARATIONS

1

PREPARATIONS FOR the Challenge rumbled along at a gathering clip over the next two weeks. Teams got busy across the village: jogging, cycling, putting miles into their legs, building up the old stamina reserves.

The Challenge Committee, helped by volunteers, erected the customary Dead Man's banners and flags all over town. This year's Challenge emblem was a representation of the copper visage from the rotating gyro contraption featured at the Challenge draw: a large four-eyed, two-nosed face. This was underscored by scrawling print that read: WELCOME TO THE 551ST RUNNING OF THE DEAD MAN'S CHALLENGE.

This eerie face stared you down everywhere you went, gazing from flapping flags or from bunting suspended along shop fronts. It'd even been printed on drink coasters and fridge magnets and cheap t-shirts you could pick up in the market for a quid fifty. It even glared at you from the backs of toilet doors in pubs when you were trying to enjoy a bit of quiet time on the bog.

Preparations also went on within the wide, lonely paths of the Great Maze itself—race markers being slotted into place, flags erected atop the tall stone walls. Portable bleachers were rolled into position near the start/finish line, providing spectators a place to sit and cheer their teams when the big day arrived. But importantly, barriers were being erected along the edges of the Hell's Edge Spring to guard competitors from any residual fertiliser fumes. (Workers erecting these barriers were ordered to wear face masks, even though another series of tests concluded that there really had been a significant drop in its potency.)

To back this up, a nice propaganda photo was published in the Gazette showing council members Mr Bogwood and Mrs Banbury standing right beside the alleged contaminated spring without any sort of breathing apparatus or chemical suits. And old fatty Bogwood had been quoted as saying, 'I admit, the spring might smell like rotten eggs but the worst of its toxicity has obviously passed if I'm still standing here breathing.' (I would've argued that Bogwood smelled like rotten eggs anyway so perhaps his presence had nullified any potential harm that may have come his way.)

2

Most afternoons during that fortnight leading up to the Challenge, the Majestics (the name Mark'd christened their team) was over at the O'Rourke place receiving tips from Mark's dad about how to tackle the Stone Maze. Mr O'Rourke's a Challenge veteran so he brought some valuable experience to their campaign.

The training schedule he'd drawn up centred primarily around the idea of getting tough, to deal with any potential rough play by teams like the Razorbacks who it is said will readily employ roughhouse tactics in order to maintain their winning streak. Along with jogging (clocking up laborious laps around Burnchess) and the never-ending sit-ups and press-ups in the rear yard of Mark's place (Kate looked right sexy in her training gear, I might add), O'Rourke had them beating up on old punching bags.

And learning how to take hits.

This came in the form of something like British Bullrush—they took turns dashing from one end of the yard to the other, dodging through their assembled teammates who had orders to knock the stuffing out of them with fully-laden wheat sacks. I had to laugh—Corey complained about the exercise, saying he didn't want to risk injury with important athletics meets coming up.

'Getting too tough for ya is it, Waterson?' I called out, grinning. 'Maybe you'd be more suited to putting up the Challenge floral decorations. Although the plant sap might make a mess of your fingernails.'

Kate gave me a scowl. She wasn't impressed.

Corey's bloated ego wouldn't let him back out, of course, not after that ribbing. And he was determined to be a hero in front of Kate. From where I sat I got a kick out of watching Mark slam some pride out of him when he attempted his first dash across the yard. Mark's a large lad and he ploughed the sack into Corey face-first. That tosser went down hard, blooding his nose, scratching his cheek. I sniggered into my palm. Kate rushed to him like he'd been hit by a train, cradling his head in her arms.

I rolled my eyes. 'Hey, Corey,' I called out, 'you want me to fetch your mummy'

3

Not being part of the team, I spent much of that time with Hayley. She even slept over a few nights, which pissed Louise off. Me having a girl in my room. Louise never said anything but you could tell she didn't agree. I just wanted her to say something, offer some sort of comment, because I was finally going to give her a piece of my mind if she did. Especially as she'd insisted Captain Tosser stay with us. That's right... Cockwad Wankerson had taken up in one of the rooms on the second floor while he was in town training for the Challenge!

I did my best to ignore it. And with Hayley around, it made things a lot easier to swallow actually. More so when I got the hint Kate'd grown jealous of Hayley sleeping in my room. That added a nice touch to day-to-day affairs, I must say. And most nights me and Hayley'd enjoy a drink or three down in the bar with Mark, and sometimes Emily and Kate and that know Corey—although I never spoke to him unless I had some snide remark to make. Then me and Hayley'd bid everyone a good evening and stumble upstairs blind drunk, feeling each other up, giggling when Inn guests gave us sideways glances. And I knew Kate didn't like it one bit. She looked downright disgusted when me and Hayley had our mouths locked together.

But that was the first time me and Hayley, well, did it.

Late one night after a good session on the bevy we found ourselves fairly sloshed in my bedroom, playing tunes by some of her favourite bands—The Sleeveheads, Kids At Risk, Stonefield. We snogged for what felt like a millennia and dry-humped enough to have worn holes through our jeans.

Hayley initially sat there on my bedside table, legs ajar, while we kissed. Then she stood, unbuckling her belt, unbuttoning her jeans, pulling them off and kicking them aside. We kissed some more and I hooked my thumb into the waistline of her knickers and dragged them down her bare thighs. She wasn't expecting it I think, because she slid her hand over her mouth and glared at me wide-eyed with surprise, her thighs now clapped shut. But there was also another look, a yearning for me to go on, breathing slow into her palm. I crouched before her and gently kissed and sucked at her thighs. She watched me, running her fingers through my hair.

She lay down on the bed, on her back, letting me lick her bellybutton. A minute drifted by with our fingers interlaced. I was kissing her lower belly. Then slowly I dragged my tongue to the bristling clipped hair above her groin. At last she relaxed and eased her thighs apart... I gazed at her warm pink flesh... then licked her, tongued her up and down. Gently. Softly. Tenderly. Like she was the most beautiful, exotic thing on earth. Then softly I slid my tongue inside her, tasting her.

Groans and moans escaped her mouth and her eyes were all squeezed shut and her back arched and her fingernails clawed flesh from my scalp. (I guessed this meant she enjoyed it.)

I had condoms in the drawer. Glow in the dark ones, so Hayley giggled once I slipped one on and we turned the light out. She pushed me onto the bed, and one second there's this fluorescent-green beacon almost pulsing in the night, and then as she climbed on top of me, wriggling me inside her, well, naturally the beacon got swallowed up.

Our giggles vanished instantly at the realisation of what the hell we'd done. Our eyes locked together in the faint twilight coming through the window. Like this was the moment to pull away if we felt it was too soon. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder. The corner of her mouth curled slightly. Almost inquisitively. Almost cheeky.

Then she straightened, unclipped her bra and dragged it off. Her breasts fell free and she lowered herself, pushing our bellies and chests together, and as we kissed she began to move her hips slowly back and forth.

It was pure heaven. I lasted about twenty seconds.

Except we did it again five minutes later. And I lasted more than two minutes the second time round.

4

By that stage of summer the murders of the Mortons and Mr Fanneray seemed a lifetime ago. Their funerals and cremations had come and gone. And Goon still hadn't been found. But generally people didn't seem to give a shit. Some said he'd simply grown bored of Burnchess and had fucked off. Others claimed he had relatives in Scotland. 'That's where he's gone,' they said. 'To Scotland and good riddance.' I began to get used to the idea of not seeing him around. It was like when the school bully gets shipped off somewhere else. The playground doesn't seem such a daunting place anymore. Except I still had the Charweeds to worry about. That stuff they'd said still rang clear in my mind. Little one'll die with rot in her bones. Who the hell had they were talking about was anyone's guess.

Anyway, it must be said, since the night of the Challenge draw I hadn't heard a peep from them. Maybe they'd finally grown bored of me, maybe they'd gone off to bother some other prick. As long as they were out of my hair I didn't care. In the meantime, I was back at work at Staten's, and Dad was on the mend, me and Hayley were totally loving each other's company, and it seemed Mark, who was doing lots of days delivering fruit machines with his dad, had really come off his monster-sighting band wagon. We'd also booked our flights to Thailand. Which I did with a little bit of regret, I've got to say. I mean, things were great with me and Hayley and I wasn't sure I wanted to just let all that go. I actually asked her if she wanted to come with us. But she said she'd heard back from the Wildlife Trust and it looked like they were going to offer her some work before the year was through. Guess you can't have everything.

Aside from that, life was good. So maybe I should've been more suspicious.

THE SCROLL

1

ONE MORNING, about a week out from the Challenge, the village woke to some strange news coming out of the maze. Something weird had happened.

The first Hayley and me knew of it was in my bedroom that morning. We'd been lazing about after a cocktail night at her friend Amber Calgaret's place. We'd been slobbing about my room, chatting, kissing, making love.

The window sat open and a warm morning breeze drifted through, dreamily shifting the curtain. I could hear people in the street, laughing, chatting, and ox carts clacked and wheeled. Cookie sat on the window sill watching the gulls.

Me and Hayley sucked on Chupa Chups, our heads still dealing with last night's drinking session. The hangover wasn't a total killer but it was enough to put lethargy into the bones. Hayley lay there in nothing but knickers and my Spiderman t-shirt. (Spidey had actually met his match: Hayley's boobs stretched him into some pretty ungodly proportions.) So as we lay there we heard a commotion coming from the street below. I moved to the open window and peered out.

'What's going on?' Hayley asked from the bed.

'Don't know. There's a bunch of people hanging about.'

She joined me at the window. With Cookie still sitting there, the three of us gazed into Castle Grove. Dad emerged from the Inn a few moments later and stood before the throng that consisted of village folk and tourists and even media crews from as far away as Horsefall. The sun was out in a cloud-blotched sky and gulls had assembled along the guttering of the roofs across the street, as if with some passing interest in what Dad might have to say.

Dad began. 'Earlier today, as I'm sure most of you have heard by now, Chingola wildlife officers discovered a large game cat caught in one of the traps we set inside the stone maze. It would appear to be a female cheetah. Chingola management have tentatively agreed that it may, in all likelihood, be another escaped animal from their reserve. If so, then they are happy to accept full responsibility. However, the primary point I want to stress here is that the animal has been captured and poses no further threat to the public. Obviously this also means it will pose no threat to competitors during the upcoming Challenge.'

A reporter from the Lambeth Lancet had a question: 'Detective Inspector, do you believe this animal to be responsible for the human deaths this summer?'

'It is too early to tell. But I wouldn't have thought so.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'I have been informed that a female cheetah possibly escaped the reserve sometime in the last two weeks.'

'And you did not inform the public?'

'I did not know about it until this morning.'

Foster Dean of the Burnchess Gazette had this: 'Inspector Crassly, would you please comment on another rumour that has been circulating this morning?'

'And what rumour is that, Mr Dean?'

'This cheetah you found. Allegedly it was discovered slaughtered. Possibly attacked and killed by a much larger animal. Is there any truth to this story?'

Dad smiled uneasily. 'Look, I'll confirm that it was indeed deceased. Yes.'

This news stirred the crowd.

He went on. 'But its cause of death is still unknown. The suspicion is it may have become entangled in the trap and thus injured itself, leading to its untimely death. An unfortunate incident, yes, but an inquiry will certainly provide us with further details.'

Foster Dean went on: 'Is there any truth to the rumour that a giant ape, possibly a mountain gorilla, has been spotted by Challenge volunteers inside the maze?'

Dad hesitated. As if curious to know how Foster Dean had come by that information. 'I cannot comment on that at this time. I am not across all of the particulars.'

'But you have heard this rumour?'

'Yes. But they are unconfirmed reports, Mr Dean. My people are looking into it as we speak.'

A reporter from Horsefall next: 'Do you think a gorilla would pose a risk to the safety of competitors come the day of the Dead Man's Challenge, Inspector? If it remains at large?'

'As I said, the reports about a great ape are unconfirmed. I will keep the council and the public posted when news comes to hand. Thank you, but that is all I have for now.'

My phone rang. I frowned at the screen. 'Jones, long time, no speak.'

'Jake,' Jones says, 'there's been an urgent development. I'm on the roof of the Hare Of The Dog. Come up and meet me. We need to talk.'

2

Charlton Jones was leaning against the railing with his arms folded as I climbed into fresh, sunny air through the trapdoor. The shadow from the visor of his hat hung dark over his eyes. 'If this is about a gorilla in the maze,' I said before he had a chance to say anything, 'then I've already heard it.'

He watched me slyly. 'So, the news is out.'

'Obviously.'

He nodded. 'Even so, that's not why I've asked you up here.'

I watched him keenly. 'What then?'

'I have grave news out of Forgottenworld.'

Forgottenworld? Why did that word ring a bell? I scratched my chin and moved to the railing about two metres from him. I gazed into the street where the crowd had mostly dispersed, where some still hung about in small groups chatting about what they'd heard. Amongst them stood Mark, Kate, Emily and Corey; the four of them decked out in their training outfits, the four of them obviously discussing what they'd just heard.

'Jake, look I need to know if you remember anything of your brief excursion to that realm.'

I frowned at him. 'What realm? What are you talking about?'

'You don't recall?'

'No.'

He lifted some peculiar object to my face and a pulse of what I can only describe as pure silver light flashed through my eyes. For a second or two I was completely blinded. As if someone'd shone a light in my face. 'What the fuck are you doing?' I growled at him, my eyelids squeezed shut, my eyeballs aching.

When I opened my eyes my sight was somehow back to normal. But I felt so pissed off I wanted to thump him. 'The hell did you just do to me?'

'Just a little something to jog your memory.' He presented the object in his palm. A ball of silver. 'Nothing to worry about.'

I meant to ask him what the hell that thing was when suddenly my eyes flicked to the castle ruins. It was so strange. I recalled tall towers and strange beings. Something from a dream, surely. But there was something else... another image... one of a huge beast being diced up in the marketplace. A whale?

'Do you remember, Jake?' he said, slipping the object into his pocket. 'That other village. The Castle.'

'No. I don't know what you're talking about.' I didn't want this nonsense. I wanted Hayley. I wanted her company, her kiss, her naked body. Not mucking about up here.

'Jake, I need to know. Do you remember? Tell me.'

I gazed toward the village marketplace, not enjoying the sudden awful thud of the pulse in my temples; my hands gripping the railing as if I was throttling someone. But there now felt like a dark tide flowing rapidly back into my skull. I recalled some blonde-haired twit called LanceAsh. And some tall clockwork being known as JennElise. And human-critters scampering about on all fours with forearms like that of gazelles. And living gargoyles. And giant trees. And a strange silver raven. I shook my head in a cold sweat. 'No. That was... That was hallucinations. Or a dream.'

'Jake, I'm not gonna waste my time arguing. I'm here on an errand. The Behemoths believe they've finally found a way to drive back the Charon.'

'The Behemoths?' I blinked at him, my eyeballs throbbing.

'They request your help.'

My skin was all hot and cold. 'You really expect me to believe that shit?'

'Either return to Forgottenworld and see what they have to suggest. Or don't. We haven't the time to muck about.'

I watched him for a while. Even after all this time I still couldn't tell when he was yanking my chain. I leaned there on the railing regarding the Archway that was again scrambling with tourists. The Archway where old Fanny'd been chopped up like watermelon in a blender. I swallowed. 'Look, if that world really exists then what... what the hell do they want?'

'They won't specify.' He pointed toward the stone maze. 'Yet, Warrior's Gate in the centre of Hell's Edge is where the Charon have been crossing into our world all summer. I don't know if you recall, but this was explained to you. The Behemoths claim they've found a way to actually shut down the Warrior's Gate portal. But they need your help to do it.'

'Bullshit, Jones. None of that happened.'

'Take it or leave it. But if his damn Challenge goes ahead then people's live ae in danger.'

'Look, they made it clear. I can't help. Emily can't help. We're not one of these Mustiferia things.'

'Mortifera.'

'Whatever.'

'Jake, it's got nothing to do with that this time.'

I scoffed. 'Really? Then why don't you go? You seem to know a hell of a lot more about what's going on than me. Why the hell don't you go?'

'I can't, Jake. They don't trust me. Simple as that.'

'Why?'

'It's a long and boring story. I'm not going to recount it now.' He reached into his coat and produced something like a rolled-up sleeve of paper. He held it out for me.

'What's this?' I grunted.

'A scroll. Addressed to Jake Crassly, Burnchess Village, Strangeworld. For your eyes only.'

I stayed put.

He grinned. 'Do as you will. I got the message this far. My job is done.'

He walked across the landing, leaving the scroll on the table. Then he turned and eyed me. 'Contact me as soon as you make a decision. Either way, the Behemoths need to know within twenty-four hours.' As nimble footed as Batman he took three steps and flung himself over the opposite railing.

3

I choked out a confused laugh. Hell, was he an idiot? Did he want to break his neck? He had to be hanging from the side of the building. He'll pop up any second, I thought, he'll say some shit like, "Wow, that actually hurt."

I walked suspiciously to the side of the roof... and peered over the edge.

Stretched out before me was the Village Green, the grass drying straw-yellow under the summer sun. Directly below me hung the vast panoramic window of the lounge room. And further down, the deserted beer garden: tables and chairs all empty that time of day.

Somehow, there was no sign of Jones.

4

For the rest of that day I got about in a strange state of denial. But bits just kept coming back to me whether I liked it or not. The castle. The large gathering. JennElise. The bone weapons. It troubled me. All of it. I didn't want to know.

So I thought I'd do something to ignore it. Distract myself. Do stuff. Get out of the village.

I took Hayley swimming over at Breathless Lake. She stripped to her underwear. So I stripped to my boxer shorts. And splashed her.

She squealed. Splashed me back; the water wasn't bone cold but it wasn't exactly warm either. I went to splash her again but she lunged at me this time, grabbing me, dragging me under.

We came up laughing. She flicked her hair back. Her bra and knickers clung tightly to her curves; they were also deliciously see-through. So were my white boxer shorts if I'm being honest. We wrestled and laughed and dunked each other beneath the crisp water by the ancient ruins on the southern shoreline. We kissed and she slid her hand down the front of my shorts and felt me up. There was no thought of great apes or tigers (or even lake monsters) when she had hold of me like that.

We swam out to the Waterhorse: the ruined monument that lies mostly submerged in the centre of the lake. There's just enough of it poking through the surface these days to bask on or get up to mischief. Behind one of the crumbled columns we embraced in the sunshine and kissed; she pushed her damp groin against my thigh. I squeezed her bum, then slid my hand round to her front, touching her gently through her soaked briefs, the sheer warmth and softness of her drove walls of seething fire through me. I pulled her knickers aside and slid my fingers up against her.

After that we lay there together in the sun, her head on my chest. We dozed as sparrows darted across the lake, as finches skipped about the old crumbled monument. I watched droplets of water on Hayley's drying skin, the way her hair matted together over her ears. It felt great to be alive, to be there with her.

5

I was alone in my room that night playing video games. Hayley'd caught the bus back to St. Austell late that afternoon, something about her Dad's birthday. We'd seen each other up until 4:30 till she had to go, snogging in the shed behind the Inn; me licking bits of her as she lay on the workbench.

It was 11 pm now. I hadn't thought of that other world all day. My head was simply clogged with Hayley. I could still smell her on me: her deodorant, the aroma of the detergent in her clothes, the smell of her sun cream, the smell of her skin. I kept thinking of her face, of kissing her, touching her. It was sort of scary because the truth of it was I was falling in love with her. I could feel that buzzing energy all through me.

I kept checking my watch to see what time it was. If I should call her. Wondering what she was up to. If she was still at her dad's party? If she was drinking and chatting to boys. I'd grown utterly intoxicated by her. All I wanted was to spend every minute with her. I couldn't handle the thought of her going off with someone else.

I sat there playing Venus Zombie Babes on my console. For a moment that other place, that other world and village, drifted through my mind like a bad smell. It dawned on me that I finally had an answer for Jones.

I put my controller down and plucked up my mobile to call him but Emily suddenly barged through the door. She stood there with her hands dug into her hips like she had a bone to pick. 'Come on, out with it!' she spat. 'What did Charlton Jones want today?'

I blinked up at her. 'What? Wotta you talking about?'

'Don't be stupid. I saw him up there on the roof with you. He gave you something.'

I looked at her wondering how the hell she knew. 'For a start, do you wanna get outta my bloody room?' Cookie was looking at her like Tell her to leave before I claw her intestines onto the rug!

'What. Did. He. Want?'

'What are you talking about, ya mental case?'

'Jones gave you something.'

I laughed. 'No, he didn't.'

She grunted and went straight for my mattress, reaching underneath.

'What the fuck are ya doin'?' I screeched, but before I knew it she'd dragged a pile of girly mags and the Forgottenworld scroll onto the floor.

'I knew it!' Emily said snatching up the scroll. I didn't know whether to grab it off her or hide the magazines. Before I could do either she caught sight of the mags and appeared utterly repulsed. 'Lesbian Paradise? Really, Jake?'

Red-faced, I shoved them out of sight... then went for the scroll in her mitts.

She put her fist up. 'Come one step closer and you'll be swallowing teeth!'

I laughed. 'Alright, have it your way.' I slumped back down in my bean bag. 'You're not gonna be interested in what it says anyway.' I went back to my game.

She unrolled the scroll. Read it with fat eager eyes. 'I knew it! Do they think I'm bloody stupid?'

'Hey I'm the one they sent it to,' I reminded her. 'It's got nothing to do with you.'

She threw me a look as if to say, Oh don't be so delusional, and dragged something that looked very similar to my scroll out of her jeans pocket.

'What the hell's that?'

'What do you think it is, Jake? It's a scroll. Just like yours.'

I frowned. 'A scroll?'

'Yes. I know what they're up to, you realise. Goon vanishes and we're meant to think Oh, yippee, Goon's gone, everything's fine! Well, it's not that simple! Because that's what they want us to think, Jake! But I'll tell you something: Goon tricked us. He faked his disappearance. He knew we expected him to destroy Burnchess on the anniversary of his daughter's vanishing. That's why he didn't do it. Now everyone thinks he's gone away. Oh, happy days. But he hasn't gone anywhere, you realise. He's hiding! You realise that, Jake? Finalising his plans.' She shook the scrolls in the air. 'Now they're trying to confuse us with this bullshit.'

She threw my scroll on the bed and stomped out of there.

6

After the door slammed shut I reached for the scroll, unfolded it and read it for the fifteenth time.

JAKE CRASSLY

BURNCHESS, STRANGEWORLD -

A great evil threatens both our worlds

Alas, we believe you can help

Meet us in Chessburn Village

All will be explained

\- Sha'rashel Apsara and Ahn'drellan Ruangsak,

BEHEMOTH GUARDIANS

I folded it back up and slotted it beneath the mattress. I reached for my phone and dialled Jones.

He answered, 'Jake?'

'Jones,' I said, 'listen, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Bajeemas or whatever they call themselves have got their problems... but who hasn't? Thing is, I'm not gonna upset things with me and Haley right now. Life's just starting to get interesting with her and me. Okay? I'm sure the Behemoths'll understand. I'm sure they'll find some way to fight off those monsters. Anyway, the upshot is, I'm gonna stay here and spend some quality time with Hayley. I'm not going back to Forgotten. If it actually exists.' I hung up.

THE CREEPING DEATH

1

NEXT MORNING I woke to darkness. I lay there stiff, on my back, staring into the gloom, my muscles tight. Something was wrong. I just felt it. There was a strange scratching noise coming from somewhere. Like a bony finger scraping against the wall. I thought it was Cookie. I'd probably locked her out of the room again. Whenever I do that she'll scratch on the door to let me know and she'll keep on scratching until I let her in.

But when I sat up I realised the scratching was coming from the window.

I felt instant chills. What was it? Some fucking night bird? The curtain was shut. I couldn't see.

I picked up my cricket bat. I swung my legs off the bed. The carpet felt cold underfoot. That's when I heard singing. Or some sort of chant. Coming from outside the Inn. I frowned.

I approached the window. I reached my fingers toward the curtain. With my spare hand I wound the cricket bat back ready to strike out if something flew in at me. The singing grew louder. I could hear it clearer now. And I suddenly realised who it was. I froze.

'Today she dies, today she rots,'

'The Black Death turns her flesh to knots.'

'Today she falls, today the Gripe,'

'Will eat her up and thieve her life.'

I tore the curtain open, screeching, 'Leave me alone!'

But they weren't there. The Charweeds. No one at the window. No one in the street.

I gulped, standing there clutching the cricket bat, panting.

A noise behind me.

I whirled about in time to see two unnaturally long arms reaching out across the room from beneath my bed. They gripped my ankles in warm clammy fingers, yanking me off my feet, dragging me toward goggle eyes and yellow teeth glowing in the gloom beneath my bed.

I screamed...

...and awoke, panting and gagging for air. I lay there in the dark, beneath my duvet, gathering myself, relieved to be in my bed and not under it.

But I blinked. Something... something leaned over me. A dark shape. And then as my eyes adjusted I saw pasty pale skin and the large bulbous eyes of a Charweed girl mere inches from my face.

I kicked out screeching, scrambling back against the bedroom wall. 'Get away from me,' I wailed. 'Leave me alone.'

'Jake,' I heard her say. 'Jake, it's me, it's okay, it's me, Emily.'

I froze. I couldn't breathe.

Emily?

The bulb in my bedside lamp flared and Emily stood there staring back at me.

I sucked in a huge breath of relief, the first breath I'd taken in about half a minute. I looked around, convinced a Charweed was still in the vicinity. But aside from Cookie there was no-one else in the room.

I studied the clock. 5:15 in the bloody morning.

'Holy shit, Em!' I finally hissed. 'You scared the hell outta me! What the hell are you doing here?'

'I'm sorry.' Emily's voice was strangely neutral, not defensive or scratching for a fight. It made me even more suspicious. Something must be wrong, I thought. Had something happened to Louise? Or worse, had something happened to Dad?

'What's wrong?'

'Dad's gone missing.' She blinked at me like I should say something. She went on before I could speak. 'He hasn't been here all night. He wasn't in his room when I went to say good night to Mum last evening and he's still not there. He's not answering his mobile either. I didn't want to wake Mum in case she panics. But he's nowhere to be found.'

'Yeah, cos he's on a nocturnal skirmish inside Hell's Edge trying to flush out this so-called ape.' I eyed her, thinking, And I thought you knew everything. 'Didn't you hear? He's with the Chingola people. That's probably why he's not answering his phone.'

The maze walls play havoc with mobile reception. No one knows exactly why. Something to do with a high concentration of magnetic rock? But it's true, you just get static.

'Oh.' She looked lost for words.

I took a deep breath. 'Now, if you'd kindly piss off I'd like to get back to sleep.' I flicked off the lamp and the room fell back to darkness.

Some moments later the light flashed on again, flaring against my eyeballs. 'That's not all I want to talk about,' she said.

I pulled a pillow over my face. My muffled voice said, 'Talk then, but I'm not listening.'

'I know now how Goon's going to destroy Burnchess.'

I pretended I hadn't heard.

'The Dead Man's Challenge,' she said. 'That's when he's going to strike.' She yanked the pillow off my face. 'Are you listening to me?'

I scratched my neck, squinting at her in the glare. 'So, you thought the smartest thing you could do is tell me about it at five in the bloody morning.'

'Keep your voice down,' she said and lifted something toward my face.

It was a scrap of A4. At the top it read J.G. - File 426: Fertiliser Bomb.

'It was Goon who orchestrated the so-called fertiliser spill,' she says, 'and it was he who made Sharkfin take the blame. But the thing is, it's going to act like a fuse. He's going to ignite it during the Dead Man's Challenge, set it aflame from the safety of Tigwater Moor. You get what I'm saying? When it reaches Hell's Spring in the centre of the maze it's going to erupt like a massive explosive. It'll blow the place to bits. Do you understand what I'm getting at? Most of the village is going to be out there attending the event. Everyone'll be incinerated.'

'So wotta ya tellin' me for? You should be tellin' Dad.'

'Why do you think I've been looking for him?'

I watched her face. Then studied the piece of A4. 'Em, look, for all we know, this police file'll turn out just like the last one. A load of horseshit.'

'That's the thing, Jake; this isn't a police file.'

I squinted up at her. 'Wotta ya talking about?'

'I got it from Charlton Jones. It's a witness declaration from your mother.'

2

Sunrise broke across the eastern sky. Birds chirped noisily in the trees. I won't lie, that damn Charweed nightmare was still itching my nerves. Emily'd fucked off somewhere but she'd left me with that file. I was in the kitchen. Alone if it wasn't for Cookie hanging about. I was tucking into a bowl of Weetabix Weetos. And Marmite on toast. It was about 7am.

I read through the file a couple of times. I didn't believe mum'd written it. But that part didn't matter. What I couldn't work out was why Jones had given it to Emily. What shit was he trying to stir up now?

I rang him as I sat there. But I don't know why I bothered. His phone was still switched off. So, by 7:30 I was up at his place knocking on his door. I kept glancing over my shoulder as I stood there. I mean, those fucking Charweed's had me spooked all over again. I didn't want to turn around and find them there at my shoulder, arms outstretched, grubby black nails hungry to sink themselves into my neck. Or hidden up in some tree gazing down at me with their god-ugly eyes.

I knocked again. And I jumped when the door opened. Jones stood there sipping a cup of tea, steam lifting into the crisp morning air.

'Mornin', Jake,' he says, momentarily studying the world beyond me. I looked around. I was paranoid.

I turned back to Jones and held the sheet of paper I'd taken from Emily at his face. 'What can you tell me about this?'

He watched my eyes. 'Mm, I thought you might find that interesting. Why don't you step inside so we can have a wee chat?'

3

It occurred to me as soon as I moved down his hallway that I'd never once stood inside his house. I came to his lounge room where a tall lamp in one corner gave off dull orange glow. The rest of the space loomed in a swampy dusk. But I could pick out dull shapes like furniture and paintings on the walls, things like masks and peculiarly-shaped vases, pig tusks, ornamental axes as if collected from primitive tribes around the world. So, he was well travelled then. These were all his little trophies and souvenirs and mementos. All kept in the gloom like he didn't want me to see them.

The most curious aspect of his lounge room was the view. By then the summer sun was climbing its way into the sky. But I could see the street lamps along Coddington Lane and the hump of the Archway. If Jones'd been awake that time of day the morning Fanneray was despatched he might've witnessed the whole damn slaughter. For all I knew, he had.

'So, what is then?' I asked Jones, bringing his attention back to the file.

'I guess you want a detailed explanation.'

I grinned. 'I didn't come here to swap fucking scone recipes.'

He shrugged. 'Truth is, I don't know when your mother wrote it. Or why. But I do remember an occasion when she came to me with news that Goon'd confided in her about something. She never specified what that was. When the details emerged about Goon wanting to put Burnchess into the ocean I'd assumed this is what she'd been referring to.' He sipped his tea. 'Except now I suppose this business regarding a possible fertiliser bomb might've been the true item of her concern.'

'Bollocks. You wrote it.'

He laughed. 'An interesting idea. But I'm afraid I didn't.'

'Then why show it to Emily? Why not show it to me? And why now?'

He grinned. 'I have only recently uncovered it, Jake. Goon's disappearance has made me more than a tad concerned. To try and learn some answers I have been through his cottage. I uncovered a number of letters and files. This one amongst them. I thought you'd be interested in seeing it.'

'So that's why you gave it to Emily.'

He took a moment to answer. 'You made it quite plain you didn't want to return to Forgotten, Jake. I thought Emily might take it a bit more seriously.'

'What's this got to do with that world?'

He shrugged. 'A lot actually.'

'Tell me.'

He sat down. Got comfortable. Offered me a seat but I chose to remain standing. 'Well, I believe Goon's going to use it as a tool. I think he believes it will help open up the Warrior's Gate portal.'

I watched him closely.

Jones went on. 'If he does this on the day of the Challenge we'll have a bunch of monsters streaming into the maze. It's going to be quite spectacular, don't you think.'

He watched me for a few moments, letting me consider this. Then he checked his watch. 'By the way, while we're speaking of Emily, I ought to warn you. She is about to stray into danger.' He drained the last of his beverage. 'Actually, such is the situation that it may even bring about her demise.'

I blinked at him. 'What are you talking about?'

'It's just a precaution, Jake. But it's possible she doesn't have much time left.'

Without me even consciously thinking about it, the most recent Charweed song rang through my mind. 'Today she dies, today she rots.' 'Don't talk to me like I'm a fucking idiot,' I said. 'What the hell's going on?'

He eyed me almost coldly. 'One path is open to her. One that could well lead her to a better appreciation of what is going on. Though in all likelihood it may very well lead to her death.'

4

I hurried back to the Inn wondering. I kept hearing that song in my mind: 'Today she dies, today she rots.' The first thing I saw when I punched through the doors was Scuppers. He came bounding to me across the main bar lively as a spring lamb.

Mr Hogshead was on his way to oil the charabanc. 'Mornin', Jake,' he said cheerfully in his grumbly, haggard voice.

I ignored any pleasantries and immediately asked him, 'Have you seen Emily?'

He pointed through the main bar to the beer garden out back. 'Just caught her 'aving breakfast actually.'

I walked over and peered through the windows. The blue sky hung brilliantly over the Village Green. In the beer garden sat a number of early risers; some of them tourists who'd filtered back into town. They sipped coffee or thumbed through tourist brochures. Emily sat there in her tracksuit pants and sneakers, munching muesli, drinking orange juice. She looked distant. Distracted by something. I thought about going out there and picking her brain about stuff. I don't know what. But I just couldn't shake that shit Jones had been going on about. She was in her work-out gear though. Which meant Kate would be over soon with that Wankerson tosser. They'd all be off for laps around the village as had become their morning routine. (Minus Mark that morning; he was doing work with his dad.)

'Summat the matter, lad?'

I turned and saw Hogshead staring out the window next to me. I blinked back at Emily—Jones' haunting premonition still echoing through my mind. 'No. I guess it's nothing.'

5

Back in my room I shut the door. Cookie laced her spine round my ankles, mewling for food or milk or something. I ignored her and sat down and eyed the file that Emily had lumped on me.

Louise's voice came from outside my door, 'Dirty linen, Jake. Don't forget to bring it down.' I got up and locked the door.

Back on the bed, with the window open to the morning breeze, I read Mum's so-called declaration again and again. I lay there staring at the ceiling. I couldn't shake this odd feeling. Like something weird was about to happen. 'It's the Charweeds, Jake,' I heard my voice say. 'They're just fucking with you.'

But the last time they'd fucked with me I'd been torn to shreds on the Vale.

I didn't know what to do. It was doing my head in. Have breakfast, I told myself, think it through, tell Emily.

I stuffed mum's letter under my mattress and went for a shower.

6

When I was done I called Emily. It wasn't something I ordinarily do, thumbing her number. But I just had to.

'Jake,' she says shortly, 'you've dialled the wrong number.'

'No. I haven't. Listen, what are you doing today? Are you training with the others?'

'Yes.' She sounded suspicious. 'Why?'

'No reason. Just stick with them okay. Make sure you're around somebody today. Maybe don't leave the village, either.'

She laughed. 'Why?'

'Don't know. I just have this odd feeling.'

'So? We all know you're an odd sort of bloke, Jake.'

I gritted my teeth. I really could've just told her to fuck off when she said that. 'Look, whatever.'

I hung up. I shook my head. She just had this knack of pissing me off. I turned my thoughts to Hayley. I was seriously itching for her. I looked at the time. Was it too early to call her? I couldn't help myself. I dug my phone back out and thumbed her number.

'Hi, babe,' she said sleepily after it rang a few times.

'Did I wake you?'

'Yes, but it's all right.' She yawned. 'Dad wants me to give him a hand fetching fence posts off the truck. He wants to get going early. So I'm up. Sort of.' She paused, perhaps stretching. 'I dreamt about you last night.'

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'A nightmare then?' I joked.

'No, it was nice actually. We were... I think we were in Paris. There was, I don't know, it looked like the Eiffel Tower. I'm not certain. Anyway, you'd bought me flowers off this vendor and we were eating croissants at this little café overlooking the Seine.'

I waited for her to go on. 'And that's it?'

'Yep. It was nice.'

'How was your dad's birthday party?'

She groaned, but I imagined a smile accompanying it. 'Dad was doing "dad dancing". A bit embarrassing.'

'You get any decent footage for You Tube.'

She laughed. 'I did actually.'

'Hey look, I was wondering. You up for a couple of days away in Lambeth or somewhere?'

'If it gets me away from here,' she said, 'sure. When?'

'Well, how about today? I was thinking I could drive up to St. Austell and fetch you. We could be in Lambeth by lunch. We could stay at the Mermaid or some place. I'll ring 'em, see if they've got any rooms.'

'Yeah, okay. We can have fish and chips on the docks or go for a drive. Or if you'd prefer we could just get mad drunk and make love all afternoon.'

I almost choked. When I gathered myself I said, 'Yes, well I need written consent from Louise for that sort of thing.' We both laughed.

It was Monday. We planned to stay till Thursday or Friday. Be back in time to watch Corey and Co. get steamrolled by the Razorbacks in next Saturday's Dead Man's Challenge. I rang the Mermaid and made a booking. Then I packed some clothes. I threw in a jumbo pack of condoms. Super thin, and 'ribbed for her pleasure' (or so the packet claimed). I thought of me and Hayley on the Waterhorse ruins. I couldn't wait to share a nice hot shower with her once we got to Lambeth. Make love till sundown like she'd suggested. Then go another round after an intermission down the pub. Mark always says his sexual preference is 'often'—well, I guess one of us was finally about to adopt that mantra.

I took a stroll up to Staten's shop. I thought I best let him know in person that I wouldn't be around for the week. I expected him to be pissed off. I would've understood. Actually I was a bit nervous strolling up there to tell him. When I told him, I said I'd work the following week for free. But he says to me, 'Running off with that Hayley Ruckerson girl are ya?'

'Just for a couple of days.'

'Her mum might be a bit in-your-face but Hayley's a lovely young lass,' he says. 'You could do far worse, Jake. And who am I to lecture a bloke over running off to be with a woman?' He actually laughed at that. 'No, you go and enjoy yourself. If anyone needs time away it's you, Jake. I'll hold the fort here. And your job'll be here when you return. With pay in full.'

I returned to the Inn with a bit of a spring in my step. That was about 8:30. And that's when I saw the note sitting on my bedside table, slid beneath the base of the lamp.

I frowned and pulled it out. It was folded over. On the outside it simply read Jake. I unfolded it.

Jake, I lied. I'm not training this morning. I'm heading out to the Hidden Sea Hills. I need a clearer idea of this fertiliser spill. If Goon plans to ignite it on the day of the Challenge then the Village Council NEEDS to be warned. If Mum asks where I am just tell her I'm training for the Challenge. If she finds out I've left the village she'll be worried sick.

Thanks, Em.

No other time since the Sanders girls showed up in my life had I the opportunity to land Emily in so much shit. And I actually considered it. Take down my linen and find Louise and say, 'Hey Louise, guess where your precious little golden girl is right now? Out at Sharkfins' investigating the killer fertiliser. You think that's a good idea?'

But all I felt was that strange nervousness. I grabbed my mobile and dialled Emily's number. It rang out to her message bank. I hung up and dialled again. Same deal. I left a voice message this time. 'Emily, it's Jake, ring me.'

I sat there for maybe a minute with the echoes of that damn Charweed song back in my mind.

I rang again. Still no answer. I got dressed and dragged on my sneakers. Something was wrong. I could feel it like a thrumming in my chest. Might have been nothing more than the haunting echo of that Charweed nightmare. Or Jones' foolish words about Emily dropping dead. But that awful twisted feeling in my gut... I just couldn't shift it.

7

My plan was to zoom out to the Hidden Sea Hills in Dad's Rover Metro. But strangely the car wasn't there in the barley mill car lot. So, I ran back for the dirt bikes in the shed. Only to find none of them there either. Dad'd lent the damn things to Stan Mead and the Challenge volunteers. So, I grabbed Mum's old pushbike, the one with the pink tassels on the handlebars, and pedalled like a nutter for the O'Rourke place.

Mark and his dad'd cleared out early that day. They had deliveries to run over near Horsefall. But I was after their Blue Wasp dune buggy.

I snatched the key from its hiding place in the rafters in their shed, then grabbed the helmet and slid it over my head with the goggles. I jammed the key in the slot and got that little monster grumbling. The fuel gauge ran just below a quarter tank. Should've been plenty. All I required was enough juice to get me out to the Hidden Sea.

I rammed the gear stick to first and planted my foot. The little demon engine zoomed out of the shed, squealing like some hag giving birth to imps.

8

I was on the Howling several minutes later, the wind screaming at my face and hair. I tore along the ramblers' trails, keeping the Charweed cottage and their greenhouse far to my right. Beyond the cottage, I saw the Challenge flags flapping from the tops of the Hell's Edge walls.

Wind scored my ears as I followed the well-worn path through bracken and heath, thistles and brambles, until the lighthouse loomed at the foot of the Hidden Sea Hills. I drove by and veered right, taking the trail toward the corner of the maze, trailing it round then veering toward the front of Sharkfins' property.

9

I was panting by the time I killed the engine—my forearms aching from keeping that little buggy on track. I hauled myself out of the cramped driver's compartment and looked about. Grey clouds pooled above. Strong gusts thrust in off the ocean. The morning held an overcast gloom. The property lay deserted. (Joe and Merriline Sharkfin had been over in Plymouth or someplace, fighting at the shire court to have their Bed & Breakfast licence reinstated after it'd been revoked when those tourists had bitten the dust.) A lonely breeze crept over the farmhouse and its various sheds and machinery, whistling eerily across the top of Hell's Edge—I thought of it as a living mist, like some gargantuan nightmare manta ray cresting the top of the maze.

My first surprise was seeing dad's Metro. It wasn't hard to spot. Someone had driven it grill-first into the muck that used to be Hell's Stream. If it was Emily, I couldn't see her anywhere. On the wind I heard the haunting sounds of Jerusalem from the car's radio.

I was back a good way, but the stench listing in the air was unbearable. That ugly black river snaked from the Hell's Edge boundary, passed the farm, and out into the Tigwater marsh that lay in the lower land before the old stone ruins of Crowspine village. A brackish smell came off there. Like a swamp that had everything wrong with it—disease, death, rot. Why hadn't anyone fenced it? Why hadn't anyone yet done something about it?

I went forward. And with dread I spotted a figure slumped behind the wheel. That's when I heard barking.

I turned and spotted Scuppers back near the farmstead. He came running out... but just as quickly he turned and bolted back. He stood there, watching me, barking, nervously wagging his tail.

Was he warning me of something? I gazed back at the Metro. There was definitely someone in there. Not moving, their head lolled to the side.

I pushed forward again, Jerusalem sounding louder on the air. But the stink burned my lungs. I dragged my shirt over my face, tried sucking air through it.

I gagged and yelled, 'Emily! Is that you? Get outta the car!'

She didn't move. Never budged.

She must've been unconscious. The toxic gases must've knocked her cold. And if I didn't get to her soon... well, there was no doubt in my mind she'd end up like those tourists.

I took a deep breath and ran forward. As I approached the stream I noticed all the dead things scattered along the banks: rabbits, birds, foxes. Small black twisted carcasses rotting in the grass. Even on its surface dead things floated—fish, frogs, wrens, egrets—cluttered amidst clusters of exotic glistening black flowers. Flowers I didn't recognise.

I reached the driver's side door, my lips bunched shut, my cheeks puffed out, determined not to take a breath and fill my lungs with toxins. I flung it open, the choir singing Jerusalem suddenly like ghosts at my ears.

Emily slumped outwards into my arms, her blank purple face rolling toward me, her vacant gaze looking somewhere beyond my shoulder, her lips as blue as ice.

A feeling of deep, utter terror plummeted through my chest as I stood holding her, gazing down at her. Behind her specs her eyes had gone as foggy as cooked eggs. As if she'd been dead for days.

I stared at her chest. It wasn't moving. I put my ear to her ribs. But with the growling wind gusts, I couldn't hear properly.

I readjusted my ear, planting it heavily into her breast bone... listening... listening...

My skin went cold. It was utterly unsettling, utterly bizarre, totally numbing, totally sobering. Something that should've been there, that simple little thump-thump! thump-thump! was absent. Nothing but an eerie quiet as her shirt collar tickling my cheek. She was dead.

And I was running out of air.

10

Still holding my breath, I shoved her over and gunned the Metro to life, its engine roaring across the quiet morning. My chest burned, my face had turned scorching hot. I jammed it into reverse and planted my foot. The engine screamed like a pig, drowning out the radio, but we weren't moving. All I could hear were the front tyres churning like mad through the poisonous black mud.

Still holding my breath, I leaped from the car, took Emily by the arms and dragged her out of there. My chest couldn't take anymore. My cheeks bulged and my mouth burst open and my lungs sucked in foul, toxic fumes. My head went giddy. I stumbled and went to one knee. My head lolled forward, I heard Scuppers barking, howling. A great urge came over me to just lie down. My mind was going blank. 'No!' I growled at myself. 'Wake up!'

I concentrated on Scuppers, on his lunatic barking... I stood up and hauled Emily by her arm, groggily dragging her away from there, the side of her face ploughing a narrow track through the grass and thistles and mud, until I was far enough away that I thought, prayed, the air was clear enough to breathe.

I collapsed to the ground sucking in a mighty gasp. I coughed and spluttered, panting, desperately trying to catch my breath, hacking spit into the grass. I thought I was never going to get up, thought the toxic fumes had me, that I wasn't going to recover. But that awful silence I'd heard behind Emily's ribs...

I got to my knees, spit running off my chin, puffing hard as I stared at her vacant face. Part of me thought Serves you right, you stupid bitch! But I was numb. I just sat there hunched over her.

'Emily!' How the hell had summer come to this? Sparrows chirped somewhere in the grass. Bugs chirped in the thickets. They were empty sounds. 'Emily!' I wiped mud off her face, dragged off her glasses, shoved them in my pocket. I took her chin and pushed her head back, making her neck arch outwards. I went to put my mouth over hers... hesitated. I remembered those tourists. Lying there dead. Emily's skin was pale as egg shells. She reeked of that muck. Like she was decomposing inside. Would I catch some fucking bog disease off her? Was she filled with some sort of weird contaminant? Some virus?

I shoved my fears aside and put my mouth to hers, heaving air into her lungs like we'd learned in First Aid training at school. Once... then twice... I straightened and gazed into her staring pupils. I put my ear to her lips... listening... hoping...

Nothing.

I straightened and felt for her damn sternum. I pushed the heel of my palm into her chest, heaved down with both hands.

'Come on, Emily! Breathe for fuck's sake!'

I went back to her mouth, huffing more air into her chest.

'Come on, Emily!' I yelled, pumping her chest. Scuppers had come out from the farm. But he wouldn't come near. He stood at a distance, panting, watching.

'Breathe!'

But she wouldn't.

I blinked. Exasperated. I realised then I should've been pinching her nostrils shut. I clamped them now, put my lips over hers again and exhaled into her throat.

And I did it again...

Then listened for signs of breath.

Nothing.

I pushed on her chest again and again, her small tits jiggling under her tracksuit top. 'Why did you have to come out here?' I yelled at her. 'Why!'

I could feel tears welling in my eyes. I felt useless. Why wasn't she responding? I looked back at the farmhouse, hoping there might be someone to help me.

Her airways, I suddenly thought, her airways!

I split her jaw apart and pushed my fingers into her gob. Her lips were as blue as deep cold ice, her tongue cold as a chunk of refrigerated meat. Her teeth raked across my knuckles, her mouth drawn back like some ghoul. But I pushed my fingertips into her throat in case there was something blocking her airways. She hadn't swallowed her tongue but how fucking far were you supposed to feel? How far down? It felt clear, empty, nothing choking her. But how could I tell for sure?

'Emily, please, you've gotta breathe, please!' I punched her chest again. I couldn't believe this was happening. I heaved on her ribs, 'One, two, three, four, five,' I counted aloud. Listened again.

Silence.

I breathed into her mouth again. More desperate now, on the verge of complete panic. Her chest rose as I gushed air down there. 'One, two, three, four, five,' I counted as I worked at her chest. Her lungs kept deflating. They wouldn't move on their own.

About two minutes later I knew she was done. She wasn't coming back. She wasn't breathing... she wasn't going to breathe ever again. For all I knew she'd been dead twenty minutes before I got to her. Don't they say it takes the brain just four minutes without oxygen before it dies?

She lay there, her misty empty eyes staring blankly at nothing but the heavy grey cloudbank drifting above. Her blue lips poised there slightly ajar. Not moving. For the first time since I'd known her she had nothing to say. Her obnoxious, irritating voice silenced.

I heaved her chest again, one last fruitless time... 'Come on, Emily! Breathe! Come on, fucking breathe!'

But nothing happened and I sat there with my head sagged heavily between my shoulders. Weeping...

'Emily,' I whimpered, 'I don't know what to do. You won't breathe. I don't know what to do.' The Jerusalem choir sounded more like angels now than ghosts. I dragged her hair from her face, smoothing it. What was I going to tell Louise? What the hell was I going to tell them? I studied my fingers, feeling utterly helpless... I saw the welts on my hand. The ones left over after that beast'd carved me up on Strangler's Vale.

And that's when I had a thought. That shit we'd seen in the Greenhouse of Horrors. The Charweeds. The white weed.

Without another thought, I scooped Emily's wheat-sack weight into my arms. Her limbs dangled like broken branches and her head lolled heavy as a ball of cabbage. I lugged her quick as I could to the Blue Wasp.

11

Scuppers sat on my lap as I gunned the buggy wildly back along the Howling. I barely gave a shit about the bumps, the ditches, the mounds I flew over or through on my charge. Emily was dead—the thought made me numb—but it was true. She was dead. She wouldn't have felt a sledgehammer whammed into the middle of her face.

But I had one chance. One small chance. I'd seen those girls with those fox-octopus abominations. What they'd done to them. How they'd somehow brought them to life. And I still didn't know if I believed it or not, but quite possibly they'd done the same to me after my attack on the Vale. I couldn't say if they cared whether I lived or died. Or if I'd just been the subject of another of their heartless experiments. But somehow I had to convince them that Emily was worthy of the same treatment. That they just had to bring her back to life.

THE LAZARUS WEED

1

THE CHARWEED house loomed from the tall grass like a sly fiend watching me, eager for me to come closer. But as I neared its black picket fence I spied something else that arrested my eye, something I'd never noticed before. Hidden in the tall grass stood a number of peculiar wooden carvings. Actually there seemed to be an entire ring of them circling the cottage; all facing outwards from the dwelling.

They had these matching impish, faerie faces, all pointy-eared and bug-eyed. They also looked quite serene.

I'd seen similar things elsewhere, hadn't I? That day on Strangler's Vale when I'd awoken with that stinking plant in my stomach, well, I'd been surrounded by them. They hadn't stood as tall as these but they'd been there as rock solid as any stone circle. Matter of fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realised they may even have been placed around me in the graveyard that morning after the official Challenge draw.

If I'd had more time, I might've hung about and given them a good look over. But with Emily's carcass slumped in the rear of the buggy I had more pressing matters.

Skirting the picket fence, I gunned the Blue Wasp round the side of the cottage and screeched up to the greenhouse. I don't know why, but I expected them to be in there. The sisters. In the greenhouse. But as I jammed on the brakes and pulled the buggy to a halt at the greenhouse door I couldn't see them anywhere. I unbuckled and jumped from the driver's seat and pressed my nose to the glass, my eyes flicking left and right.

The greenhouse writhed with its hideous purple pitcher plants and giant fly traps. Bodies of hares and turtles littered the workbenches or were piled unceremoniously inside metal pails and wheelbarrows. Behind me, Scuppers sniffed Emily's arm, his neck craned forward like he didn't want to get too close, like he knew something was fucking odd with her.

I rapped the greenhouse glass with my knuckles thinking maybe the sisters were working down the back somewhere behind all the vegetation. When they didn't show I rapped harder, more desperately. No one materialised. I tried the door but it was locked.

I turned to their small black cottage. The rear door stood at a slight pitch within a thick snaggled arch of black roses. Grimy green windows loomed on either side of it watching me like devil eyes. I hurried forward and pummelled the door with my fists, detecting a peculiar whiff seeping from within: a stagnant stink like boiled mushrooms and rotting onions.

When no one came to the door I pummelled it again. 'Please, is anyone there?' I yelled into the door jamb. 'It's Jake Crassly. Please! I need your help!'

I waited about five seconds. Then I gripped the doorknob and thrust the door open.

2

It was dark inside. And damp. As my eyes adjusted to the light I saw why: water trickled through narrow furrows along the edges of the floor. Strange creepers smothered the inner walls and choked every window. Stunted shrubs with flowers glowing blue and yellow and orange (tiny bursts of neon in the dark) grew directly from the floor. The heavy stench of bog water clouded my nostrils, inundating my lungs. I could hardly breathe. Felt my head going faint.

'Is anyone home?'

I tried ignoring the thick musky atmosphere. I stepped slowly inside. I coughed, my hand over my mouth and nose. It was spongy underfoot. At first it felt like damp carpet. But I noticed the floors were actually covered in thick layers of moss and toadstools. The room looked like a kitchen. But the stove and fridge were hugged tight with creepers. Actually, alarmingly, the fridge looked like it was slowly being swallowed into the wall.

That unsettled me. Seeing that. As if this very cottage were alive. I was having second thoughts about being here now.

Still, I ignored the voices in my head to just bolt. I pushed onwards. Slowly crossing the room. The pungent swampy odour grew thicker and more putrid the further I went in. It made hack and splutter. 'Anybody home?' I yelled, coughing. 'It's me, Jake Crassly. I need your help!'

I entered a short hallway. I pulled my shirt collar over my nose and mouth but it did little to stave off the steamy stink of bugs and rot. An open doorway loomed on my left. I peered through. It appeared to be a dining room; a set of tables and chairs were clung halfway up the wall by creepers, the legs of the furniture growing into the woodwork like tree roots. Shafts of pale-green light slanted through windows layered in grime and clotted with beads of condensation.

'Is anybody home? Can anyone hear me?' I hacked up a gob of spit. Swallowed. I continued on. It was getting more difficult to breathe, the air was so thick and pungent with spores and humidity and a stifling stench of wood rot. I thought if I didn't get out of there soon I'd go legs up. End up like Emily. I passed a lounge room with a television almost fully consumed by a tree trunk, and a hat-stand sprouting purple leaves wriggling with white wood-borers, and book cases whose shelves looked more like huge flat crescents of lichen, and lounge chairs smothered in cushions of moss. There was another doorway just ahead of me. And after that the cottage fell into thick, dank gloom.

I approached the darkened door and poked my head round the corner and my breath left me. The floor was a garden of vines and grass and shrubs teeming with orange crickets and yellow mantis and blue thrips. Water trickled in narrow rivulets down the walls. But stuck to the ceiling were a pair of beds with twisting gnarled roots for legs that'd burrowed straight into the plasterboard. And lying there defying gravity in a way I couldn't fucking comprehend, lay the two Charweed girls. Asleep.

I stepped into the room, treading on toadstools that spat out clouds of acidic gas that stung my nostrils and caused me to splutter for air. As I coughed and choked I watched a teddy bear become buried legs-first into the wall, its throat slowly being strangled by vines that writhed about like slimy squid tentacles. Fear was slowly getting the better of me. The house seemed to be consuming everything. I had a moment of near panic when I thought it'd killed the Charweed girls. That it was slowly sucking out their juices like some humungous spider.

'Hello?' my voice croaked. My face was raised toward the ceiling where the two of them lay in slumber. 'Can you hear me?'

They didn't stir, suspended above me, bony hands at their sides, bulged eyes shut like mussel shells. I craned my neck at them, wondering how to get their attention. 'Please, you've gotta wake up,' I rasped. 'I need help.' They didn't stir. 'Please. It's Emily. She's dead.'

I wondered if I ought to throw something at them. Maybe a wet bunch of weeds torn from the carpet. But I decided against it: I needed their help, not piss them off.

Strands of vines crept along the ceiling and trailed down the walls. I approached the closest bunch and gripped one, yanking it, testing its strength. It peeled away from the gunk on the wall but clung steadfast to the ceiling. I gave it a couple of tugs, testing it out. It appeared to grip the ceiling as sure as a rope swing tied to a tree branch. I gave it my full body weight and dangled there with the soles of my sneakers an inch or two off the gungy floor. It held. After a couple of attempts ended in me slipping back to the floor, I managed to rope-walk my way up the wall.

I called out to the girls. 'Can you, can you hear me?' I realised for the first time in my life I didn't even know their fucking names. 'Can you hear me?'

The surface of the wall seemed to move the whole time beneath the souls of my shoes, like a skin of writhing seaweed. I could hear the sounds of nibbling from beyond the panels, as if a million mouths were chewing. I feared a vast maw would suddenly open up and gobble me down.

I neared the ceiling and reached out my fingers. I gripped the side of one bed. I was in the midst of dragging myself up when a portion of the vine snapped free of the ceiling. I swept away from the wall, swinging out over the middle of the room, clinging to the bed with straining fingers.

I swung back and forth desperate to hold. But suddenly the most bizarre thing happened: without warning, I fell upwards, as if gravity had somehow reversed. I crumpled headfirst into the ceiling and lay there gazing down at the floor, clinging to the bed frame, terrified that I'd fall and break my neck. But I didn't. Whether I liked it or not I was held there to the ceiling. As if the world had switched over. The sensation made my heart beat a zillion miles an hour.

Gradually I got my wits about me (trying to ignore the floor below me—although actually it felt as if it loomed above me now). I hefted myself level with the mattress. It stunk of sweat and grime and mushrooms. Ignoring the pungent stench I gently touched the closest Charweed girl's bony hand. Her skin was cold and clammy; I could feel the narrow bones in her wrist.

'Please,' I said, 'you've got to help me.'

She didn't move.

But her face! I gasped. Her eyes had shot open and were staring dead at me.

I gulped, instantly terrified, fearing she'd lash out, open her mouth and bite into my face with a hundred oversized teeth. It'd no doubt awaken her sister and they'd both be into me like dogs ripping into a rabbit, to teach me a lesson about my intrusion, chewing my nose and ears off and spitting them to the floor, chewing holes through my cheeks and clawing out my eyes and biting off my tongue.

But she didn't move. Just stared at me. I swallowed my fear as best as I could. Weakly I said, 'Please, I'm sorry. I need your help.'

Without me even knowing it, the other girl was stooped beside me, her goggling eyes and bared blackened teeth, two inches from my ear, and she was hissing. 'Where is sheeee?'

I screeched and plummeted from the ceiling.

3

I don't recall leaving the cottage. But my next memory is of being on the ground outside the greenhouse. The ghoul girls stood there gazing down at Emily. I could hear their voices somewhere in my mind.

Bring the little one in.

I stared at the cottage's rear door, disoriented, wondering how the hell I'd got out here.

Bring the little one in.

They moved into the greenhouse in jerky nightmarish movements. Scuppers barked somewhere. I got up and stumbled to Emily, lugging her into my arms, hurrying after them. Scuppers stayed outside, sniffing the doorway, too wary to enter.

Lay the little one on the bed.

I stumbled toward them. Bed? It was a trough filled with thick loamy soil.

Lay the little one on the bed.

Confused, I hoisted Emily's body up and lay her down. Her hair was like strands of oily seaweed across her white face. Her lips blue and thin. Her ears like curls of camembert, so white and bloodless. And her eyelids were half-shut, her blank dead eyes staring at nothing.

'Please,' I said. 'I know you can do it. I know you brought me back to life. I know you helped my dad. You have to help her. I'll pay you. Whatever you want.'

Your debt has already been paid.

Again, I never saw their mouths move. 'Paid? Wotta ya mean?'

But they never answered.

One of the sisters took up a small trowel. It looked to have been sharpened as fine as a razor. She dragged Emily's tracksuit top up until her pale abdomen lay exposed. Without any warning at all the Charweed girl drew her arm back and drove the curved blade smack into Emily's stomach. I gulped in horror.

Emily didn't flinch. Didn't budge. She simply lay there like a shop mannequin while thick glistening blood pooled from the deep wound and gushed to the floor. I knew then she really was dead. I couldn't watch. Couldn't accept the gaping trowel-hole in her belly, her exposed yellow intestines.

The trowel was shoved in again and again. But not in a frenzied fashion. The Charweed girl was more like a gardener loosening top soil. Soon there was a hole dug out of Emily's belly; a hole big enough I could've fit my entire fist in it. I turned away and slumped faintly to the floor where all I could see was the edge of the trough and not the horror show that was going on up there.

That was me, I thought, out there on Strangler's Vale. That was me.

One of the Charweeds fetched a small bulb that had sprouted thin white branches. The infamous Dedhoryans. She wriggled the bulb down amidst the soft wet organs of Emily's belly.

Then they stitched her up.

Thing is, they kept working on her. I recalled the abominations they'd operated on, the day me and Mark spied on them last summer. The day they'd sewn the head of that fox onto the decapitated octopus. They'd buried the plant inside it. But then let it be to recuperate... reanimate. But they hadn't gone on working on it. Not like this. They'd let it be. Something was wrong here.

I stood. And shock ripped through me.

They'd stripped Emily completely naked, her tracksuit pants and top, her bra and undies tossed aside. Her small breasts were pale and deflated. The swatch of hair at her groin was matted and messy; pimply hair follicles stood out where she'd shaved her bikini line.

'What the hell are you doing?' I yelled. 'Put her clothes back on!'

They were laying small blue leaves across her skin. Starting at her forehead, layering her face and cheeks and then her neck and her tits and then her shoulders and arms and hips.

Had they done this to me? Stripped me bare on Strangler's Vale and decorated me in foliage. No. I'd had my clothes on. 'What are you doing?'

Little one is sick.

I glanced at them. 'Sick? She's dead!'

And yet... I thought I saw a faint pulse in her neck. 'Holy shit, is she breathing?'

Little one is sick.

'Bloody hell, she's breathing!' I moved around and smoothed the hair from Emily's face, a sweet surge of relief poured through me. 'Emily? Can you hear me?'

I eyed her closely...

'Is she alive? Have you done it? Have you saved her?'

Little one is sick.

That's all they said. That's all they kept saying. But I'd seen a pulse. I'm certain of it.

Yet her skin was stone cold. No breath came from her lips.

And yet... every now and then... I swear, a tiny pulse in her neck.

'But her pulse! Look, it's beating!' My eyes bulged at her ribs, her breasts—hoping for any sign of movement, any sign of respiration, no matter how small.

But there was nothing. I leaned down and put my ear to her lips and nostrils, closed my eyes... listening...

Nothing.

'But I saw it—'

They pushed me aside.

Little one is sick. Do not interfere!

'But—'

Some invisible force abruptly swept me across the greenhouse. I stumbled backwards and went from my feet, sprawling across the wooden floor. I rolled over, rattled, wondering what the fuck'd just hit me. One of those damn pitcher plants leered at me. I wiped my face and looked back at the witch girls.

Suspended from the ceiling was a long row of meat hooks. Hanging from these were spiralling seashells as long and narrow as pointed daggers. One of the girls began unhooking a bunch. Before I could stop her she stabbed one straight through Emily's face.

It was a horrible, sickening sound: Emily's cheek bone fracturing and caving in. Like jamming a railway spike through the carapace of a lobster. Another was stabbed into her throat accompanied by another horrific crunching sound as the bones in her neck shattered. Another into her sternum. One again through each of her thighs. Each time the terrible gritty sound of cracking bone.

'What the fuck are you doing?!' I roared, staggering to my feet. 'Leave her alone!'

It was clear what was happening. They'd been unable to return her to life. So, they'd turned the entire occasion into a twisted experiment.

I shouldn't have trusted them. I was a fool. I needed to get Emily out of there. I needed to get her to Dr Smith.

I rushed forward as the other girl began pouring a strange red liquid into the maw of each shell. All I could think of was that octopus-fox thing: it'd awoken like a fucking zombie. Full of madness. They were doing the same to Emily.

I crashed into them, barged them aside, knocked them flying like brittle bony monkeys. Only, I didn't seem to touch them. Instead I went sprawling across the gritty floor while they stood right where they were, unmoved. I landed heavily, knocking the sense out of me for a moment. When my sight returned the sisters loomed over me.

Little one is sick.

Black Gripe in her heart.

Little one gonna die

Lest we take her apart.

I sat up. 'No! Leave her alone, you've done enough!' I reached out for their ankles, hoping to pull them off their feet. But plant spores puffed into my face and when I looked up, the greenhouse roof melted down on me, molten green glass dripping through my eyes and burning holes out the back of my skull...

4

I awoke. Lying there looking at the greenhouse ceiling. It hadn't melted and caved in. I saw the morning sun peeking through the cloudy sky in long heavenly beams. I sat up. The first thing I saw was Emily on the trough. Naked and dead and destroyed.

I staggered to my feet. I wanted to grab her off the workbench. I had to get her out of there.

But the Charweeds stood there, shoulder to shoulder... watching me.

Little one lives.

I frowned at them. I'd been about to warn them to keep away. But when they said that I just frowned.

Little one lives.

There was colour back in Emily's face. More grey than pink. Except where her skin appeared to have absorbed the blue leaves. She looked tattooed. As if the leaves had sunk just beneath the outer layers of her skin. The seashells were still screwed into her body; the tops sheared off, flush with her skin now. The milk white orchid grew from her belly, already sending out thin weblike creepers that slowly traversed her belly, along her upper thighs, toward the mound of her vagina, over her breasts.

I couldn't look at it. It repulsed me. But I was captivated by the manic movement of her eyes... They zipped back and forth like small fish beneath the surface of a pond. But there was a steady pulse in her neck. I took her hand and pressed my fingers to the inside of her wrist. There seemed to be a slight beating resistance against my fingertips.

I put my head to her chest.

It was weak. But I could hear the faint thud of her heart beating.

I straightened, feeling elated and exhausted. I wanted to cry.

Little one lives. But little one gonna die.

I turned to the sisters. 'What?'

Little one touched by the Devil of the stream.

Little one gonna die five days to a week.

'But you brought her back to life!'

Little one struck by the curse of Dark Gripe.

Little one gonna die five days to the night.

I grabbed handfuls of my hair. 'I don't understand what you're saying. You brought her back to life. I don't understand.'

Little one struck down by the curse of Dark Gripe.

Little one'll rot in its godless black bite.

Strangeworld ways do nought for this girl.

Find remedy for Dark Sleep in Witching world.

I stared at them. 'Witching world?'

The cure for Gripe be known as Red Starlight,

Only in Forgotten can it be found.

Seek out this remedy, in the possession of Behemoths,

Not until then will her soul come unbound.

5

I charged out of there, Emily's body cradled in my arms. Scuppers lay at the doors. He sprang to his feet as I bolted by.

I dropped Emily into the rear seat of the Blue Wasp, Scuppers stood with his forepaws on the rear tyre, sniffing her, still wary about getting too near. I was in the driver's seat, snapping on the seat belt, clipping the two shoulder straps over my chest. I called Scuppers into my lap (he growled over my shoulder at Emily's limp form) and I pulled my phone to my ear. 'I hope you're happy with yourself, Jones! Thanks to you Emily's dead.'

'Dead?'

'Don't act so surprised. You sent her out to that slick to die. That's the only way you'd get us back to Forgotten. Now get that fucking Archway clear. I'll be there in ten minutes.'

RETURN TO FORGOTTEN

1

THE PROBLEM with rushing back to Forgottenworld at the last minute was I wasn't prepared. I'd packed a bag for Lambeth full of fucking condoms. But what I needed were the artefacts, the three segments of the key that activated the portal.

As I zoomed back to Burnchess with a tattooed, shelled Emily lolling about the back seat I knew I had to get back to the fucking Hare Of The Dog before anything else. But that meant passing through town with a dead girl slumped in the back seat. And how the fuck was I going to get up to my bedroom without leaving Emily alone for someone to find her?

The first thing was to get her covered up. I'd already managed to get most of her clothes back on. It'd been a bit of a trick with the Dedhoryans vine climbing all over. So I'd had to jam her bra in my jeans pocket with her glasses. And her top was just pulled down over her arms and torso.

As I sped back to town I had this plan to steal bedclothes off someone's washing line. You know, like they do in the movies. I'd cover Emily up and coast through town like nothing was amiss. I'd steer clear of Castle Grove of course. Too many nosy fools up that way. Too many curious tourists sticking their faces in shit they shouldn't be sticking their noses into. Besides, with the vehicle ban on Burnchess roads, some residents aren't very fond of that buggy. So, I'd skirt the southern end of Burnchess via Massacre Point and the church, I'd steer past the castle ruins. I'd find my way onto the southern edge of the Village Green through the lane near Kate's place. Coast up the Green toward the back of the Inn.

But then what?

Well, there was the shed. I'd have to stash Emily and the buggy inside and race upstairs for the keys.

2

I was soon nearing Biffon's farm, barely hearing the scoring wind as it buffeted my hair and tore at my ears. All I could think about was that strange shit the Charweeds said.

Little one struck by the curse of the Gripe

Little one gonna die five days to the night.

I pondered whether I should career left, head toward the homestead, see if the Biffons had any washing flapping on the line. Grab a bedsheet. Or a couple of towels. Hell, anything'd do. This was a farm. Surely there was all sorts of crap lying around.

But something else caught my eye.

The squat stone wall that divides Biffon's farm from the Howling runs almost to the cliffs. The public path linking the Village to the Howling runs between the cliffs and the southern boundary of the farm. And right there on the corner wall was one of the large Dead Man's Challenge flags whipping and snagging madly in the sea gusts. I spun the wheel and zoomed over. When I heeled the brake, Scuppers flung forward and I heard Emily thud into the roll bars behind me like a dead heavy sack. I winced and looked around just as her limp body slumped back into the bucket seat.

I studied her a moment. Fascinated and horrified. I couldn't get over how macabre she looked. Her eyes were again motionless and clouded over like poached eggs. Her grey skin covered in a patchwork of pale purple flowers. The ends of seashells were still embedded in various parts of her body creating great puncture wounds in her flesh. It looked unbearable. I grimaced and had to force my attention back to the flag.

I unclipped and hauled myself out of the buggy and scoured the property beyond the wall... had to make sure Biffon and his cohorts weren't out training, busting ram skulls or some shit. The field (the same one where we saw those slaughtered oinkers all those weeks ago) lay empty.

I didn't hang about. I snatched the flag from its mooring, tore it from its pole, and ditched the pole over the wall.

I draped the flag over Emily, tying the corners low on the roll bars, making certain the covering lay tight over Emily's form so nobody would see her. 'I gotta admit, Em,' I murmured as I worked, 'it's nice not to hear your damn whining voice. But I swear I'll get you outta this mess somehow.'

I stood there briefly contemplating my handiwork: this year's Challenge emblem, the double-faced man, gazed up at me from the surface of the flag.

3

As planned I came in via the southern end of Burnchess. I passed Massacre Point, rolled past the church, then the police station on the corner of Castle Grove. Passed the dusty castle ruins on my right.

I had to keep it slow. Five miles per hour limit inside village confines with motorbikes and the like. I just had to make it look as if I was Sunday driving, like I hadn't a damn care in the whole world. In reality I felt furtive and desperate, looking left and right, right and left—scoping the tourists on the castle ruins. Watching them sideways on the Grove.

I nodded at Sergeant Finch standing on the police station steps. She watched me slyly as I scooted along in that noisy buggy. I knew she was pondering whether or not the buggy qualified as a vehicle, whether or not such transport was amongst those banned within the confines of the village. (Like I said, there's been ongoing debate about that good old Blue Wasp, I assure you.)

But then... what if she wasn't thinking that at all? What if she was actually thinking, Hmm, what's that suspicious-looking lump young Jake's got tucked in the back of the Blue Wasp there?

I broke our gaze and kept pushing forward, told myself if I heard her calling me I'd pretend I never heard a thing. But I never heard her. And I never looked back.

I came up the lane between the small cluster of houses on the south-east corner of Burnchess (the only remaining inhabited houses in that quarter of Burnchess—the dwellings beyond those have long been condemned due to their proximity to the Drop Off and have subsequently been abandoned.) The lane consists of an old wall about waist high, lined with shrubs and arched hedgeways. Gardens there back onto the lane.

No one was about so I picked up the pace a bit... then went cold as stone when, ahead of me, Kate stepped through her garden gate into the lane. She looked mighty surprised. 'Oh, Jake. Hi,' she called above the din of the buggy's engine. 'Have you seen Emily?'

What was I going to say? Emily? Oh yeah, she's sort of dead in the back seat if ya wanna take a look.

Instead as I kept rolling and said, 'Sorry, what? Look, I can't stop, this thing'll stall and won't start again. I gotta get it to the shed. I'll see ya later.'

She looked puzzled but didn't argue.

4

I gathered speed on the Village Green. Glancing behind once or twice making sure Kate wasn't following, wasn't sprinting to catch me up. But she must've gone the other way. I couldn't see her.

There were tourists and their kids flipping a Frisbee. Another bunch were playing cricket. They all stopped to watch the 'amazing buggy' roll by. I didn't know it, but Emily's leg was dangling out the side. Didn't know it till I'd made it to the shed.

I was hauling open one of the large swing doors when I saw it. 'Holy shit!' I hurried back and shoved it in, hoping to hell none of those tourists had spotted it. Scuppers sniffed about the grass where Emily's toes'd been hanging. I quickly gunned the buggy into the shed and Scup followed me in and when I cut the engine I heard him growling.

'Come on, boy!' I ordered, dragging the door shut. Damn mutt wasn't even listening. And I had fucking tourists strolling over. No doubt they wanted a gander at the buggy. Maybe even a photo. 'Scuppers! Come on!' He was so distracted I had to yank him out by the collar. 'Hurry it up!'

I shut the door hard and Scuppers stood there outside the shed, barking his little hairy nuts off.

5

I pounded up the stairs, two at a time. I approached the second floor and misjudged a whole bunch. I came down hard on my guts, grazing my ribs, banging my shin. Pain zipped through me, making me want to throw up. Grimacing, I clambered to my feet, and limping, pressed on.

In my bedroom I didn't muck around. I dropped to my knees and dragged out the old toy chest from beneath the bed. I threw open the lid and upended everything onto the floor. The portal keys clattered out with everything else. I grabbed them, took my backpack filled with condoms off the bed, stashed the Scrivinas, the Crogen and the Veisder inside.

I got to my feet, slung the bag over my shoulder and dashed from my room.

6

I was in my own little world by the time I got back down stairs. I'd begun to seriously question what the hell I was doing. Logic kept telling me I should be taking Emily straight to Dr Smith. She had a pulse for fuck's sake. Maybe she was simply feeling a tad under the weather due to a bunch of wretched seashells jammed into her fucking flesh.

I strode through the main bar with its low moody ceiling. It was empty and dark that time of day, smelling faintly of stale beer and apple cider. Chairs sat upside down on tables. Stev, the cleaner, was pushing the Hoover back and forth. Above the faint whir you could hear bar staff stacking fridges, beer bottles tinkling, stocking up for the day's trade. I didn't look up. Didn't want eye contact with anyone.

I pushed into the beer garden; it'd begun to spit with rain. I wove through the empty tables, my mind troubled. So, what the hell do I do? Take her to old Smithy or what? Am I just overreacting here? But she wasn't breathing, Jake. You checked her damn pulse. Gave her CPR for fuck's sake. She didn't respond. She was dead.

I came round the end of the blackberry hedge, rain drops pattering my scalp and shoulders. And I stopped dead in my tracks.

The shed door was wide open. The light was on.

Someone was inside.

For a moment I thought the buggy was gone. But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I saw it still parked there just inside the door. And who should be standing there beside it? Louise. She was even reaching for the flag that concealed her daughter.

'Louise!'

She jumped, squealed and spun about. Saw it was me and looked relieved. 'Bloody hell, Jake, you'll give a woman heart failure if you're not careful.'

Scuppers sat there, still eyeing the buggy with suspicion. I went forward, the rain deafening on the roof of the shed as though a giant gorilla drummed it with its fists.

'You haven't seen Emily have you?' she asked.

'Emily?' I tried not to look so guilty. 'Um, no. I mean, I think she's out training. Her and Kate. A really long jog. I wouldn't expect she'll be back for hours.'

She watched me. Smiled suspiciously. 'What are you up to?'

I shrugged, dumping my bag on Emily's hidden form, hoping it'd conceal her a bit. But her hand flopped out the side. 'Shit... I mean, nothing.' I stood there trying to keep Emily's hand hidden behind my leg, hoping Louise wouldn't notice it.

But she looked more suspicious than ever. Scuppers sat there growling ever so slightly. Louise indicated the bag. I knew she was about to ask what I had in there so I quickly said, 'Me and Hayley are going to Lambeth for a couple of days.'

'In that thing?' She pointed at the Blue Wasp.

'Ah, yeah. Why not?' I reached over and started its motor; beyond the shed door the rain was now coming down in buckets. 'Anyway, look, I can't stand around and chat. Don't wanna keep Hayley waiting.'

She turned and studied the pooling clouds and heavy deluge. 'Well, do me a favour. If you see Emily on your way, tell her she best come and fetch her raincoat if she's going to be out in this sort of weather. Heaven forbid she gets pneumonia again. It'll be the death of her.'

'Um...' I swallowed. 'Of course. I'd hate for that to happen.' I turned and quickly kicked Emily's hand back under the flag. Louise gave the flag and the lump beneath it a real scrutinising eye.

'Jake, what on earth have you got under there?'

I pretended I hadn't heard, hastily climbing into the buggy and strapping myself in. Scuppers backed up as I reversed out of there, rain drummed into my scalp the moment I rolled from the shed. I shunted the shift to first and went to zoom away when I caught sight of Louise pointing at something on the ground. I hit the brakes, fearing Emily's leg must've flung loose again; but I saw my bag had simply tumbled free. Relieved I slotted the buggy into neutral and went to unclip my seat belt but Louise stepped over and picked it up. 'Eagerness may yet be the death of you, Jake,' she said and lumped the bag right on top of Emily.

I didn't hang around. I flicked the stick back to first, planted my foot and screeched up the Green with Scuppers chasing me for a little way, barking his little brain out.

7

I had no idea whether or not Jones'd managed to clear the Arch of tourists, but I drove on regardless through the tall sodden weeds by the derelict steam bus and zoomed past the barley mill from its eastern end. That's when I noticed the rain above the Archway. And the scene struck me as odd: the woodland of the Seven Ghosts was aglow with golden sunshine while the Archway had faded to a mere phantom beneath thick, torrential downpour—tourists were hurrying for cover in droves. And there was on other thing that struck me as odd? Constable Newson. While the tourists charged in the direction of the village he had his truncheon out and was wading into the woodland.

I ignored him (he and the tourists were out of the way at least) and I sped toward the Archway. As I neared the great monument, I squinted in the gushing shower at the sight of a rain-drenched figure beneath the structure.

Jones.

I hit the brakes about twenty metres out and skidded across the sodden cobblestones... pulling up just short of crashing through the gargoyle statue at the western end.

I sprang out and immediately dragged the 'keys' from my bag. Rain spat against my face. I lifted the Veisder mask to my eyes to locate the 'key hole'. Jones strolled over.

'Just bought us a few minutes' grace,' he said, gazing toward the Seven Ghosts. 'I told the copper I'd seen a tiger over yonder running off with a kid in its mouth.'

I sent him this look. If he was trying to be funny, I wasn't amused. I prodded the skull into the Arch as he peered beneath the sodden flag.

'My God.' He straightened. 'What the hell is this?'

I eyed him. 'Don't take me for an idiot, Jones! You know exactly what it is.' I shunted the mask over the skull, then the hand over the face. The fingers clicked, moved, curling about the Crogen skull thing. 'All I wanna know is this: can the Behemoths help her or not?'

'I don't know. You haven't told me what's become of her.'

I laughed. 'She fell into that fertiliser muck out at Sharkfin's. Just like you planned. She's struck down with that Dark poison.'

'Oh? But I didn't think the Dark put seashells into your flesh.'

'Look, all I wanna know is, can the Behemoth's save her?'

He watched me closely. 'If all she suffers is the effects of the Dark River then yes, if they get to her soon. But listen, you've got to hurry. Behemoth envoys arrived in Chessburn anticipating a meeting with both you and Emily but, seeing as you're both stubborn as mules, they've decided to ship out.'

'Great. That's all I need.' The neon blue words lit up. I turned the doorknob assembly until the finger clicked forward and pointed at CHESSBURN. The monument rumbled. I jumped back into the Blue Wasp. The engine was still idling. I shunted the stick forward, kicked down the gas pedal and the small angry engine growled as the rear tyres slid out behind me, propelling me in a tight arc around the outside of the Archway, spitting out small wet pebbles like bullets. The village swung around at my back and I straightened and gunned the buggy straight through the Arch...

...only to find myself still in my own time, still in my own world—no weird plants growing up the lampposts on Coddington Lane, no weird monkey creatures hiding in the treetops. And there went Newson deep into the Seven Ghosts looking for a cat that wasn't there.

I jammed on the brakes and just sat there in the idling buggy. What in the hell was wrong? I felt sheer panic blooming through my belly. Had the magic of the doorway packed it in? Was there no way back to that world?

I glanced over my shoulder, hoping Jones had an answer. But that's when I saw it: beyond the Archway, beyond the teeming rain, sat my village, Burnchess, with all its various ruins, and drab old cottages and shops and farmers dragging produce to the market.

But through the Arch, where no rain was falling, I saw gargantuan butterflies, and giant plants sprouting from the windows of cottages and inns, and further in the distance the castle loomed high on the cliffs, battlements reaching high into the sky, flags fluttering in the morning gusts. The Doorway had most certainly opened, I knew now. I must've simply passed through the Arch in the wrong direction.

I jammed the buggy into gear, pushed my foot on the gas pedal and as the little beast growled and its wheels picked up traction, I swung the steering wheel tight until I'd spun a full 180 degrees. Then I hit the brakes again and came to a skidding, rocking standstill, Emily shunting from side to side in the back seat, the motor grumbling, the rain still pelting my head.

Before me now stood the Archway. Beyond it, through it, lay that strange and unpredictable world.

'Bloody hell,' I murmured to the air, 'someone wish me luck.' I rammed my foot on the accelerator, and screeching like a Banshee I shot forward, zooming back into the land of Forgotten...

~ PART FOUR ~

THE BEHEMOTHS

THE CHASE

1

I'M NOT sure what the fuck I was expecting when I rolled back into Chessburn Village. Certainly not heralding trumpets and boisterous crowds to welcome my return... which there weren't anyway. But I guess at the very least I expected the Behemoths to be standing by with the Forgottenworld equivalent of an ambulance. Or a first aid station at least. Something, anything, to fix Emily.

But there was no such thing to be seen.

All I saw was that LanceAsh bloke astride his tall demonic Firecolt, with his sandy blonde hair fluttering in the wind and Slugg and Hawg, the gargoyles, standing beyond the Archway, diligently guarding the village gate.

I cut the engine and the Blue Wasp sputtered to dead silence and rolled to a standstill. The sky was overcast, I noticed, the air both warm and muggy. But it wasn't raining on this side.

LanceAsh slid off his steed and strode over. 'About blasted time!' he snapped. 'How is she?'

It was still raining on the Burnchess side of the portal. I could see it through the Arch. It was splatting into this world, wetting the cobbles. I jumped from the Wasp and grabbed the portal keys from the stonework. As I did, the doorway shut and my world vanished, the rain with it. I stuffed the keys into my backpack.

'Tell me,' LanceAsh growled, 'what has become of her?'

I was surprised by his tone of voice. Had Jones somehow told him of Emily's plight? 'Well, she's breathing,' I reported.

Without invitation he tore the flag from her. Leaned over her face, the sword on his back swaying heavily. 'By JennElise! What is this?'

His outburst had me worried. Had something gone wrong? Had the reanimation reversed? Was she dead all over again?

I leaned over her. There was no change as far as I could see. Emily was still ashen skinned with pale purple leaves floating in her skin. She still had those sea shells screwed into her flesh. The only real difference was the snaking white vine: it'd spread up her chest, worming its way toward her neck and shoulders. But she still breathed. That was the main thing.

'I found her by the Dark River,' I told him. 'I don't know if she touched it. She was dead before I got to her.'

'Bloody hell, we have precious little time.' He hefted Emily into his arms, carrying her to his steed, uttering that strange clicking language as he approached. 'Muxzhüm. Httukka tk tktkt.' The tall, ungodly beast bent forward like a camel, collapsing its eight legs, crouching so LanceAsh was able to hitch Emily's limp body into the long snake-skin saddle. 'Get aboard!' he commanded me as he strapped Emily in.

'But where's the Behemoths?' I asked, still looking about. I saw Chessburn Watchers and royal guardsmen strung out along the tops of the village wall, all of them packing mighty swords. But there was no sign of anyone else. No crowds of people hanging about staring at me. It was as if everyone had been ordered off the streets while this Charon threat hung over the region.

'Why, they have already flown! Apparently some of us cannot make a decision when one is pending.'

It took me a moment to realise this was a plain stab at me and Emily both for ignoring the scrolls. 'Yeah, okay I get it! What do we do?'

'Well, fortunately for you, the Behemoth envoys who came here to speak to you have gone only as far as Cahdrus, convening with the Gomm over this Charon business. I have posted them news of your arrival but I expect they are eager to get flying. Charon Skrargs have emerged on the northern borders of the Kalalushi Divide, the mountain range upon which the Behemoths dwell. As far as I have ascertained they are to depart Cahdrus within the hour. So if we are quick we might catch them.'

'So where's this Cahdrus then?'

He threw a thumb over his shoulder. 'Five miles that way. A fishing village nestled on the shores of what I believe you call Breathless Lake. But if we are going, let us be on our way!'

I glanced round at the buggy with one last moment of reservation. One last look at the Arch. Was I really doing the right thing here? Would Emily be better off with Dr Smith? Or better still, Lambeth hospital? Should I just get Emily back in the buggy and fuck off home?

I sighed. I was in two minds.

She was dead, Jake. Maybe for as much as an hour.

With that thought, I hoisted myself up and settled into the rear seat.

'Listen,' LanceAsh stressed. 'Muxzhüm is swift. We are not sight-seeing this morning. I am going to get the old boy up to top speed. Heed? That means dead fast. Now strap in. And hold on to Emily! We can't have her falling off!'

He took the front of the saddle, and climbed on as Muxzhüm rose to full dizzying height. Then he pulled his steed fully around and shouted, 'Muxzhüm! Gtt! Httuka! Gee up, boy!' And away we shot, galloping through the Archway in a blur, and thundering off into the wilds beyond.

2

A gush of adrenalin surged through me and I clutched the saddle for dear fucking life. It was just as well LanceAsh had belted Emily in because I couldn't hold her. I just thought I was going to die. That Firecolt animal literally ran as swift as the wind. We would've hit forty, perhaps as much as sixty miles an hour within seconds of leaving Chessburn. The world blurred by. I couldn't even take in the scenery. If it hadn't been for the leather straps around my waist I would've flown off and smashed my head into the cobblestones.

We were soon on the Lake Road, racing along between Witchthorn Wood with its tall bare green hillocks rising above the tree line like the shoulders of sleeping giants, and the towering wall of the stone maze.

I'd taken this road many times over the years. (As recently as the previous day, as a matter-of-fact, with Hayley, to go swimming.) But never in this realm of course. And even though I recognised some of the hillocks, the ancient stone road-markers, the larger, older trees, and the maze wall, most of it wasn't the same in the slightest.

Especially Witchthorn. Here it seemed more a teeming jungle than a silent airy pine forest. The undergrowth hung dark and shadowy, but areas where sunlight poked through were as colourful as sea coral and great masses of it pushed onto the cobblestone path. And above us the canopy grew high and knotted; some trees spiralling way out into the sky, ending in great canopies resembling umbrellas, while other trees were laden with giant horned flowers that hung out over the roadway above us.

The wildlife was equally as stunning: more of those killer monkey things, more of those flower birds; and small mammalian creatures that looked like crosses between pigmy deer and pigs; there were also snails as big as cars; and communities of small critters living in the pockmarked bark of thick boab-like trees; alien bugs; and shrubs that walked like Triffids. At one point we even came under siege by a bizarre tribe of four-legged beings, each of them no more than ten inches in height. They were like marmosets with bird legs. And they rushed out as we sped by, firing tiny crossbow bolts that were no bigger than pins.

The whole time, this jungle heaved with an animal racket as strange and as exotic as anything I've ever heard, unseen beasts twittering and squealing in the undergrowth. (If times hadn't been so urgent I would love to have stopped. Just to take it all in. To marvel at it all... provided something didn't fucking eat me, of course.)

'Tell me, lad,' LanceAsh called, 'who aided your sister? For Dark rivers will put the Charon death deep into your bones, but they will not jam shells into your flesh and tattoo you with leaves. And they certainly do not fill you with spores so that you sprout some ungodly plant.'

I bounced around so wildly I could hardly splutter a word. 'It w-was those Ch-Charweed w-witches.'

He fell silent a moment. Eventually I heard him say, 'You. Your father. Now Emily. This is a grave development as I see it.'

'A g-grave d-development? How? They d-damn well br-brought her b-back to life!'

He briefly turned his face over his shoulder at me, the scoring wind flapping his hair about. 'If magic has somehow been allowed to anchor and proliferate in Strangeworld, then believe me, Jake, it will have dire consequences.' He resumed riding. 'If the Charon gain a foothold there, it will be hell without end! Trust me.'

I watched him, envious how he looked so utterly at ease in the saddle as we sped on. The way someone does when they've ridden some maniac animal like that all their life, moving in perfect sync with it, even sword and scabbard bounced rhythmically... all to the beat of the Firecolt's vast strides. And there I was, bouncing about like a fucking lunatic.

'Look,' I yelled, 'c-can the Behemoths help her or-or not? The Charweeds cl-claim she's got five d-days to live.'

He glanced around at me. 'Five days?'

'Y-Yes. But can the Behemoths h-help her?'

'Of course they can,' he called. 'The Behemoths have developed remedies for most Charon poison. Yet I fear if she has touched the Dark River then she is inflicted with the Creeping Death. I do not wish to shatter your spirit, Jake, but in your world this is an ailment you call cancer.'

My skin turned instantly cold. CANCER? The very word itself felt like an oily maggot boring holes through my heart. 'Wh-what? Ca-cancer?' I could barely say it. 'Are y-you sure?'

'I am no physician, Jake, but if the remedy administered by the mysterious Charweed sisters was merely enough to return Emily to life but not cure her, then I fear it to be so. And if it is the Creeping Death she suffers, then I know of no such remedial medicine that will sustain a soul more than two days. Three at the most.'

'But they told me, five days.'

'Yes, I heard. All I can say is, perhaps the Charweeds have medicines and magic with which I am not familiar.'

My skin was still ice cold. Cancer? Old Deadblack? Back to haunt me. This wasn't happening. It wasn't fair. I wouldn't accept it. 'D-does this thing g-go any fa-faster?'

'I like your spirit, lad. Yah!' and LanceAsh kicked his heels hard into the Firecolt's ribs and somehow it picked up even more pace.

3

The scrappy shoulder of the untamed jungle cut away and we surged round that final bend where Breathless Lake opens out wide and sparkling. I spied a small settlement on the southern shoreline and then a tall monument in the lake's centre. But then north-west, on a distant hillock poking high above the hazy canopy of Witchthorn, I spied the shape of a gigantic creature. 'Ha! They await!' LanceAsh called elated, pointing at it. 'There! The Behemoth Deadhound.'

Like JennElise's Deadhound we'd seen all those weeks back, this thing was a massive brute. I could see small beings up on that hillock, and that great flying beast made them look like bugs at the foot of a dog.

But as LanceAsh changed direction, we came under attack.

It happened so quick that all I remember is, this handful of beings charging at us from the tall grass.

They came at us roaring. I think for a moment their charge spooked even the Firecolt, because the beast slowed and reared up in fright, squealing. But it turns out these critters didn't even stand as tall as the Firecolt's knees and I bet it could've stomped their squat fucking frames dead into the cobbles if it'd wanted.

'Muxzhüm!' LanceAsh yelled, 'K'hyttc! K'hyttc httucca!' and the Firecolt slowed down. Its piercing war cry petered out until it stood there grumbling and snorting in irritation, swishing its long whip-like tail back and forth.

The stubby beings surrounded us, spears poking upwards. 'S'luha tec! S'luha tec!' one of them yelled. 'Who goes there? What be your business?'

All of them stood no taller than baboons, but all were thickset with solid arms and muscular legs. Ugly too. They each had about four eyes arranged straight across their faces and thick scaly toad skin bunched around their jowls and necks. Each had a short double tail sticking out from the lower end of their spines. And each of them was decked out in thick, heavy armour and sturdy iron helmets.

'I fear your eyesight must be failing you, Xhed,' LanceAsh spat, keeping one eye on the hill and the Deadhound, 'if you cannot recognise the Chief Watcher of Chessburn.'

The one who'd called out, Xhed, a wrinkled old twat with scars cut across his skin, wore a three-horned helmet over his head. A visor hung across the top of his face but you could see his four keen eyes through vertical slits. He craned his head forward, his piercing gaze studying us carefully. 'That you, LanceAsh?'

'Well, it is certainly not his mother. Now, make way. We are on an urgent errand. As you can see, I have two humans with me. They have an audience with the Behemoths.'

This Xhed creature finally flipped up his visor. His four eyes cast suspiciously across me and Emily. 'The Behemoths?'

'Aye. I believe they are holding talks with your generals.' He pointed to the distant hillock where the towering Deadhound sat in the hazy morning sunshine.

'Brief talks... if you can call it that,' came the gruff voice. 'As you might know, there has been Charon mischief nearby this morning. Hence why we greet you so uncordially. And as you can clearly see, the Behemoths have lighted upon Rotting Tree Hill rather than risk landing in Cahdrus.'

'Well, allow us passage, friend,' LanceAsh ordered. 'This be for the sake of the realm!'

4

The charge through the woodlands was fast, blurred, and breakneck. I found out that Firecolts are not merely swift runners but, gifted with those giant monkey hands, they are also tremendous climbers.

It was obvious almost from the outset the leafy path to Rotting Tree Hill did not take a direct line. It bent due north for a mile or two and maybe further still before curving back westward in the direction of the hill. But LanceAsh, knowing we'd only eat up valuable time if we took that trail, opted to deviate and cut back on a more direct route. This took us off the path and due west, straight through the woods.

'Hold tight!' LanceAsh ordered as bunches of leaves and branches smacked me dead in the face. I had to lower my head to my chest for cover. When I looked up again, squinting, I saw we were fifteen, maybe twenty metres off the ground. I thought at first we were flying.

But the Firecolt was climbing—using the thick pine trunks to pull and propel its way through the woodland. Every now and then we'd reach a clearing and it'd leap high into the space above the trees, its long legs agile as a monkey's, zipping out in front of us, searching for suitable tree trunks to grip.

Then the forest would rush at us again and we'd plunge back into the cover of the woods, thick foliage once more whipping my face, splatting my head, stinging my ears, the whole plummeting sensation lifting my stomach into my throat.

This mode of travel was spectacular, but a damn sight more terrifying compared to the simple mind-rending dash we'd taken on the Lake Road. Here trees zipped by at a hell-bent pace. And one second we could be sailing through the canopy, and in the next drop several metres into the undergrowth. Continuously I'd find my belly stuffed up the back of my throat. And perhaps just as well for Emily that she was unconscious through it all, although several times I thought she was going to come loose and go sailing off into the trees.

'I just pray the Behemoths received my blasted message,' LanceAsh heaved.

I couldn't recall him sending any messages. But chances were they had, because the next time we crested the forest canopy there was a brief moment where I glimpsed the sunny bare hillock of Rotting Tree Hill, and the massive Deadhound was still there waiting.

Trouble is, when we scaled the next clearing and the Firecolt galloped up and over a smaller hillock, the Deadhound could be seen stretching its vast wings, as if preparing to take for the sky.

'Blast!' yelled LanceAsh. 'They are about to depart!'

We dived headlong into the woods again, LanceAsh yelling, 'Muxzhüm! Cht! Mh'Chtt! Faster now!'

My head flung back as the Firecolt found even more pace. I just knew I was going to hurtle off the back of it this time and smash my brains out all over the place. My hair gusted, wind roared in my ears. The earth was an utter blur, rising up, dropping quickly, sloshing my belly up my throat and down again. Trees swished past, ripping by like cars on a motorway.

The woods thinned. Another clearing. I managed to right myself. Caught sight of Rotting Tree Hill: sunny, green... but bare. No Deadhound.

It'd lifted into the sky, flapping its mighty wings, rapidly gaining altitude. I saw the enormous creatures astride its spine... riding it like a flying horse. My God, I thought. Is that a fucking Behemoth? It's a giant!

A strange horn suddenly sounded. I looked about, wondering what the hell it was. I saw LanceAsh with his lips pursed against the back of an elongated fish skull. From its black-fanged mouth came such a peculiar wailing noise it sounded like some animal howling.

Thing is, if LanceAsh was trying to hail the Behemoths it didn't work. They never turned. Their Deadhound pushed off rapidly into the sky and was gone.

5

Eventually we charged onto the table-top summit of Rotting Tree Hill and the Behemoth Deadhound could be seen vanishing into the white clouds. For a full minute LanceAsh went on blowing on his skull horn, sounding that dreamy, haunting cry. It must've carried as far back as Chessburn. But ultimately it proved useless.

'Blast this in the name of the Empress!' LanceAsh growled angrily. He tore something from the bandolier he wore about his torso. A small carved chunk of black rock carved in the shape of a dragon. (Amongst other things, his bandolier was segmented with a whole heap of them.) I watched him remove a metallic cap from its head. What looked to be blue flame ignited in its eyes. He whispered something to its face and a second later hurled it into the sky.

It tumbled end over end over end and simply plummeted in a downward arc toward the top of the hill... but then it jerked and jittered like an old engine spluttering to life. Its small wings suddenly flapped, but it fell again... maybe a metre... before its wings flared a second time and this time it took off into the atmosphere as swift as a rocket.

For the next minute LanceAsh said nothing. There were Gomm folk on the hill, sorting the supplies the Behemoths must've left. Work had ground to a halt at our arrival. Curious eyes trained in our direction. Did they wonder what the hell we were doing here? For all they knew we were been part of the Charon mischief. Either way, they looked puzzled at our dramatic and noisy entrance.

'At ease,' LanceAsh called to them. 'Watcher's business. At ease.' Again he turned his attention to the sky... waiting... for something.

I looked around. Wondering why we were hanging about. Shouldn't we be after the Deadhound? To our south-east I could make out the top of the maze—the outline of its endless twisting walls hanging there silently. Much closer, in the same direction, I could see the clearing of the lake, and further afield the Chess Stones of the distant Chessburn Village jutting proudly into the morning air like the tips of giant ivory salt-shakers.

Finally LanceAsh shook his head. 'Something is awry.' With that he dragged his colt around and took us back down the hill.

6

We tracked slowly through the woods back toward Cahdrus; the colt was sweating sheets, although merely trotting now, not racing; its hands swishing through leaf matter on the forest floor, still breathing hard through its nostrils. LanceAsh remained quiet, contemplative. He didn't speak for a good while. When he did it was, 'How is Emily?'

'She's still breathing.' But the white orchid was pushing the tips of its thin branches up into her mouth and nostrils now. Like living rice noodles. It repulsed me, the way it seemed to move, wormlike, invasive. I had an impulse to drag it off her but LanceAsh ordered me, 'Do not touch it! It is keeping her alive.'

'I'm not gonna touch it!'

'Well, refrain!'

'I'm not gonna touch it for fuck's sake!'

'Good!'

I watched the back of his head as we sauntered through the woods, I could've belted him one. But above anything else I just wanted to get a move on. 'What the hell are we doing anyway? Why aren't we going after the Behemoths?'

He laughed, looking around at me. 'And how do you propose we do that?'

'Oh, I don't know, genius! We're only on an animal that seems to run like fucking lightning!'

He smiled and shook his head. 'Firecolts are quick as you have witnessed. But you overestimate them.'

'Yeah? How?'

He turned away.

'Hey. Why do I overestimate them?' I asked again.

He sighed. 'Firecolts are like your cheetahs. They are blistering over short distance. Few land creatures in Forgotten can match them for pace. But a Deadhound in the air is a far swifter creature and we could not hope to outrun one, let alone keep up. It would require an animal of exceptional endurance.'

'And so that's it, we just give up, do we?'

He laughed again. 'Jake, it is not in my nature to give up.'

'What the hell are we doing then?'

He steered the Firecolt through a sunny glade, shaking his head while he did. Six-legged monkey creatures watched us from the treetops.

'Look, I just wanna get some place where we can help Emily. Is that okay, pal?'

He sighed. 'Jake, I am running options through my head. Now it would be beneficial for both of us if you would silence your tongue so that I can think.'

THE GOMM

1

IT TOOK little under ten minutes to get back to the lake. The woodland path came out on the north-eastern shore and as we emerged from the woods Xhed and his cohorts spotted us and strode over, Xhed calling, 'We watched your progress on the hill, LanceAsh. 'Twould appear your meeting never transpired.'

LanceAsh nodded, gazing briefly in the direction of the vanished Deadhound. 'Indeed. Either the Behemoths ignored the message I despatched via Stealthfalcon. Or perhaps matters are so pressing on the home front that they could not waste time with our guests from Strangeworld.'

Xhed looked very small way down there at ground level from my vantage atop the Firecolt. 'Or perhaps they did not receive your message,' he said.

LanceAsh looked intrigued. 'How so?'

Xhed held something aloft in his thick, gnarled hand. 'One of my troops found this.'

LanceAsh yipped, 'Muxzhüm. Httttukka tk tktkt,' and the Firecolt bent and lay down. Emily's dead weight shifted awkwardly. I gripped her as LanceAsh slid off and stepped up to Xhed, plucking the item from the squat creature's grip. The rest of the Gomm stood around staring up at Emily and me.

LanceAsh turned the item over in his fingers. 'Well, well! This is an interesting development. I would say we have a saboteur in our midst.' He glanced around at me. ''Twould appear some crafty soul does not wish you to reach the Behemoths.' He presented me the item in his grip, as if that explained everything.

It looked to be a mangled version of the stone dragon thing he'd plucked off his bandolier. The thing that'd turned bat-like and shot off into the sky after the Behemoth Deadhound.

'These are Stealthfalcons,' he tells me, 'a Watcher's messaging device. Much like your mobile phones, save the fancy buttons.' He turned it over in front of his eyes. 'I have despatched two of these this morning. One before you came through the Gate. The other, as you saw, on Rotting Tree Hill. If they had carried out their work unhindered they would have delivered my message of your late arrival directly to the Behemoths. Alas, someone or something has intercepted them.'

'So why would someone do that?'

'Perhaps they would see Emily dead. Or perhaps, it is something else equally as insidious. The Behemoth purpose down here was, as far as I could tell, to provide you with information on how to shut Warrior's Gate, thus preventing any further Charon infiltration into your world. I am uncertain why they did not simply pass the details onto me, but I guess they had good reason. I would infer from this that the information was particularly sensitive. So, in all likelihood whoever sabotaged this Stealthfalcon wishes you not to gain such information, and thus, for whatever reason, would wish to see Warrior's Gate remain open.'

I frowned, hearing this. Because immediately I thought of Goon.

'Believe it or not,' LanceAsh said, 'there are Charon sympathisers roaming Forgotten. Individuals who would see the downfall of Forgotten for their own twisted agendas.'

I said it then. 'Radford Goon.'

LanceAsh eyed me closely like he'd had the same thought.

2

Xhed promptly sent out scouts, despatching two trackers apiece to each corner of the compass. 'This wicked saboteur might still be hiding out there in the woods,' he growled at them. 'Find him and bring him in!' He turned to LanceAsh. 'I'm sorry for your misfortune. If he is out there he will be captured and interrogated.'

'Thank you, my friend,' LanceAsh said, and turned to briefly study Emily. 'Meanwhile, we must decide what we are to do with her.' He gazed thoughtfully across the lake. Out there, jutting from the lake's centre, proud and tall and glaring bone-white in the morning sunlight, stood a statue depicting a giant seahorse with mighty arms twisted together in battle with some sort of river serpent. A monument that certainly wasn't present in my world.

Beyond that, on the opposite bank, away from the main bulk of the village, stood a small collection of shacks. 'Jake, if we are to trust the Charweed girls at their word, then by what you have told me, Emily has five days at the most before she ultimately succumbs to the Charon cancer.' He ran a hand through his messy blonde hair and turned to face me. 'As I see it, the best option would be to fly to the Behemoths and hope they have the medicine Emily requires. Yet, the fact remains, we have no Deadhound in this region at our disposal. At least none that could be tamed and schooled in time.'

'What about the one we saw at the castle the other week?'

'The Royal Flier? Not a chance. For one, that particular skydog stays with the Empress at all times and is prepped to lug her at a moment's notice. And due to this looming Charon threat, JennElise has retreated to the safe confines of Grugnor, her hidden stone fort in Skärradness.' He fell into thought for a moment. Then said, 'Nonetheless, flying remains an option.'

'How?'

'Eight hours ride from here within the Western Core Lands, there is a town called Lusakah that overlooks the Great Valley. The Corades have tamed the giant Dragonflies of the plains. We might be able to hire a pilot. Get her to fly us north for Khemmerat. Such a flight will still take some two days. At the least. But it will give us ample time to fetch Emily the medicine she needs.'

'Khemmerat?' I asked.

'The mountain home of the Behemoths,' LanceAsh informed me. 'If we are to find help for Emily, I dare say, that is the place for us to be. For there remain no Behemoth outposts between here and there.'

Two days flight? I thought. It wasn't an ideal scenario by any means. I was meant to be taking Hayley to Lambeth later that morning. And how the hell would Dad react if I suddenly disappeared again?

'We've gotta go back,' I told him.

He looked confused. 'Back? Back where?'

'Burnchess?'

'What on earth for?'

'Well, I'll have to tell people I'll be gone. They'll be worried sick if I just drop off the map again. I've already done that once this summer. I'm gonna get my arse incinerated next time.'

'Jake, I am afraid there is no time. I am sorry. That is the fact of the matter.'

'No, I'm serious,' I told him. 'I have to go back and tell Dad.'

'Jake, it's not an option.'

'But the Charweeds told me five days. And you just said if we fly it'll take us only two days to reach the Behemoths. There's plenty of time.'

'Listen, there is still a chance to catch the Behemoths on our way to Lusakah,' he said.

'What do you mean?'

'I intend to keep dispatching Stealthfalcons in the hope that at least one gets through to those Behemoths who just flew from here. But if that fails then perhaps we can put some faith in the great surveillance towers of the Kalalushi Divide.'

'Surveillance towers? What the hell are they?'

'The Kalalushi Mountains divide Forgotten from the realms to the far north. It is from the top of the range that a group of powerful Behemoth telescopes scour the realms in all directions. If the telescopes are not under siege then the Behemoths are sure to notice us. If they do, then I am hopeful they will recognise who we are and post aid. But we must press north as soon as possible. We are many thousands of leagues from the great mountains, although the closer we are to the Divide the greater the chance we will have of being spotted by those manning the towers. And if we succeed in only alerting the Behemoths who just departed here, well if they indeed have pressing matters on the home front then I would wager they might rather not turn around and lose ground to meet with us, but instead may rendezvous with us in Lusakah. So, that means we must move. Now.'

Great, I thought, I'm really gonna have my balls nailed to the wall when we get back.

LanceAsh turned to Xhed. 'Xhed, tell me, do you still run your regional coach lines?'

Xhed shook his head. 'I'm sorry but we've put a temporary halt to the enterprise. They shan't be in operation until this Charon muck is cleared up.'

'Would you entertain putting on a special charter? I will pay well for the inconvenience.'

The Gomm shook his head. 'No! Payment is unnecessary. If this is an errand to rid us of the blasted Charon then we will play our part. Give me a Rook Caw. I'll have a bus ready to depart.' With that he turned away.

'Rook Caw?' I asked puzzled.

'A measure of time,' LanceAsh explained as Xhed moved off. 'In this instance it means our hosts shall have transport ready to go before we know it. Ordinarily though a rook caw can be anything over fifteen minutes. Unless it is before sunrise. Then a Caw can denote a full hour. Except on Sunderdays. Oh, and during the solstice. People seem to eat more eggs during the solstice.' He noted the frown in my brow. I hadn't a clue what the fuck he was talking about. 'Right, difficult to explain,' he said. 'I, ah, shall go and stock up on supplies.'

3

The bus terminal sat on the western side of the lake on a dusty stretch of land clustered with empty shacks and abandoned carts. It had the feel of a marketplace; much like our outdoor market in Burnchess. There were signs advertising weird milk products called Bovine-aid, and I was surprised to see an old grubby billboard for 7 Up. The place was otherwise deserted. Derelict. Xhed'd explained commerce was suffering as a result of the Charon presence. So is that why it all looked packed up?

I sat there waiting, testing my mobile phone for a signal. It hadn't occurred to me to contact home using my phone. But the idea'd just come to me. Ring dad and Hayley, tell them I'll just be out of town for a day or two. Not to worry about me or Emily.

There wasn't a signal.

Muxzhüm stood nearby, tethered to a hitching post, sniffing through the dirt for bugs or worms or whatever the hell it liked to stuff its face with. Emily simply lay there dead... Well, at least unconscious... or whatever state she was in. The Gomm who stood guard couldn't keep their beady little eyes off her.

The buses that LanceAsh had spoken about were real buses. That is to say they were from my world. Well, at least, as far as I could tell. They looked a bit ancient admittedly, and had probably been hanging around here since the 60s. But if you squinted you could've put them at the Plymouth Bus Depot on a Sunday afternoon when no one else is about except the lonely ghost wind whining about the weeds.

I watched as the Gomm prepped one of them for our journey. Wooden barrels were hoisted to the roof. Ale I assumed puzzled, or wine. These were followed by great hessian sacks. Say five or six of them. Attracting hundreds of hungry insects.

When they hitched up the bonnet I noticed a large vacant space where the engine should've sat. The Gomm hoisted sacks and crates of goods in there. This intrigued me. Where the hell was the engine?

Soon I heard a deep rumbling growl and looked around, and my skin crawled at the sight of a massive pair of beasts being lead across the dusty stretch. Prehistoric doglike creatures. Chunky, and muscular as Rottweilers... and about as big as the bus itself. And both in harnesses. I watched as the Gomm rigged them to an extended towing mechanism out the front of the bus. They gnashed rows of fangs at flies and snarled at each other.

It felt far longer than it was, but LanceAsh was gone no more than five or six minutes. Lost somewhere within the village of Cahdrus where Gomm folk went about their daily errands. Some ferried small coracles around canals that criss-crossed their clay hut settlement. Some sold items—food? clothes?—from shaded stalls. The settlement, with its tall bending trees, looked largely annexed from the land. If you'd flown over it from the air I bet it would've appeared to be stationed on a large island just off the shoreline. In my world, these were the ruins of some medieval settlement. And near the very spot where Hayley'd had her hand down my pants.

When he returned LanceAsh lugged a sack slung over his shoulder. As he reached me he indicated the bus. 'Right. Looks like we are set to depart.'

THE LONG DRIVE

1

THE INTERIOR of the bus was something unexpected. The windows were drawn open and wind wafted in but the guts of the thing'd been wrenched out. Long lounges lined either wall. So, you could actually stretch out if you wanted. Lie down. LanceAsh carried Emily on board and lay her on one of these seats.

He leaned out the window and spoke to Xhed who'd returned with news that scouts were still on the path for our saboteur. 'My thanks for your ongoing endeavour,' LanceAsh told him. 'And if I can impose on you once more, may I request that one of your men take word to the Watcher Alora, in Burnchess? Ride Muxzhüm, if you wish. As you know he is swift. The message for Alora is as follows: I need her to despatch two Stealthfalcons each hour to the Behemoths. I will do the same from this end. I have a hope that if we can saturate the skies, at least one Falcon will reach its intended destination to inform the Behemoths of our plight.' He shrugged. 'Surely our saboteur cannot intercept them all.'

2

We got rolling soon after and I simply gazed through the windscreen, watching the Dogs at work. LanceAsh called them Grimpalas. They were impressive beasts, 'driven' by some small Gomm bloke who steered them via a very lengthy set of reins; he sat there approximately where the driver would've sat in a regular bus back home.

With no grumbling engine the going was quiet, just the gush of wind through the open windows and the sound of tyres crunching across the terrain and the thud of Grimpala paws on the earth. Ten minutes out of Cahdrus we crossed a wide stone bridge over Hungerton Canal. Then made our way through the lower hillocks at the northern end of the Hidden Sea Hills. After that, our driver gave the Grimpalas a hefty whip of the reins and they responded by growling and picking up the pace. We sped through Lord Norman's Swamp and from then on I recognised no further features in the landscape...

3

That long day I witnessed great flocks of giant heron swooping in to land upon vast swamplands. And we drove through forests of black toadstools that stood bigger than the bus. Mid-morning we meandered across fields that contained hundreds of tall cones of rock that looked something like London city's bullet-shaped 'Erotic Gherkin'.

'Giant termite mounds,' LanceAsh explained. 'The termites who constructed them are long gone but what marvellous builders they were.'

Late morning we stopped at a place where an iron bridge spanned a deep meandering chasm. It was more a refuelling stop than anything: the barrels I'd watched being hoisted onto the roof were unhitched and tapped, and our two drays drank the things dry.

While we waited we left the bus to stretch our legs and enjoy the view. From one edge to the other, the chasm was about the width of a football pitch, and, along its base, lush spiky trees grew on the banks of a roaring, seething river. As I watched I noticed a band of humanoid critters hunting otters with slings, hurling slick white arrows into their bellies. (These arrows, LanceAsh claimed, were hewn from bone.) Above them, whirling and darting about the spray coming off the rapids, were clouds of blue bats. As we watched, movement caught my eye on the opposite wall. A skink as big as a car scampered up the jagged red rock, tearing into a mass of bats that'd only just perched there, gulping down a huge mouthful of them.

While we stood admiring this spectacle LanceAsh submitted another two Stealthfalcons into the sky... five minutes apart.

As I watched them zip off I wondered if they'd ever reach their target. I wondered how the hell Goon, if it was him, was intercepting them. And I wondered, if they did reach the Behemoths flying north from us, would it be enough to get the Behemoths to detour and meet us at this Lusakah place?

We returned to the bus. I was eager to get back on the road. Curious shy primate beings emerged from the surrounding scrubland. They stood taller than me, with barely an inch of fat to their lean, muscled frames. They looked predominantly female, dressed in scant outfits made of feathers and dried grass, revealing rows of small breasts that'd sprouted all the way down either edge of their bellies. They had the most extraordinarily odd faces; the immediate trait being that they had no noses... just four vertical slits. But I also noticed their eyes. They were bulging and spaced almost as wide as fish eyes with one eye possessing a second iris.

They approached the bus, hefting sacks, or hoisting woven baskets. They hawked foodstuffs through the open windows. Fried shrimp things on sticks. Crabs. Marinated fish. LanceAsh traded coppers for a small selection and when we got going again we sat on the floor of the bus eating a delicious lunch, and chatting. It was brilliant. Like a lazy Sunday morning at McDonalds. I hadn't expected to feel so relaxed; not with our predicament. But I studied Emily occasionally as we pushed onwards, and finally accepted the plant really was aiding her.

LanceAsh helped keep my mind elsewhere too. Distracting me with fantastic stories of peculiar forest dwelling folk of that region who rode on the backs of gigantic slugs. And sloth giants who were infested with parasites as big as dogs.

I munched down the delicious shrimp. Drank honeyed ale out of ceramic flagons—the Gomm seemed to have endless reserves of the stuff stashed on the bus. It went straight to my head and turned me giddy as a four year old on Christmas morning. I hardly cared. It pushed my concerns to the wind. I slurped it down and chewed the tasty barbecued meats, leaning through the window, gazing at the wild world rolling by, the wind playing through my hair.

The Gomm were curious about the headphones over my ears. So I unhitched them, yanked them out of my smart phone and jacked it up to the portable speakers, heaping up the volume. It was brilliant. Walking On A Dream by Empire Of The Sun filled the bus as we coasted along, and I saw the Gomm nodding their heads to the beat. I sucked in lungfuls of fresh dry air and, perhaps being slightly pissed, I caught myself thinking how lucky LanceAsh was to live in such a strange and wonderfully bizarre world.

4

Sometime later I asked him: 'How come this world seems to have so many relics from my world?' I'd spotted oil tankers rusting by the roadside with Caltex signs still visible on their flanks. And an old train locomotive buried in tall sweeping grass.

He was reclining on the lounge across the aisle; his sword and scabbard unhitched and lying loosely at his side. Sunshine beamed through the windows, catching his brow. Wind gusted his hair. We were coasting through thorny arid bushland. More than once I caught sight of communities of weird mammalian creatures (some in small mud-shack settlements) watching us roll by. It was sunny and hot and dusty. Outside, the branches of scrubby trees slapped at the bus. Leaves and small red moths tore free, flurrying inside, twirling wildly on the gusts. Some of the moths splattered like smashed raspberries against the inside walls of the bus and began to drip down in thick lumps. To my surprise, as I watched, they began to twine into thick crimson cacoons. Then hatched free in a matter of minutes, and suddenly we had about twenty caterpillars crawling about like mad. One by one wings exploded from their small wriggling bodies and they took to the air.

LanceAsh slugged more beer. Wiped his mouth with the inside of his wrist. 'Trade. Primarily.'

I thought it was going to be one of those occasions when he wouldn't elaborate. But he actually went on. 'Throughout history there have been numerous periods of trade between our worlds. The most recent of these taking place in the twentieth century. All the objects you have thus far witnessed came across from Strangeworld sometime between the 1920s and the 1960s. And thanks to your world's economic and industrial boom, it proved a most lucrative era until the Behemoths put a stop to it. Things began to run out of hand, you see, what with so many human traders crossing here without authorisation. And hordes of migrants vacating these fair lands of Forgotten to seek fortune in your world.

'This, of course, was in days when the Charon were barely a concern. Lying dormant as they had since the end of the Great War. But there were signs even then of that dark scourge stirring. So it was decided, for the sake of both worlds, that the portals between Strangeworld and Forgotten be shut for good.' He gazed through the windows, his left hand pillowed under the back of his head, his hair flurrying about. 'Sad in a way. It was quite a hoot those trading days, the strange treats your traders brought across from Strangeworld. Oh, the adventures I had.'

1960s? I thought. Interesting. LanceAsh looked no older than twenty-five. Was he suggesting he'd been there during those years? It made me ponder Mum's album; the photos of the so-called Crimson Wraith. The first time we'd ever met LanceAsh he'd been wearing that suit. (Or at least one like it.) That didn't mean he was the actual Crimson Wraith of the photos. At least not in the 1960s. And certainly not the 1920s.

Yet, with what he'd just told me... 'So how long have you been around?'

He supped beer and gazed out at the sky. I watched a wistful grin cross his face. 'Oh a little while.'

'I have photos of someone in that ghost suit you wear,' I declared. 'Dating back to 1927.'

'Is that so? Well, 1927 was a long time ago. If I was there, I must declare it is difficult to recollect. But if you are wondering, yes, I do remember all of the Mortifera that have come and gone.'

I watched him, wondering if he was bullshitting me. I guess it was possible. That he was telling the truth, I mean. Long life thanks to some magical enchantment? I'd seen some weird shit in this world already, so why not?

'So, my mum,' I said to him, 'you really knew her?'

Again, like I'd asked him during our first trip to this world, that wistful look in his eye. 'Oh yes, Jake. We had some wonderful times. Her and Liberty Sweetwater. Those were great days, you understand. Great days. Your mother was a fearless warrior.'

I laughed. I still couldn't picture it. 'My mum?'

'Indeed. Like yourself and Emily, she and Liberty, as per the Macellarius Prophecy, were summoned to fight off the Charon scourge. And to weed out Charon sympathisers. I must say, they took to it like ducks to water. Utter naturals they both were.'

'Really? My mum was out fighting and stuff?'

'Yes.'

'Seriously?'

He looked across at me. 'You seem surprised.'

'Well, it's my mum we're talking about. She baked my birthday cakes. She gave me plasters when I grazed my knees. She wasn't exactly known for beating up neighbourhood thugs.'

'Perhaps not in your world.'

'Can you tell me about those days? I'd really like to hear about them.'

'They are long tales, Jake. Full of high adventure.'

'We've got a long day ahead of us, haven't we?'

'Aye. We have. Very well.'

So he told me the tales. Things that took place before I was born. Some when I was a toddler. About mum and Liberty wielding those strange bone weapons, taking on all manner of foe. About laying siege to enemy castles, taking on great armies of monsters, commanding hundreds of soldiers across mighty battles. Outsmarting witches and warlocks, necromancers and demons. Freeing small folk and beings across the region from the tyranny of those who supported the Charon invasion. I wasn't surprised to hear Charlton Jones mentioned once or twice but I was surprised to hear Radford Goon.

'Goon?' I asked.

'Yes, he was once a great ally. Until he lost his daughter and things began to rot his mind.'

It was fascinating lying there across the seats listening to him recount these stories. It honestly warmed my heart. That mum'd been recognised for doing great deeds and helping people. That maybe even that day as I sat there in that Gomm bus, she was being remembered by folk whose lives she'd touched. For a little while it felt like she hadn't left me, that she was still alive some place. I felt I didn't miss her quite so bad as maybe I once had. Knowing she'd lived and done and seen more than most in her shortened life.

'Wow,' I said, 'I wish mum'd told me. I really wish I'd known. It sounds like she had the time of her life.'

'Indeed. But do not get me wrong. For maybe I have romanticised things a little too much. They were dark and perilous days, and any battle could have seen the end to any of us, as it did to so many others.'

I lay there thinking back to the images in mum's diary. I saw them as team photos now. The mighty Mortifera and the famous Crimson Wraith poised beneath the Archway (that Boneraker Gate) —photographs of the victorious. I thought of the Mortifera who'd come before mum and Liberty. I thought of all the battles and wars and deaths that must've scarred this land. I felt almost a pang of envy, of disappointment that the bone weapon hadn't responded to my touch. That I'd never have the chance to add my name to the honour board of heroes that'd come and gone here.

I sighed, my mind lingering on the image of mum and LanceAsh standing side by side beneath the Arch. After a while I asked, 'So that weird suit you wear. This Crimson Wraith suit. It lets you step into our world does it?'

He took a moment to answer. 'To a certain extent, aye it does. It allows the wearer to hover on the barrier between our worlds.'

'Hover?'

'Indeed. The wearer is not really there nor here. The wearer becomes simply a phantom.'

I watched him a little while. Then I gazed back out the windows watching the dry scrub roll by. 'So that was you that night in Emily's room?'

'Yes.'

'And at Staten's farm the day those tourists died?'

'Aye.'

'What were you doing?'

'The day those folk died on Sharkfin's farm I had to see both the dead and the dark river with my own eyes.'

'And in Emily's room?'

'That occasion I came to warn you two about Goon. I had evidence he was planning a burglary on Harry Staten's premises. We did not want the Crogen to fall into Goon's hands. Yet later that particular night I watched the theft take place right before my eyes.'

'You couldn't stop him?'

'Well, no. As I explained, the suit's operation is fairly basic. Only really allowing for rudimentary observation of one world from the other. I could not have physically intervened and stopped Goon from running off with that skull even if I had wanted to.'

'So, in Emily's room, you came to warn us?'

He nodded matter-of-factly.

'In a fucking monster suit?' I laughed, almost choking on my ale.

He shrugged. 'Well, yes.'

'Holy shit, do you know how much you spooked us that night?'

He contemplated this a moment or two, perhaps for the first time realising how terrifying that guise could be perceived. 'Yes. Actually I do apologise. Although, it must be said, it has served me well in the past. If I have had to use it to make some foray into your world then those who have spotted it have always fled, thus leaving me alone to conduct my work without scrutiny. But my intention was certainly not to frighten you both. Perhaps a reason why I fled in such haste, having spooked myself as much as I'd spooked you.' He grinned. 'The suit was the last of its kind when I came to purchase it. Perhaps next time I might seek a far less threatening choice of outfit before I buy.' He pondered things a moment or two. Then said, 'I suppose it could do with some wee adjustments in that regard.'

I laughed. 'Look, don't get me wrong, it looks pretty cool. But you come face to face with it at two in the bloody morning, then it's seriously enough to make you shit yourself!'

5

Lunchtime we refuelled again. This time at a so-called highway service station nestled against a ridge of rocky bluffs. In reality there was no highway and no real service station here. At least not in the sense I'm familiar with. The 'highway' was nothing but a seemingly endless dirt track cutting through the bush. And the 'service station' nothing more than a single wooden shack shaded from the hot sun by a rusty tin roof. I had my headphones hooked over my ears listening to Full Moon by the Black Ghosts as we pulled up in the shade. Emily still lay there unconscious. Her pale eyelids never shut. I had to keep swishing bugs out of the corners of her milky eyes.

Huge flies buzzed about, noisy and irritating in the still air. Flies like none I'd ever seen. Big as my fist, some bigger. LanceAsh told me they were known as Rat Flies. Weird things that procreated by injecting unfortunate rodents with a single larvae. Larvae that didn't simply hatch through the skin and fly off. These larvae became its host—at first tapping the rodent's blood stream for nutritional and oxygen requirements, and then sprouting insect legs and wings and bulbous eyes straight through the rat's tatty fur. And the rat would go on living for a time, unwittingly feeding its parasite until the 'fly' grew strong enough to assume control over motor functions. By then the rodent grew too weak and less in control of its own faculties, and its limbs would eventually wither from paralysis and lack of use and would, till the death of the 'fly', forever live in a ghastly vegetative existence.

The proprietor of the station was a funny-looking humanoid bloke who seemed strangely overjoyed to see us. Apparently the Rat Flies hadn't done his sanity any favours. In between showing off his five dusty shelves of goods (bragging such appetising foodstuff as canned meat from 1950s England; French pickled eggs dated 1947, and tinned New York Yankee Hotdogs) he'd screech and swing a flyswat the size of a shovel, succeeding mostly in bringing down his wares.

Behind the service station, stretching out towards the foot of the bluff, lay a fenced paddock. I was reminded of Farmer Biffon's farm. It was filled with some sort of livestock. Pig things with tusks. Pig things as large as cows. Some as large as African elephants. Swarms of Rat Flys hung over the flock. The pig beasts were continuously swatting them with their long, clumped tails.

Our two Grimpala watched this going on. Long ropes of drool swinging hungrily from their jowls. I would've liked to see them let loose in that paddock. But their hunger was seen to as the hessian sacks were hefted off the top of the bus and slashed open, perforating an inner rubber membrane. It was like opening the guts of a cow: raw meat and blood gushed into the dried grass. The dogs were commanded to eat. But they were hardly needed to be told.

6

We took a brief lunch out of the sun under a tall slim tree with a wide shading canopy that reminded me more of a toadstool than anything else. This was across the highway from the service station. The supplies LanceAsh had picked up in Cahdrus made good work down our throats. Honey-baked ham and thick crusty bread. Berries that looked like giant red oranges but with a juicy flesh that tasted something like watermelon.

The Gomm munched a strange concoction of salted lizard and spiced dried fruit mashed into paste. This was arranged over something I took to be rice. But LanceAsh informed me the stuff actually came from the faecal matter of lake crabs. 'Delicious though,' he promised.

I grimaced. 'No shit.'

It was bright and warm that day and the station proprietor, swishing away Rat Flies, came across to us carrying pitchers of mead, promising it to be the finest in these here parts. 'Perhaps in all the land,' he added proudly.

I've got to admit, it was mighty refreshing stuff... if you had a taste for cat shit. Because that's' how it tasted.

He stood there waiting for our verdict. Which made things right uncomfortable. LanceAsh tossed him a couple of coppers, telling him, 'Sir, may my tongue speak no more this minute if I have ever tasted mead more grand than this!' And LanceAsh sat in silence for at least the next sixty seconds. And although he smiled, the proprietor thought long and hard about exactly what LanceAsh'd said.

While we ate, lizards the length of my arm shuffled out of the tall grass, attracted by the aroma of our lunch. 'Your kind called them Centipede Dragons,' LanceAsh told me, and appropriately so, as the curious critters each bore a dozen pairs of legs. And when LanceAsh despatched another pair of Stealthfalcons into the sky there came an alarming whump-whump-whump noise from the dusty bush. I gulped and spun around in time to spot great clumps of giant butterflies fluttering gracefully from the undergrowth into the heavens.

7

We were on the road as soon as the Grimpala had refreshed and rested. Emily hadn't moved. I put my ear to her chest. I detected the sickly beat of her heart. The white vine seemed thicker down her throat now, stretching her lips back into an awful rictus. It made me queasy just looking at it.

The Gomm had refilled the water barrels using the 'service station' bowsers—water wells tapped into deep bores. LanceAsh explained that ordinarily it was Gomm custom to enjoy a long siesta after lunch. (A siesta that included large amounts of ale.) 'If we'd not been on an urgent errand,' he said quietly, 'we might very well have been laid up here until tomorrow morning!'

I slept an hour or two that afternoon as the bus rolled on. I ignored (as best I could) Emily's body rocking gently in the hammock near the front of the bus. We'd put her in there because the Gomm had this weird belief that if a sick body was moving it prolonged its life. At least with her there I didn't have to keep on preventing her rolling off her seat. And at the rear of the bus I stretched out across one of the lounges that ran below the windows. The wind gushed in and it felt cool and dry on my skin. I listened to My Delirium by Ladyhawke (one of Kate's favourite songs) and it made me think of her for a long while. Actually, it made me think how much Hayley had enchanted me lately. I wondered what she was doing right at that moment. Could she be looking for me, confused about our trip to Lambeth? I felt bad I hadn't even left her a message. And what about the others? Mark and Kate and Dad? Would there be Missing Persons posters up around Burnchess in a day or two featuring me and Emily's faces?

I sighed. It wasn't worth worrying about. But I checked my phone again for any chance of a signal. There was none.

I awoke sometime between 2 and 3 pm as we coasted by a large salt lake. LanceAsh pointed through the window. Bleary-eyed and yawning, I stuck my head out. There were packs of terrifying bird things that looked more like gigantic centipedes with wings.

'Cruuks,' LanceAsh informed me with his head jutting through the open window next to mine. He was grinning as wide as I'd ever seen him. 'They live in the clouds. You don't often see them this far north. They can track and kill almost anything that flies.'

'Even a Deadhound?'

'Even a Deadhound.' He shook his head. 'Wondrous things.'

It was just after 7 pm that we drove out of a series of hills, through a ridge and down onto a small plateau. The sun was still out, and ahead of us lay a large settlement sprawled along the rim of what looked to be an endless valley. LanceAsh climbed out of his seat and stretched his legs. Clinging to a handgrip in the ceiling for support he stooped and gazed through the window. 'At last,' he said tiredly. 'Lusakah'

LUSAKAH

1

LUSAKAH BRAGGED exotic crescent-shaped buildings that had been constructed along the cusp of the valley. I wondered whether or not they were expensive residential towers for rich fuckers, hosting grand views of the endless grassy plains. Further back, development looked more squat, more modest. These were smaller buildings, maybe two storeys high. Some still crescent-shaped. Others more sort of box-like and hard-edged. On the far outskirts, the town was dotted with shacks and half-dome yurts.

Aside from the settlement, the most spectacular sight was the majestic Dragonflies flitting across the vast valley floor. They had electric green bodies and tails ringed in bands of black and red. A couple dived-bombed the bus as we drew nearer the settlement. The action seemed to be more out of curiosity than anything malicious. But it made me gulp and retreat through the window, because the closer they swooped, the greater their immense size fell into perspective. They were gargantuan brutes, easily as long as our bus. And an alien chittering sound blurted through their mandibles as they swooped by, huge empty bulbous eyes watching us. The sound of their wings was surprisingly faint for their immense bulk, something like distant zinging chopper blades.

'Out there,' LanceAsh said, pointing across the valley floor that vanished out beyond the darkening horizon, 'are the Kitwei Plains, the vast realm of the Ilicas People. It is an ancient meteorite crater five hundred miles across. Enjoy the scenery now because if the Behemoths did not receive my correspondence then we shall be flying over it through the night, and come morning we will have reached the other side and you will not have seen a stitch of it.'

The crater looked nothing more than barren grasslands, dotted here and there by tall slender trees. In the distance a mysterious flock of stork-like animals grazed. And while the sight of the giant Dragonflies terrified me, somewhere inside I felt a wild sense of building excitement. The prospect of flying one of them across that vast expanse struck me with considerable awe.

2

LanceAsh thought it wise to keep me and Emily out of public view.

'In light of our potential saboteur,' he said, clipping scabbard and sword back across his spine, 'we must be wary. There may be spies waiting to spot your arrival. So, sit tight. I shall not be gone long, time enough to learn if the Behemoths are here, if they received word of our arrival. If they have not, then I will organise a prompt flight away from here with one of the many Dragonfly pilots. The Gomm will stand guard outside the bus. If you feel the need to alight and stretch your legs or enjoy the view of the crater, then wear this.' He tossed me a hooded cloak. 'And heed: do not wander off. While Lusakah remains predominantly civilised it must be remembered we are on the frontier of the Vast Wilds. Thus the settlement attracts many unsavoury characters. So, be sure to speak to no one. I will be back soon.'

3

I refused to stay in the bus after being cooped up in there all day. So I got off and sat on the lip of the crater, hood pulled low over my brow, Lusakah to my left, sprawled out along the rim. While I sat there the sun slowly crashed into the horizon and a full moon rose and (like it did back home) the summer twilight persisted for a good many hours. I lay there, watching those Dragonflies flit and dive across the valley. Stars began to light the heavens, and around me in the waving grass, strange alien bugs chirped and chittered.

We were some distance from the closest cluster of yurts. But there were beings over there assembled about small camp fires; ugly-looking gits with antenna sprouting out the sides of their heads. Aromas of wood smoke and cooking meat wafted on the breeze. When the Gomm unhitched our Grimpalas from their harnesses and allowed them to go off unrestrained, I thought it would end in some bloodbath. I thought the smell of roasting meats would be too unbearable for them. That they'd raid the knobs in those yurts.

Yet, those giant dogs did their business and returned to the bus, wrestling each other playfully, growling and biting. Then after a while one got bored and wandered off, sniffing its way toward those yurts. But the Gomm quickly whistled it back. And when it returned it was immediately disciplined with a studded whip. It was almost comical: this tiny Gomm... whipping hell out of a gargantuan dog that could've finished him off with a single bite. The Grimpala curled its tail between its legs and, whining, trotted back to the company of its sleeping mate.

There were many tracks meandering down into the valley, I noticed. Later, when the sun was finally seeping away, I watched groups of tall alien people hiking back up to the township with huge baskets strapped to their backs. What they carried inside I couldn't see. But I guessed it was some sort of produce, because they looked to me like workers returning from the fields.

It was round about then I noticed the Dragonfly numbers dwindle from the sky. I wondered if they were being hailed. Perhaps at last LanceAsh had gotten in touch with one of their 'pilots'. If so, that meant only one thing: the Behemoths hadn't touched down here. I sighed. It was another setback. I waited now for a Dragonfly to swoop down with LanceAsh on it saying some shit like, 'Right, let us away!'

But even two hours after sundown, with the moon casting a pale milky glow across the valley floor, LanceAsh had still not returned.

4

It was a few strokes after midnight when I lay down on one of the lounges inside the bus. I'd been trying my best to get some news from the Gomm about where the fuck LanceAsh was. I was growing anxious. Something'd happened to him; I could feel it. But their grasp of English was basic and the few words they attempted were about as coherent as a Friday night drunk spluttering on vomit. So, I gave up.

I'd retreated into the bus. As I lay there I listened to the night bugs skittering over the roof and around the rims of the open windows. The Gomm'd hung small cages from the ceiling. The dark made it difficult to see, but inside each cage hunched a grotesque little creature. Fat things, weird crosses between owls and toads, sitting there like small meditating humans, legs crossed, arms poised in their laps, with unblinking saucer-shaped eyes gazing into the dark. They were no more than a foot high, from arse to head. And they must've had some stench about their leathery skin, because sooner or later the bugs that came in through the windows fluttered toward those cages and that's where those toad creatures grabbed them through the cane bars and stuffed them into their mouths.

As I lay there a continuous sound of chomping, biting, chewing, burping noises came at me from the dark.

I checked on Emily. No change. A faint pulse still pumped in her neck. She was till inundated by the thin vines. Still dug with seashells. Nothing else. At one stage, I gazed deep into her eyes, wondering if she could see me. 'Emily?' I murmured. 'Emily, can you hear me?' Her eyeballs were unrecognisable. Both had turned almost entirely white now, covered in a thick milky membrane. And they never moved, never saw me.

I lay down exhausted. Trying not to think of the scurrying bugs. Or the wet munching sounds coming from inside the cages. Trying not to think of Emily. Or how long it'd be till she swallowed whatever medicine she needed to bring her back. I lay there gazing through the windows at the stars, listening to the faint conversation of the Gomm outside the bus. I longed for my bed at home. For the Inn.

I thought of Dad. And Louise. And Hayley. They must've been going out of their minds not knowing where the hell we were. I'd told Louise in the shed when she was standing beside the dune buggy that contained her dead daughter, that I was popping off to Lambeth with Hayley. By now they would've contacted Hayley; she would've told them she hadn't seen me. And Kate and Wankerson would've reported they hadn't seen Emily. Louise must've been tearing her hair out. Dad'd be rushing around organising search parties. Wasting people's time. There'd be village panic all over again; folks thinking we'd been snatched by another cat.

I smiled ironically at my lack of foresight. I hadn't even left a damn note. I could've spared one minute to tell Dad that me and Emily were heading for Plymouth or somewhere. Could've told him we'd be gone a day or two. He'd have been puzzled about me and Emily going off together but hell, at least it would've been something.

I tried my phone again, wishing for one small signal. But of course there was nothing. I wondered briefly about LanceAsh's Stealthfalcons. Could one possibly reach home? Still, even if it could, LanceAsh wasn't even here to dispense one.

I lay listening to the distant dreamy music coming out of Lusakah. As if the late night taverns were shifting into full swing, taverns that overlooked the moonlit valley, taverns filled with all manner of alien beings sinking suds till the early hours. My fear was this: that's where LanceAsh had ended up, in some fucking pub, chatting up some pilot, swooning her with drink and charm until she took him home to her bed, where they'd do the horizontal cha-cha till he sobered up sometime tomorrow morning in a pile of stinking vomit. I wondered whether or not I ought to sneak into town and track him down, tell the prick to pull up his pants and get us the fuck out of there.

THE ESCAPE

1

A LONG time later, I woke up. I was surprised to find myself back in my bedroom at the Inn. It was quiet. Cookie lay beside me, calmly licking the fur on her paw. I remember feeling nothing but relief. The sort of relief you feel when you wake out of some God-awful dream.

Someone knocked at my door. I wondered what time it was. I heard Emily's voice: 'Jake, wake up. We have got to get moving.'

What did she mean we had to get moving? She came into the room, began shaking me. 'Jake! Wake up! We have got to get moving! Now!'

I looked up at her. I was going to tell her to piss off, to let me sleep. But it wasn't her. It was LanceAsh. Leaning over me, shaking my shoulder.

'Come on, Jake! Come round! The Dragonflies are unable to take us. But I have found someone who can get us across the plains. We must hurry! There has been much trouble tonight. Come round now!'

I blinked. I recognised the faint interior of the Gomm bus. Beyond the open windows, stars twinkled in a cold dark universe and a chilled breeze licked about my neck. I swallowed. Bewildered. 'Wh... what? Where are we?'

He thrust something at me, a gourd of some sort. Steam wisped from its spout in the starlight. 'Drink some tea. It will help to wake you. Sit now.' He dragged me up by the elbow, jammed the gourd in my grip. 'Drink. Fetch your belongings. Meet me outside. Hurry.'

I watched him in the dark. Stepping across the wide aisle. Banging his head into one of those cages as he went. (The creature inside burped.) LanceAsh hefted Emily into his arms and was gone.

2

I came down the steps, my bag slung over my shoulder, looking about, trying to get my bearings. My watch read 4:34 am. The eastern horizon was a long thin arc of faint blue and before me the vast Kitwei Plains lay shrouded in a ghostly mist.

I heard LanceAsh's voice near the front of the bus: 'If our plan works they shall be coming straight after you. If they should catch you, you will be disembowelled before sunrise. So make haste!'

One of the Gomm laughed. 'We'll lead those craven dogs on a goose chase they won't quickly forget!'

(So, he can speak fucking English, I thought.) There must've been backslaps, or rugged handshakes, then LanceAsh again: 'Lads, I owe you much. When this is all over, I shall see you back at the Sleepy Slag. Ale is on me!'

I edged tiredly round the front fender, the chilly air coiling through my hair and ears. In the waning moonlight I watched the Gomm hastily harnessing the Grimpalas.

'What the hell's going on?' I asked tiredly, scratching my head.

LanceAsh's head snapped round at me. 'Good, you are awake. Follow me.' He took Emily's body off a bench and set off over the rim of the valley.

3

'What's going on?' I demanded, yawning, trailing tiredly behind him down one of those winding dirt tracks.

'Just hurry. We have barely a minute to spare!'

Behind us at the top of the ridge I heard the growl of the Grimpalas and then thundering footsteps as they galloped away, hauling Gomm and bus out of Lusakah. I thought we were being abandoned. 'What's happening? Where the hell are they going?'

'Keep your blasted voice down!'

Up the crest over my left shoulder I could see the looming towers of Lusakah; some windows still aglow with lamplight. The music had gone. The only sounds now were the night bugs in the thorny leafless shrubs and the cold ghost wind whispering up from the valley floor. Yellow-eyed reptilian people crouched in the grass thickets, watching us silently as we ran by.

I hitched my bag up my shoulder; hurried to catch LanceAsh. I kept looking back, seeing the pale path winding back up the grassy crater wall behind us. The wall appeared steeper from down here. As far as I could see there was no one on our tail.

'Would you just tell me what's going on?' I demanded, still trying to shake the sleep out of my skull. 'Where are the Behemoths?'

'They never arrived. I should have encrypted my messages. I was a blasted fool.'

'What are you talking about?'

'They knew of our arrival, Jake, long before we got here.'

'Who?'

'Our saboteurs,' he said without halting, without looking at me. 'I was followed. Through Lusakah. There has been great slaughter tonight.'

In the faint dawn light I saw his skin covered in slicks of blood. Yet he appeared uninjured. 'What are we doing?'

'I have bought us some time. We are getting out of here.'

My mind was a mad jumble. 'Did you find a pilot?'

He stopped and eyed me. Again I couldn't help noticing the blood on him. 'They are all dead, Jake. Our saboteur anticipated our move. He obliterated every one of them.'

Suddenly at the top of the ridge there came the thudding sound of many hooves. LanceAsh gazed keenly back along the trail. I followed his line of sight. You couldn't see them but you could hear them, feel them, great numbers of beasts thundering east in the direction of our bus. LanceAsh's mouth broke with a small grin. 'Ha! The fools trail the Gomm. We have had a small victory at last! Come!' He turned and continued lugging Emily along the trail.

'But that bus was our only means of transport!' I said, following him, trying to keep up.

'We have but one option left to us now, Jake. We must cross the Crater and make for the Behemoth realm.'

'But what about the bus?'

'Forget the blasted bus, Jake! No bus of the Gomm could hope to cross the vast plains of Kitwei. Out here there are no such things as service stations. The Grimpalas would perish in half a day. And to skirt the valley would add four days to our journey.'

'All right, so what the hell are we doing?'

'We are making the most of our decoy. Now shut your trap and run!'

4

We sped onto the base of the valley. A moist odour like jasmine wafted on the night breeze. The chirp of bugs had dimmed. There were other sounds now. Very faint, very distant. Like cackling monkeys. Cawing birds. The sounds of distant drums. LanceAsh halted briefly; Emily in his arms looking as heavy and cumbersome, like a giant sagging doll. Again he surveyed the way we'd come: the deserted winding track back up the valley wall.

Satisfied we were still alone he turned and continued on, following a rough dirt road; the pale-blue on the eastern horizon growing steadily. 'Keep to the path, Jake, we are in the realm of the Ilicas now. Do not stray into the grass.'

What the hell's in the grass? I expected to see small red eyes glaring up at me; things that wanted to eat out my brain or claw at my innards. I saw nothing of the sort. 'Are we planning to walk across this damn crater?'

'Do not be a fool!'

'What then?'

He pointed awkwardly as he cradled Emily. 'Ahead. See?'

As we hurried on I glimpsed a faint object some way distant in the early dawn light. At first I thought it was another yurt because it was dome shaped. But as we drew nearer it took on a whole new dimension.

A car.

And as we came closer still, I saw it more clearly: a white Volkswagen Beetle.

Behind us there came a screeching howl. LanceAsh stopped so abruptly I ran dead into him, embarrassingly slewing off his shoulder and staggering to keep my feet. When I regained my balance he was keenly scouring the way back toward Lusakah. Again I trailed his gaze.

Streaming down the dirt tracks were close to two dozen creatures. I couldn't tell what the hell they were. Not in the dark, not from our position. Except they sped like greyhounds, and as they reached the valley floor they fanned out, charging toward us.

'Blast this!' LanceAsh panted. 'We are in some serious peril now!'

'What are they?'

'Droags.' He grinned without taking his eye off them, a grin that wore more irony than humour. 'Attack dogs. Killers. Dark minions of Urkomenis. They are swift. On this terrain we will not outrun them. Nor outdrive them. Take Emily!' He lumped her body in my arms, her weight heaving the air from my lungs. 'Get her to the car!' Dragging an already bloodied sword from its scabbard, he looked beyond my shoulder. 'Vynka!' he called. 'We are about to have guests for breakfast!'

Vynka? As I swivelled toward the Volkswagen I caught sight of a woman striding toward us under the dawn sky.

She was tall (I'm talking eight to nine feet) and slender and beautiful, the faint pink sunrise tinting her features: smooth jaw line, straight nose, swishing long black hair. A clinging outfit pushed against her breasts and hips. As she passed me by, smelling faintly of flowers, I found myself fascinated not only by her height but by her glowing green eyes; they cast a faint green luminescence across the ground in front of her. 'By the Deepgarden,' she breathed heavily. 'What now?'

'Get moving, Jake!' LanceAsh ordered me, turning to face the stampeding beasts. He twirled his sword in his wrist, spinning it like a wagon wheel, psyching himself for battle. When he glanced over his shoulder and saw I still hadn't moved he yelled, 'For the sake of the Empress, Jake, get to the bloody car!'

We were maybe twenty-five, thirty metres from the vehicle. Emily wasn't an easy load to lug. LanceAsh had done a bloody fine job hefting her this far. As I struggled with her toward the VW I heard those Droags, their thunderous stampede growing louder and louder.

I finally got Emily to the Beetle, shoved her inside (not very elegantly) and slammed the doors shut. Then I just stood there beside the car wondering what the fuck I should be doing. Was I expected to help fend off those creatures? Grab a stick or a rock or something? Yell some harsh words?

They rushed closer and closer, sprinting madly across the earth, snarling, gnashing fangs. I could see them more clearly now in the growing dawn. They were ferocious-looking things, all of them bragging swollen, unblinking fish-eyes, and jaws lined with needles, and bodies striped black and white. They were like moray eels with legs.

LanceAsh dug his heels into the earth, poised fearless and warrior like. The tall girl, Vonka or whatever he'd called her, unleashed a pair of whips that'd been coiled at her hips. She wielded one in each hand, lashing the silent morning air with them—they rang and zinged like blades.

'Ah, excuse me, LanceAsh,' I called. 'You need me to do anything?'

He glanced around with a flabbergasted look on his face. 'For the life of the Empress, get into the blasted car and lock the bloody doors!'

I didn't argue, yanking the car open, clambering over Emily, dragging the door shut behind me, pushing down the buttons on both sides. I envied Emily right then. If we were doomed, if we perished, she was going to die without knowing it, without the fucking terror.

I crawled onto the back seat just in time to witness those Droags plough headlong into LanceAsh and that weird-looking woman.

5

The Droag attack was fearsome, terrifying, relentless. They screeched headlong into battle like manic, rabid dogs. Almost straightaway I lost LanceAsh in the stampede: I heard him roar some sort of battle cry, saw his sword flail once as those things closed in, watched it cut seamlessly through a skull... and then amidst the flurry of dust and bodies... he was gone.

I kept myself low, out of sight, just my eyes above the rim of the rear window. When LanceAsh went down it was only a second after that I lost sight of the woman, sucked down into the fray, lost in the dawn gloom and the billowing dust cloud and the mass of writhing critters.

I knew our goose was cooked. In a mere matter of seconds our entire offensive had gone to shit. Those animals, simple, relentless pack beasts, were wolves tearing into sheep. It was nothing but a feeding frenzy out there. LanceAsh and his girl were being minced somewhere under all those ravenous bodies and all I knew was I had to get out of there. If I didn't act, those things were going to find me and Emily, smash their way into the VW. Drag us out. Tear us open across the valley floor, make us look like ruptured bags of spaghetti bolognaise. I had to get the car started.

I leapt into the driver's seat. But the ignition port was empty. Every movie I've ever watched told me now all I had to do was simply hot wire it and we were away. But how the fuck did you hotwire a car?

Shit! What the hell should I do?!

I spun about, wondering how long I had. The critters were still finishing off LanceAsh and that Vynka chick; two virtual strangers who'd put their lives on the line for us. Now they were gone.

I kicked open the driver's side door. I had to get Emily out, pull her into the grass, drag her away while those things were distracted. Maybe I could get her up the valley wall somewhere without being seen. Maybe we could run off and hide. A slim chance yes, but I had to do something.

I looked back one last time as I heaved Emily into my arms and was just about to haul her out when I saw the most bizarre thing.

Vynka. She'd been sliced completely in half... slit from head to groin. (The sight churned my belly, making me think of Morton, his empty rib cage.) But the thing that made me freeze was not the carnage... but her. Both her halves were still moving.

The sight made me sick at first. Her dying nerve endings making her limbs twitch. But as I watched, one of her halves sprung up and skittered off on hand and foot.

I gulped.

It clambered sideways like a crab for about ten metres. It was still wielding one of the whips. Then it sprung high into the air almost ghostlike, slashing its whip in a vicious downward movement. It cleaved the heads from three of those Droags.

Blood, dark as oil, gushed into the cool morning air. Droag squeals, like steam whistles, cut across the valley, lifting the hair on the back of my neck.

The second half of Vynka's body moved then, 'crabbing' in the other direction, slashing the second whip, cutting through another three or four of those beasts.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Even now I'm still unsure it really ever happened. It was so dark, so gloomy... the whole battle scene murky as hell. And then I spotted LanceAsh. Some way distant. He must've been dragged or hurled. Or maybe he'd actually drawn the Droags further from the car. But he was about four tennis court lengths west still fighting, still slashing, still cutting and parrying.

Vynka cleaned out the Droags from her immediate vicinity before her two halves crabbed off after the rest.

I watched them fight, LanceAsh, and Vynka's mysterious portions. Watched them clamber and roll, swinging their weapons into those creatures, carving them up, dicing body parts left, right and centre. I heard squeals and slashing metal and Vynka's whips zinging like wasps...

Until eventually the last Droag was cut down... and all fell silent.

6

The first rays of sunlight cracked the horizon and crept softly across the valley floor. It was almost 5 am. I watched the dust settling, watched LanceAsh and Vynka hastily returning to the car. There were no victory high-fives, no backslapping. Behind them, dying Droags twitched in the grass, howling weakly. A sorry sight if I ever saw one.

Vynka was whole again. I eyed her all the way back, intrigued, suspicious. Her whips again were but coiled hoops strapped to either hip. She was busy tidying her long hair, pulling the lot of it together with a headscarf.

LanceAsh bore several shallow gashes down his arms, scratches across his cheeks and brow; blood smudged his skin and dripped from his elbows. 'Jake,' he says out of breath, 'are you both okay?'

I shrugged, still stunned. 'Yeah.'

I stared at his wounds but he waved them off like they were mere paper cuts. 'A consequence of battle,' he declared with a proud, almost humorous grimace. 'Minor flesh wounds.'

'I have aid in the carriage,' Vynka said, pulling up the boot lid at the front of the car. She wouldn't look at me. Her eyes weren't glowing anymore. 'Take what you need.'

She tossed LanceAsh a small moleskin satchel and her face turned momentarily into the apricot sunlight, and I saw for the first time a floral emblem tattooed high on the bridge of her nose, spreading out across the lower half of her brow. Leaf-vein designs. Printed also high on her cheeks and drawn up to the outside corners of both eyes. It made her look even more exotic.

'Jake, this is Vynka,' LanceAsh said, still out of breath, pulling vials of ointment from the satchel.

A tall woman as I said. Easily head and shoulders over me. Easily. Taller than LanceAsh too.

'Vynka—Jake, and his sister Emily, from Strangeworld,' he told her.

'Stepsister,' I said, but she ignored me, turning instead toward Lusakah, holding a strange contraption to her eye, something she'd plucked from the boot; a long telescope split into two viewfinders, shaped somewhat like bull horns.

I couldn't tell what she was studying. The crater wall was still mostly cast in night shadow. She handed LanceAsh the telescope. 'Your saboteur indeed fell for your bait,' she told him. 'My guess is, however, the Droags were his contingency. Possibly hired a local to despatch them. That soul watches us still.'

LanceAsh took the eyepiece and gazed keenly at the ridge of the valley wall. All I could see was some indistinct figure standing way back there watching us—one of those tall alien beings I'd seen yesterday evening hiking back up the sloping crater wall.

LanceAsh gave Vynka back her telescope; still she kept her back to me.

'Let us make haste then,' LanceAsh urged. 'Once our saboteur discovers he has been duped he shall turn all his minions against us. And we will not want to be present once they come charging over that ridge.'

7

LanceAsh helped me heft Emily onto the back seat where there was more room for her. I clambered in beside her. Vynka squeezed her tall form behind the wheel and turned the engine over. She crunched the VW into gear just as LanceAsh slid himself into the passenger seat. With one final look at Lusakah, Vynka put her foot down and we zoomed off into the vast Kitwei Plains.

THE KITWEI PLAINS

1

WE COVERED leagues that long day, following a narrow dirt road LanceAsh called the Trans-Kitwei track—nothing more than a rutted trail that cut north-south endlessly through empty grasslands. Initially the flatness broke with a series of low hills. Or giant granite boulders. But such things proved sparse and once we'd been gone for an hour or two they proved non-existent. With no change in the landscape I took to watching a massive anvil-shaped storm cloud blotted against the western horizon. Beneath it, raking the valley floor, the blue-grey wash of heavy rain.

Then the spectacle passed into the great nothingness behind us.

The whole time, Vynka kept her foot planted. She wasn't kind to that old car, making it work hard to get us the speed we needed. She'd continuously monitor the way behind us too, through the rear-vision mirror. When I looked I found just the settling dust kicked up by our tyres and beyond that... nothing but the green plain and far blue sky.

'They following us?' I asked. 'Whoever this saboteur is.'

She took more than a moment to reply. When she did she said, 'There is no evidence yet. But you can bet, sooner or later, they'll come after us.'

LanceAsh tended to his wounds. But any cuts and scratches Vynka might've sustained seemed to absorb into her skin. I found my eyes kept wandering to her. There was something odd about her. I couldn't pick it. I kept remembering how she'd split in two, battling those Droags. Must've been some sort of magic, I thought.

Once, after I'd been staring at her for a few minutes, my eyes switched to the rear-vision mirror and her piercing eyes were glaring at me. My skin went cold and I looked away.

2

Mid-morning we stopped briefly to re-fuel. As LanceAsh had warned, we'd passed no service stations; passed no signs of civilisation of any sort, for that matter. This was a startlingly barren wilderness like I'd never known. From horizon to horizon it was flat and featureless, shrubby grass stretching off in every direction. Vynka carried all the fuel that would see us across the valley: several barrels of foul-smelling liquid tucked into the roof rack.

Emily remained slumped on the back seat, her cloudy eyes like eyes of the dead. Never any different. Two little horror shows to look at. Nothing more.

I stood outside the vehicle watching LanceAsh. He'd tapped one of the barrels and wound a hand crank, pumping fuel through a transparent pipe into the car's fuel tank. I asked how the hell they got hold of petrol in this world.

'Petrol?' he said. 'This is not petrol, Jake.'

I tapped the roof. 'But this car's from my world. That's what these old rust buckets drink.'

He smiled, the sun glare full on his face. 'Any Strangeworld vehicles still operational in Forgotten have had their engines modified. Most, like this one, now run exclusively on Lepid Oil. An expensive substance derived from fermented Lexias Marpesia. A gargantuan butterfly common in this realm.'

It did have an organic stench now that I thought about it. Like something decomposing in a bog. 'So why don't the Gomm use it in their buses?'

'Grimpalas are far cheaper.'

I listened to the distant sounds of plains birds. There was a faint smell of smoke on the breeze. Again it occurred to me that I'd never stood in a place more isolated and desolate. It was unnerving.

Vynka stood a little way back down the road, surveying the way we'd travelled. Again there was no one back there behind us that I could see. Not with the naked eye anyway. LanceAsh screwed the stopper back into the wooden barrel just as Vynka strode back to the car. 'What do you see?' he asked her.

'Aye. They trail us.' She handed him her telescope.

He took the eyepiece. And the three of us stood there gazing southward. No matter how hard I squinted I couldn't see even a small glimmer of movement in the far distance. So what were they looking at? Something beyond the horizon? Did that telescope have some ability that could make you see that far?

'Do you see them?' Vynka asked LanceAsh.

I looked at her as she spoke. I meant to ask, 'Who are they?' But when I caught sight of her face in the full glare of the morning sun I forgot what I was about to say. It was the first time I noticed what the hell was wrong with her.

Her head was cut in two. An actual split ran down the centre of her face. It seemed so obvious now, so visible I wondered why I hadn't noticed earlier. Her outfit consisted of thin leather armour, and that deep conspicuous groove ran all the way up her belly, up her torso like a horrific old scar. It continued up her throat and through her chin, curving left around the side of her mouth and then straight up the right side of her nose and finally gouging a trough straight up her brow. Most of her head was concealed by her hair but the cleft was still visible over the crown of her skull.

Now I also saw how she held herself together. She was clasped as one by thick leather belts. One trussed around her waist. Another, like a corset, beneath her mismatched breasts. And one around the top of her neck, like a choker. She also wore an exotic headband, beaded with small gems, sitting high on her forehead—I assume it was there for the same purpose.

The whole look of her spooked me now. Earlier, in the half-light of dawn I'd seen someone beautiful, captivating. But really, she was a horrific-looking thing: a weird conglomeration of two entirely separate women—two halves of separate women actually, held together by nothing more than leather strapping. How she lived and breathed and ate was an utter mystery.

LanceAsh studied the southern horizon through the telescope. Vynka stood with her back to me. 'I don't mind people staring,' I heard her say. 'But I suggest you get used to my appearance. Fast. We have a long way to travel together. I won't tolerate close scrutiny for long.'

It took me a second or two to realise it was me she was talking to. 'I-I'm sorry. I-I've just never seen anyone like you before.'

She ignored me. Turned to LanceAsh. 'Tell me what you see.'

He contemplated the track winding south. He handed the telescope back to her. 'As you reported. He follows.'

I watched his face. 'Who is it?'

'Our saboteur.'

'Who is he? Do you know him?'

LanceAsh wouldn't say.

'Is it Goon?' I asked again.

He didn't reply.

'Is it Goon?' I asked again. 'Should we stop and face him?'

He laughed. 'If our time was not so precious, Jake, that idea would be folly enough. The toad minions of Urkomenis sprint at his side. And I assure you, they are not like taking on a dozen Droags. They will poison the life from the three of us in seconds no matter what sort of fight we meet them with. No, we must simply stay ahead of them. If they catch us, we die. Simple.'

3

We sped onwards across the wilds, Emily still in her coma, LanceAsh keeping his thoughts to himself. He passed round gourds of water. Then dried meat. Vynka never ate. Nor drank.

I ate, gazing out at the endless hazy nothingness. All morning LanceAsh avoided my questions about what'd happened the night before. If it was Goon trailing us. He sat and brooded and I was convinced he was pissed off with me. I could only think of one reason why: perhaps if me and Emily hadn't fannied about and met the Behemoths in Chessburn when they'd asked, then all this trouble might've been avoided. Maybe that's what was eating him.

We stopped at midday. I'd been harping on about needing a piss. Vynka pulled up near a small copse of trees; one of the few landmarks to appear that long day. When she cut the engine my ears rang in the silence.

I left the car. A warm, dry breeze whispered through my hair, rustling the sleeves of my shirt. Actually I needed more than just to empty my bladder, it turns out. 'You have any toilet paper?' I asked them.

'What is toy lit paper?' Vynka asked.

'Those trees,' LanceAsh said to me, 'are Tirumala. Their fruit is filled with water. They will suffice.' As I left he tossed me a small pitchfork that'd been strapped to the roof rack. 'Be reminded, these are the lands of the Ilicas. We must be respectful. Bury all waste. And be mindful of the storks.'

As I crouched in the deep noonday shade of those strange Tirumala trees (trees which looked more like giant flowers, their enormous dull purple petals drooping outwards like a zillion helicopter blades) I watched the red-headed, black-bodied storks. Each of them stood as tall as doorways, grazing in a small flock of six or seven, about thirty metres away. They didn't seem to give a toss we were this close. Maybe because we posed no threat. If anything, they perhaps posed a threat to us, so fierce looking and tall they all were. I watched, fascinated, as they plucked small critters from the grass, critters that squealed and wailed and kicked up a damn good fuss as they were swallowed alive.

The storks worked their way slowly west, away from us. I turned my attention back to the car. LanceAsh and Vynka chatted softly. They were on the opposite side of the VW, Vynka again with that telescope to her eye. I could see her mouth moving. The plains breeze whistled through the trees (an eerie, lonely sound). It meant I couldn't hear a word she spoke. She passed the telescope to LanceAsh. As I finished my business I eyed the southern horizon. Again, nothing there.

Following LanceAsh's instructions I plucked a handful of fruit. They grew in small blue bulbs directly from the rough grey bark. As they broke away they oozed out a cool, slightly perfumed, gel-like substance. But I got a fright when I noticed eyes dotted in the bark of the tree; snapping open as I snipped off the fruit, watching me like animals that'd been startled. Until this day I don't actually believe it was the trees themselves that bore eyes. I'm convinced they were paper-thin beings pancaked against the bark in order to camouflage themselves due to our presence. Whatever they were, they startled me. And I washed up quickly, kicked dirt into the small hole I'd dug and got some distance between me and their staring eyes. I rinsed my hands in the fruit and returned to the VW with my arse nice and cleansed but somewhat damp.

Both LanceAsh and Vynka fell silent as soon as I got back. I blinked at them both. I had been going to say Thanks for warning me about my audience but I was suddenly suspicious about their immediate silence. What had they been discussing? What didn't they want me to hear?

'What's up?' I asked, but Vynka was slipping back into the driver's seat, engine grumbling.

She says, 'We can wait no longer.'

4

We drove on through that long hot afternoon. I played tracks loud in the car like No one Knows by Asa, and I Love It by Hilltop Hoods and Sia. LanceAsh shared with me a lunch of cheese, bread, berries, spiced salamander. Again he made idle references to the Ilicas, how they were spread far and wide across this valley, numerous clan groups, numerous language groups. But who the hell were they? What the hell did they look like? Where the hell were they? I'd spotted not a single dwelling, not a single settlement. If they were the people of the plains then where the hell were they hiding? Were they what I'd witnessed pressed against the trees during my toilet break? When I asked him, he'd dozed off. And Vynka never bothered speaking to me.

Emily's condition hadn't changed. I began to wonder if she'd ever wake up. Or if she'd perish through dehydration. Malnutrition. It threw me back to Strangler's Vale. Had I lain motionless for this long? Without food or water. They'd told me I'd been missing for three days. Say that was true, would Emily come round after that time?

How long had it been anyway? I cast my thoughts back. Had it been yesterday morning when I'd found her unconscious? Or the morning before? It hurt thinking about it. I wasn't sure. So much had happened.

The day dragged on. Late afternoon I played Little Red's Rock It as we coasted along. LanceAsh tapped his fingers on his knee. A warm dry breeze gushed through the windows. No matter how hard I tried not to, my eyes kept straying to the rear-vision mirror, forever fascinated by the face of Vynka. It was primarily the distinct vertical groove down the middle of her face. It wasn't so off putting now I'd had time to study it and digest her overall appearance. But I could now distinctly see the two half-faces she bore. One side looked oriental, Japanese-like. The other was sort of European, Scandinavian. You could see the distinction in her large eyes, one of them dark and exotic and almond-shaped, the other sensual and green. And even through her gruff exterior there was a kindness buried in that face. But that wasn't all. Strangely enough, as the afternoon drifted on, the more I looked at her the more I began to change my views about her: she actually was quite beautiful.

More than once she caught me looking. But she never said a word. Just glared at me until I averted my gaze.

5

We didn't stop again until dusk. We'd crested a rare rise in the valley floor. It was so unusual, so out of place I was eager to reach the short summit simply to see what awaited us on the other side.

As we rolled to the top of the crest, the VW cut to silence and came to a halt. I leaned forward and gazed through the windshield... only to find more of that endless, endless valley rolling away to the horizon. My bones and muscles suddenly felt more exhausted than they had in days. I sat back and sighed.

The sunset though was spectacular. Clouds had corrugated low in the sky, tainted a murky sulphurous yellow. I was staring at this quite blankly, that I didn't realise we had a problem.

I climbed through the window, noticing Vynka at the rear of the car. She'd flipped the bonnet open and was hunched over the engine. I could smell grilled meat. I wondered what was wrong.

I climbed from the car and went round to have look. What I saw tucked around the engine block had me speechless.

Intestines. Organs. Wires. Tubes. As if a sheep had been opened up and its guts tipped out. For a second I wondered how it'd got there. It was like someone had tried to sabotage the engine.

LanceAsh appeared at Vynka's other shoulder. 'What's the verdict?'

'The transverse colon has ruptured,' she told him. 'By the state of it, I'd say it's been leaking acid for the last couple of hours.'

I frowned. So we hadn't been the victim of sabotage at all. This was all part of the fucking engine. I was fascinated.

'The vermiform did not compensate?' LanceAsh asked her.

'Yes, but the acid's eaten right through it.' She fiddled with some organic tubing. 'It's eaten straight through the umbilicus. And the bladder's burst. Most of it is cooked.'

I guess that explained the smell of grilled sausages on the air.

'Can you fix it?' LanceAsh asked.

Vynka left the motor. 'Yes. With some work. Give me a bearing on our pursuer.' She unhitched a large leather sack from the roof rack while LanceAsh fetched the telescope. She threw the sack to the ground, unbuckled it and flung it open, releasing a powerful meaty stench. I almost gagged.

Strapped in there was a variety of vials and syringes, and needles as long as chop-sticks. There was also an odd collection of dead creatures: some dried out like jerky, others looking freshly slaughtered, and some preserved in thick oily blue goo, wrapped in what looked to be25 yellow banana leaves. It was one of these bundles she unravelled, exposing an alien critter—a fish thing with a bird's beak and stork neck.

She took a blade to its belly, slicing it open. A puff of stinking gas gushed out, smelling like boiled eggs. Her long fingers sorted through its innards, locating a section of intestine and cutting out a ten-inch length.

'LanceAsh,' she snapped, 'how far are they?'

He had the telescope to his eyes, studying the way south. 'Eighty miles,' he reported, 'an hour or two behind us.'

Eighty miles? I thought. Did that put them beyond the horizon? Could a telescope peer that far?

'Let's be quick,' Vynka urged. 'Hold this.'

LanceAsh tossed the telescope onto the roof rack and took the intestine. Vynka went back to the engine, cutting out the damaged section and throwing it to the grass. (Ants the size of hot dogs scampered from the undergrowth, immediately scrapping over it.) LanceAsh promptly handed Vynka the new length and she worked it into the tubes and wires.

I stood back as she employed one of those large syringes, injecting strange blue liquid into two separate areas of the motor. It was fascinating to watch. But while they were preoccupied I plucked the telescope from the rack and hurried back down the road.

I stopped and put it to my eyes. But I couldn't see a damn thing. Turns out you had to hold it mighty steady or else the scenery swished around like crazy. I kept the sights aimed at the trail... and followed it all the way back... until I spotted something.

What I saw chilled me.

And at first I didn't believe it.

Frogs.

Giant frogs.

As big as trucks, not hopping but loping across the plains like elephants. They were mostly red, with dappled black spots. A couple had patches of pure white over their shoulders and heads. But that wasn't all. Someone rode one of them. Someone dressed in a heavy cloak and hood, seated in a saddle, clasping a set of reins. He wore some weird bubble-like mask over his face but I fucking recognised him all the same.

Radford Goon.

6

Vynka was still tinkering under the bonnet as I returned. But LanceAsh was refuelling, eyeing me closely.

'Why didn't you just tell me?' I demanded. 'That's Goon, for fuck's sake. Why didn't you say?'

LanceAsh nodded. 'Did you not spy the company he keeps?'

I frowned. 'A bunch of strange looking frogs.'

'The minions of the warlock Urkomenis, Jake. Ganyra Toads.'

I shrugged. 'Okay, a bunch of giant toads. So what?'

LanceAsh tapped the fuel nozzle a couple of times before clipping the hose back to the barrel on the roof and replacing the fuel cap. He pointed in the direction we'd come. 'I have already explained to you, that there, coming this way, is rolling death. Do you not think we would have stood our ground and faced Goon in Lusakah if we thought we could have incapacitated him? Why, we would have put him to sleep for a lifetime if the circumstances had been different. Yet he rode the warlock's flying mount and would have reached us by now had I not cut it down. But, whilst he runs with the Ganyra beasts, we face a dire predicament. They have been gaining on us ever steadily. And will catch us in little more than a day. When they do we will have no choice but to stand and fight. But I assure you, the battle will be short. The minions of Urkomenis are well known for annihilating entire populations simply through the poisonous cloud they exude from the pores in their skin, and we shall be shredded in no time.'

I watched his face. Was he joking? 'So, what the hell do we do?'

'Why, we keep running. Currently we are headed for a place at the far northern border of the Plains. A town called Ndola. Vynka says a handful of Dragonfly pilots are stationed there. If so, then I am hoping we might make a clear escape.'

I couldn't help notice the dubious look in his eyes. 'Dragonfly pilots?'

He nodded.

'You look doubtful.'

He said nothing.

'LanceAsh, you look doubtful.'

He considered his reply. And then he answered. 'I fear that if they have heard of what befell their cohorts in Lusakah then maybe they have long taken flight and abandoned their airfield.'

'You think that's likely?'

'We must not rule it out.'

'So what the hell do we do if they've fucked off?'

He sighed. 'Why, we try to persuade the Ndola town authorities to allow us passage through Zero Point, their Journey Gate. Quick route to Brocketsbrae or Gorllwyn will most certainly help our cause.'

'Journey Gate?'

'Yes, such as the one that brought you to our world.'

Vynka slammed the bonnet, rolled up her 'tool kit' and hitched it back to the roof. 'If you need to make waste, go now.' She leaned into the car and tried the engine. It turned over, grumbling loud as ever in the silent twilight.

I squeezed back into the VW and hesitated as I watched Vynka take something from the roof rack. It looked like a small casket, glinting silver in the dying sunlight. She trod a few paces from the car and placed it in the grass. When she opened its lid she stepped away. Hundreds of peculiar white worms began wriggling from it. I wanted to ask what they were, what she was doing.

But I would know soon enough.

7

We drove on, trailing the rutted track north. The corrugated clouds soon tinted pink and although the sky to the west was still lit the sun had dipped completely below the horizon.

My mind churned with thoughts of these so-called Journey Gates. Boneraker. And Warrior's Gate where those Charon monsters had been slipping into our world. And now this other one that LanceAsh'd mentioned. Zero Point.

Something confused me. I scratched my neck. 'LanceAsh, you mind telling me something?'

'Yes, what is it?'

'These Journey Gates. Well, if you can jump from one to the other why didn't we just use the one on the Archway to get to the Behemoths?'

'We aren't permitted to use it for such a purpose.'

I frowned. 'But me and Emily have used it twice now.'

'To jump worlds, Jake. The Behemoths deemed that a necessary risk. And we had the Gate guarded to counter any potential infiltration ploy by the Charon. Otherwise, the Gates across the Hidden Sea region have all been barred. Warrior's Gate inside the great maze being the exception of course, for that one remains corrupted and out of our control.' He looked around at me. 'Times are too dangerous, Jake, and the Charon too cunning to allow free passage through the Gates.'

'So this gate you mentioned in this town ahead of us. We can use it to jump to the Behemoths?'

'If Ndola town authorities allow it then we can travel to Gorllwyn. Or Brocketsbrae if their gate remains unlatched. That won't put us any nearer to the Behemoth realm but it will transport us instantly away from Goon's reach. Hopefully their town guard can see off him and his toads. Due to the Charon threat however, direct travel to Khemmerat is impossible. The Reap components of the Behemoth Gate, the very components needed to draw energy to transport a physical body across any distance, have been dismantled and removed. Thus Emonn Nil, the grand and mighty Behemoth Doorway, remains forever shut.'

I sighed. Some higher power didn't want us to reach the Behemoths, I was sure of it. 'How do you know this town we're heading for haven't put their Gate out of commission too?

He shrugged. 'That is something we will not know until we get there. And if they have, then pray the Dragonflies are on standby.'

8

An hour later and the sun was all but gone. A strong mist had risen, tendrils of vapour swirled like ghosts in the moonlight, licking around the car as we cut through it. I kept peering through the back window. Kept looking for signs of Goon and his toads in the darkness. And every now and then as we drove on through the night, I thought I glimpsed them, blinking lights, or a strange red glow on the horizon. But maybe what I saw were simply stars. Or the camp fires of these illusive Ilicas Plains people.

I don't recall feeling tired. I remember feeling wired, anxious; there was too much rolling about my mind. I watched Emily under the moonlight. Goon and giant toads and poisonous gas there she slept through all of it with her eyes never shut.

At some stage I drifted off.

9

When I woke I did so with a jump. The car had stopped. The engine had fallen quiet. Through the dark silence I heard chirping bugs and twitting night birds. I sat there not moving. My head still swam with sleep but I could clearly see the driver's seat. Bathed in bright milky moonlight, it sat there empty. Vynka was nowhere in sight.

Emily was still beside me. Her empty black eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. And both her pasty face and that white Dedhoryans plant seemed to glow in the dark. In the front passenger seat LanceAsh sat with his head lolled over, his eyes shut and his breathing deep and slow like someone in heavy slumber.

But where the fuck was Vynka?

I stepped from the car. I looked about. The mist was thick. But I saw her. Several metres away. Sitting in the dirt. Her back to me. Yet... I could hear two subdued voices. I looked about. All I could see was her.

'Vynka?' In that deep night-silence my hushed voice sounded like an atom bomb in a tomb.

The voices stopped.

Above me the moon hung full and fat and orange and the sky beyond it was a vast black dome glittering with a zillion stars. Around us there was an eerie stillness; no hint of breeze and nothing but the misty plains bathed in the eerie lunar glow, and distant chirping bugs. I gazed back the way we'd come, expecting to see a hint of Goon and Co. rushing our way. No sign.

I turned and regarded Vynka again. Wondering what the hell was going on. Slowly, carefully, I approached her.

'Vynka?'

She didn't move.

As I came around her, her eyes were glowing like green orbs. She chewed something. A small carcass lay before her. Something like a cat. Its belly gashed open. In the faint light its innards glistened and steamed—intestines mixed with vegetables mixed with... well it was difficult to tell. Something like...

'Be gone. We are eating.'

I blinked at her. We? 'Shouldn't we be moving?' I said politely but anxiously.

'We are dining.'

That sort of got my goat. Ever since we'd fled Lusakah we'd been on the run; there'd been a certain urgency to keep moving. By all reports Goon and his toads were steadily gaining on us. So just what were we doing enjoying a little picnic in the middle of the fucking night?

'Bloody hell,' I hissed. 'I don't understand you. The last two days we've been going hell for fucking leather to keep in front of those toads, and now you just sit here like we've got all the time in the world!'

'I have delayed them. Confused them. They will be off our scent for a short time. I left them a little gift back there if you noticed. My last chest of Carrion Worms.'

I recalled the silver box she'd placed in the grass with its lid thrust open.

She went on, 'Rest assured, their senses shall be beleaguered for sufficient time. Now, as I only eat on a full moon I would appreciate it if you left me in peace.'

I didn't. I crouched. Opposite her. I said, 'I know you don't like me. But I don't care. All I care about is getting our arses to the Behemoths so I can fuck off outta this world. Okay?'

Her green eyes washed over my face. But she didn't speak.

I shrugged. 'Sooner we get there, the sooner you get me outta your life. I assume LanceAsh is paying you some sort of fare for your troubles. And maybe he'll even hit me with that bill when this is all over. Whatever. But if I'm paying for this little joy-ride, then I order you get back in that car and get us rolling.'

She simply kept eyeing me.

I laughed and shrugged again. 'Did you hear what I said?'

She watched me for a long while with her strange glowing eyes. I couldn't see her pupils. It was as if she had a pair of smouldering green embers embedded in her eye sockets. Eventually she spoke: 'You do not like this world Forgotten, do you, Jake of Strangeworld?'

Was that a question? Or was she telling me something I already knew. 'Look, I've never been anywhere where every single thing wants to eat me. So, no. I don't think much of it at all.'

She turned quiet for a time. Then 'looked' at me again. 'Tell me something. Do you have people like us in your world?'

Us? A strange question. She sounded almost sad. I shook my head. 'No.'

She hesitated. 'Have you heard of us in your world?'

There, that note of sadness again. 'No.'

'I am Vynkesillia Eranthe of the Corades Y'duna people. I am two souls paired at birth. Symbionts. Would your kind accept my kind I wonder, Jake of Strangeworld? Or would you sooner send me to the bottom of a lake with stones tied to my toes?'

I blinked at her, not knowing what to say.

'They employed me during the Trade Years. Your kind. And many of you chose to ridicule me, laugh at me. They'd call me Two Face or Siamese Witch. And your scientists tried to study me, "classifying" me as Parabiotic. That's what they would say. I could not even tell you what that means. Yet I'm unable to change who I am. This is the nature of all the Corades tribes. I am Esillia and I am Eranthe. I am both.' She pushed food into her mouth, greasy stringy smelly stuff pulled out of that cat. 'Eat with us. Then, I promise, we shall continue.'

I didn't want to eat. I wanted to leave.

She said it again, 'Eat with us, Jake of Strangeworld.'

I gazed down at the carcass.

'It is a Plains Demon,' she explained. 'Its diet is the Ilicas. And our diet is the Ilicas. They estimate the population of the Ilicas Plains people to be over six billion. The smoke you occasionally smell is from their camp fires. The singing you hear, their drums, that be their ceremonies. What you saw the Untarra Storks eating? Ilicas. In some jurisdictions, as LanceAsh has pointed out, the Ilicas are protected. Some ignorant souls have suggested that's why the Corades harvest them from the bellies of these Demons. As they are already dead we cannot be accused of murdering them. Yet, we have always enjoyed the taste of the Ilicas this way.'

I frowned. In the belly of that cat thing, swallowed mostly whole, were tiny dead people, all about three or four inches tall. Like sausages. Like action figurines. I was instantly repulsed. Vynka kept dragging their small lifeless carcases out like grubs, picking off small garments—clothing the cat's gut juices hadn't eaten away. Sliding these limp, naked beings into her mouth she chewed heartily then swallowed.

I heard small bones crunching in her teeth. It made me sick to my stomach, imagining their bellies bursting across her tongue.

'We are in the midst of the Endless Forest,' she said, 'not grasslands as you may have believed. Look upon the valley floor, Jake of Strangeworld. See for yourself.'

I frowned, looked. For the first time I saw the grass for what it really was: a forest consisting of small trees no more than a foot high. And there it went, tree after tree after tree, sweeping away into the moonlight in all directions; an ocean of vast, unending tiny woodlands, populated by creatures utterly bizarre.

'Eat with me,' Vynka urged again. She pushed the Plains Demon in my direction. Her face tilted downward. I saw her smile for the first time, two halves of two different faces watching me. It was the first time I saw her for two different people, felt I was in the company of two others rather than one. Their smile was slight and barely lasted a moment. 'One of us will be doomed in the days to come,' they told me, and I heard it again now, two voices rather than one.

I frowned. What the hell was she (they) talking about? Did she mean one of her two halves? Or someone in our party?

'Tomorrow, by afternoon, we will reach Ndola. The voices of my mothers have told us of our fate... as they will in times of imminent death. This time tomorrow night one of us will be gone. Now, please, you must eat with us.'

10

We drove on soon after and Vynka spoke no more of the subject of death. Yet I slept little that night. Because for a long while I believed Vynka had meant me. That it was my death she'd spoken of. Until it finally dawned on me that she'd been talking about Emily. And I could barely bring myself to look at Emily after that. Because as far as I was concerned, this was Mum all over again. Her last night. For a long time I couldn't look at her that night either. Couldn't bear listening to her crackly breath as fluid leaked into her lungs. Couldn't bear listening to a second of it!

I pulled the rug over my ears, watched the silky fingers of mist caress the car as we zoomed by.

All night the fat moon followed us. Just as Goon trailed us somewhere miles behind.

I was still awake, thinking of Mum, when the sky began to turn blue with dawn. And still awake when the first streaks of sun cut across the eastern horizon lighting that everlasting Forest of the Ilicas.

Why didn't they save her? I wondered. Why had the Charweeds brought me back to life and not Mum? Why had they helped Dad? Why had they cared if Emily died or not? I turned and studied Emily. Was it the cancer then? Was that a root they couldn't drag out? Could they bring you back from the dead and sustain you as long as you weren't blighted with old Deadblack?

An hour after sunrise, Vynka (having not slept once, I realised, since the moment I'd met her) stopped the VW again to refuel and survey the lands behind us. The morning air was crisp and dry and the soft sounds of birds carried to us. And the crest of that tiny forest spread out before us no higher than a kettle, tipping in the breeze, giving off a soft hazy steam. I listened distantly as Lepid Oil pumped from the barrel on the roof. But I didn't move. I sat there. My spirits deflated.

LanceAsh awoke, sitting up, stretching, yawning. He fixed a brew that smelled faintly of coffee. He offered me a mug. 'I have always declared this stuff to be one of the best imports to come out of Strangeworld,' he said jovially. He passed over something like cake. I nibbled a smidgen. I sipped some coffee. It was as thick as tar and very strong. I didn't overly care for it. I didn't leave the car. I sat bunched under that rug, my empty eyes gazing at the horizon and my belly feeling strangely bloated, gaseous.

Vynka's muted voice: 'Blast, still they come.'

My spirits were already low, but I didn't need to hear this. I put on my headphones and listened to Beth Orton's Galaxy Of Emptiness; the live version Mum used to play. When Vynka returned to the driver's seat we were away quickly.

It was some hours out of Ndola that exhaustion finally dragged me into sleep. My last thought was of Mum and her cancer. Wondering if that damn illness had possibly been a result of her connections with this strange and unpredictable land.

NDOLA

1

BACK AT the Inn again. Cookie lay beside me. My bedroom lay flushed with sunlight. There was a knock at my door. 'Who is it?' I moaned.

Emily's croaky voice came back at me. 'Jake. Where are we?'

I looked and she sat right there at the end of my bed. I rubbed my eyes and watched her, my head so muddy with sleep I refused to believe she could be sitting there looking so alive.

Small bugs buzzed about her face, wing beats thrumming in the quiet muggy heat. With a start I saw where I actually was: in the VW, parked somewhere on the endless Kitwei Plains. All around us hung a vast blue sky smudged with thick clots of white cloud, and the early afternoon sunshine glaring full and strong through the open windows.

The car had stopped, engine dead. No Vynka and no LanceAsh. I looked about anxiously, thick sweat matting my hair. I wondered what the hell was going on. Had Goon caught us? Were they out battling his toads?

'Jake?'

I looked back at Emily as though she was some strange vision. Like someone who shouldn't have been there, like she'd gone, died weeks ago.

'Emily.' In amongst a collection of seashells I spotted the Dedhoryans writhing on the floor at her feet.

She looked around, lucid, curious, not like she'd been curled up at death's door for the last two or three days.

'Emily?' I rubbed my eyes and shook the sleep from my head. Mercifully my belly felt settled again after my awful midnight snack. I'd eaten a portion of the plains Demon, not one of the Ilicas as Vynka had urged me. But the last thing I wanted in this place was the runs.

'Jake, where are we?' she said again.

The warm breeze blew in through the open windows, whining desolately, and it lulled just enough for me to hear the glug-glug-glug of fuel being piped from one of the Lepid barrels on the roof. I looked around. I spotted LanceAsh working the hand crank.

He leaned through my window. 'Jake, take a look. You must see—' He hesitated when he noticed Emily. 'Oh, you have come through the darkness at last, my dear.' He studied her for some moments, frowning. 'How do you feel?'

She looked about like she hadn't heard him.

'I would expect you to be disoriented for a while,' he told her. 'But come, you should see this. Both of you.'

Still stunned about Emily's sudden and unexpected awakening, I turned in the direction of his pointing finger and my jaw dropped.

Several gargantuan chitin-shaped creatures shuffled calmly across the plains. They were probably a hundred feet from us but they stood as big as hills. Next to them, the VW was like a bug beside a bucket.

Trees sprouted amidst huge tussocks of grass on their dome-shaped shells. Each of them possessed six pairs of legs. And long crusted tusks jutted from their beaks. If I had to describe them I'd say they looked a peculiar cross between an armadillo and tortoise. Only a thousand times larger. But what a truly breathtaking scene.

'What the hell are they?' I asked.

'The Silusian,' LanceAsh explained, replacing the cap, coiling the pipe and laying it back in the roof rack. 'Cold weather giants. They head to the far reaches of the north for deep winter. You do not often see them; believe me this is a rare treat.'

Behind them stretched a long trail of forest destruction. (I couldn't help thinking how many Ilicas tribes had been wiped out while those brutes bulldozed their way across the valley floor.) I pushed LanceAsh's seat forward to climb from the car.

'Jake,' I heard Emily say. Her voice croaky again, and weak. 'Please. Tell me where I am.'

I looked at her, still surprised she was actually up and talking. 'It's all right. We're trying to get to the Behemoths.'

Obviously that name meant nothing to her. The blank look in her face said it all.

I elaborated. 'You've been really sick, Em. You need medicine.'

She swallowed and grimaced as if there was a sour taste in her mouth. 'Medicine?'

I frowned. 'Don't you remember?'

'Remember what?'

I smudged sweat off my face. 'What happened?'

She took a deep breath, thinking hard. 'The last thing I remember is... Scuppers. And... and Dad's car.'

'What about the fertiliser? At Sharkfin's?'

She watched me. 'Fertiliser?'

I nodded.

'I...' She swallowed. 'The fertiliser? I remember... I remember choking. Suffocating.' She shook her head. 'What happened to me?'

I sighed. 'Look, you need medicine. That's where we're going. To get you fixed.'

She looked about, watching those gigantic Silusian beasts. 'But what is this place? Where are we? Am I dreaming?'

'Forgottenworld.'

'Forgottenworld?'

'You know, Forgottenworld. With the castle? And the butchered whale?'

She simply eyed those giant beasts. She shook her head. 'No. No it can't be. That was an hallucination.'

'Em, trust me. It's all real.'

She kept looking around, as if she'd spy Burnchess somewhere over her shoulder. She shook her head again, but with far less certainty, like her eyes were betraying her. 'What are we doing in Dad's car?'

I stared at her. Dad's car? 'It isn't Dad's car, Em. We've been travelling for two nights. You passed out three days ago. You've been in some sort of... I don't know... coma.'

She sent me a strained look. 'Coma?'

'You've been really sick, Em. Things is, Goon's on our tail. He's trying to stop us getting to the Behemoths.'

She blinked, utterly confused, like she might cry any second.

'I'm serious.'

She stared at me for a long while. And rubbed her face. She didn't believe me. It was obvious. She looked pale-faced, gaunt, sweaty, her hair all knotted. And she didn't believe a word of it.

I sighed. I felt jaded. Maybe I should've been more sympathetic. But right then, general fatigue seemed to overrule any notions of real empathy. 'Look, we're in Forgottenworld, Em. I don't know how else to tell you.'

Behind us, the Trans-Kitwei track vanished over the crest of another of those rare rises in the valley floor and poised on its crest with that telescope to her face was Vynka.

Emily finally left the car. And she stood looking about.

I was on the opposite side with LanceAsh. 'I don't understand,' I murmured to him. 'Is she cured?'

He watched her. 'If she has touched the Dark River, Jake, then I am afraid the Creeping Death still spreads through her body. I can only assume if the Charweeds helped reanimate her, then they have taken measures to sustain her life, hold the cancer at bay. For a short time at least.'

I gazed blankly at the ground. Chemotherapy, I thought. It's like mum and her chemotherapy all over again.

I cast my mind back to the Charweeds...

Little one gonna die five days to the night.

So, that's what they meant, was it? Five days before she checked out forever. If I was correct this was our fourth day. Two days to go then. Today then tomorrow to reach the Behemoths before the cancer stopped Emily's heart for good.

I looked over at her but found her stumbling toward my shoulder. I went to steady her but she shoved my hands away. It pissed me off a little bit. After everything I'd done for her. I mean, if I hadn't seen her dead, if I hadn't seen what she'd come through, I would've happily watched her fall flat on her fucking face.

She just stood there wearing a blank bewildered look, watching those shuffling armadillo things.

2

Vynka folded up the telescope and returned to the car. 'They are but twenty miles behind us now,' she told LanceAsh. 'We must push on.' She strode around the car to the driver's door and Emily's silent puzzled face watched her the whole way.

I was on the verge of telling Emily, 'Don't stare,' but Vynka beat me to it. 'I'm glad for your revival, child,' she said, 'but as I explained to your brother, I will not tolerate a stranger's stare for long.' She thrust open the driver's door and squeezed her tall frame inside.

'Who the hell is she?' Emily whispered.

'Vynka,' I told her quietly. 'She's like two people in one. And she eats dwarfs. But she's helping us. Oh, and don't stare. She's very sensitive. Now get in the car.'

3

For the next three hours our journey continued north toward Ndola. I spent much of that time trying to bring Emily up to speed, to get her to understand everything that was happening. (And I must've warned her a hundred times not to keep looking at Vynka.) I also tried bearing in mind how it'd been for me to stumble back into Burnchess after I'd gone missing on the vale, into the face of pure ignorance, to a barrage of questions about where I'd been, what I'd been doing.

If what I think happened to me truly happened then I'd been ripped to shreds by some monster and stitched back together by the Charweeds. Old news by now but still no easy thing to swallow. So, with Emily, I kept it simple: she'd got sick, she'd passed out, she'd come around after three or four days, and now she needed medicine. Other than that, happy fucking days.

She looked at times as if she understood... And other times she looked like she wasn't all there. At one stage, after telling her about Lusakah and the giant dragonflies, her eyes rolled upwards and her head slumped forward. It sent a cold shiver right through me. Because I thought she was having some relapse. 'Emily!'

The urgency in my cry snatched LanceAsh's attention. His head snapped around and he's like, 'What's wrong?'

Emily looked up at me groggily. Like someone who'd stayed up way too late drinking. I realised then it was simple exhaustion. That it'd been sleep not death that'd pitched her forward. 'Jake,' she groaned, 'oh, please won't you just tell me where I am...'

LanceAsh fed her sugared cake, coffee. 'Try to relax. You have had quite an ordeal. Your body is weakened.'

'But where are we? Where are we going?'

I sighed. How many times did I need to keep treading over this ground? 'To get you medicine.'

She didn't once ask about the Dedhoryans plant, shrivelled on the floor. I'm guessing she must've pulled it off herself the same way I'd clawed it off my body. But she never even seemed to know it was there. In the end I simply couldn't look at it anymore. I reached over, plucked it up and tossed it out the window. I watched it tumble away behind us. After I turned back round I saw Vynka eyeing me suspiciously in the rear-vision mirror.

'Just as well for you, our pursuers know of our whereabouts,' she growled. 'Or else you just gave away our position.'

LanceAsh had noticed me do it too but he said nothing, simply sent me a 'just be careful' look.

4

By late morning the scenery began to shift. The sweeping green plains began to thin and give way to rocks and great swathes of black grit.

Ndola was no more than a mile off by then; I could see the buildings of the township and a giant looming tree bent at an angle. I'd assumed Ndola would look something like Lusakah—built along the valley wall with grand towers gazing inland. But there was little left of a valley wall here. Most of it had eroded away. Perhaps constant wind had bitten it down and spat it off into the plains.

The buildings too were nothing like that of Lusakah. Shaped more like billowing ship's sails—half-dome shapes—built from what looked to be white clay. They hunched against the gritty gusts that seemed to buffet down from the black hills to the north. But even from half a mile away something didn't seem right. The place looked quiet. Still. Deserted.

LanceAsh scoured the settlement through the telescope. When he dropped the viewing glass from his face he gave a solemn shake of his head. 'By the Empress, this looks grave.'

Vynka took the telescope, conducting her own inspection as she drove.

'What's wrong?' I asked, still gazing forward through the windscreen.

LanceAsh sighed. 'Jake, 'twould appear that trouble has preceded us.'

We reached the Ndola airfield a minute or two later, a grassy black-grit airstrip two hundred metres long running north-west to south-east. A number of six-seater Cessnas and Piper Cherokees lay wrecked or wingless in tall weedy grass outside a tin hangar. A torn grey windsock on a mast billowed weakly in the gusts.

'Curse our ill fortune!' Vynka growled.

'What's wrong?' I asked again, but then I saw it: giant dead insects scattered across the airfield. 'Is that the Dragonflies?'

'Aye,' LanceAsh said gravely. 'And all of them deceased.'

'Deceased?' They were everywhere, torn and beheaded and gashed. And I also caught glimpses of the dragonfly pilots: cold stiff carcasses mostly hidden in the grass. 'But how?'

'I do not know, Jake.'

'So what does this mean?' Emily asked meekly, confused.

'Sadly,' said LanceAsh, 'it means we are not flying our way out of here.'

Vynka kept her foot planted on the accelerator, taking us into Ndola's outskirts. A moment later her voice again: 'I don't wish to add to bad tidings, but our pursuers are almost with us!' I saw her face in the rear-vision mirror, searching the way behind.

I looked around and my eyes almost popped from my face. There, not ten miles back were the fiends that'd been chasing us: Goon and his host of Ganyra Toads. Pushing out in front of them like a pit of writhing serpents was a thick red mist. It was terrifying to finally lay naked eye upon them. And it hit me with a full hammer of dread. 'Holy shit.'

'Drive,' LanceAsh urged Vynka. 'Let us at least see the Zero Point Gate.'

'But it's damaged,' she barked. 'You saw that as well as I!'

I was puzzled. Damaged? How did she know? 'What's wrong with the Gate?'

Neither of them answered.

'What's wrong with the Gate?'

The VW zoomed through Ndola's fringe and into its brief urban sprawl. The town itself was circular, built around that gigantic central tree. And the streets were utterly strange... simply because they looked so familiar; aside from the busted airplanes back there at the airfield, there were cars here scattered about the streets. Humber Sceptres. Hillman Super Minxs. I even saw an old Wolseley Hornet. Vintage British cars. And some of the shop fronts resembled American diners with signs advertising Hotdogs & Root Beer for 25 cents. Other stores bragged red and white striped barber poles. And large billboards promoted Coca Cola or Marshmallow Cakes with images of happy human families enjoying such treats by a lake.

But a great swathe of thick blue mould covered vehicles and inns and shops. And hundreds of bodies lay dotted through the streets.

'I appreciate this is difficult to look at,' LanceAsh warned. 'Yet I need you both to take this in. This is Charon work. This is what will become of your Burnchess should the Charon hordes ever storm your world.'

I stared in complete shock. Not fully comprehending. But what finally made me so queasy I had to turn away, was the body of a woman.

Her clothes had been torn almost entirely from her. Her arm was either bent backward, or torn out, I couldn't tell. I couldn't see where it was. She was on the ground, lying mostly on her side, facing us. Flies buzzed about her blank face where her eyes had either turned black or been pecked out. Her breasts sagged, the skin there wrinkled like old apple skin. Her pubic region was in full view. She would've been someone's mother, sister, daughter. She would've had dreams, aspirations. All of that was gone.

I hung my head below the window sill. Bile gushed over my lips, into my palm. I gagged, I coughed. I glanced at Emily with watery eyes. She was sniffling into her palm, unable to drag her eyes off the nightmare all about us.

'Don't look if it pains you!' Vynka spat impatiently. The car sped onward, toward the central tree with its sparse dry leaves covered in sooty grit, and I only looked up again when Vynka applied the brakes and we all lurched forward.

The car came to a skidding halt. The engine idled noisily. We'd pulled up smack beneath the tree; sunlight gushing through its bare boughs. It bragged a canopy as wide as a lake, but a canopy almost entirely bald of foliage. As I'd observed on our approach, the tree was on an awkward lean. At first I wondered if it'd merely grown like that. But there sat a high watchtower at its crown and as far as I could make out, this tower was pitched at the same weird angle. It seemed as if the tree had only recently lolled over, pitched there like the tower of Pisa. Like it'd been pushed.

The base of the tree stood as thick as a house with a gaping tunnel right through the middle—you could've driven through it if you'd wanted. Only there were a hundred stone blocks scattered around the entrance. And gigantic roots a hundred feet long had been wrenched from the earth, now suspended in the air like great tentacles, leaving mighty ditches. The front of the tunnel had been splintered outwards, huge shards of wood lay scattered about as though some explosion had torn through it.

'Blast!' LanceAsh barked. 'So it is how we observed.'

'What's wrong?' Emily asked nervously.

'My worst fears. We shall not be leaving here by Dragonfly nor by Gate.' He indicated the corridor through the tree trunk where a mosquito bigger than my hand buzzed. 'That there is... well at least was, Zero Point. Ndola's Journey Gate.'

I couldn't strip my eyes off it. 'What? The tree?'

'Aye. Somehow it has fallen into ruin.'

I turned and gazed south again. Goon and his Toads were blocked from view by buildings and cars but I could see the red mist curling forward beyond them. 'What the hell do we do?'

'I do not know.' He looked about, his mind ticking over. Vynka too looked to be deep in thought.

'We are on the last of our Lepid Oil,' he told her. 'We can run for not much longer. What do you think, Vynka? You know these lands better than I. Is there no other way out of here?'

Without saying a word, she jammed the car into first and pulled away and we took off into the streets.

'If we're low on fuel, let's grab another car,' I said.

'No car will outrun our pursuers, Jake,' LanceAsh replied. 'Vynka? What are you thinking?'

Vynka concentrated on dodging debris and bodies sprawled across the roadway as she navigated a winding crescent that took us up the gradual rise of what remained of the valley wall. 'The Stormgirl,' she said eventually.

LanceAsh frowned. 'No, Vynka, we cannot.'

'If she proves operational then that's our remaining option!'

'That will take us into Coven territory.'

'And away from here!' she told him irritably. 'Isn't that what you want?'

LanceAsh pondered this a few moments. 'I have grave misgivings about ferrying human cargo across Coven territory. It is far from ideal. You know that.'

'So what do you propose then?' she spat. 'The Toads are almost upon us. The decision's simple as I see it: we either take our chances or we die.'

'Vynka, the Stormgirl passing through Coven lands unscheduled will not go unnoticed. You know that. Jake and Emily will not be spared.'

'What are you talking about?' I asked.

LanceAsh sighed and turned to face Emily and me. 'Right then, quick version. Beyond Ndola lies the Coven Territories. A place even the minions of Urkomenis will not dare tread. The Crones far outnumber the garrisons of Urkomenis and, amongst other things, they fight using disease and charmed flora. And are far tougher.'

'Well, that's good, right?'

'No. Crones are witches.'

I shrugged, as if to say, So?

'Have you not heard of the Henbane Massacre?'

The term was so out of context in that vast empty wilderness, for a second I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. But I knew of the Henbane Massacre; it's common knowledge in Burnchess history texts. I shrugged. 'A bunch of women accused of being witches were executed and tossed off Massacre Point. So what?'

'The history between your kind and the witches is dark, Jake. Witches were not treated kindly by you humans in elder days. For two hundred years our Gates stood open to Strangeworld as a lucrative trade route. Many species travelled to your realm. Including witches. But you humans, by your very nature, seem to be a rather suspicious lot. In centuries past, witches, like many peoples of Forgotten, practised customs that humans found rather challenging, confronting. Your religious authorities at the time were more than happy to brand witches as heathens, sinners, heretics. Witches were subsequently outlawed across nearly every country of your world. And you humans were fond of executing them in all manner of barbaric ways. In your particular region it culminated with the Henbane Massacre. Two hundred Crones murdered, quartered and tossed off the cliffs into the ocean in just one sunny afternoon. And to this day the Witches of Forgotten have sworn vengeance against any human they encounter.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

'Still, we must take our chances with the Stormgirl,' Vynka stressed. 'We shall deal with the Crones if and when they halt us.'

Whatever Vynka was proposing, whatever this Stormgirl was, LanceAsh didn't like it. It stood out plainly on his troubled face. 'We'll have no say once they open our throats.'

'We tell them that we are on an urgent errand for the Behemoths. They have a deep respect for the Behemoths. We will declare the humans hold the secret to ridding Forgotten of the Charon; we will demand they speed us on our way.'

'You really think the Crones will believe such a tale?'

'They shall read the truth of it in our thoughts.'

LanceAsh eyed her as if he were not sure the Crones possessed such an ability. 'Well, you had better be right.'

5

Ahead of us the facade of an old rundown railway station pulled into view. We approached it at blinding speed before Vynka spun the VW to the right, taking us alongside grassy rail yards and abandoned box cars. She hit the brakes and we skidded to a halt, a cloud of dust billowing up behind us.

Vynka and LanceAsh kicked their doors open and hefted themselves out, both flipping their seats forward for me and Emily to get out.

'I will fire the engine,' I heard Vynka tell LanceAsh. 'You deal with the Bone Fence.'

Unstrapping a sack from the roof rack he set his eyes south for a moment in the direction of the Kitwei Plains. 'Blast, and still they come!'

'Aye,' Vynka spat. 'And I give them no more than a few minutes before they reach us. So we must be gone at least a minute before they arrive.'

He sighed heavily. 'All right, let us move quick.' With that he hitched the sack over his shoulder and dashed off, his boots crunching in the gravel.

'Come on, out of the car,' Vynka barked at us through the window. 'The station master and driver are sure to be indisposed. I will locate the ignition keys. Get going now! Board the Stormgirl.'

I was too muddled to even move. And Emily sat there frozen, her eyes gaping stupidly. Vynka reached in and grabbed her arm, dragging her out. 'Are you pair hard of hearing? Death races toward us! Get moving!'

I felt numb, almost paralysed but pulled myself sluggishly through the door, breathing heavily, looking about. We'd come north of the tree. The land here was slightly elevated and it gave a good vantage of the township and the green Kitwei Plains rolling away to the southern horizon. And with horror I watched Goon and his Ganyra Toads charging toward Ndola... the earth almost shaking as they thundered forward.

Around us, rusting rail cars sat on gleaming tracks. Apart from the alien scenery we could've been in the rail yards at Plymouth or Brandywine. To the north, the train line stretched into a dark land full of rolling black hills and leafless trees. But about seventy metres from the station a tall fence blocked the way, erected right across the tracks, cutting away east and west as far as I could see—positioned no doubt to divide the Coven Territories from the Plains.

Vynka marched away from the VW. But it was LanceAsh I continued to eye with some confusion, bolting along the rail line toward the fence, lugging the sack he'd fetched off the roof.

Vynka turned to me and Emily: 'You pair! Move!'

'Where the hell's he going?' I yelled.

'Buying us passage through the Witching Fence.'

Witching Fence? What the hell was that?

'Get to the blasted Stormgirl!' Vynka yelled.

I still couldn't take my eyes off LanceAsh.

'Jake?' Emily moaned, her voice wavering. 'What do we do?'

I blinked at her. Her cheeks were wet with tears. I assumed she'd be the one taking charge here, start barking orders like the normal Emily. But she looked drowned—I can describe her no other way. Her hair was stringy with sweat, her skin as pale as ricotta cheese, and her eyes drawn and sagging.

'I... I'm not sure.' I looked behind us, my skin tingling with fear: the toads were storming across the airfield, the Dragonfly and pilot carcasses steaming, smouldering as if suddenly on fire.

'Please, Jake,' she said. 'I'm not thinking straight.'

I hurried round, took her hand. 'Okay, come on, we'll work this out.' I dragged her with me, yelling, 'Where the fuck is it? Vynka? Where's this Storm thingy?'

Vynka turned before she vanished through a long line of carriages resting on a siding; she pointed forward. 'The next set of tracks. Get beyond these cars. You'll see it. The locomotive. You can't miss it. Now for the sake of all things, hurry!'

We scrambled down the row of freight cars—the air quiet there, nothing but the sounds of bugs and our footfalls as we dashed through weeds and gravel. We found a gap and squeezed through. We came out the other side into tall brown grass and there was nothing but another line of abandoned passenger carriages. Vynka's voice echoed through my head: You'll see it. The locomotive! You can't miss it!

But that was bullshit. There was nothing was here. She'd lied.

'Where do we go?' Emily asked.

I couldn't think. Above the lonely sound of the wind whining through the yards I could hear the distant sound of the thundering Toads drawing closer.

'Jake?'

'I don't know, Emily!' I yelled into the air, 'Vynka! Where is it? Can you hear me?'

No reply. I yanked Emily to the right. 'Come on, this way!'

We bolted down the corridor between the empty cars, passing patches of stinking blue mould webbed about the carriages. Our boots crunched over the gravel as we ran, the dead grass hissing against our legs.

The line of carriages abruptly ended and we dashed into open space with nothing but empty rail tracks and grass and bodies of dead people scattered before us. But what lay across the way stopped me running.

It had to be the Stormgirl. But it came as a complete surprise. And I'm not really sure why, considering the buses, the planes, the cars I'd already witnessed in this world. It was obviously another relic from our world. A Deltic diesel locomotive to be precise—one of the giants of the British railway industry that went out of commission some thirty years back. Actually it's what Mark's got on the model railway track in his dad's shed. It was an impressive-looking beast with its long wide nose (making me think somehow of a gigantic beagle) and a pair of cockpit windows that were like large square eyes. Tubes and pipes ran along the engine's exterior, making me wonder if parts of this thing had been modified and rendered organic. Like the engine inside Vynka's Volkswagen. As if parts of it were now alive. And the whole exterior had been painted a dull mat black. The standout image was the painting just below the cockpit windows. It showed off a six-breasted multi-limbed human female (well, sort of human, I guess) with the title Stormgirl! scrawled beneath her in red.

'Come on,' I said to Emily.

We dashed over, stepping around more bodies, trying our best to ignore them. Emily moaned, 'Oh, my God!' as we stepped around a carcass with its head, shoulder and half its chest ripped out.

'Don't look!' I told her.

'I can't help it!' she screeched. 'They're bloody everywhere!'

We reached the Deltic and I let her ahead of me, up a four-runged ladder to the open doorway situated behind the forward windows. From there I had a decent view of Ndola beyond the station: Goon and his crew were through the southern outskirts of town now. Emily turned and watched them. 'Oh, my God!'

We both stood in the narrow doorway, gazing across Ndola. The stampede closing toward the central tree. Emily had her hand cupped over her mouth. Ahead of the Toads curled that strange red mist, fanning out before them in great swirling tendrils like invasive ghost fingers.

'Get inside!' came Vynka's voice as she hurried toward us. 'The death cloud will reach us before they do!' Behind her a long line of box cars were strung out along the rail tracks. Many had been knocked to their sides. She began yanking out huge pins that linked them to the Deltic.

We hurried into the cabin, into odours of old leather and oil. I expected it to be tight for room because the original Deltics consisted mostly of a giant Napier Deltic engine which swallowed up most available space. But I was surprised to find it all quite roomy, as if the original engine had been dismantled and shipped out, perhaps replaced by some weird organic conglomeration hidden below the floor. Hefty lounge chairs sat around low tables, coloured in gaudy browns and mustard-yellows and mud-greens. Fat, round porthole windows featured on all sides, sun shafts streaming in, giving an almost 360 degree view of the train yards outside. The whole space bragged a strange retro-space-age feel.

I moved into the cockpit. Most of the original instrumentation looked to be still in place. Levers, switches and dials. But it wasn't the console exactly that I cared about. It was LanceAsh. I leaned toward one of the windscreens, watching him almost a hundred metres away. He'd reached the fence, it towered high above his head. He dropped his sack into a wide flat hammock hanging from cords of rope attached to the top of the fence. He was now stepping backwards along the tracks, his attention solely on the hammock.

A portion of the fence suddenly moved. I thought at first a gate had magically unhitched and was edging open. But it was something else. A huge gangly bug. It'd been camouflaged against the woodwork and it now clambered over the top of the fence. As soon as I saw it I knew LanceAsh was cooked, that in the next second or two he'd be chomped in half.

But the massive stick insect thing seemed more interested in what LanceAsh had dropped into that hammock, climbing over and dabbing its flickering mandibles in for a bit of a taste test. LanceAsh hesitated, watching, not moving... What the hell was he waiting for?

Suddenly the enormous bug snatched up the offering... and paused... before finally scrambling back over the top of the fence with its lunch in its mouth...

The gate came open then like a great wooden portcullis, lifting away high to reveal unhindered, clear passage into the black hills beyond.

Here LanceAsh turned and ran.

6

Vynka shoved by my shoulder and lumped herself into one of the pilot seats. She shoved an elaborate brass key into an ignition port, turned it and began flipping switches. The engine responded: hissing at first, then grumbling. A soft vibration gripped us underfoot.

Through the side windows I spied Goon and the Ganyra Toads now charging through the centre of Ndola, the red mist tracking forward like a multi headed snake, melting the flesh off corpses scattered in the streets. Singeing the paint off cars. It curled about the giant tree, scorching the few leaves that were left, burning them away in violent flares of flame and black smoke.

LanceAsh kept belting toward us, the train engine growing to a dull roar.

'Why aren't we moving?' I asked desperately.

Vynka ignored me, leaving the console and striding to the open doorway. 'Hurry, LanceAsh!' she called out at him. 'Hurry now!'

He was a good fifty metres away, puffing hard, his chest heaving in and out, his satchel bouncing on his hip, his sword tilting back and forth, his eyes wide with exertion.

'Bloody hell, make it easier for him,' I said desperately, 'get this thing moving.'

'The Stormgirl needs time to warm-up,' Vynka said sternly. 'We cannot move yet.'

That's when I knew LanceAsh wasn't going to make it. The toads were howling like bears somewhere this side of the town centre but the mist had reached the main terminal of the train station, coming far quicker than LanceAsh could run. To my surprise, that's when Vynka yanked the door shut.

'Wotta you doing?' I yelled.

Vynka ignored me and shanked down a rod and the door hissed and immediately the air pressure in the cabin changed, popping my ears. She shoved by me as she strode back into the cockpit.

'What the fuck are you doing?' I shouted again. 'We can't leave him!'

'He knew the risks,' she said, her head down, looking troubled by her decision.

LanceAsh was still twenty metres off, sprinting hard.

'Hold tight!' Vynka yelled as she jammed the throttle forward. The engine screamed like some wakened demon and shunted forward...

...but the cabin recoiled violently, throwing us all off our feet. I was flung against the wall.

Outside, the red cloud had reached us, wrapping itself about the steel rungs; I got to my feet in time to see LanceAsh take a mighty breath and plunge headlong into it. Instantly it was cooking his skin, turning it to smoke.

But Vynka didn't care, flicking dials and jamming the throttle again. The Deltic engine roared once more; I could feel the sheer force trying to push us forward. I gripped a seat to steady myself. The red mist swirled up and about the outside windows. Somewhere behind us there came the sound of whining metal, but again the Stormgirl went nowhere.

Outside, LanceAsh scrambled desperately for the ladder and Vynka rushed to the rear of the cabin and peered through the windows. 'You fool!' she scolded herself. 'We are still coupled!' Behind us the long line of box cars lay strung along the tracks. We'd witnessed her yanking the pins out yet we must've still been tethered to the load somehow. And the Toads were almost upon us, surging toward the train terminal.

LanceAsh gripped the rungs, his face grimacing as he hauled himself toward the cabin door. But he stumbled and fell...

'Jake, Emily!' Vynka yelled, she was suddenly at the door. 'Into the cockpit! Now!' She heaved the door open and lunged at LanceAsh. The cabin's positive air pressure blowing the cloud back, and her long slender arm plunged down, gripping LanceAsh's wrist.

The toxic gas coiled toward her as she yanked him into the Deltic. He flew across the floor and into the lounge suite, and to my complete surprise out went Vynka, dragging the door shut behind her.

LanceAsh squirmed on the floor, screeching as his flesh and clothes smoked and smouldered. Terrified, Emily pushed back into the lounge, away from him as if he might explode. A searing stench like battery acid and chlorine poisoned the air, making us choke and cough.

I dragged the collar of my shirt over my nose and mouth, and pressed my face to the window, watching in stunned silence as Vynka sprung toward the rear of the engine. The Toads were charging past the main building of the station.

Vynka heaved out the final pin connecting the Deltic to the boxcars and LanceAsh struggled to his feet, his skin smelling like burnt pork. He found energy to stumble over and secure the door, jamming the locking rod in place, the air pressure once again hissing and popping my ears. 'The throttle, Jake!' he croaked. 'Get us away from here!'

But Vynka. She was still out there. What was she doing? We couldn't leave her. And then I realised she wasn't coming back. She was fleeing, leaping over the top of passenger carriages behind us on the adjacent line, climbing above the swirling layer of the red gas cloud, bounding off in the direction of her VW.

LanceAsh shoved me aside, staggered into the cockpit, slamming the throttle forward. The engine roared, the Stormgirl shifted forward, slowly at first but she built speed quickly, and suddenly she rocketed from the train yards, thrusting us off our feet.

I clawed myself up one of the lounges, fighting heavy g-forces to get myself to a window. I spied Vynka, I was inside her VW, racing east through Ndola, a number of Toads on her tail... she swerved erratically to avoid scattered debris, but it took her into one of the clay houses and she crashed in a great cloud of dust.

She was almost out of view by then, but I saw her struggle from the passenger window. Saw her crawl a metre or two, saw her stagger to her feet with the Toads descending upon her... For the last time I watched her unfurl her whips and her body split in two. But then Toads galloped up on either side of the Stormgirl and Vynka's fate went from my view.

The locomotive shunted violently sideways. The impact flipped me to the floor and sent Emily and LanceAsh headfirst across one of the lounge settees. Confused, I rolled onto my knees and struggled to regain my footing. We were rammed a second time. It threw me over again, and rocked the locomotive with such force the wheels on our left hand side came spinning away from the track.

'Hit the throttle,' LanceAsh moaned, squirming on the floor. 'We must outrun them!'

I pulled myself to my feet, clawed my way to the cockpit, the Toads rammed us again knocking me into the console. As I was hauling myself back into the seat, that's when I saw him. Goon, astride the lead toad, sneering with glee, madly whipping his mount.

His body was covered in black leather, his head concealed in a peculiar bubble helmet and his wicked eyes watched me through goggles. By then we were nearing the Witching Fence. I could see it racing toward us through the windscreen. I didn't hesitate any longer, I rushed for the throttle and jammed it forward just as Goon deployed his bone weapon and swept it at the train.

A howl of squealing, twisting metal filled the cabin and a split second later the heavy Deltic engine skewed to the right... leaving the tracks and ploughing straight through the eastern portion of the Gate, splintering it instantly, shards spitting out in all directions. Out the other side we thundered hard into gritty earth, the huge locomotive skidding and bouncing wildly, black grit fanning up behind us as we ploughed out of control toward a small rise spiked with black bony trees.

I saw it coming. 'Brace yourselves!' But we hit it with tremendous force.

There came an almighty explosion, as if a bomb had gone off between my ears, as if the engine had ruptured and gone nuclear. For what seemed forever we were dolls in a washing machine: thrown and tumbled and smashed about, the sky beyond the windows rolling round and around and around, the engine tumbling over and over, until the ceiling slammed into my head.

THE CRONES

1

WHEN MY eyes opened I found my forehead crammed up against one of the windows. Sunshine baked my nose, my brow, my cheeks. All was deathly silent. I gingerly lifted my head, electric shocks zapped through the cords in my neck. I grimaced.

From the corner of my eyes I could see blood on my fingers. Again I tried lifting my head, my neck screaming pain. I rotated my fingers and wrist before my face—no cuts, no breaks.

Slowly, painfully I looked around. What the hell'd happened? The Deltic was mostly upright, I discovered. Slightly tilted if anything. My ears trilled. Yet beyond the ringing I sensed something, heard something. I rose to my elbows, looked around.

Emily knelt over LanceAsh, pushing his waving hands down. She glanced around at me, her face criss-crossed with scratches, bruises. She shouted something. I couldn't hear a word of it over the ringing between my ears.

I grimaced and rolled to my side, sitting up groggily, my head howling with pain. My neck felt like someone was twisting screws through it.

Emily dragged LanceAsh's satchel off his shoulder. Flipped it open and was met with a number of vials harnessed to the inside. 'Which one?' I heard her now but it was as if she was beyond a hill somewhere. 'LanceAsh? Which one is it?'

He could barely lift his head. His skin still smoked, his jaw clenched with pain, the tendons in his neck strained through his skin.

Emily opened the bag in front of his slitted eyes. I watched him mouthing something. She must've understood, she reached in and tugged out a small jar filled with some sort of yellow water. She spun the lid off and tipped the stuff down his throat. It was a second or two but I believe his skin settled almost instantly. But much of it had come up in yellow blisters by then.

Suddenly he squirmed violently, shoving Emily aside in the process. He began coughing. I still couldn't hear much. Emily sat back with her hand cupped to her mouth, terrified, like she'd poisoned him.

He wriggled awkwardly to his hip, pushed himself backwards against the tilted lounge, still choking, his cheeks puffing out in great whooping belches. He dragged his satchel desperately into his lap. Peeled it open, hauled out a crude face mask.

He squeezed it over his face, his eyes bulging like he couldn't get any breath. He clasped it in place with a leather strap, his fingers flipping the latch on a small canister hooked to its side. A small creature ejected from the cylinder into the mask, crawling about the glass face plate. With that, LanceAsh keeled forward and collapsed face first onto the floor.

2

I sat there numbed, bunched against the hull, detached, just watching him. Emily went for him, rolling him over. She curled her hair behind her ear, gazing into his face. 'LanceAsh!' she called. 'LanceAsh! Can you hear me?!'

I stretched my jaw, massaged it gingerly, feeling blood knots in my matted hair.

Emily's distant voice again. 'Jake, your head's gashed open!'

I looked at her numbly, saw her pointing at my scalp. I felt no pain. I barely cared. Felt like I'd woken from a weekend bender. Like I was far from everything. Down a hole. Emily came over and wrapped some towel round the top of my head. I was too groggy to protest.

3

Some two hours after the crash, the Deltic Stormgirl still rested against the hillside in the sun. The toads were gone, and with it that murderous gas cloud. We dragged LanceAsh onto one of the lounges. He lay there breathing but unconscious; the little bat-like thing inside his face mask hunched there, suspended on the glass with the aid of suckers on the pads of its feet. It looked out of place but perhaps it keeping him alive somehow, excrete some sort of medicinal gas maybe.

While LanceAsh slept we yanked on the cabin door. But the opening mechanism was buckled and couldn't be moved. We'd tried kicking the windows out. Tried smashing them, but they were some sort of tough industrial plastic and barely shook. There was a fissure where the hull had ruptured, letting in hot breeze and grit and we tried pulling at the frayed edges but it refused to give. We were trapped.

I sat there in the cockpit, picking rusted blood off my head. I could see Ndola out there in the yellow sunshine. Vynka's car still lay on its side. There'd been no sign of her since our flight out of Ndola. Her last moments kept playing over and over in my mind. Now I assumed she was dead, burnt to cinders by that red gas. Just another ruined corpse amongst all those others. All dead. All for what?

As for Goon and his Toads, they'd fled. We'd watched them for a while after LanceAsh'd slipped that mask over his face, charging manically up and down the fence line, delirious with rage. But they never followed us across the Crone boundary. Not once. Not even Goon. Finally they'd turned and bolted away through Ndola, the gas cloud trailing out behind them. Until then I feared that red poison might follow us over the border and seep into the Deltic. But like the Toads, it never came close to the Witching Fence. Did the fence hold some magical deterrent? Or was it like LanceAsh had suggested: were Goon and the Toads wary of pissing off the Crones?

I sat there eyeing that strange fence. The mere sight of it making my skin crawl. I realised now its posts consisted of three human skeletons standing one on the other's shoulders. And the pickets were a latticework of overlapping, interwoven femurs, arm bones, rib cages, finger bones—human bones the Deltic had splintered and scattered as we'd crashed through. (And I wondered what'd happened to that giant insect. The gate keeper. Had we killed it?)

After a while my gaze returned to the VW. I'd been contemplating it for the last hour. If we could break free of the locomotive, if we were certain the toads had gone, if that stick insect wasn't stalking about waiting to devour us, then maybe we had a chance in it. Tip it back onto its tyres and follow the train line into the Crone Lands. Hadn't LanceAsh said it was three hundred miles across their territory? It'd take us a day or two days. Three at the most if the road was bad. If we came into contact with these Crones, then we'd simply outrun them. We could siphon fuel from somewhere, fill up Vynka's barrels before we left Ndola. Or if the VW was damaged beyond repair then we'd simply take another car. We had to try something. Every second we sat here was a second wasted.

4

For a long while after LanceAsh'd passed out, Emily sat by herself at the back of the cabin. Every now and then I'd say, 'We could take Vynka's car.' But she'd snap, 'Yes, I heard you, but how do we get out of this train?'

When I noticed her sitting in the seat beside me in the cockpit, it gave me a fright. I jumped. She didn't seem to notice. She simply gazed through the forward window.

'We're trapped, aren't we?' she said quietly.

I pulled my fringe out of my eyes and nodded.

'Do you have any idea what we should do?' she asked.

It took me a while to answer. I eyed the train tracks as they cut away into the black hills, wondering how far away we'd be right now if we hadn't come to grief. 'I don't know. If we could just get out of this damn train...'

If we knew LanceAsh was going to wake up I wouldn't have felt so bloody isolated, so abandoned. But how could we know if he was dying or not? How did we know he wasn't just slipping away, if he'd ever regain consciousness?

It was a long while before either of us spoke again. I was considering the crack in the hull. If I could somehow squeeze through it then maybe—

'Jake. I need you to tell me something.' There was a haunted tone to Emily's voice that made me look across at her.

'I need you to tell me what happened?'

I frowned. Almost laughed. 'Ah, I don't know if you noticed, Em, but the train actually derailed.' And she's supposed to be the smart one, I thought.

She shook her head. 'No, Jake.' She spoke calmly. 'To me. What happened to me? I need you to tell me because I remember driving to Sharkfin's farm and I remember the Hell's Stream covered in blackness and I remember I couldn't breathe. Then... then I wake up here in this godforsaken world with some ghastly thing growing from my stomach. So you have to tell me: between Sharkfin's and here, what in God's name happened?'

I put my feet up on the console, folded my arms and gazed forlornly through the cockpit windows. I drew in a deep breath and just came out with it. 'You died, Em.'

She eyed the grit, the spindly trees and the craggy rocks across the black hills. In the next moment she had both hands clasped over her mouth, weeping.

I probably should've reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. To comfort her. But I didn't. I can't say why. I got as far as lifting my hand. But never reached across. It felt too weird. So I just let her cry.

'How... how do you know?' She sobbed. 'That I was dead. How do you know?'

'You weren't breathing.' I looked at her. 'I had to do CPR. But you didn't respond. You didn't have a pulse.'

Her eyes squeezed shut hearing this. But maybe it was relief more than shock. Relief she was alive. I don't know.

She sniffled, wiped her cheeks, her eyes; dragged her stringy hair from her face. 'What... what happened then? What happened after that? How am I here now alive and breathing if I was dead?'

I sighed and hung my head, gazing at my fidgeting fingers. 'I... I couldn't... I couldn't bring you back. You'd been dead too long. So I took you to the Charweeds.'

'The Charweeds?' she spluttered.

I nodded.

'Are you out of your mind?' Her bleary eyes looked betrayed. 'Why? Why on earth would you take me to them?'

I didn't know how to tell her. 'Last year me and Mark saw something... in their greenhouse. We saw them... we saw them bring this thing back to life. We saw them stick one of those plants inside its belly.'

She looked at me with bug eyes as though I'd just told her she'd been raped.

'It's true, Em. I swear to God.'

She wouldn't believe me. There was denial in her face.

'Remember that time I went missing?'

She just eyed me with her red, watery eyes.

'Well, I woke up on Strangler's Vale and my last memory that day was of being torn to bits by some... some monster. I've got this huge scar right round my thigh.' I would've shown her, but I was wearing jeans and thought it'd look a bit weird to drop my pants in front of her. But... if I really had to... 'It... it tore my leg clean off, Em. It ripped my throat out. I'm not joking. When I woke up... same thing: I had a plant growing from my belly. A strange white plant. But I was intact. And breathing.' I lifted my shirt to show her and her eyes bulged at the circular welt on my lower abdomen, her hands moving protectively to her own belly.

'But that's not all,' I told her. 'Remember Dad's miraculous recovery in hospital? Remember what he said? He said he'd dreamed about the Charweed girls being in his hospital room. That's who fixed him. That's who fixed us all. The Charweeds. And somehow they brought me and you back from the dead. Somehow that... that plant they use...' I trailed off. I shrugged. The whole thing still sounded so ludicrous. 'Jones, I don't know how he knows, but he told me it's from this world. Okay. From Forgotten, from some witches or something. They use it to reanimate their stillborn children. But don't ask me how it works, I don't know.'

She watched me, eyes still wet and red. 'Well... if they fixed Dad, why didn't he need medicine? Afterwards, I mean?'

I shrugged. 'I don't know.'

'Did you need medicine?'

I shook my head.

'Why do I need medicine? What's wrong with me?'

'Look, I don't understand it, okay? LanceAsh and... and Vynka... they both said what you fell into outside Sharkfin's, that Dark River, it's filled with these weird toxins. The Charweeds told me they could revive you, but only for a time. You have... as far as I can understand it, a form...' I swallowed. How could I tell her?'

'What?' she demanded.

'I dunno. A form of cancer.'

Her eyes bulged at me. 'What?'

'The Charweeds told me that... well, ultimately, it's gonna kill you. Quickly. Like in a few days. But the Behemoths have this medicine, okay. That's why we're on this crazy fucking road trip. To get you to the Behemoths so they can cure you.'

She fell silent for a long while. Withdrawn. She drew her thighs to her chest, curled her arms protectively about her knees. For a long, long time she buried her face in her knees and cried.

5

Later Emily stared blankly out the windows with bleary red eyes, her cheeks wet with tears. She said, very quietly, 'How long do I have?'

I couldn't look at her when I answered. 'I'm not sure. Till tomorrow. I think.'

'Tomorrow?' She just kept staring out the window as if hoping maybe I had the information wrong. 'Oh Jesus.'

Again, I should've reached over and comforted her (like I did to Mum when she'd copped the news about her own mortality). But this was Emily. We didn't have that kind of relationship. 'Look, that's if the Charweed's prediction comes true. So, who knows, you might have longer.' There, I was comforting her.

'So I may even have less.'

I didn't know what to say. Except, 'Either way it means we need to get moving.' I told her my idea again. About getting out of the Deltic and using the VW to cross the Crone Lands. 'It's our only way, Em.'

But she was barely responsive. Her mind preoccupied now, distracted.

'Bloody hell, Emily. You gotta start dealing with it, okay! You don't help us get outta here, then that's it. You don't get your medicine. You die! Simple as that.'

'We've tried every bloody way out,' she yelled. 'It's pointless, Jake! We're trapped!'

I shook my head. I wasn't having any of it. 'No. There's gotta be a way! You're the smart one! Help me figure it out!'

She went to LanceAsh and cradled his head in her hands. 'You've got to wake up,' she pleaded softly. 'Can you hear me, Lahn Sash?'

'LanceAsh,' I told her.

She ignored me. 'Please. You've got to wake up! You've got to help us, for God's sake!'

His chest rose and fell, that small creature inside the face mask watching us with its sly, slitted cat's eyes. But LanceAsh with his poncy blonde hair might as well have been a trillion miles away. He was either dying or he was sunk so deep in one hell of a coma that he might never climb out.

'You're wasting your time,' I told her.

'And what the hell are you doing?'

I ignored her, trying the door again, yanking the lever that Vynka had used to get out. No response. I kicked at the windows and screamed out in sheer frustration.

'Oh, like that's constructive,' Emily said.

'Yeah? Well, what the hell are you doing then?'

'I'm not wasting my energy on futility. That's what I'm doing!'

'Yeah, well why don't you just fuck off.' I slumped back into the cockpit seat, gazing longingly at the VW tipped on its side. All those days oyster-crammed in its back seat, and all I wanted now was to be back inside it.

Emily still cradled LanceAsh's head. She just sat there slumped on her knees, sniffling, wiping tears off her face. I could see her from the corner of my face looking small and pathetic and useless. I ignored her. Pretended I couldn't hear her, see her.

When she next spoke her voice was weak, sorrowful. 'Why do you hate me so much?'

I barely heard her.

'Ever since my mother and I moved to Burnchess, you've gone out of your way to make us feel unwelcome. Why?'

I grinned and shook my head. 'Trust me, Em, we don't have time for that conversation.'

'No. Tell me. Why have you never liked me? Why have you never made me feel welcome?'

'Emily, you moved into my mum's house, remember?'

'Your father invited us.'

'Yeah and it's Mum's place. You've never acknowledged that, have you? Why? Cos you don't give a shit. Plain and simple.' I wouldn't look at her. I was too angry.

'Jake, that's not fair.'

'Bullshit. It's true. You don't give two shits about what my life used to be like before my mum died, do you? You never have. You and your mum just waltzed in like you owned the place. You realise how many years it took my mum setting that place up? Do you? No, I doubt you do cos you're more than happy to just rock up and dump it all on its head. You wonder why I hate you both so much! Hey, it's fucking simple! You've shown no respect. Plain and simple!'

'Jake! Your dad invited us!'

'Your mum sleeps in the same fucking bed my mum died in!' I yelled. 'My mum took her last breath in that bed. You ever thought about that?'

There, it was out in the open at last. She fell silent. Just blinking at me. Maybe she'd never considered that fact.

'Jake,' she said eventually, her voice quiet, 'I'm sorry about your mum. Honestly I am. But you're not the only one who's lost a parent, you know.'

'Oh, you want me to get out the violin?'

She ignored that comment. 'When my dad died Mum couldn't afford the mortgage repayments on our house. And the bank kindly reclaimed it, effectively throwing us out on the street. Okay? Mum had to work two separate jobs to make ends meet. Okay? Have you ever known what that's like? To really struggle? Wondering if you're going to eat from one night to the next? No! You haven't! I bet you've always had money, always had everything you ever wanted. You're nothing but a spoilt little boy.'

'Yeah right, let's play the destitute card why don't we?'

She stood and rushed at me, throwing me into the wall. 'What the hell is your problem?' she screeched. She glared at me. 'I wanted to be part of your life! Do you understand that? I was eager to meet you. But that first time we met you refused to shake my hand! And then when we arrived in Burnchess you wouldn't talk to me for almost a full month!' She was blubbering now, snot strings hanging from her nostrils.

'Cos I was still grieving for my mum!' I yelled at her. 'Do you have any fucking idea what it's like to watch someone die from cancer? Any idea at all? To watch them waste away! To watch them turn into something you hardly recognise! To actually watch them take their very last breath? DO YOU?'

She slumped to the floor, burying her head in her hands again, sobbing wildly, spit and snot drooling through her fingers.

'At least you got to say goodbye,' she bawled. 'At least you were with her.'

I sighed. I could've yelled something back at her. But I felt exhausted. I'd had enough of this conversation. I got up and moved to the back of the cabin and slumped there on my own. I grabbed my phone from my pocket. I sat there gazing out at the black grit listening to Beth Orton's Devil Song, a song I'd probably played far too much in the days after Mum died.

About a minute later I realised Emily was still talking.

'I wasn't there with my Dad when he died, you realise. I wished I had've been. All I ever wish is that I could just go back and hold his hand and tell him it's okay, that I love him. But we weren't there to help him.' She sniffled and whined—it was this God-awful pitiful sound, moaning up from deep in her throat like a dying wolf. Her eyes were raw as red onion, her nose wet and rubbed the colour of jam.

I almost turned my music up to drown her out but what came out of her mouth next stunned me.

'Dad didn't die how we told you, you know. He didn't die in a sailing accident; he didn't die when I was a little girl. He died twelve months before your mother. Okay? He was trying to save my brother. Twelve months before. That okay with you?'

I went still. Had I heard right? She had a brother? Was she having me on? I killed the music.

She buried her face again and sat there wailing into her fingers. I couldn't do anything but watch her.

'I think about them, you know,' she cried. 'Every single day. I miss them... So. Much.' Her chest rose and fell jerkily as she sniffled, crying through her nose now. She steadied herself, taking two or three deep gulps. And for a long while she gazed through the windows.

'It was meant to be a family trip over to Seven Greens Bay,' she said eventually. 'Me and Mum went shopping while Dad and Billy went down to the beach. Billy was a strong swimmer. But... I don't know... they say he got into trouble. He went under this wave and never surfaced. Witnesses on the beach said when he finally came up he'd been dragged out about a hundred metres. He was just floating there face down. Not moving.

'Dad began swimming for him. There were no life guards on duty. But Dad was always a terrible swimmer. People on the beach said they saw him flounder and that was it.' She hung her head, picking at her nails. 'He drowned there and then. By the time anyone dragged him onto the beach it was too late. They tried CPR but it didn't work. Someone ran up to the street to fetch help, but it was forty-five minutes before the ambulance arrived. Me and Mum heard the news two hours later. It was the worst day of my life. My Dad and my brother both gone, just like that.'

I sat there speechless. I didn't know what to do. I felt drained and selfish. Not only had she lost her father. But a brother too. Eventually I actually went to her. Knelt by her. Wasn't sure what else I should do. I just put my hand on her shoulder. She didn't look up, didn't flinch. She just kept weeping.

'Em, look, I never knew.' I just sat there with her, bewildered. 'I'm sorry; I never knew.'

She sniffled for a little while, never looking up. There was a runny pool of snot on the floor beneath her face. When she did look up she gazed through the cockpit window, holding a hand to the side of her face, perhaps so I couldn't see her.

6

It was difficult to know what to say to her after that. I said nothing for a long while. That's not to say I wasn't feeling anything. I searched back across the eighteen months since Emily and her mum had come into my life. I realised how much of a wanker I'd been.

'Coming to live with you, Jake,' she said after a while, 'I knew things'd never be the same. But I just wanted to pretend. I just wanted to pretend Billy and Dad weren't gone. I wanted to pretend my brother had never left me. I wanted so much to have that with you. I wanted so much to pretend I had a dad and a brother again. And I was so sad... you never once wanted to know me.'

I felt confused, numb. When I rose and moved away Emily didn't bother to turn and watch me shift to the rear of the train. She just kept on staring blankly out the cabin windows, no doubt with her mind back there on that beach in Seven Greens Bay. I just sat by myself again. Feeling empty. I guess I should've comforted Emily some more. It was obviously what she needed. But I couldn't. I couldn't cope with what she'd just told me. Because maybe... maybe I'd been the problem. When Emily and Louise had come to stay I'd been so caught up in Mum's passing... I'd convinced myself no one had ever felt grief like mine... that I was somehow unique. But Emily'd lost her brother. And her dad. In the one day. That would've been no picnic.

7

A while later I heard her voice again. This time all her sniffles were washed out. Replaced by a quiet urgency. 'Jake, I think we're being watched.'

I hadn't exactly heard her. I was still buried under the weight of my thoughts. And I was beginning to feel some real pangs of thirst. When she said it again I tiredly turned to her. She gazed through the cockpit but she'd backed up somewhat, as if something had approached from the outside.

I turned my head and peered through the windows toward Ndola, expecting the toads to be back, ready to execute some new scheme to snare us. But I couldn't see anything out there except for the deserted town.

'No, Jake. On the rise.'

I turned, and peered in the direction she was pointing.

I saw with sudden fright a long line of giant black mantis spaced out along the top of the ridge: every one of them as big as horses, gazing down at us, their long barbed forearms suspended fearsomely in front of them. Had they been attracted by the wreckage of the Stormgirl? The sound of our derailing? Were they thinking 'food!'?

With dread I noticed something else then. The mantis weren't alone. Ugly, gaunt things sat astride them like ghouls on horseback. It was difficult to get a clear idea exactly what they were with the sun at their backs. I couldn't make them out at all. Other than they all looked terribly skeletal and emaciated and every one of them with burnt blackened skin. But two were talking, I could see that much, chatting and gazing our way.

We watched this exchange with our eyes edged round the side of the windows, praying we couldn't be seen. 'Jake, I've got a terrible feeling about this.'

'Why? Who do you think they are?'

'It's obvious, isn't it? Isn't this the Crone Lands? Isn't that what she said? That weird woman? Vanka.'

'Vynka,' I corrected. 'You think they're Crones?'

'Well, who else would they be?'

I shrugged. 'Could be the Behemoths for all we know.'

'The Behemoths?'

'Yeah. Why not?'

She watched them, studying them.

'Look at them,' I stressed. 'Do they look like witches to you?'

'Yes!'

We crouched there eyeing them, waiting for them to move. 'I say we bang on the windows, let 'em know we're here. They might be able to get us out.'

She shook her head defiantly. 'No, Jake. They're hostile. I just know it.' She wiped sweat off her neck. 'Get back from the windows.'

She bobbed down and crawled backwards. Reluctantly I followed, shuffling on hands and knees toward the rear of the cabin. Emily cowered under the seating, shaking LanceAsh, urging him to wake up. 'But what if they're Behemoths?' I said again.

'Okay yes, maybe they are but we can't take that chance. Okay? Now hide yourself.'

I gave in, gripping my backpack, and began dragging myself beneath the long couch.

That's when I noticed a shadow appear on the floor in front of me.

I looked up and gasped: a ghastly goggle-eyed hag peered at us through the window.

8

Her face bore a grin chocked full of blackened corn-cob teeth and a nose all beaked and warted. Her skin was black as swamp scum and flaky as burnt paper, but the thing that really sent shivers through me were her eyes. Three dirty yellow peepers. Matter of fact she looked so much like that unholy desiccated face Hayley's mum'd given me, that it sent chills right through my gut.

'Hello in there, wee children,' she rasped, tapping a grubby claw against the window. 'Time to pluck you outta there I think!' Then she vanished.

Next thing there came this excruciating sound of squealing metal as her mantis skewered the Deltic's hull with its razored forearms and tore the locomotive open as easily as someone tearing tin foil. Immediately a dank organic smell gushed in.

We squeezed further beneath the couch. But it was no use. Before we knew what was happening, the hag was crouched where the section of fuselage had been ripped away, all limbs and sagging tits and manic eyes, grinning at us.

9

I was in the black grit before I knew it. The hag's long insectile arm had darted out like a frog's tongue and snatched me, hurling me from the cabin. Winded, I turned over to see LanceAsh's body flying toward me, followed quickly by Emily—both thudded into the earth beside me as heavy as sacks of dirt.

Here the great number of praying mantis closed around us, walling us in as another of the beings dismounted her steed, hefting a long insect-leg staff that was clawed at one end. She approached us. Tall and gangly, nothing more than skin and bone, her scrawny tits deflated like old black socks, dangling down against her wrinkled belly. A belt of dismembered, desiccated arms hung about her waist over a skirt stitched from black leather. Long black claws, wriggling with worms, gripped her staff, and her hair was silver grey, swirling on the breeze like strands of spider web. Her face remained hidden behind a strange, yet familiar, three-eyed mask; a mask (just like the Veisder actually) that looked as if it'd once actually been the face of another of her kind. It'd been cut away above the mouth, a mouth resembling a large dark gash, and her teeth were like sharpened chips of black stone.

She halted, sniffed the air; the wreck of the Deltic seemed to intrigue her. Was she sniffing for other humans? Or something else?

With sudden dread I realised the artefacts, the so-called Gate keys, were in my backpack. If these hags were witches, then what the hell were they going to do if they found them? Would they know they were keys? Or would they think we'd souvenired members of their race?

I struggled to sit up, my bones aching, hoping the bag was still hidden beneath the lounge in the locomotive. But I saw with a sinking feeling that my backpack had actually left the cabin with me, hitched around my arm. It lay slumped over my lap. And it had almost tipped open. I could see the fingertips of the Scrivinas at the top of it, lying in the sunshine.

The Crone eyed us like we were grubs who'd crawled into her breakfast. With a look of pure repulsion.

'Please,' Emily moaned, 'don't hurt us, we mean you no har—'

'Enough muck from your face!' screeched the ghoul thing and the terrible sound of her voice came like knives to my ears. At the same time she swished her bug-leg staff at our faces and instantly something warm and heavy and suffocating closed over our mouths, silencing our screams. Next thing, I realised I couldn't move. To my horror my arms had turned into tree stumps and, as I watched, my fingers grew like gnarled roots, spreading out across the grit. I felt my legs harden and grow numb, small branches spiked through my jeans, twisting and sprouting copper-coloured leaves, and my toes curled into roots just like my fingers and burst through my shoes, wriggling down into the soil. With my eyes bulging in complete horror I saw Emily undergoing the same twisted, fucked-up transformation. Both of us in terror and neither of us able to scream.

The being stepped toward LanceAsh, the afternoon sunlight bright against her dark skin. She reached out to him with arms the length of her body and stabbed her thumb through his ribs. Blood pooled around his tunic, drained down his belly and spilled into the earth. It didn't wake him if that's what she'd wanted. He didn't even flinch, lying there still unconscious in his face-mask.

She lifted her thumb to her black, lizard tongue. She appeared to taste the smear of his blood. She uttered some strange language to another of her kind: 'Ja'luick! Maeshan tinyalsti Ganyra!'

Large clam shells were strapped to a belt around the shoulder of this being's mantis steed. She plucked one off and pulled one open, extracting an object that looked like a seed pod. She cracked it in half by twisting it in her claws, like someone twisting an avocado away from its seed. She fingered out a small black object that resembled a large grey-green kidney bean and tossed this to the hag who'd rendered me and Emily mute and motionless.

This time she crouched, spiked knees ajar and jutting like black bones past her shoulders. She dragged up LanceAsh's tunic, exposing the wound where she'd perforated his ribcage. Into the bloody recess she jammed her 'kidney bean'.

The effect was almost instantaneous: small yellow shoots sprouted from the wound and snaked into the earth, growing thick as vines. But just as immediately they whitened like ash and shrivelled. I wondered if this was something like the Dedhoryans plant. Was it meant to cure him? Wake him up?

LanceAsh grunted and his eyes came open.

The hag clawed his face mask off and the small bat creature inside played dead for a second... before suddenly deciding it'd probably fare better if it legged it. And so out it scrambled, like an octopus, and slithered across the sand, small clouds of dust puffing up as it went.

The closest mantis made quick work of it, impaling it with a spiked forearm and driving its huge, ugly, diamond-shaped head at it, its busy mandibles chewing it to bits, intestinal juices squirting into the parched land. The other mantis whined and chittered as they watched.

The hag stood now and waited while LanceAsh groaned and looked around, taking stock of his surroundings.

Here she spoke to him then in pure English. 'My name is Chirybdis.' Her rasping voice felt like metal on ice. 'Clan of the Crones of the White Grass Plains. The humans will die at our hands, there is no question. But I afford you a chance to defend your position: why have you brought the enemy to our lands? Tell me they are but a meat offering to us and I will let you walk free.'

I glanced at Emily. So, these were Crones. I guess by then I already knew it, but to have it confirmed chilled me. We were within their clutches. If everything that LanceAsh'd said about them was true then we were in the shit. Regardless of those artefacts in my bag or not.

It took LanceAsh a few moments to regain his faculties. He sat up slowly, grimacing in the sun glare, taking in the mantis and their riders. He ran his groggy eyes over Emily and me. Finally he turned his face back to this Chirybdis. 'We travel to...' he started, but his voice was feeble. He cleared his throat. 'We travel to the Kalalushi Divide,' he said, stronger but his voice still croaky. 'We have an audience with the great Behemoths.'

Chirybdis eyed him with scepticism. 'And why do you move with human scutta?'

'That is the business of the Behemoths,' he explained weakly. 'I am simply an escort.' His body hunched forward. He was obviously still wracked with injury or illness. He eyed the wound in his chest. It'd stopped bleeding, even looked as if it was healing. He looked up again, squinting in the sunlight. I noticed then how terrible his skin looked, so blistered and raw. 'I am to...' He stopped and coughed. 'I-I am to deliver them safely to the Behemoths. For the sake of all Forgotten. Th-they hold the secret to ridding our world of the Charon. Forgive me, but that is all I can tell you.'

'There are other paths!' Chirybdis growled. 'There is no need to pass this way!'

'Yes, I... I understand there are roads to the east, and perhaps an ocean crawler in the west could have done. But we have had the Toads of Urkomenis on our tail these last few days and this was our only chance. The Toads would have pursued us far and wide. But not into your realm. Indeed they were almost upon us by the time we reached Ndola. If they had succeeded then all hope would be lost.' He coughed again and spat drool into the dirt. 'I beg of you, let us pass, we are pressed for time. The Behemoths urge there to be no delay, the matter with the Charon affords no luxury of time. We apologise for the trespass but if you would kindly check, I did leave an offering at the Bone Gate. If it was insufficient then name your fee and I can but double the offering if need be.'

Chirybdis was silent. Beetles of all sizes skittered and fluttered about the Deltic behind us, perhaps hoping to uncover more humans. Or strange keys made from witches.

'Show me your invitation from the Behemoths! If I find that you lie, then both you and the scutta will be slain on the spot.'

LanceAsh eyed her. 'Invitation? All I have is a copy of a Behemoth scroll summoning the boy and girl of Strangeworld.' He reached for his satchel. But it wasn't on him. He pointed feebly at the locomotive. 'Up there, the last place I saw my satchel. If it still be there, you will find inside the scroll of which I speak.'

Chirybdis signalled the witch who'd dragged us from the train. She still crouched at the edge of the gaping hole in the cabin—all arms and legs and gangly as an ape, but she shifted like an insect, turning and reaching her long arms into the train. She tugged out LanceAsh's brown bag and tossed it to Chirybdis.

Chirybdis caught it and tore it open, the contents spilling into the dirt. There amidst vials of medicine, food packages, the folded Crimson Ghost Suit, the skull horn, and other bits and pieces was a rolled parchment of paper. Chirybdis snatched it into her grip, unrolled it in front of her face and after she read it she tossed it aside. It landed in the dirt where blackened spider-thread creepers curled from the earth, worming about it, through it. Small capillaries weaved across its surface. In under half a minute it was gone, eaten away and the weird plant that'd consumed it sprouted a small red flower that fluttered in the hot breeze.

'Come then, scutta lover!' Chirybdis hissed. 'Let me throw you and these kunteds out the other side!'

She waved her staff at us and the only parts of our body not yet encased in wood—our heads—suddenly hardened and turned entirely into crisp brown bark. I imagined this must be how it felt to be buried in cement: I suddenly felt claustrophobic and I couldn't breathe, I felt a great weight pushing into me, squeezing me. Most of the sound went from my ears. And that was it—except for my eyes I was utterly cocooned.

10

For the next few hours I can't remember taking a single breath; I can only assume we were somehow being oxygenated. But I remember being conscious, awake, terrified.

I remember watching the nightmare lands of these Crones pass us by, seeing bizarre cities, towns and villages fashioned from stone, dead trees and bone. And every settlement stood blackened and burnt as if fire had ravaged them. Yet these hags, these witches, seemed to inhabit them all. We soared over strange forests where trees stood as tall as the yellow-grey sky, where branches hung entirely without leaves, as if the trees themselves had been turned upside down, as if their crowns were buried in the black earth leaving their coiling roots to stretch for the heavens. Other trees looked somehow like petrified giants, multiple limbs sprouting like branches from humanoid trunks. Some were inhabited by ghastly looking things, beings that resembled giant swinging gorillas; bony creatures without a stitch of fur, with large heads and coal-black eyes. They hooted madly at us.

We flew over the outskirts of villages consisting of rickety tree houses filled with humanoids the colour of sump oil and eyeballs glowing a sickly yellow. And then dark, stifling swamps. Swamps covered in black flowers as big as cars. Swamps full of gnashing, biting insects. Swamps that walked with tall bony creatures who possessed small white eyes, and whose skin looked like polished obsidian.

We pressed on through grey forests knotted with vast greenish webs. Giant spiders hung there with human corpses buried into their backs. At first I looked on with dread fascination. Wondering how on earth those poor souls had got there. Then I caught sight of their huge terrified eyes, and their wide howling mouths muffled behind membranes of spider skin, and I realised they were alive, wailing at us endlessly for help.

Of course there was nothing we could do. And my heart sank as we watched them pass into the hazy realms behind us. Then we were crossing rocky marshland. Twin-headed lizards perched on rocky outcrops, watched us soullessly. And gigantic rhinoceros beetles fought on muddy banks that were dotted with the skeletons of ancient dead creatures. We flew on over yet more dank villages whose houses had been constructed using skulls instead of bricks. And tribes of witches stood waiting beside mounds of stones, and when we came into range, they began pelting us with them. Rocks, stones, and pebbles by the hundreds pelted our wooden husks, the impacts hurting like hell.

All the while, amidst this nightmare flight, I'd glimpse the railway tracks disappearing around a hillock, or passing beyond a valley where hundreds of human corpses dangled limp by their necks from tall wooden masts. And all the while we hung there, me and Emily and LanceAsh, each strapped to the sides of a mantis, flying at tremendous speed across this nightmare world and around us, the remaining witches of this White Grass clan sat astride their mounts with Chirybdis always out in front, leading this strange posse across this impossibly alien land.

11

It was sometime that evening when our journey across the nightmare Crone Territories finally ended. We approached another witching gate where a long witching fence disappeared east and west. We landed on the opposite side, were unstrapped and tossed into the dirt.

Chirybdis dismounted and approached us, waving her staff at us where we lay. The wooden crust encasing us cracked and fell away in shrivelling chunks and we gasped air for the first time in hours. Our clothes were sodden with sweat and our skin all wrinkled like we'd been in a bath. I felt my pulse pounding in my temples. I gagged and coughed. Emily who lay there gripping her chest panting.

The witch strode over to LanceAsh, her sagging wrinkled tits swinging back and forth. LanceAsh sat slumped against a rock. 'Your assurance you will never blight our lands with scutta ever again!' she said.

He looked exhausted. But I could see he was obviously relieved to be across the Territories. He bowed his head. 'You have my promise.'

'Not good enough,' she seethed. 'We are no friend of the Charon but perhaps you have forgotten we are no friend of the Scutta world either. Thus you have performed a great sin. No human scutta on Crone Land! Ever! Punishable by death.'

'You have my assurance,' he pleaded, 'it will not be done again. I swear.'

'I will have more than your oath,' she said. 'I shall take a souvenir. As a permanent reminder of your crime!' She reached out and grabbed hold of his arm at the shoulder... and began to squeeze.

I have never heard a scream like the one that came in the next few moments. Firstly it was just LanceAsh. His howl of pain as she squeezed and squeezed. But then the witches matched his screams, as if mocking, every one of them howling around us like a pack of wolves.

LanceAsh tried to fight it, to push her aside, scramble away. But Chirybdis lifted her leg and stomped on him, holding him down with nothing more than sheer leg strength.

Firstly she dislocated his shoulder... her claws puncturing his skin. Blood pooled around her bony fingers. She turned her wrist, twisting his arm around... and around again and again and again. It sounded like popcorn as the shoulder jumped out of its joint, as tendons and ligaments snapped, LanceAsh the whole time screeching in agony. She didn't let up, her claws still squeezing... pink flesh oozing through them like raw fish meat, blood pouring out like someone had opened on a tap of tomato soup. By then she'd rotated his shoulder so many times it wasn't really attached to him anymore. It was nothing more than a loose thing in her grip, still connected by stubborn tissue, ligaments and muscle. But one final tug and it tore free.

LanceAsh roared, clenching his bleeding vacant shoulder socket with his free hand, trying to contain the squirting blood. Chirybdis shoved his hand aside and stuck something inside the bloody hole, a small seed planted there against the pearly white bone of his ball and socket joint.

Small white leaves began sprouting outwards, rapidly overlapping each other, patching the wound, acting like gauze over the streaming blood. And perhaps with it, the pain dulled because the howls and grimaces coming from LanceAsh's throat and face fell away. But the ordeal had obviously shaken him—he collapsed to the dirt, retching bile into the earth.

Chirybdis strapped his dripping, dismembered arm to her belt alongside the other odd withered limbs hitched there. Now she turned to us. Leaned into our faces, her breath as hot and putrid as rancid meat. 'Know this, human scutta. This time your lives are spared. This time you are lucky your duty to Forgottenworld is not yet fulfilled. This time I have waived my vengeance of death. But hear me now, when next we meet, you both shall die! Mon excruciation!'

TREK TO KALALUSHI

1

A DARK mood had fallen over us by the time the Crones flew back into their homelands. The sun was dying in the sky; it was a great streaked ball of red beyond low clouds. But the evening air remained hot and dry. And the three of us sat slumped in the gritty dirt, trying to come to terms with what'd just happened. LanceAsh lay bunched in a foetal position, lying on his good shoulder, his right hand still gripping his vacant one, his back to us.

I found I couldn't move for a long while. Like my body had atrophied or some shit. And I was still trying to make sense of what I'd just fucking witnessed. LanceAsh having his arm torn off. It'd been horrific.

Emily struggled to her elbow. She couldn't take her eyes off LanceAsh. Her hand was still over her mouth. She went to speak but her voice rasped weakly. She dragged herself over to him. 'Are you okay? LanceAsh, are you all right?' There was a trembling in her voice as she rolled him over. 'LanceAsh, come on now, sit up. Tell me you're all right.'

The train tracks continued north, smeared over by great drifts of black sand, vanishing beyond swathes of grass as tall as bamboo. And it was here I saw the mountains for the first time.

Far to our north, stood the summits of mighty snow-sheathed peaks, high enough to catch the rays of the downing sun and lit so brilliantly it was as if they were caught in a noonday glare.

I lay there for a few moments, tired, hungry, pissed off, in pain, but in complete awe, staring at this scene. It almost wasn't real. About us, the earth crept with the gloom of twilight, bugs tweeting and twittering and chirping, and the tall grass ahead tinged with the red fire of sunset. But there... mountains. Glorious. Heavenly. Divine.

And seemingly unreachable.

I judged them to be a whole day's travel away. By car. But it looked like we were on foot now. So God only knew. Perhaps as much as a week and a half from our current position.

'LanceAsh,' came Emily's voice behind me, 'LanceAsh.'

I turned and watched as she helped him to sit. He was breathing heavily. I thought at first he was sobbing. Thought maybe that's why he'd had his back to us. That he didn't want us to see him crying. But he wasn't, he was simply trying to arrest his breath. Perhaps shock had seized him. He sat there with his teeth clenched and his lips trembling. Emily removed the gourd from his satchel and fed him small drips of water. I watched her as she did this... And, I don't know how to say this, but I felt something weird for her in that moment. Something alien. Was it admiration? I don't know. I mean, she was the most pigheaded arrogant person I knew and yet she had this tender, fragile side to her. And she was resilient. Far more than I am. She just soldiers on. Her dad and brother dead. Her and her mother's house reclaimed. Forced to come and live in a village she wasn't familiar with. With people she didn't know. People who didn't like her. And she never moaned about it. Never. How did she do it? How did she just keep picking herself up? Keep crawling over every damn obstacle thrown in her path when all I ever felt like doing was packing it all in and running away?

My eyes flicked to that gourd at LanceAsh's mouth. A savage thirst screwed my stomach into knots. LanceAsh sipped very little before turning his chin away. 'Save some for yourself,' he croaked.

Emily eyed him.

'Drink,' he told her. 'You too, Jake. But only sips. It must be rationed, do you hear me?'

Emily rose to her feet and moved slowly, stiffly toward me. I shook my head. 'No, Emily, you drink. I'm okay.'

'Don't be stupid.' She knelt down lowered the gourd to me. I found it utterly impossible to ignore my thirst. I grabbed the vessel and had myself three or four sips before a raging primal urge gripped me. I wanted to upend every last drop down my throat. I almost did. I was so close. I fought all of my will to pass it back to Emily. She sipped. I could she wanted more too but she put the stopper back in before her thirst overwhelmed her.

'We need... we need to keep moving.' LanceAsh's voice wavered; he kept his chin away from his wrenched shoulder. He couldn't bear to look at it. Like it'd send him into conniptions if he did. I didn't blame him. He was taking it well as far as I was concerned. If that had've been me I would've been hollering like a fucking baby.

'We need to keep... keep moving,' he stressed again. He pointed weakly to where the tracks cut a wide gloomy corridor through the swishing grasses, to where I now saw a sign stabbed into the dark earth. HATRED'S END, it read. 'On the other side there lies Londaw's Terminus. The Stormgirl ordinarily ends her journey there. My hope is to hail a taxi. They often wait there, you see.'

Emily helped him struggle to his feet. 'A taxi?' I knew what she was thinking. Was he flipping delirious? 'Out Here?'

He nodded, grimacing.

Emily glanced at me, not convinced LanceAsh was fit to be moving. 'Look, are you sure you're okay?' she said to him.

He just stood there, unsteady, his remaining hand clenched to his wound. He swallowed, looking pale.

'We ought to rest a while,' Emily stressed. 'Give yourself at least a minute.' She had her arm around him.

'No. We must press on. I feel the Charon upon these lands.' He started forward, groggy, woozy. We watched him go a few steps. Then he stumbled and Emily grabbed him and steadied him.

'Look, do you honestly think anyone's actually going to be there?' she snapped. She was right. We were about as isolated as you could get. Who the fuck was going to be waiting beyond the grass for fares when regular train services had been terminated?

'We have barely another option,' he croaked.

With great stiffness in my bones I finally pulled myself to my feet, wearily hitching my bag over my shoulder. My torn sneakers hung from my toes. I kicked them off and left them there in the dirt. Emily'd already done the same.

LanceAsh, groggily, set off again, slowly, unsteadily. We had no choice but to trail him, if only to prevent him passing out and falling on his fucking face.

2

I didn't like the grass one bit. It stood three metres from ground to tip as it swished under the hot evening wind. It towered over us like skinny leering fiends. It gave me the fucking creeps. We were vulnerable here. We were on foot in this crazy world for the first time—no VW or Gomm bus to retreat to if some monstrosity with a zillion teeth came charging out of the undergrowth.

Yet the Kalalushi Divide looked a hundred miles away so what choice did we have? None. We had to walk.

We trailed the track as it curved through the grassland, the evening air hot on our skin and the grass walls on either side of us whispering and swaying in the heated breeze. Somehow it made me feel even more isolated. I kept my eyes open for anything moving in the grass. Large yellow eyes. Faces. Anything. I kept thinking of the Charon. I kept thinking of that spider thing on Strangler's Vale. Its black face, its horrible spider-eyes, its claws and its stench. I couldn't imagine what we'd do if one of those things suddenly burst from the undergrowth.

LanceAsh stumbled along, weary, exhausted. About halfway across that swaying sea of stalks he fell. I was a step in front of him. I wasn't aware what'd happened until I heard him groan. I turned my head and saw him pitch sideways into the vegetation. Emily grabbed his good arm as he went, trying to break his fall. But the grass proved a fairly effective cushion anyway. Except for the spikes—I saw now why he'd called it 'spear grass'. The tips consisted of a spine about a foot long armed with backwards-hooked barbs. A couple had pierced his tunic where the blood from his dismembered arm was still drying.

We dragged him back onto the path, yanking the barbs from his clothes. He sat there panting, collecting himself, hunched over. His remaining hand still clenched his vacant shoulder socket, as if the fall had given it a good seeing to.

'Just rest a while,' Emily urged him desperately.

I didn't sit easy with that idea one bit, looking around at the dark realms between the grass. 'Fuck that, Em, we gotta keep moving.'

LanceAsh lay down on his side, gazing longingly at the distant mountains. It was as if he'd finally accepted we'd never get there, never reach them. He mumbled something to himself. Patiently Emily asked him what he'd said. 'I wish I'd had the foresight to ration the Stealthfalcons,' he spluttered louder, hanging his head, exhausted as I'd ever seen him, as if this was it, he was finally packing it all in.

Emily wouldn't have known what he was talking about. Regarding the Stealthfalcons and whatnot. 'Just rest a bit,' she told him gently. She had some of his blood on her cheek and on her hands. 'Okay? Just rest.'

But he wouldn't listen. He was suddenly determined to keep moving, struggling to his feet again. Emily reluctantly lent him a hand. I pitched in too, eagerly getting him to stand. I just wanted out of that God-awful place.

'It was Urkomenis,' he mumbled as he stood there puffing for breath, 'I know it.'

He set off slowly, walking ahead of us, both of us ready to catch him. I fixated on the ghostly whispers away in the grass. The gloomy twilight kept playing damn tricks with the shadows.

'He aided Goon.' LanceAsh looked around at me with some effort. 'You realise that, do you not?'

'Keep walking. Wotta you talking about?'

'That is who intercepted the Falcons.' He grimaced. 'Urkomenis. If only I had but a single one left I would despatch it now to the mountains, and the Behemoths would have word of us in a hurry. They would know of our plight and send help.'

'Yeah, well you also said they should've seen us like days ago.' I kept my voice as hushed as I could. I looked around. We were being followed. I could feel it. 'But where are they? Nowhere.' I peered over my shoulder. I saw nothing but the lonely abandoned track receding behind us. But something was stalking us. I just knew it. I could hear whispers coming from the grass.

LanceAsh grew silent, lurching as he walked, regaining his balance with Emily's help. He waved her hand away and lifted his head, huffing. He stopped and stood there like a Friday night drunk who'd forgotten where he was going. He attempted to focus on the distant mountains. 'I fear something dire has happened. If only I had obtained Vynka's telescope before she left us. We might witness what has befallen the Behemoths.'

I was in front of him by then. 'Come on, keep moving.'

Emily looked grave. 'What do you mean?' She gazed toward the mountains.

'They have eyes up there,' LanceAsh told her tiredly, clenching his shoulder and breathing heavy. 'On the summit. Mighty telescopes that can see a thousand miles in all directions. If they were at all operational they should, as Jake rightly points out, have spotted us days ago. They would have despatched aid. Alas, it has not come.'

Emily looked sick with fear. 'You think something has happened to them?'

He wouldn't answer.

'LanceAsh,' she said. 'Has something happened to them?'

'I cannot tell.'

'So, I'm going to die then?' she said as if she might cry. 'After all this... I'm going to bloody well die?'

He wouldn't look at her. But he answered, his head hung forlornly. 'To be honest, Emily, I cannot say.' He moved on, his chin low, despondent.

'Course it doesn't mean that, Em,' I said, trying to project at least one shred of optimism here. Optimism I certainly wasn't feeling. 'We'll find a way. You'll see. We'll find a way.'

3

He gave us an hour to cross Hatred's End. But we did it in forty minutes. That was mainly due to my constant harassing. And it felt the longest forty minutes of my life, with the ever-whispering grass and that awful feeling we were being followed. The grass finally opened onto a large dirt clearing where the train line ended at a small platform, before a line of rundown shacks silhouetted against the warm sunset.

As we feared, there was no one about. The place was deserted. And in some considerable state of ruin too: the tin roofs of the shacks flapped and clinked in the balmy breezes. Rubbish swirled about. A rusting Coca-Cola sign swung from a single screw. Beyond the shacks lay scrubby empty bushland.

There was a definite change in LanceAsh's demeanour as he laid eye on the scene. For the worse, I mean. And he gazed north with a heavy brow, longingly watching the mountain peaks caught in the gleaming rays of the dropping sun.

'What do we do then?' Emily asked him, standing there with her bare feet in the dirt.

Exactly, I thought, what the fuck do we do? It was almost a certainty that we weren't going to reach the mountains now. Not by tomorrow at any rate. And the thought pained me so much I couldn't look at Emily.

But I wasn't the only one to jump with a start when a low gruff voice spoke from the dark. 'Perhaps I could be of assistance.'

Startled we turned toward the sound that seemed to have boomed from the deep shadows of the nearest shack. At first I saw nothing. And then... a silhouette against the bleeding sunset. And something else so out of place, it looked plain bizarre.

A horse.

And an ox cart.

And a man.

'Who are you, friend?' LanceAsh asked sternly, nervously.

'Your ride away from here,' he growled. 'I have been expecting you for some considerable time. You're lucky I'm a patient soul, for you're as late as they come.'

'How do you come to expect us?'

This newcomer huffed impatiently. 'I see the patterns in the elements—the drift of the wind, the fall of the rain.'

LanceAsh scoffed. 'Such a skill is a lost art, my friend. Unless of course you claim to be a member of the Dominors. An Order the realm knows to be extinct. So, my guess is you know of our coming through darker means.'

'Oh? Well do you want taxiing or not!' The voice was so harsh it sent LanceAsh quiet. 'I won't be delaying for the likes of you lot to make up your addled minds.'

'Show yourself so that we can have our minds made up then!' LanceAsh growled.

The stranger slapped the reins. And the horse hauled cart and rider forward a couple of metres, bringing the stranger into the dying twilight. But it made no difference. His head remained concealed under a large drooping hood.

I suspected a trick. 'It's Goon,' I whispered to LanceAsh.

LanceAsh frowned. 'What is your name? Reveal yourself!'

The stranger grunted, agitated. Suspended on a tall pike over the cart was a lantern that now flared to life, glowing a deep blood orange. It revealed the man in a heavy cloak. But still we couldn't see his face; it remained hidden beneath that hood. 'My name is Scree, if you must know. Hieronymus Scree. I am no Charon sympathiser if that's what you're thinking. I am no foe. I am the last taxi to leave this station. And you have thirty seconds to make up your minds whether you jump aboard or not. Either way, I shan't be hanging around. It isn't safe in these here parts.' He sounded like he grinned. 'But I'm sure you already know.'

'Show us your face,' LanceAsh ordered tiredly. 'We have had the likes of Urkomenis working against us these past days. We shall take no chances.'

Begrudgingly that hood finally turned in our direction, and as the lamplight lit its edge and then the side of the face within, me and Emily both gulped and took a step backwards.

Looming above us sat a man with a huge gnarled head, black eyes and a long messy beard. I thought initially he was smiling at us until I realised his mouth was stuck in a permanent skeletal sneer thanks to a particularly nasty scar. His lips and cheek had been completely torn away on the right side of his face.

'Yes, I know,' he gruffed. 'The Charon have made me look quite dashing, have they not? And if you know of Urkomenis then you know he has snake eyes and gills. Of which I quite clearly have none. Now come! Climb aboard before I have to drag your sorry souls up here with my fists.'

Surprisingly (or not) it was Emily who forced our decision. Before I knew what she was doing, she'd climbed onto the long flat dray and settled herself there, regarding me and LanceAsh with a resigned shrug. 'I'm dying, aren't I? What choice do I have?'

4

It rained much of that night, beginning with a light shower an hour after this Hieronymus Scree picked us up. After that it hammered down relentlessly. There was no lightning, no thunder, just a heavy continuous downpour. Scree hoisted up a slanting oilskin shelter which kept out most of the water and we huddled there on the back of his cart as night fell with a chill.

'Oh, it'll get colder still as we progress through the foothills of Kalalushi,' Scree promised cheerfully after LanceAsh told him of our destination. (But I had a strange sense this soul somehow knew of our heading long before he was told it.)

Bolted to the centre of the cart was a blackened iron brazier, about two foot in diameter. At the front of the cart there sat a cage bundled high with wood. As Scree drove us on through the darkness he told us to build a fire. 'Warm yourselves,' he growled.

As it crackled and spat, as smoke flurried away into the rains, we sat around it shivering. All the while Scree's horse affected a rapid canter across country we couldn't see—land that was lost to both night and deluge.

LanceAsh unhitched his scabbard and sword (awkwardly with his remaining hand, and wouldn't accept Emily's help when she offered it), then the bandolier, then he sat there with his wounded shoulder away from the firelight. But Scree was naturally curious. 'Tell me, did you lose an arm or have you gained one?'

'Gained one?' LanceAsh laughed without humour. 'Are you a fool?'

'Merely curious. I may be a thirty-year veteran of Forgotten but my roots lie in the realm you call Strangeworld.' He laughed so low it sounded like choking. 'To grow a limb lost? Well, I have learned that you can never take anything for granted in this place.'

I pondered what he'd just said. 'You're from Strangeworld?' I asked him.

He glanced around at me. 'That would depend on who's asking, lad.'

I shrugged. 'So are you or not?'

'You forget, lad, we are strangers, you and I.'

I was puzzled by what that meant. And didn't know what to say. Wasn't sure if I should press him. His tone of voice certainly didn't make him sound as though he was someone who wanted to be pressed. More like someone who'd pummel your head in if you got on the wrong side of him. Reluctantly, I let it be.

5

LanceAsh slept most of that long cold night. I watched him as he lay there hunched in a ball. His empty shoulder still packed with those sticky leaves. Like I said, there must've been some sort of anaesthetic property in that stuff. To numb the pain and stuff. His grogginess and slurred speech could've suggested as much. I sat at the end of the cart, leaning against old sacks. Rain spat down, hammering the shelter. As time drew on, my mind drifted and for I couldn't help think of Vynka. I pictured her VW racing like mad through the dead streets of Ndola, those Toads on her tail. I saw her crash. Saw her crawl free and unfurl her whips.

"I fear, one of us will surely be doomed in the days to come," she'd said that night when I'd found her eating that awful dinner. That'd only been twenty-four hours ago. Thinking back, she must've known it was going to be her. She'd looked so sad. I felt terrible that she'd most likely died back there, away from her mothers. Alone. In pain.

Ahead of us the mountain peaks had long vanished into the night and Scree sat there, hour after hour through the wee hours, ploughing his horse onward, his back always to us, his hunched shoulders and cloak lit only by the dancing fire, rain splatting his face and hood.

6

I awoke sometime round about 7 am. LanceAsh was still asleep but Emily was awake, sitting at the front of the dray, watching the way ahead, her hair blowing out behind her.

The cart still belted forward. In the iron brazier the fire'd burned down to embers and drifting white ash. My bare toes felt brittle cold. Around us the world had emerged from the gloom of the night's showers and the land about was a mix of weak grey sunlight through cold foggy hills and misty moorlands.

When LanceAsh awoke he lifted his head and stared at me for a while... like he'd forgotten where he was. He went to sit up but leaned on an arm that no longer existed and rocked over onto his empty shoulder socket, groaning in obvious pain. It might've been funny had I not witnessed what he'd been through.

Emily looked around and saw him on his side and was quick to lend him support as he tried to right himself, tangled as he was in his bandolier and scabbard. He looked horrified; no doubt the memory of what the witch had done was still too raw.

Emily tried to comfort him. Leaning over, gazing into his face, her hair brushing against his cheeks. 'Are you okay, LanceAsh? Do you need anything?'

He shook his head. 'Thank you. No.'

She studied him. 'Does it hurt?'

The question obviously irked him but he remained civil. 'Do not concern yourself with me. Please.'

'Has that plant helped?' Emily asked, indicating the leaves on his armless shoulder.

'Aye, it has,' he said shortly. 'Now leave it be.'

After that we sat there, damp and sullen. Scree, who'd sensed the dire state of our mood, ordered me to the reins. 'Keep Cape Wrath on the track! That's all ya got ta do, lad!'

'Cape Wrath?'

'Me horse, lad! Now, you think you can handle one simple little job? Keep it on the track.'

He stepped into the cart and stoked the embers, throwing on kindling which smoked for a bit before crackling into warming flame. The pale green hills unfolded before me, materialising from the fog banks, cold wind blasting my cheeks, watering my eyes, chilling my fingers and feet. I was so nervous that big garron would slew off the road or something silly.

Scree poured water into a large kettle, then dumped it on the fire. 'I'll make us a brew, shall I,' he gruffed merrily. 'Pipe you people up a smidge! You lot are as much fun as smoulder-ants on my balls.'

The water boiled and he unfolded cloth crammed with salted eel (meat that tasted like smoked cod), passing portions round with thick crusty bread, commanding us all to, 'Eat! It'll win you back some strength. You look like a party of skinned dogs.'

7

By 7:30 the fog'd begun to lift. It relieved me to finally see the Kalalushi Mountains emerge into the new day, knowing Scree had been true to his word, that he had been steering us toward them through the dark wet night. They stood as brilliant and stark as the previous evening, the sun lighting their tall eastern slopes. And so much nearer too. It seemed to pipe LanceAsh up a tad and he smiled and pointed weakly. 'We are drawing close at last. You can see the Behemoth city.'

It was still a good twenty miles off I guess, but he was right, you could make out the faint hints of spires and towers and constructions glinting in the morning light amidst the general haze of the mountain. It filled me with a new sense of hope.

We might actually make it, I thought. We might actually get through this alive.

But those thoughts, as it turned out, were premature.

8

The road climbed through the lower foothills of the Divide, my ears popping as the air thinned. I shivered, sitting there with arms tight around my chest; the temperature dropping the higher we went. Goose-bumps covered me but there was a lot to distract me from the cold: the abundant blue flowers in the fells and vales, the large butterflies similar to the gargantuan ones we'd seen days ago in the lowlands (only these weren't as big or as colourful), and the herds of giant mammals chewing on the lush vegetation. It was a paradise after the days crossing the barren Kitwei Plains, after the dark gritty wastes of the witch realm.

We'd been tracking the base of a long stony valley, the sky above us a brilliant pristine blue, and mid-morning we stopped by a small waterfall to refill water canisters and to allow Cape Wrath much needed rest; his skin was shiny with sweat and he steamed in the chilled air. All around us now were mountain peaks and steep slopes smeared in patchworks of purple heather and green ferns and bracken.

Scree dunked gourds into the cold stream, filling them. LanceAsh didn't leave the cart. He sat there, as if contemplating the way ahead. It was the first time I acknowledged how haggard he looked. How vastly different he seemed since the first time we'd met. That cocky, arrogant, smiling twat from all those weeks ago had vanished. All the vitality, all that zest had been rung out of him. He looked like a squished rat with his hair flattened and damp, and his eyes all puffy but small-looking. Every movement seemed a tremendous effort. Like a man four times his age.

'We need to press on,' he urged weakly, glancing at Emily, a certain note of angst in his voice. Downstream, Emily had been rinsing her bare feet in the chilly water. Near to her wallowed a group of peculiar dogs. Strange-looking mutts with beaver tails, long snouts and sharp teeth, all picking at berries. They ignored us, lounging about in the rocky shallows, yapping at each other.

'Emily, come now!' LanceAsh called, slowly donning his scabbard and bandolier, looking about cautiously. 'Let us move.'

Scree noted his concern and took to looking around too. Which put me on edge and had me searching the area surrounding us. But I saw no sign of danger. Were we being watched?

We were on our way again soon after. I sat up front with Scree. The wind tugged at his hood, but he never once allowed anything to reveal his full face. Except, every now and then a wash of sunlight would cast across his cheeks, and I'd catch a glimpse of that horrible scar, his teeth bared like a dead skull.

LanceAsh stayed at the rear of the cart, his eyes shut, keeping thoughts to himself. Emily once again knelt behind the headboard, gazing at the grand Behemoth city basking high on a cluster of mountains still a long way ahead. Her toes were wrinkled and white. She sipped water. She looked pale and ragged but I noticed a hint of hope on her face now as she eyed the way forward. I wondered if she might actually be out of the woods. Perhaps the Dedhoryans plant had actually seen off the Charon cancer for good. After all, as far as I could tell, today was day five since I'd dropped Emily on the doorstep of the Charweed's. And on the fifth day they had warned me she'd succumb.

Yet, there were so signs.

But ten minutes later it happened. I'd joined her at the front of the dray, enjoying the wind racing through my hair, taking in the scenery. I wasn't aware she'd moved from my side until I saw Scree frowning over his shoulder. When I looked my pulse skipped.

She was holding hair out of her face, kneeling over the edge of the cart, throwing up. Long drools of spit dangled off her lips, the thundering wheel of the cart only a foot below her chin.

I clambered over to her. 'Emily? What's wrong?'

'Jake, I feel... I feel terrible.'

I blinked, nervous. 'In what way? Wotta ya mean?'

'I don't know.' She swallowed, wiped her mouth with her wrist. 'I feel dizzy.' She pulled back from the edge of the cart and sat there, pale and red-eyed, looking at me.

'What be the matter?' It was LanceAsh, sitting there against the sacks. His eyes had come open.

'Emily's sick,' I told him. I wanted to believe it had something to do with the stream water we'd all drunk. Upset her belly. Made her queasy. But even while I was considering this idea Emily slumped and pitched sideways over the edge of the cart.

9

We lunged for her at the same time, LanceAsh and me, both of us grabbing her pants and arms as she went tumbling headfirst toward the roadway, gripping her just before her face smashed into the hard-packed dirt. We hauled her back onto the cart.

As we turned her over her eyes were watery and empty. Then her body began flailing about in wild spasms.

'Emily!' I called. 'Emily!'

No response.

'What's wrong?' gruffed Scree, and LanceAsh yelled, 'Drive, man! She is ill! Get us to the city in haste!'

'Yaar!' Scree called, 'Cape Wrath, show us your speed, by damnation!'

The horse looked nothing more than an old grey nag. But it must've been under some sort of enchantment. Because all night long it'd been hauling us virtually without break, and now it managed to dig in and find us some more pace.

'Emily!' I called into her face, trying to steady her jumping-bean body. 'Emily! What's wrong?' I gripped her, trying to hold her still.

LanceAsh clasped my hands. 'Leave her, Jake. There is naught you can do. The cancer is creeping into her brain. Her fate lies now with the Behemoth physicians.'

THE AMBUSH

1

THE BULK of the Behemoth city lay directly ahead of us now. Only it was about three thousand feet up the mountain slope. But now that we were so much closer, the buildings on its outer fringe stood out in finer detail. A stairway as wide as a motorway ran down from it, ending at the valley floor behind a defensive wall and towering watch towers. That was about three miles ahead of us where the roadway culminated at a massive set of gates LanceAsh announced as the Gates of Cuorinth. And that wasn't all. At either end of the wall where the stonework pushed up defensively against the mountain, a pair of enormous horn-like objects poked from the earth. Both loomed taller than either watch tower.

It looked like a giant face shoved against the base of the mountain. The watch towers like pointy ears, the gates like a mouth full of snarling teeth, and the horns shaped objects like the tusks of some gargantuan buried elephant. There were even gaping eyes carved into the stonework above the gates, the kind that watched you no matter where you were positioned on the plain.

LanceAsh hovered over Emily, studying her face. Abruptly he straightened, a look of dread dug into his face. I feared she was gone, feared she'd died. But he was looking past me, studying the tall hills at the base of a scraggy mountain range out to the south-west. When I followed his gaze I almost stopped breathing.

A vast black shadow had crested the sunny slopes and was sweeping down the incline toward us.

'What the hell is that, LanceAsh?'

He watched it with grave eyes. 'Blast our ill fortune!' He ignored me and turned to Scree. 'Pace now, Hieronymus! Get us to the gates!'

'LanceAsh,' I demanded. 'What the fuck is it?'

'You must brace yourself, Jake!' he said gravely. 'We have the dreaded Charon scourge on our tail at last!'

The news put me in shock. I spun my head to watch that surging black mass. The Charon? Really? But we were so close!

We hurtled toward the Gates of Cuorinth guarding the base of the mountain stairway. Cape Wrath bounding like he'd been shot with adrenalin, sweat pouring off his flanks, the wheels on the cart whirring madly like machine cogs on that wide stony roadway.

Suddenly the cart seemed to swing erratically from the roadway and I turned my eyes on Scree and his horse, fearing something was wrong. I noticed that the road curved out to the left about a hundred metres before banking back around. I realised now that Scree had us on a bee-line for the gates.

Still, the Charon mass was quick, and already sweeping out across the valley floor, already gaining ground on us.

'Yar, Cape Wrath!' Scree kept roaring at his nag, whipping those reins; thick veins rising on his forearms. 'Yar, show us your speed!'

But his was slowing now, its nostrils like hoops as it sucked in rapid breaths.

I gripped the edge of the cart, staring at the vanguard racing toward us, unable to take my eyes off it. The sight chilled me. They were huge black spider things with gleaming spider-eyes. Just like that fucking monster on Strangler's Vale. I couldn't believe it. It had taken a single one of them to rip me to shreds. But there, sweeping toward us, were hundreds of them.

'Yar!' yelled Scree, 'come on, boy, don't give up on me now!'

I turned to survey our destination. It seemed so far away. The monsters were almost upon us. We weren't going to make it.

'LanceAsh, what are we going to do?' I yelled. 'What are we going to do?'

The front runners of the horde closed the distance quickly. Like ants scrambling toward some fly with its wings ripped off. You could hear them, grumbling, snarling, twittering. Scree struck Cape Wrath time and time again with the reins; you could hear the leather straps really whipping into its flesh, the sound cracking across the air. But the horse's race was almost run. The Skrargs were only fifteen metres behind us now.

'Jake, get behind me!' LanceAsh yelled, shoving me to his back before I had a chance to act—he now had both me and Emily crammed between him and the headboard of the cart. He plucked from his bandolier two small metal shards resembling twin-bladed throwing-stars.

He pitched them both in the one throw and they zinged from his fingers with the sound of twanged wire, cutting through the air, striking two separate Skrargs at the front of the charging pack.

I expected the stars to cleave some sort of gaping wound into the beasts, but they did absolutely nothing.

Except...

One second...

Two seconds...

BOOOOM!

Both stars exploded at once, tearing handfuls of those dark monsters to shreds, spitting bloodied chunks into the air, and taking others to ground in thunderous falls, rolling headfirst, squealing and screeching.

But the horde kept coming.

LanceAsh pitched one more star and with it his belt ran empty. 'Blast my ill preparation!' he seethed as it zinged into the pack, detonating two seconds later, ripping several beasts open, dropping a handful of others to the grass.

Yet, still they came. LanceAsh withdrew his sword. 'Come then!' he yelled, enraged, above the roar of our grinding wheels. 'Come then, you stinking spawn of the Barrows!' and that's when the ground around us erupted...

2

Hidden fox holes, as deep and round as swimming pools, had been dug into the plain. We hadn't seen them on our approach because they'd been camouflaged with grass woven into vast mats of netting. But just as the front of the Charon horde caught us, the nets were thrown aside and out wriggled creatures as tall as trees.

Spiders, I thought. Giant spiders. Because that's all I saw as we raced onward in a blur of blinding speed, with the wind stinging my eyes. There was just this tangle of scrambling limbs. Like trap-door spiders clambering from their burrows to snatch us.

But as we zoomed by I saw them as they burst from the earth. Huge humanoid fuckers. Thirty or forty of them. As big as tower blocks. Each one had four arms that wielded shields, and strange projectile weapons, and swords the length of light poles. They were clad in heavy steel-plated armour and helmets that sported curved horns as long as spears.

There was no hesitation in their offensive. As soon as they'd scrambled from their fox holes they roared as one and charged headlong into the oncoming Charon mass.

'Haha!' LanceAsh yelled triumphantly, 'Behemoth Gunners! The Charon are in for a fight now!'

A number of sizzling bolts of energy shot out from those strange Behemoth guns and there came booms like thunder—the shockwaves even rocked the cart over on two wheels for a second. The energy bolts slammed into the great black horde as it charged forward and huge numbers of Skrargs exploded outwards from the impact zones.

'The fuck is that?' I asked bewildered as more bolts shot overhead.

'Dreadcannons,' LanceAsh yelled over the roar of the commotion. 'Now keep your head down unless you wish to lose it!'

The two packs collided then, Behemoths and Charon, with a crunching clash so brutal and deafening it felt as though the mountains themselves shook. Bodies from both fronts hurled bloodied and lifeless through the air as if two freight trains had slammed head on into each other. But the Skrargs seemed the more agile, leaping high at the faces of these giant four-armed brutes, razored talons slicing through armour, tearing off chunks of flesh. Yet the Behemoths proved tough and stout, wearing the brunt of frenzied attacks and cleaving great wads of those monsters in half.

The Skrargs had the numbers though. With high piercing squeals a great many of them crashed through the wall of Behemoths, sprawling on impact, tumbling, scrambling, breaching the Behemoth line, and charging after us.

A Gunner who'd emerged from the plain to our left, tore our way, heaving Skrarg beasts aside with a plated-steel shield large enough to shade a small garden, hacking the legs off two of the monsters with mighty sword blows. He holstered his mighty Dreadcannon at his hip and slung his shield to his back. Keeping his mighty sword handy he drew alongside us, his massive boots pounding the earth as he ran.

'Hold tight!' his voice boomed from inside his helmet, darting forward with incredible speed. Deftly he plucked up Cape Wrath by the harness, jolting us off our feet, hauling us from Skrarg clutches with hardly a second to spare.

I gripped the back of Scree's seat with pale knuckles, grabbing Emily's collar with my spare hand just as she went sliding toward the edge of the cart.

The Gates of Cuorinth loomed now, taller than I'd judged, towering five or six storeys off the plain. As we sped toward them, there were knots of Skrargs hard on our tail. But the gates heaved outwards and Gunners holding position in the stone towers above, fired Dreadcannons. Sizzling blue bolts zipped over our heads (the smell reeking of ozone) taking down great lumps of Skrargs scrambling up behind us.

Yet, still they came, Skrargs, sweeping toward us as we rolled through the gates and surged into the bailey beyond the huge wall. Cannon fire screamed down at them from the guard towers, cooking them. Their squeals were deafening. Behind us, the gates heaved shut and I thought we were safe at last, but great thuds could be heard outside the compound as Skrargs hurled themselves into the gates. Up they came, scrabbling on the thick ironwork, squealing dementedly, clambering over the top. But the Behemoths had anticipated this, pooling guards within the compound who rushed out to meet the enemy roaches with mighty swords, dicing them to bits.

We were hustled quickly to the back of the compound, near where the giant staircase ran up the mountain. Amidst giant ferns and orange bell flowers, tall, defensive walls lined the slopes on either side of the stairs. Gunners stood guard around us, four of them facing the gates. Out there on the plain the battle raged on, squeals and roars and clashing swords and booming, searing Dreadcannons. Another Skrarg clawed its way over the top of the gates, only to be blown to pieces as it dropped to the ground before us.

A number of them continued to test their luck, ramming the gate, trying to climb over. Dreadcannons boomed and Skrarg torsos blew to bits, yellow blood splatting and running down the inside of the gates...

...but within a minute... all fell silent.

3

The Behemoth who'd hauled us to safety, left us momentarily and took to one of the guard towers, surveying the battlefield. When he was satisfied he returned to the compound. 'Healers!' he yelled to a large group of Behemoths stationed near one of the wide tree trunks. 'See to the injured!'

Again the huge gates were thrust open and this group, dressed in robes and hoods of deep blue, filed onto the battlefield. Out there I saw hundreds of bodies littering the green grass of the valley. Some still moving. Some groaning. Behemoth Gunners roamed the carcasses, hacking off the heads of any Charon that still twitched or moved or whined. While the Blue Robes saw to injured cohorts.

He approached us then, the giant who'd summoned the medics, sheathing his dripping sword in a scabbard at his hip and prodding his shoulder with his huge knuckles. 'You put up a fine sprint, Hieronymus,' he said, hitching off his great horned helm, his armour clinking, his heavy boots leaving massive footprints in the moist grass. The giant's hair hung beyond his shoulders in a pair of long plaits, and the end of his beard was plaited too. None of us stood taller than his knee. He looked across at Cape Wrath who stood panting in the furthest corner of the compound. 'And I must declare, horses from Strangeworld never cease to amaze me.'

LanceAsh and Scree returned the gesture, prodding their shoulders with closed fists. But I couldn't move. The brute's face had me mesmerised. The night of the Dead Man's Challenge draw swept back to me. Specifically the 'Dead Man's' face—the contraption from which they'd drawn the eight iron balls to select the venue of the Annual Challenge. Somehow, here it was, living and breathing. And huge. Four large blinking eyes and two noses, and one mouth to speak for it all. It was as though one face had been partway merged with another. Like some god's twisted joke.

'Oh and I should have known you'd be mixed up in all this, LanceAsh,' he said, gazing down with his four fierce eyes, the nostrils of his two noses still flaring hard from his exertion.

LanceAsh gazed up at the giant. 'We owe you our gratitude, Ramass'sia. Although, I must say, we were holding our own quite nicely until you showed up.' He attempted a grin, but it was more a grimace of pain if anything.

'By the Guardians!' Ramass'sia chuckled, breathlessly. 'Holding your own quite nicely? Is that how you put it, old friend? Oh, I'd love to have seen it if you'd been in some serious peril then!'

LanceAsh smiled again. 'No doubt.' Then indicated me with his remaining arm. 'Anyhow, allow me to introduce my friends. This is Jake Crassly, human born of Strangeworld.'

This Ramass'sia looked down at me and prodded his knuckles into his shoulder. 'An honour to make your acquaintance, Jake Crassly, human born.'

Somewhat awkwardly I returned the gesture, jabbing my knuckles into my collar bone.

'And the lass here,' LanceAsh said, his voice now grave, 'would be Jake's sister. Emily Sanders.'

I almost corrected him. Almost told the giant she was actually my step-sister. But I didn't... and before I could say anything LanceAsh cut in anyway: 'She is one of the reasons we have travelled so far to find you. She has been struck down by Charon gripe.'

Ramass'sia immediately summoned another Behemoth. 'Eli'shar,' he called. 'This is your field.'

This new one, Eli'shar, emerged from beneath the deep shadows under one of the gargantuan trees. She was much thinner than Ramass'sia and dressed differently. No armour. No weapons. She was clad instead in long pale robes held in at the waist by a belt of brown vines interwoven with bizarre animal skulls. She had objects like feathers in her hair, hair long and braided, with tattoos down her neck and up the sides of her face. She was a beautiful thing, even though, like Ramass'sia she possessed that bizarre double face.

She loomed over us; I felt small as a rat—you seriously had to crane your neck just to look up at these people.

'How many days ago was the human girl bitten?' A head brace around her forehead dangled with bones. (Bird bones, I assumed. Yet these people were so large they were just as likely to be cattle bones or from some other huge beast.)

'How many days?' she asked again.

Bitten? Was she talking to me? I had to think about it. Exactly how long had we been traipsing across this world? 'Five. I think.'

Eli'shar reached out her hand and spread it above Emily. There were ten fingers to that hand. And as wide as an umbrella. I had to step out of the way. 'She has been administered medicine? I sense evidence of Dedhoryans.'

'Um, yeah.' Should I have said something about the Charweeds?

She removed her hand. 'Death is indeed coming for her. She requires the breath of Red Starlight. We must make haste.' She picked Emily up, Emily looking as small as a dead kitten in her giant hands, and held her to her large bosom. She whispered to Emily's blank unseeing face, 'By the mercy of Yayyashavah, may your body call for your soul.'

With two physicians at her side Eli'shar ascended the giant staircase... carrying Emily away.

4

'We should away to safety,' Ramass'sia said, 'if you mean to accompany your companion.' Momentarily he surveyed the battle-slain on the green lands beyond the open gates. Behemoth survivors, some injured and somehow jovial, were limping home, while others were carried on stretcher beds. And those who had not moved since battle, those who must've taken their last breath, were being set alight; the Blue Robes igniting their corpses with long wands glowing white hot at the tip. Great pyres flared up across the landscape and soon a dozen smoke stacks had lifted lazily into the stark blue heavens. It was an act I couldn't fathom. I eyed the spectacle speechless. Wouldn't their families want to say goodbye? Pay their last respects? Wouldn't their families want to lay them to rest in private? No-one but me seemed confused by this. And no-one but me seemed at all confused as to why the Skrargs were simply left to rot without their heads. Why not set them alight in the same manner?

'We may have temporarily gained the upper hand over the Dark Scourge,' Ramass'sia told LanceAsh, 'but the Charon cannot be underestimated. It is just as likely ten thousand more will come scurrying over the hills in the next minute. So, let us away to safety and get you lot up to the city to refresh and recoup.'

Scree bowed respectfully but said, 'I must decline your hospitality this time, Ramass'sia. As soon as the old nag's rested I'll be off. For I have places to be.'

'Very well,' Ramass'sia said. 'Travel well. May the Great Mother guide you across smooth roads and little hindrance.'

'Indeed. Yet I sense there be hindrance ahead whether I wish it or not.'

'Then may She guide you safely through it.'

LanceAsh had listened to this exchange patiently and now he turned and offered Scree his remaining hand. 'On behalf of Emily, allow me to thank you for your service. If it had not been for you, her goose would surely have been cooked. Now, state your fee, friend, for getting us this far.'

Scree dipped his great bearded chin (still keeping his scarred face concealed) and held his mitts beneath his dark cloak. 'Drive that barrow spawn back to hell. That'll be your debt paid well and truly.' And with that he turned away.

We followed Ramass'sia toward the stairway. 'I must apologise for our failing in sending you aid, LanceAsh,' he said. 'A number of days ago our telescopes were ransacked and overrun by Charon sympathisers. The telescopes were recaptured only yesterday. And it was only this very morning we spotted you speeding our way. I am impressed you made it so far. Tell me, did you come by Dragonfly across the Kitwei Wilds or along the East Roads?'

We'd reached the base of the stairs—the top of the first step craned high above my head like an impenetrable concrete wall. If we were meant to climb these all the way up the mountain side it was going to take me a fucking week. I stood there looking about. I puzzled over the sight of a gigantic egg nestled off to one side in the grass. It was so large you could've parked a minivan inside it.

'Aye, across Kitwei, but not by Dragonfly,' LanceAsh told him. 'No, I am sad to report the Dragonfly pilots of Lusakah have been annihilated. Thus, we crossed by land.'

Ramass'sia looked troubled by this news. 'Annihilated? Do you know the cause of their demise?'

'I cannot be sure. But I suspect the warlock Urkomenis. Although he may have had an accomplice—a menace from Strangeworld. A one Radford Goon. Your Guardians may know of him, I think. He has had a long history with Forgotten. Once an ally, now a foe. We were pursued by him day and night. He and a host of Ganyra Toads. It must be said he made a most determined effort to catch us, yet I am relieved to report the Witching Fence at Ndola saw him and his host off.'

The Behemoth frowned. Looked thoughtful. Even troubled. He indicated the giant egg thing. 'Please,' he said, 'The Sky Coach. We shall talk as we go.'

LanceAsh nodded and stepped over to the object. He pulled open a door in its rounded side and ushered me in.

It was here I noticed a rope tethered to the nearest of those colossal tusks, a rope that stretched far up the slope of the mountain, tracking the course of the stairway. I noticed also a pulley system rigged to the crown of this so-called sky coach, and that the coach itself (although currently at rest upon the grass) was suspended from a huge iron wheel balanced on top of the rope.

Some sort of cable car, I wondered.

Hesitantly I moved over and entered. I found lounges around the walls and a central dais with jugs of water lodged into tight sturdy niches. LanceAsh trailed me in and went about the cabin pushing open shuttered windows. As he did, the coach promptly lifted from the ground, catching me off balance slightly. I got my footing, my legs ajar, looking at LanceAsh. We were gliding slowly up the mountain slope. Ropes creaked overhead.

LanceAsh turned to one of the windows that looked out upon the stairway. He and Ramass'sia resumed their conversation, the huge Behemoth climbing the stairway beside us. 'You say you passed through Ndola,' he asked LanceAsh.

'Yes,' LanceAsh replied.

'I'm surprised the Ndola guard did not aid you. They have recently installed Ghost Cannons to deal with any potential Charon invasion. The cannons would surely have made light work of such things as Ganyra beasts.'

LanceAsh shook his head. 'Perhaps you have not yet turned your eye-scopes on Ndola, my friend. I assure you, you will discover a grave scene. For if the Ndola guard possessed such weaponry then they were put out of commission days ago. We found nothing but slaughter there at the township. Any who lived have fled. All else are dead. Ndola has been rendered lifeless, a ghost town. I do not wish to add to bad tidings, but we saw much evidence of Charon mischief.'

Ramass'sia pondered this a moment as he hefted his bulk up the stairway, looking troubled. 'I will look into this. Thank you for the news.' And he grinned some sort of ironic, humourless grin then. 'By Yayyashavah, you have had an eventful journey! And your missing arm? A result of your adventures?'

LanceAsh still refused to set eye upon the ragged wound; although it looked mostly healed over thanks to those magic witch leaves. 'A gift for the Crones,' he explained tiredly, but smiling at least.

Ramass'sia nodded as if he understood, his two faces looking almost guilty, his great helm still hitched under one arm.

LanceAsh put the matter aside. 'Anyhow, Ramass'sia, we are here now. That is what matters. I shall concern myself with my injury when this trouble is over. There are far more pressing matters. You would know that we too have had Charon mischief on the Hidden Sea Coast these past few weeks.'

'Yes,' Ramass'sia declared, 'Of that I am aware.'

'Then you would know that both Jake and Emily were summoned by your leaders in relation to this matter.'

'Aye, the Guardians have uncovered means by which to rid the Charon from your region. I believe they posted scrolls summoning the human born to a meeting.' The big brute looked down at me in an inquisitive sort of way. But his four-eyed stare said it all: If you had made a prompt response to our scrolls then all this might've been avoided.

LanceAsh answered for me. 'Yes, they were received. But I believe the Guardians were forced to fly from Chessburn prematurely.'

Ramass'sia nodded. 'Indeed. Our scouts discovered a thousand-strong Charon horde amassed across the Blatherskite March on the northern foothills of the Divide. The moment the Guardians received this news they took leave of the Hidden Sea Coast and flew north. However, we have reason to suspect it may have been a Scourge ploy to distract us from the goings-on in the far south. I'm afraid the Guardians are now detained. When we detected you this morning we despatched them messages of your advance, but I'm afraid any pending meeting between yourselves and them will now be unfortunately delayed. Some menace or magic is intercepting our relays. And until we manage to sneak word through they shall not know of your coming. Thus they remain where they are.'

LanceAsh stared distantly at his feet, then sighed.

'In the meantime, I shall go ahead and arrange transport to take you to the Basilica. There you will find comfortable rooms in which to rest. By the sounds of things, you've had a gruelling journey so some time off your feet might be welcome. I promise, we will get word through to the Guardians. And hopes may be they meet with you before too long.'

With that he bounded up those stairs and was gone.

KHEMMERAT

1

I STOOD there watching Ramass'sia go, while back down the mountain below us, the battle wounded were gathering in the bailey and the Blue Robe stretcher bearers were beginning to lug patients up the stairway. All the while I couldn't help feel partly responsible for the shit that'd gone on down there. The death, the carnage.

LanceAsh poured me some water from the jugs into a porcelain mug. I drank heavily. It tasted delicious. 'Fresh mountain spring water,' he told me. 'You'll taste none better.'

Beneath the sky-coach, the tall walls that skirted the enormous stone stairs were dotted with giant tree ferns. And strange grey birds were drawn to knots of apricot and blue bellflowers that hung as long and thick as rockets; the fragrance in the air was like rose and citrus, and the drum of the birds a low comforting thrum. Behind us swept the plain and the mountains and the hills we'd covered to get here. The battle-dead still burned and the carcasses of the Skrargs left to rot. As we ascended I searched for Hatred's End and the Crone Territories but they were lost far, far south in the deep blue haze.

I sat there eyeing it all, tired and lost in my thoughts. I sat down. An extreme exhaustion smothered me the moment I did. Like an A&E surgeon who'd just come off a thirty-six hour shift. I'd tended to Emily, escorted her this far, she was in the care of someone else now. At last I could switch off. An immense weight pulled me downwards. It suddenly seemed a great physical effort even to talk. So I just sat there slumped, barely keeping my eyes open, staring through the windows.

2

SOMETIME later I opened my eyes and watched the sky coach drift toward a cliff face of sheer white rock. Our journey ended soon after, beyond a tall iron gate that was currently pushed open, one that extended across the stairway, blocking the path of would be invaders, I guess. It was guarded by towering watch-houses where Behemoth sentries gazed down at us. From here the stairway climbed another hundred feet to a flat terrace where gently we drifted through a gigantic archway and into a tall stone terminal. It was a cavernous structure. Sun slanted through the high open eaves and the floor grew neatly with cut green grass. Thriving creepers, and orchids snaked up the inside walls.

At the rear, sitting before a turning wheel three storeys high sat a Behemoth rigged into some peculiar contraption, his huge muscular legs working at pedals that drove a massive chain rigged to a pulley system. We drifted into the building and his work rate slowed and the cart came to rest at a kind of passenger platform. After hitching up a lever to secure the cart he left his post, plodded forward and swung a short gangplank round. The free end latched to the doorway of our rope cart.

He gazed down at us, his four eyes staring at us with great curiosity. Or perhaps it was hunger? 'Your transport awaits you in the street,' he said with a gruff voice.

We made our way outside to find a gargantuan ox-cart blocking our view. It stood as tall as a warehouse and was pulled by a titanic-sized bullock that looked something like a strange cross between a herculean dog and a buffalo on steroids. Horns, long as country lanes, curled forward from the sides of its massive skull. Its cloven hooves curled into claws, while its immense tail swished from side to side, swatting dart-shaped black bugs or birds or whatever the hell they were. LanceAsh called the brute a Wildehound.

We climbed a tall wooden ladder into the cart. The ox cart driver sat there in readiness. She was a gigantic Behemoth female. She turned her double-face to us. 'My name is Chen'dravah,' she said. 'I extend a warm welcome to you. I am to escort you to the Basilica. Make yourselves comfortable.' She flicked a set of reins as long as power lines and the Wildehound groaned and snorted, and it took another violent crack of the reins to get the huge beast moving.

3

Khemmerat lay spread across a long flat terrace several miles wide and as far as I could tell the city's streets appeared to be arranged in a pattern of concentric circles, as if the metropolis had been built radiating out from some central point.

The buildings were mostly domed and open to the streets via giant archways. They were encircled by columns and statues that wouldn't have looked small standing against something like the Eiffel Tower. There were fountains of similar height too, water cascading over sculptures of angelic beings jutting through the misty deluge. LanceAsh pointed out buildings shaped like inverted domes, like gargantuan bowls, telling me they were libraries that housed knowledge stretching back ten thousand years. There were also temples of the dead (or so LanceAsh claimed) of the same shape—black stoned structures with carved gothic heads peering down from the rim around their apex. Along the north-south avenue that intersected the city, there seemed to be an endless array of gigantic statues that lined either side of the street—monuments that LanceAsh said represented the hundred gods worshipped by the Behemoths, gods that were all versions of their great entity, the Mother Yayyashavah.

Not one of these structures stood without creepers, vines or endless climbing ivy. And gigantic trees lined all roads, dwarfing the lampposts that stood as tall as radio masts. Baskets jutted from the sides of buildings too, hanging with bowed trees or flowering lilies or vines that dangled for hundreds and hundreds of metres. And odd primate creatures as tall as giraffes scurried through them, snatching at giant birds that swooped from street to street in screeching flocks. It fascinated me no end.

As we rolled on I spotted in the hazy distance beyond the city, another stairway scaling the remainder of the mountain, climbing maybe another two thousand metres to where great snowdrifts hugged the distant sunlit summits; and way up there, LanceAsh pointed out, perched the sky-scraping surveillance towers. And I could just see them, glistening like golden needles in the sun.

4

The Basilica of Khemmerat stood at city centre. It was situated across the street from Emonn Nil—the defunct Journey Gate that reminded me of a gigantic stone cart-wheel where the spokes didn't quite make it to the centre. The Basilica itself was a magnificent structure. It resembled a Roman colosseum. Columns ran round the length of its outer wall with fierce lizard heads sculpted at the tops of each. Archways stood interspersed between each column, choked with shrubs and gnarled, twisting trees.

I was surprised to find no security perimeter around the Basilica. With threats like the Charon it didn't make sense. I meant to ask LanceAsh about this but as we climbed the ladder down from the cart, he said, 'Mind the Ghostings.' He pointed out the curious Basilica sentries: cat things as tall as buses and as sleek as cheetahs, with a shaggy dappled white-brown fur and high pointed ears swivelling left and right at every sound. They had jaws full of fangs longer than my arm. And they watched us with great alertness, circling at a distance as the ox-cart pulled away, their owlish yellow eyes (six or more to each cat as far as I could make out) never leaving us as we crossed the well-kept lawn toward the waiting rooms Ramass'sia had spoken of. The cats unnerved me, but LanceAsh assured me they were well trained in recognising friend from foe.

'They have a telepathic connection to all who walk the city,' he explained. 'They already know who we are and precisely why we are here.'

I hoped he was right.

5

The waiting rooms were comfortable. But too large, with high benches and tall seats and tall beds. I felt like Goldilocks stuck in papa bear's hunting lodge. It was as if whoever'd built the joint had overestimated the size of folk from places like Strangeworld. But as Ramass'sia had said, it was nice to be off my feet. And to be somewhere quiet and peaceful, and not have to worry about giant toads or witches or all those other perils. Good to be actually motionless too. There were even some strange fur-lined boots I put on to warm my freezing toes.

Exhausted, we sat for a while outside the rooms, watching the world go by: the Behemoths and their giant beasts rumbled along the street; the giraffe-sized primates squabbled in the distant vines; strange birds circled the sky; and there were white bugs on the plants. LanceAsh claimed we were over thirteen thousand feet above the sea. And it showed, with my shallow breath and my splitting headache and the chilled air.

We were there at the waiting rooms for almost three hours. Behemoth physicians delivered LanceAsh poultices for where the Ganyra toad mist had singed his skin. Yet, not one of them brought updates on Emily's condition. Anxious, I began pacing back and forth, and LanceAsh tried some encouraging words. 'If you are concerned about Emily, be not. The Behemoths have the finest of physicians.' Yet when I looked at his face he appeared nervous, as if he too was feeling what I was feeling—a terrible sensation that Emily had succumbed and died.

6

At a quarter to twelve that lunchtime I was awoken from a fitful sleep by heavy footsteps beyond the guest room. I sat up, hearing a soft female voice. 'LanceAsh, the Guardians have at last returned,' she said. 'They await you now inside.'

Through the window I spotted a tall Behemoth female turn and stroll away.

LanceAsh came in to report the news but all I said was, 'Yes, I heard. Did she say anything about Emily?'

'No. But I'm sure she is well.'

THE GUARDIANS

1

THE ENTRANCE was an unbarred archway standing as tall as a bridge span. It was flanked at either side by a set of giant statues gazing regally across the realm. And inside, the Basilica was vast. Ceilings stood as high as an indoor football stadium and the cavernous space ran off into the gloomy distance. The floor consisted of manicured turf. In actual fact there seemed no real separation between here and the outside—the two spaces were really one and the same piece of lawn. And the massive arches I'd seen along the outside walls all opened onto this vast interior, drawing in long beams of hazy sunlight with insects and birds fluttering high up by the ceiling.

Around the arches, twisted trees grew straight from the walls, long curling grey roots resembled coiled overlapping serpents. Large blue fruits hung down, and above us the ceiling was dominated by a vast stained glass panel through which beamed long sun shafts. Painted around these (not easy to see in the sun glare) ran a continuous mural of Behemoths gripped in the midst of battle. 'Depictions of the Great War,' LanceAsh told me, his voice almost a whisper.

All about us there was a serene quiet. Flames licked at the tops of high stone torches. No other soul was about. (Except for the Ghosting cats eyeing us through the arches as we made our way deeper into the hall.) We passed through a vast dividing wall with an arched doorway as tall as an apartment block, and then, far ahead, I could make out the dim figures of Behemoths.

'The Guardians,' LanceAsh informed me.

2

We came toward the opposite end of the great Basilica some minutes later where another domed glass ceiling was suspended high above us. This one was a monumental thing, as wide as a football ground. Out there beyond I could see the vast blue sky and mountain peaks; sunlight beamed down. It cast our shadows across the floor that, without me even realising it, had become a vast circular glass sheet perhaps a couple hundred feet in diameter. Beneath my feet, swimming through an immense cavern of aqua blue water (lit by the sunshine pouring through the ceiling) were pods of strange fish. They were silver scaled beasts with fins that were almost arms. They seemed to 'fly' through the depths like seals. You could see hundreds of metres into that weird abyss. Grottos and caverns and marine slugs and giant blue snails slithering sloth-like across well-lit rock walls.

The sight gave me vertigo. I kept expecting the floor to crack beneath my feet. The only thing that took my attention off it was the Behemoths. Like giant regal statues, like gods, they sat on thrones as big as buses, eight of them lined along a raised surface beyond the glass floor—two sitting directly ahead of us, and another three on each side of the first two. Every one of them was decked out in regal robes of blue and red, and on their heads sat giant golden circlets studded with gemstones. All thirty-two eyes watched us. It was an unsettling situation. I felt like a rat at the feet of elephants.

One of the two Behemoths in the middle spoke then. Her four eyes were dazzling green in colour, all blinking at once. 'Do not be alarmed, child. I realise there is a problem in size between us, but I'm afraid there is nothing we can do about that.' Her voice was very calming, very soothing. 'My name is Sha'rashel.' Her four hands rested in her lap. She turned one palm to her left. 'This is Ahn'drellan.'

Ahn'drellan raised his knuckles to his shoulder; LanceAsh returned the gesture. I gave it a go for good measure. I guess it was respectful.

'Come forward, won't you?' he urged. 'We shan't hold you long. We realise you have come a long way and time is precious.'

I stepped forward. I felt small, insignificant, intimidated. Here I was, boring old Jake Crassly from Burnchess stuck in this weird alien world. And where the fuck was Emily?

'Firstly, you may be wondering about your sister.'

I nodded. My throat had turned so dry I couldn't speak.

Ahn'drellan turned to his right, ushering someone over from the shadows. Another of the giants emerged from the gloom beside one of the archways in the wall. (Those damn cat things still gazed in at us.) I recognised this Behemoth. Eli'shar, the one who'd carried Emily up from the compound behind the Gates of Cuorinth.

She strolled over, tall and slender. There were something like whale fish beneath her feet. I just kept hoping that glass would hold her weight. When she reached me she knelt down. When she spoke I felt a slow chill trickle down my back. 'I'm afraid the human-born girl suffered the absolute worst of it,' she explained softly. 'We did all we could.'

I blinked at her. 'What...' I swallowed. I even looked around at LanceAsh. What the hell did she mean?

Eli'shar went on. 'Our efforts were... sufficient.'

I frowned. What on earth was she talking about? She just looked at me, like I was meant to read between the lines here. Like Emily was dead and they didn't exactly know how the fuck to tell me.

'Wh-what do you mean?'

From the side of the hall came a gangly insectile creature. It walked upright with stick-like limbs and had a pair of large bug eyes, an insect's mouth and skin like crab shell. It stood maybe as tall as a basketball hoop. As it came nearer and out of the shadows, I realised it was pushing something like a trolley. Only this trolley was actually some sort of hospital gurney. Lying there beneath a white sheet was a motionless figure.

'You may take her home now,' Eli'shar said softly. 'Red Starlight flows through her veins at last.'

I couldn't move. I felt my remaining spirits just plummet. As the trolley reached me all I wanted to do was turn and run. But I couldn't move. I just stared at the dead form beneath the sheet. Emily had died. We'd got here too late. I couldn't look.

She lay there still and pale and lifeless. The cold mountain air like ice on my skin. There was not a sound. Those Ghostings watched me through the arches. I just stared at Emily in complete disbelief. Wondering if bringing her here had been the worst thing I could've done. I should've taken her to Dr Smith from the outset. I should've taken her to Lambeth Royal.

I turned to the Behemoths. I just eyed them. A huge crushing weight squeezing my chest. 'Wh-what the hell am I meant to do now?' I asked softly.

None of them answered.

I spoke louder. 'What do I do? How do I get her home?'

And then behind me...

...a weak voice.

'Jake.'

I turned and saw Emily's eyes. They'd come open. She was looking up at me. There was a moment when none of it made sense.

'Jake... are you okay?'

I blinked at her. Not believing it. 'Emily,' I gasped. 'Holy shit. Emily? Are you all right?'

She frowned and looked about, obviously disoriented. 'Where are we?' Her voice was croaky, uncertain.

'We-we're with the Behemoths.'

She caught sight of the eight Guardians seated before us and she just stared at them, with her eyes boggling and her mouth gaped open.

'We predict you'll recover fully in time,' Eli'shar promised. 'Be mindful however, Red Starlight is a powerful remedy. As a consequence, in the coming days, you may yet experience some side effects. Exhaustion, dizziness, waking dreams, phantom visions. Perhaps even bouts of mild amnesia. You need to be aware of this.'

I kept expecting Emily to pass out again. I said, 'So she's okay? You've really cured her?'

Eli'shar nodded. And smiled. 'Yes.'

I took in a long breath of utter relief. I just stood there eyeing Emily, my hands in my hair. I suddenly wanted somewhere to sit for a while. Have a damn drink and let it all wash through my head. I took in another deep breath. 'Hell, I can't believe it. Everything we went through. And you're okay.'

I didn't quite know what to do. It was awkward standing there staring at her. She took my hand. 'Jake.' She swallowed and grimaced, managing to take her eyes off the Behemoths for a moment.

I watched her. She struggled to a sitting position, her legs dangling over the side of the mattress. She stared up at me. I felt awkward but she wouldn't let my hand go.

'Thank you,' she said. 'For all you did to get me here.' Her voice wavered... and then she sobbed slightly. But she smiled. 'If you hadn't bothered, if it wasn't for you—' She couldn't put it together. Tears spilled from her eyes.

I surprised myself, I put my arm around her shoulder. Not real close like. Just enough to say Yeah, whatever, stop crying.

But she put her cheek to my chest and held me tight, like she didn't want to let me go.

I actually felt sorry for her in that moment. So I left my arm where it was. To sort of comfort her. But strangely... it felt nice.

Like for the first time ever... we were friends.

She sobbed into my shirt. 'I... I owe you my life. Honestly.' As she wept she shuffled off the bed and stood there embracing me. Then she reached out for LanceAsh, dragging him into our little hug. 'You too. You lost your bloody arm, you poor thing.' So there the three of us stood, hugging like idiots, putting on a real display. I looked around and noticed all the Behemoths waiting patiently, watching us.

Ahn'drellan eventually cleared his throat. 'Please, we do not mean to curtail this precious moment, but time is of the essence and there is much we need to address.'

Emily kept sniffling, but wiped her eyes. She stood between me and LanceAsh. I thought she should've been lying down but she wouldn't have it. Eli'shar'd moved back to her position by the Arch.

'Firstly,' said Sha'rashel, 'your arm of which the girl speaks, LanceAsh. What would you have us do?'

'Do not be offended, but I ask nothing of you. Thank you all the same. But I see it my duty to return Emily and Jake safely. I am aware any operation to restore my limb will take a prolonged period. I will concern myself with that when all this business to do with Warrior's Gate is good and done.'

'Very well,' she said. 'Still, we must apologise. Your injury and perils could have been avoided. Had we been aware sooner of your attempt to reach us we would have sent out agents to aid your journey. I'm uncertain whether this has been explained to you, but our telescopes were overrun. Our usual surveillance of the realms of Forgotten was impaired.'

'Of course,' LanceAsh said with a bow. 'We are aware the Charon has caused you much mischief.'

'Still, please accept our apologies.'

LanceAsh nodded graciously.

'Alas, let us move to more pressing matters,' Ahn'drellan prompted. 'Certain events of the past few weeks have come to our attention. Punctuated most recently by this girl's illness. I would like firstly to know how she came to be inflicted with the Creeping Death, please.'

LanceAsh took a deep breath. 'As you are well aware, your grace, the Charon River leaks into Strangeworld via Warrior's Gate within the Great Labyrinth. We believe Emily had some physical contact with it. As far as I have been able to ascertain, her, ah, death was instantaneous.'

Ahn'drellan gazed down at Emily. 'Is this so?'

She still looked drawn but I noticed the colour was coming back to her face. 'I guess so,' she said tiredly. 'I can't exactly recall to tell you the truth.'

'And you have survived, as far as we've been informed, for several days now. How is this so? Do your physicians possess the knowledge to tackle such an ailment?'

I shook my head. 'No.'

Their eyes went to me. 'Explain then, please.'

'We do not know how or why,' LanceAsh answered, 'but there appear to be certain forces at work in Burnchess. Namely two girls, possible witches, who seem to possess the herbal secrets of the Crones.'

'And Emily received this aid?' asked Sha'rashel.

Emily looked at me for an answer. 'Did I?'

I nodded. 'Yeah. She did. I took her to these witches. I saw it happen.'

'Who are these girls exactly?'

'They're called the Charweeds,' I told them. 'Two sisters. They keep to themselves mostly. No one really seems to know who they are. But they've got this greenhouse. It's full of all sorts of alien plants that I've seen nowhere else. And they do experiments in there. They kill animals and bring them back to life.'

'You say you have witnessed this?' asked Ahn'drellan suspiciously.

'Well, yeah. That's how I knew to take Emily there.'

The giant watched me carefully. He nodded. As if satisfied. 'Very well.' He paused a moment before going on. 'I have also learned recently that you were revived some weeks ago by this same method. Was this the case?'

I blinked at him. How the hell did he know that? I shrugged. 'Yeah. As far as I can tell.'

'And your father too? After his accident?'

'Yeah.'

'Have these girls always lived in your village?' Sha'rashel asked.

'They've lived there as long as I can remember.' I glanced at Emily. She shrugged and nodded.

'Do you know how they come to know the magic of Forgottenworld?'

I almost laughed. 'Look, I don't mean to sound blunt, but up until a few weeks back we had no idea this world even existed. So, no. We've got no idea about any of that shit.'

'Shit?' Sha'rashel queried like this was a new word to her.

'Um.' I cast a sheepish glance at Emily. 'You know, stuff.'

There was silence for a moment. Far below us you could hear those fish, a faint humming like whale song.

Sha'rashel gazed down at us thoughtfully. 'You may be wondering why we are so intrigued. Let me explain. Until now we have believed magic could not be sustained in your world. But if it has somehow seeped into the fabric of your land, it could very well have dire consequences.

'So far the Charon has struggled to gain a foothold in Strangeworld. Their strength relies on dark magic. Fortunately Strangeworld, for whatever reason, appears to be a sanctuary from magic of any kind. But with news of these witches, these Charweeds as you have named them, and their apparent knowledge of Crone lore, we grow cautious.

'Thus this is the concern: the Charon may have planted these girls in your world with a specific mission to root magic there.'

She let us absorb that. Then went on: 'The Charon is in itself, a virus, a cancer. It cannot exist without the ideal environment. We fear that these witches, if that's what they are, are attempting to create certain climatic conditions so that the Charon may better infiltrate your world. Without any defences, your people, your world will succumb very quickly. Your lands will be rendered barren far before your defence forces even know what has hit them.'

'But surely this makes little sense,' argued LanceAsh politely. 'If this is the case, then why did these girls revive Emily and Jake and their father so readily?'

'We cannot know, LanceAsh,' admitted Ahn'drellan. 'Hence why we remain so intrigued. Perhaps it is a ploy to gain their trust.'

LanceAsh considered this.

'LanceAsh, we are as much in the dark about this as you,' Sha'rashel assured him. 'Hence our concern. Nothing should be discounted.'

'So, what do we do then?' I asked.

'For now we do the only thing we can,' Sha'rashel explained. 'Shut Warrior's Gate.'

Emily looked confused, her brow all wrinkled over. 'Hold on a minute. Warrior's Gate? You mean the statue inside the Hell's Edge maze?'

'Yes.'

She glanced around at LanceAsh and me. 'I must be missing something here. What's so special about Warrior's Gate?'

'It is the point where the Charon have been entering your world,' LanceAsh explained.

It didn't help. She still looked puzzled.

LanceAsh explained. 'Right. Allow me give you a quick lesson on Journey Gate mechanics. Journey Gates, as you would by now know, open and shut by using exclusive key sets. But the power that allows the Gates to function at all comes from a tremendous energy source known as the Reap—a blue sun from a distant corner of the universe. This power either holds a Gates shut or, once a Gate is activated, helps relay physical bodies across great distances. Or across worlds, as you have discovered. But the Charon, even without the required keys, have somehow corrupted Warrior's Gate, and in doing so have discovered a way of utilising the portal. Somehow they have tripped the locking mechanism so that the portal periodically opens. Allowing them passage from Forgotten to your world.'

'Wait,' Emily said, looking confused. 'We have two of these gate things down our way?'

'Yes.'

'Great,' she said with a heavy sigh.

'And this actually brings us to the second matter we wish to discuss,' Sha'rashel stated, looking at both me and Emily. 'You both may have been found to be the Unchosen Ones but that is by the by, for you may still help us. Recently we discovered amongst a disused library a forgotten casket. Inside this casket were a number of the ancient maps torn from the Book of Nightmares.'

'Book of Nightmares?' I said.

'A book of cartographs. Maps. During the Great War the Charon managed to get hold of it and much of it was destroyed before the Macellarius Knights rescued it back and hid it. The question as to its actual whereabouts, unfortunately, has disappeared with the Knights.

'The maps inside the Book of Nightmares were created by ancient Behemoth Mages. Each map was encrypted in puzzle and then enchanted to ensure that, should our enemies get hold of these maps, they would be impossible to decipher.'

'What were the maps of?' Emily asked.

'Many things. Ancient treasures. Lost cities. Hidden realms. But more importantly, many detailed the secret locations of Journey Gates and certain Termination Stones.'

'Termination Stones?' I frowned. 'What are they then?'

'In the ancient days when our Behemoth ancestors created the Gates,' Sha'rashel explained, 'they fashioned for each Gate two sets of keys: one set to open a Gate, the Entrance Key; the one you would have assembled to reach our world in the first place. And a second key that will not only lock a Gateway, but that will close it forever. The Termination Stone.'

'However,' continued Ahn'drellan, 'until now the Termination Stone for the portal at Warrior's Gate has been lost. After the Great War, the Macellarius Knights became the stewards of the various Gates of the Hidden Sea region. This meant they also became guardians of those particular Gates and their Termination Stones. It was agreed these items would be far more secure with the Knights. The Charon, should they rise again, would be far too wary of going anywhere near souls that wielded the power to so easily wipe them out. So, to keep these Keys safe from our enemies—and in the event we were sacked again—the Knights were tasked with concealing both them and the Book of Nightmares. And in hiding these Keys in their various secret locations the Knights took it upon themselves to redesigning many of the maps, often utilising the elemental power of the Grimmersows to re-enchant them. And here lies our quandary: while the Knights remain locked in stasis, the locations of many Termination keys remain a secret.

'However, by pure luck one of the maps that we unearthed relates to Warrior's Gate.'

Sha'rashel nodded. 'And more importantly, our team of scholars, led by Ashen'mah, has recently managed to remove its curse and deciphered it. It bears a secret language established and used only by the Knights. But it has revealed the exact location of the hidden Termination Stone.

'We believe it lies in fact in your village.'

3

'Our village?' Emily asked stunned. 'Burnchess?'

'Yes. In the Hoar Stone to be exact—the centre monolith of your Ring of Letifer.'

I eyed them, gobsmacked. If I was hearing this right—and understanding it—the very item that could've ended all this shit weeks ago sat right in the middle of the stone circle at the centre of our home town. We must've walked past it a thousand times in the last few weeks.

'Wait a minute,' Emily said, looking pained. 'Let me get this right. You're asking us to fetch this Termination stone?'

'Yes.'

'And use it to shut Warrior's Gate?'

'Indeed.'

'Okay.' Emily looked troubled by this idea. 'So once we obtain this stone, then what? I mean, how exactly do we shut the portal?'

'That remains a contentious issue,' Ahn'drellan replied. 'There are those of us who believe, like most Gates, it can be shut from both sides. But Ashen'mah believes the Macellarius Knights may have altered its mechanics so that termination can only be executed from Strangeworld.

'Warrior's Gate, as you no doubt know, consists of a tall statue astride a hollowed plinth. This plinth is supported on its four sides by small arches. Beneath it, located in the centre of the floor, is a cairn with a recess. The Termination Stone must be inserted into this recess and the top of the cairn then rotated Sunwise.

'Sunwise?' I asked.

'Clockwise,' LanceAsh explained.

'The power that holds the Gate open will immediately be cut, thus sealing the portal forever.'

Emily looked like she wasn't really chuffed hearing all this shit.

'We acknowledge this is a dangerous request,' Sha'rashel said, 'but if Warrior's Gate is not shut soon then it will result in dire consequences for both our worlds.'

Emily looked at me. And in her drawn eyes I saw her asking, Why us? She turned her gaze to the Guardians once more. 'Is there no one else who can do this?' she asked.

The Behemoths were silent for a time. Perhaps puzzled by this question. It was Sha'rashel who eventually spoke. 'You are the only ones with safe access to Warrior's Gate, and ones who fully understand the predicament. And you are the only ones we trust.'

'No, that can't be true,' Emily argued. 'There must be someone else. What about LanceAsh?'

'No one from Forgotten may pass to your world. It is fraught with peril.'

'Why?'

'Why? We must limit the chances of the Charon passing through, child.'

'But we have to return. The Gate will be open, LanceAsh could come through with us—'

'Yes, and as such he would then need to return to Forgotten. The Charon is cunning. We can ill afford the risks.'

'I must also add that I will also be required on the Forgotten side of the portal,' LanceAsh told Emily apologetically. 'If it needs defending then that is my job. If I am to fight off any potential invasion force then that is where I must be.'

Emily wasn't happy with this. 'What about Mr Jones?' she said suddenly. 'He was the one who gave us your scrolls. No doubt you liaise with him. What about him?'

'We were not aware that particular individual was in contact with you on such matters,' Ahn'drellan said suspiciously, levelling his eyes accusingly at LanceAsh.

LanceAsh eyed the Behemoths in return. 'Your grace, I realise Charlton Jones has a somewhat chequered past when it comes21 to his dealings in Forgotten, but I maintain he is innocent of charges brought on him. I have always found him to be a trustworthy soul and a strong ally in our fight against the Charon scourge. He is a most worthy contact to have in Strangeworld.'

Ahn'drellan didn't appear satisfied with that reasoning. He returned his double-face back to Emily and me. 'As we said, you are the only ones from Strangeworld that we trust. Therefore, you are the ones we deem fit to undertake this mission.'

Emily eyed me for an answer but I didn't have any. And what choice was there? We either sat on our hands and watched Burnchess perish. Or we acted.

'Alright,' Emily said impatiently. 'I get it. So, what about this key? This Termination Stone thingy. How will we recognise it?'

'The Termination Stone is an odd-shaped object. It is round as a ball at one end, and tapers to a pyramidal point at the other. It is also etched in detailed glyphs. Glyphs of the Knights, if I have been informed correctly.'

'And that's all we have to do, is it?' she asked. 'Find this stone, jab it in the whatever-you-call-it and shut the doorway?'

I shrugged at Emily. 'Doesn't sound too hard.' Although, I didn't sound overly confident.

'It isn't,' Sha'rashel agreed. 'However, you must be warned, there will be a considerable power disturbance when the portal itself actually terminates.'

'A power disturbance?' Emily said. 'What do you mean by that?'

'The Magic Gates rely on tremendous Reap energy to function. Shutting one will release this energy in an explosive pulse.'

Emily laughed. 'An explosive pulse?'

'Indeed.'

'What do you mean exactly? How big are we talking?'

'There will be a shockwave. Not sufficient to knock down the walls of the great labyrinth. But should you have access to protective garb, then I'd suggest you don it, for more than likely you shall find yourselves thrust from your feet at the moment of the blast.'

Emily looked at me sideways. 'Thrust from our feet?' she asked, stunned. 'How powerful will this blast be exactly?'

Ahn'drellan answered. 'We are confident it will not be substantial enough to dismember you.'

'Dismember us?!' Emily gasped. 'Oh, so my head could end up looking like a squashed watermelon but I'll still have my arms and legs. Great. Nice to know. I feel so much better about everything all of a sudden.' She folded her arms, irritated, and gave me a look that said I honestly don't believe this!

'The shockwave, when it comes, will be concentrated on our side of the Gateway,' Sha'rashel clarified. 'You will be well sheltered on your side.' She smiled in a strange motherly way. 'We sound these details only to warn you, not frighten you.'

'And what then once the Gate's shut?' I asked. 'Happy days? No more monsters in our village? All our problems solved?'

'Indeed. Once the portal is deactivated the reaction will have a twofold effect. The energy released shall act like a lightning bolt. The Dark River will serve as its conduit—we judge that the energy wave will surge through the entire length of the river and erupt deep within the confines of Vrhûedh. We do not pretend to believe this will be enough to wipe the Charon out but with any luck it shall substantially diminish its capabilities. And with its source cut off, the portion of Dark River currently diseasing your realm will immediately cease to exist and without this crucial lifeline to Vrhûedh, any Skrargs remaining on your side will slowly perish.'

4

A Behemoth seated to the right of Sha'rashel, another female, now produced a cylindrical casket. Her garb looked different to that of the others seated around her. She wore something like a dark cloak. Mage's robes, perhaps. She was also the only one not wearing a circlet. She leaned forward, holding this object toward us. It sat in her palm like a pepper grinder.

'Held within this container you will find the map,' Ahn'drellan explained. 'We give it to you for your own perusal; at least for the remainder of your time with us. We are quite certain we have pinpointed the exact landmark in which the Termination Stone resides. Yet, as you would know the geography of your village better than us, we value your opinion—potentially for anything we may have missed.'

Emily, closest to the extended arm, stepped forward to receive it; one tiny human hand accepting the item from one giant ten-fingered Behemoth hand. The object looked like a large bread loaf in Emily's arms.

'The map within has been thoroughly tested for any residual enchantments,' Sha'rashel assured us. 'Any sort of elemental magic, any dark curses. All such magic has been lifted. Thus, it has been rendered safe for you to touch.'

Emily turned it over in her hands, studying it, feeling the casket in her fingers. I eyed it over her shoulder. It looked like wood or bone. Etched with fine details. Weird symbols. Small pictographs. Emily gazed up at the Guardians. 'If we do this, if we close the Gate, are you certain that'll be it? That this Dark River and whatever monsters still roaming our world will be eliminated?'

'Yes.'

'And what about the Charweeds?'

'Concern yourself with the Gate first. We will discuss this Charweed matter in the coming days. A decision will be made in time.'

It was here Ramass'sia, the Behemoth who'd escorted us through the Charon hordes on the plain, entered unexpectedly from an antechamber. He excused himself, bowed and said, 'I do not wish to multiply your concerns, Great Guardians, but I have just been given some grave news. Surveillance watch-guards report that Charon numbers are amassing on the Hidden Sea. Namely the moor outside the Great Labyrinth. We suspect they are to make an imminent push toward Warrior's Gate. We estimate a full Gate breach sometime within the next eighteen to twenty-four hours.'

'Are our Gunners still on route to Chessburn?' asked Sha'rashel.

'Aye, but they remain a full day's travel away, trekking south through Palemoth.'

'Post them this news then,' Ahn'drellan ordered. 'Have them make haste. We need them to reach Chessburn as quickly as possible.'

'Aye, the news has already been posted,' Ramass'sia informed him.

Emily had fallen silent. I studied her face. Was she ill again? 'You okay?'

She nodded. But looked pensive. 'Jake, tell me something. How many days have we been away?

I frowned. 'Five, I think. Why?'

She bit her lip. 'Five? Are you sure?'

I looked at LanceAsh.

'Yes,' he said. 'It would be five.'

Emily sighed heavily. 'What day did we leave?'

'Monday... I was gonna take Hayley to Lambeth—'

'Are you certain it was Monday?' Her eyes were as large as plums.

I shrugged. 'Yeah, pretty sure. Why?'

'Okay, if what you say is true then that means today's Friday. Jake, you realise the Dead Man's Challenge takes place tomorrow morning.'

I frowned. 'Really?'

'The entire village will be there.' She swallowed and gripped her forehead. She looked up at Ramass'sia. 'You just said eighteen hours, right? Eighteen hours before the Charon break through this Warrior's Gate?'

He nodded. 'Give or take.'

'Shit. Well, we really have to get home then,' she insisted. 'If that Gate is breached in the next eighteen hours then everyone attending the Challenge is as good as dead.' She stared at me, like I had to do something. Then she sent her glare back to the Guardians. 'Right then. I don't mean to sound pushy, but how the hell do we get home from here?'

Ahn'drellan looked momentarily to his right where Sha'rashel sat. 'I am sorry, child, but we have no immediate means to transport you back.'

Emily was astounded. 'What?'

He nodded. 'I'm afraid our personal skydog suffered horrific injuries on our reconnaissance mission north. Much of our return journey was conducted on foot. Hence why it took so long to return to Khemmerat.'

'You don't have any other Deadhounds?' I asked, surprised.

'Perhaps it was an oversight on our part,' Sha'rashel stated, 'but all have been sent to tackle the problems we're facing on the northern borders.'

'What about magic Gates?' I asked, even though LanceAsh had outlined the Gate situation to me already.

'If we had an operating Journey Gate we would of course send you home with haste,' Ahn'drellan told us. 'But Emonn Nil has been shut for many a year and—'

'Are there no other Gates?' Emily prompted.

'Ndola would be the closest,' Sha'rashel declared. 'But sadly, we've just learned of its demise. There is also Brocketsbrae and Gorllwyn. But it would take us two days overland travel to even reach them.'

Ramass'sia again: 'Listen, I have posted word of your predicament to Laran'mah, captain of our Deadhound fleet. He is busy seeing off Charon hordes on the Blatherskite March, but considering the growing threat of Charon invasion through Warrior's Gate, I have requested that he make one of his sky dogs available for our use. This remains your quickest route home. I cannot guarantee that it will be here any time soon, or if Laran'mah will ultimately be able to spare one. Still, if it arrives before sunfall you will be flown home overnight. It's not the quickest way, granted, but it's the only option open to us at this time.'

'All we can hope for,' said Sha'rashel, 'is that our Gunners on route to the Hidden Sea reach Warrior's Gate before any possible Charon advance. And if they do not defeat the Charon, then at least they might slow them down and earn you some valuable time.'

THE SKY DOG

1

WE WERE escorted to a small cluster of guesthouses nestled amidst a shady glen on a small western terrace further up the climb from Khemmerat. I was pleased to finally find buildings fit for folks our size. Beds and chairs and benches were at perfect height. There was even a steaming bath where we took turns soaking and enjoying the warmth and trying to stave off sleep.

After that we rest our legs at a round wooden table lodged amidst a wide lawn and were provided with bread, cheese, pickled fruit and freshly-roasted meat, and we ate as if we were famished, hot meat juices running down our necks. And washed it all down with stove-heated mulled wine. It was a beautiful spot. Serene, quiet. The pale sun shone but the air was bone cold. We found thick coats inside the guesthouse. And fur-lined boots for Emily. LanceAsh built a crackling fire in an open stone hearth situated between us and the guesthouse. The warmth against our skin was wonderful.

Immediately below us and to our left (situated on a smaller terrace) lay the vacant Air Terminus from where, we were told, we'd board the Deadhound that'd fly us south to Chessburn. (If it ever turned up.)

It was yet another immensely-tall building, with an arched entrance and stone walls. On its southern side sat an airfield and a long runway that stretched almost a hundred metres beyond the edge of the terrace. Parked off to the side was a pair of portable skystairs. With wooden crates nearby. And large barrels. But I was fascinated by the number of aeroplane fuselages down there: here once again, stood the bones of vehicles from my world. Seven or eight of them in all, wingless and engines long gone, cradled on long wooden frames. I recognised a couple from my Aircraft Of Yesteryear book: a Boeing Stratocruiser, a proud relic of the 1940s; and a 1950s silver De Havilland Comet.

To the east of the terminal, hidden beyond a tall buttressed portion of the mountain, ran the stairway all the way up to the dizzying snow-capped summit far above us. And below us, below the airfield, on the wide ample terrace like a massive pie cut in quarters, lay the entire circular city of Khemmerat basking in the cool hazy sunshine. We had quite a bird's eye view of the layout from our vantage: the Royal Basilica smack in the centre, with all the busy streets circling it filled with the hushed sounds of ox-carts and general Behemoth activity. There were two satellite districts I noticed—one on the eastern edge and one sort of north-west—both arranged in a radial pattern, both eclipsed at their edges by the main bulk of Khemmerat.

Further down ran the stairway, then the long plain—the scene of our run from the Charon. And way south the lower mountains and foothills...

2

Ramass'sia stood guard on the grassy roadway just down from us, packing a Dreadcannon. He stood there scanning the lands to the south. At his command was a pair of weird-looking critters LanceAsh called Blackbirds—vicious leather-winged vultures. Huge things (of course) and skeletal, skittering about the ground on four bony legs. Both ungainly and clumsy.

But occasionally Ramass'sia would order them into the skies to investigate some flying anomaly and they'd screech away like banshees. They might've been awkward on ground but in the air they were masters. They were graceful out there and at times they were so quick they were near invisible. Nothing but streaks of dark against the blue sky. And once the Blackbirds caught one of the 'anomalies', well, they were fucking merciless. Giant bats, flocks of rooks, other such flying beasts, if they came within our vicinity, all were despatched from this life in a horrific flurry of screams, bones, feathers and guts.

We watched this going on, wondering why it was necessary. LanceAsh explained that in the current circumstances, anything could be deemed a risk. 'The Charon are cunning. They may have bent these bats and rooks to their will. At all costs they would have Warrior's Gate remain as it is. No chances can be taken.'

For a long while none of us spoke. Speechless from exhaustion and the anxiety to be away from here. I studied Emily's face once or twice. She appeared dog-tired but kept gazing into the sky—but not at the Blackbirds. She'd crane her neck and peer toward the summit, at the surveillance towers, no doubt hoping the Deadhound the Behemoths had promised would soar over the peaks and swoop down to fetch us.

LanceAsh sensed her angst. 'Do not worry,' he told her. 'It will be here. The Behemoths will not allow the Charon to gain a foothold in your world.'

She wouldn't answer. She dropped her eyes to the map unrolled before her on the table, lost in her thoughts, looking troubled, or ill, or both. I kept thinking about Eli'shar's warning. That Emily might potentially suffer side effects to her remedies. I didn't care if she experienced headaches or fought nausea for the next month, I just didn't want her suffering some sort of surprise relapse.

3

The so-called map the Behemoth's had given us was a large yellowed thing printed on what LanceAsh called vellum, elk skin. It was covered in browned water spots and dust, and its edges were mostly blackened as if it'd once been placed too close to candle light and been nibbled at by flame. At first glance, its content made no sense whatsoever (just as Ahn'drellan had said). I'd thought it might be something simple: a sketch of our village with a huge red 'X marks the spot' over the top of the stone circle.

But it wasn't. It looked more like a puzzle. A diagram of a giant human eye, with a pupil filled by an array of alien symbols—hieroglyphics, pictograms—that spiralled in toward the iris. Any remaining areas had been shaded in with small seemingly-random patterns.

Sprouting at regular intervals around the outside of this "eye" were what looked to be a number of crude serpent heads. Two from either corner of the "eye", two spaced along the upper rim, and another two along the bottom. Eight of them in all. None of them had been touched by any sort of shading or design. They each remained blank.

At the base of the 'map' were two lots of Roman numerals: XV and MDXXXVII . The Behemoths (as far as Ramass'sia had informed us) believed this stood for the document's designation and the year in which it had been crafted. Map 15, 1537.

As Emily studied it tiredly, I watched her face—her eyes kept sliding shut. 'How're you feeling, Em?'

She hadn't heard me.

'Emily.'

She looked up.

'You okay?'

She offered a weak smile. 'Just tired, I guess.' Her watery eyes went back to the map.

'If you need anything,' I told her, 'just let me know, okay?' I didn't know what the hell I was going to fetch her—wasn't like I could just pop down to Tesco's and buy her some lemonade and a bag of sweets—but she nodded anyway.

We were silent again for a while.

I kept watching her. After the events of the past few days I found I just couldn't relax. I wasn't exactly convinced she was out of the woods. If she nodded off... who's to say if she'd wake up again?

I talked to keep her awake. Telling her about what'd happened on the plain, how we'd charged toward the Khemmerat stairway, the Charon on our heels, the Behemoths wielding their Dreadcannons. I made it sound exciting, fun, like she'd missed a brilliant roller-coaster. But she just nodded and murmured like she didn't seem to care for it all that much. 'Oh, sounds interesting.' That's all she said.

After that we sat there not speaking. LanceAsh left the table and moved to the edge of the terrace, silently contemplating the city below, his remaining hand clasped gently over his vacant shoulder. As I watched him my mind wandered back to the Crones and that damned journey across the barren witch lands: me and Emily turned into wood; those poor souls stuck inside the backs of those giant spiders, condemned to unimaginable terror, condemned to stare out and scream at an alien world for the rest of their doomed existence. I thought of how far we'd come... but how far we had to go to get home.

I shuddered and looked back at Emily. I thought of her on the train after the crash. Seeing her crying, telling me that tragic story about her dad and brother.

My forearms rested against the table, my fingers fidgeting. I just kept eyeing her with her head hung, her eyes gazing distantly at the details on the map. Eventually I spoke. 'Em.'

She put her chin in one hand and her weary eyes found me. 'Yeah?'

'On the train... what you said...' I shrugged. I didn't know how to put it. 'Look... I-I never knew you had a brother. That's the first thing. And I never knew your dad... you know, never knew he...' I wrung my fingers out. 'Okay, I just wanted to say I didn't know... I didn't know he... they passed away like that... you know? How they did. And so recently too. I'm so sorry.'

She nodded and hung her face again. I reached out and touched the top of her hand.

When she looked up again her eyes were glistening.

'You should've just told me,' I said softly. 'Ya know what I mean? I wish someone had just told me.' I swallowed and shook my head, more out of sorrow, more out of incredulity for how it must've felt to lose two loved ones just like that. 'You must've had your reasons. You and Louise. For not telling me. But I want you know I've been a total twat. You must've been going through hell this whole time. And all along... all along I've just been a complete and utter wanker.'

She offered a small conciliatory smile. As if to say It's okay, Jake; it doesn't matter anymore.

'No, seriously, Em, I just need to say it... just need to tell you that I'm, you know, sorry.' I couldn't look her in the eye. 'That's all. I'm sorry about your brother and your dad. I'm so sorry for the way I've acted.'

She nodded at me. Smiled again. 'Thanks, Jake. That means a lot. Really.'

4

She went and lay down after that. I said, 'Shouldn't you stay awake?' But she looked at me weird. I pointed at the sky saying, 'You know, just in case it arrives.' But all she said was, 'If it turns up, just don't leave without me.' And with that she moved away into the guesthouse.

5

The afternoon dragged on. Emily slept; I checked on her every now and then to make sure that, you know, she was still breathing. LanceAsh was still away from the table. I found my thoughts turning again to Vynka. I'd hardly considered her fate since the Crones'd found us. All the trouble she'd put herself through to help us, only to perish at the hands of those toads. I remembered how I'd sat with her late that night before we reached Ndola. While she ate those Ilicas straight out of the belly of that Plains Demon. And no one had mentioned her once since she'd tried to lure those toads from us. No one. I found that strange.

LanceAsh sat on the edge of the grassy slope where it dipped away toward the grassy road that'd brought us up from the city. I strolled over to him and pretended to gaze down at the vast domes and huge archways of Khemmerat, all draped in ivy and creepers. The Air Terminus was still deserted, except for the empty bodies of those planes glinting in the sun.

Ramass'sia still stood there on the track, on guard; I watched him use some sort of glowing stone to flash messages way up there to the surveillance towers. Hopeful, I peered up there and saw a distant sparking light flash back at us a few moments later. Then it went out. When Ramass'sia failed to come over and divulge the communication I guessed it wasn't the news we wanted, I guessed it meant the Deadhound still hadn't been sighted. Or at least wasn't anywhere close.

My attention went back to LanceAsh. I said to him plainly, 'Did you know Vynka well?'

He chewed a stalk of grass as he gazed out upon Khemmerat. The giant ferns clinging to the slope below us bristled in the mountain breeze. 'For many years, yes.'

I pondered this, a little confused. So, if they were friends why the hell hadn't he yet asked what'd happened to her? I shrugged. 'Would you like to know where she is?'

He fell silent for a while, just chewing that stalk. Eventually he said, 'I know she dragged me into the Stormgirl. Then I have a vague memory she left us. But it would have been for good reason, I am sure. I have already guessed her fate.'

I shook my head. 'She was gonna leave you, ya know. She was gonna just leave you there.'

He didn't seem to care. 'Such was our plan, Jake. If the toads caught up with us, one of us would carry out some sort of distraction. The main thing was to get you pair here. Nothing else mattered.'

I looked down at him as I stood there. His dirty blonde hair flapping in the chilly breeze. Stubble shadowed his jaw line. 'You don't care that she died?'

He gazed up at me for a second. 'There is little place here for sentimentality, Jake. She knew her job as well as I. Get you pair here, if it cost us our lives then so be it.'

That was hard to swallow. 'You put your lives on the line for us? I don't buy it.'

He peered up at me again. 'By the gods, Jake, this is not about you. Or your sister. Heed? You have yet to understand that. This is about my world, Forgotten. You are important yes, but there is a bigger picture here. Realise that, please.'

I felt scolded. And I wished for half a second Vynka had left him outside the Stormgirl to burn in that red cloud of Ganyra Toad vapour. But I had to stop thinking like a petulant child. I knew now that sort of carry-on was partly to blame for me and Emily's terrible relationship. I shrugged. I said, 'Fair enough, point taken.'

He stood then, stepping away from me like that's all the conversation he could be bothered to have.

I watched him stroll down the path to the lower terrace where Ramass'sia stood, those Blackbirds goggling at him hungrily. Faintly I heard him say, 'What news from the towers?'

Ramass'sia turned to his voice. 'Storm clouds to the north hamper visibility.'

I had to strain to hear.

'We suspect such storms hold a suspicious source. They are the hallmark of a one Urkomenis.'

LanceAsh nodded, as if contemplating this. 'This whole trip has been riddled with suspicious occurrences, Ramass'sia. I have thought long and hard about this today. There could be good reason to believe both operations are linked. Urkomenis and the Charon working together on a common front, I believe. Perhaps rallied by a particular resident of Burnchess of Strangeworld, a one Radford Goon.'

Ramass'sia listened intently, intrigued. 'This man has an agenda against his own village?' Ramass'sia enquired.

'Aye, and perhaps he is in league not only with Urkomenis but as well with the Charon.'

'A foolish man then, this Goon,' remarked Ramass'sia. 'For, those who make pacts with the Charon ultimately face a dire fate.'

'Aye. Yet my guess is, he uses them as they use him. They enjoy his aid in attempting the breach of Warrior's Gate, while he will enjoy watching them decimate Burnchess. If he is to die at their hands, then beyond that I would say he does not care.'

6

Emily slept solidly for four hours. When she emerged the side of her face was ingrained with fabric wrinkles and her eyes were puffy as dough, and her hair all bunched and knotted. LanceAsh fixed her a mug of tea from water boiled on the fire. After that he dropped on another chunk of wood from the pile, and the glowing hearth whooshed up with sparks and embers. It was half four in the afternoon.

Emily sat at the table, rubbing her face. When she murmured, 'Where the hell are we?' I suddenly wondered if it'd kicked off again, the condition that'd almost killed her.

'Khemmerat,' I told her almost exasperated. 'The Behemoth city?'

She sat there gazing down at the metropolis as if seeing it for the first time. It was only when her eyes found the map on the table that it all seemed to flood back to her.

She breathed into her palm. 'Bloody hell.' She looked at me over the tops of her fingers, bewildered. 'For a second I couldn't recall a thing. I thought we were in Lambeth. The picnic grounds on Lambeth Hill.'

'Do not let it concern you,' LanceAsh encouraged. 'It will pass. Once the medicine has done its work, it will pass.'

The rest had done her some good though. As we sat there over the next half hour or so I was happy to find her far more lucid than before she'd bedded down. Not so groggy, not so zonked out.

'I was having this dream,' she remarked, slurping the hot tea LanceAsh'd prepared her. 'When I was asleep. I dreamed we were back in Burnchess and Mum was going absolutely spare because we'd been missing so long.' She studied me for a bit; I could see Louise's eyes looking back at me, accusingly.

'Yeah, well you can bet Dad'll have a hundred search parties out looking for us by now.'

'Either that or he's called them off,' she said tiredly, dragging her mobile from her pocket.

I picked at the table surface. 'You think so?'

'Jake, we've been missing for five days.' Like that said it all.

I lay back on the bench and stared out at the cold white sky. 'You think the Challenge'll still go ahead?'

With no signal she put her phone away. 'Why wouldn't it?'

'All the shit that's gone on this summer. Now us missing. They might just decide to call the whole thing off.'

She yawned into her fingers. 'That'd be a godsend actually, considering the current circumstances, but I don't think so, Jake. It generates far too much money.'

She had a point. Summer revenue had taken a hit so why kill the main cash cow if a couple of stupid kids had gone AWOL?

'If anything, they might hold it in our name,' she suggested. 'Mum and Dad mightn't attend. But unless it's disrupted by this Charon business, they'll still run it, Jake. You can bet on that.'

I wondered if the carnival tents had been set up on the Village Green yet. Wondered if the carnival rides were full of vomiting kids who'd munched down one too many hotdogs. Wondered if the House of Horrors was scaring the pants off young couples daring its dark narrow corridors where the fake skeletons and ghouls groped at you on squeaking pulleys and ropes. I smiled distantly, wanly. Then again, maybe the Village Green lay abandoned. Maybe due to the unwanted attention, the carnival organisers had stayed away this Challenge season.

'Anyway, one thing's for certain,' I said. 'You can bet we're gonna get our arses kicked when we get back. Especially with me already having gone missing once this summer. Oh, and not to mention Dad's car.'

She frowned at me. 'Dad's car?'

'We just left it in that ditch by Hell's Stream.'

She kept frowning.

'You probably don't remember. But you drove it straight into the damn fertiliser spill. That's where I found you. Passed out in the front seat. Dad's gonna be pissed off. That car's his baby.'

She eyed me for a while like she couldn't believe it. 'I drove it into Hell's Stream?'

'Yep.'

'Oh, my God, he's going to kill me.'

I nodded. 'Glad I won't be the only one.'

She yawned again and gazed over at LanceAsh. 'I just hope to God no one winds up getting hurt towing it out.'

I slurped water from one of the gourds on the table. Wiped my mouth. 'So, got any idea what the hell we're gonna tell 'em?' I looked over at her. 'Louise and Dad, I mean.'

'Well for a start, they're never going to believe where we've been.' She gazed down across the city. 'I guess the main thing is we get this bloody Gate shut, prevent this Charon sneaking into our world. Whatever scolding we get after that, then I'm afraid we're just going to have to cop it.' She turned to LanceAsh. 'Tell me,' she said, 'if we do manage to hop on one of these skyhound things, how long is it likely to take us to get home from here?'

He thought about it for a second or two. 'If weather conditions remain stable, flight time to Chessburn can take up to twelve hours.'

'Twelve hours?' Now it was Emily who looked thoughtful. She checked her watch. 'So that means we really need to be away from here by seven this evening. No later.'

The time on my watch read 16:37. 'Why seven?'

'The Dead Man's challenge kicks off at 9 am tomorrow morning. We need to get home early enough to not only fetch this Termination Stone, but to evacuate Hell's Edge. I'm hoping a two-hour window will be enough time.'

7

For the next fifteen minutes Emily occupied her mind with that mysterious map. Now rested, she'd grown extremely intrigued by it. She wanted to understand exactly how the Behemoths had deciphered it. LanceAsh indicated the peculiar pictograms within the diagram of the human eye, explaining that the Knights had developed this language, an exclusive code they'd used in all their secret documents. Somehow the Behemoths had managed to translate them. There was also something about an ancient sailing manual that they employed to encode secret information.

'You mean like a book code?' Emily asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'I guess it might be called that.'

I looked between the two of them. 'A book code? What's that?'

'Okay, you assign numbers as coordinates that ultimately lead to certain words within a book,' Emily explained.

I frowned, not exactly understanding.

'Right, any book will do. It doesn't matter what sort. The key is, the intended receiver of your secret communiqué needs to know of, or possess, an exact copy of the one you're using. A rare book would be best. Something like the 1951 Hamish Hamilton edition of The Catcher In The Rye would be ideal.'

That's a book I've heard her rave about far too often actually. Because she's got one. (An expensive heirloom left to her by her dad.) And I almost rolled my eyes at the mere sound of it. But I was intrigued enough by this code business that I didn't.

'Something like that would certainly help make your message far more secure and far more difficult to decipher,' she declared. 'If someone intercepted your message they'd first have to work out whether it was a book code or not. If they did, they'd next have to work out exactly what book you were working from. And tracking down such a rare and expensive item like that would eat up crucial time.'

I eyed her blankly. 'Yeah, but what is a book code exactly?'

'Say for example you wanted to send me a secret message. As a book code. And let's say for argument's sake that the numbers I receive are one, two, three, and four. If we're applying it to a book code, I'd fetch my copy of Catcher In The Rye, or whichever book we've planned on using, and go to something like chapter twelve, line number three, fourth word. This'll give me the first letter or the first word of the coded message. Understand?'

I thought this over for a moment. 'Yeah but the number one might just as easily mean chapter one.'

She shrugged. 'Of course. And numbers one, two and three might mean page one hundred and twenty-three, while four could mean the fourth line. That's why it often takes some effort to crack these things.'

This was right up her alley, I guess. Puzzles and hidden words and shit, the stuff she dealt with in her college Cryptic Club every Thursday afternoon at school.

'So these symbols,' I asked, prodding the exotic glyphs laid out within the giant eye on that so-called 'map'. 'This is the language developed by the Knights is it?'

LanceAsh nodded.

'And I take it this is the Behemoth translation,' Emily said pointing to a small verse written on a separate piece of vellum.

ONE LAST TEAR O KNIGHT

AS WAR FALLS ON TIGWATER MOOR

ONE CRY IN TERROR... TO DIE IN GRIEF

LanceAsh nodded. 'I would expect so.'

'So what's this then?' I asked, indicating a second message scribbled under the first.

WARRIORS GATE TERMINATION KEY

LOCATION RING OF LETIFER

HOAR STONE STRANGEWORLD

'I'm having a guess here but I'd say it's a concealment,' Emily said, busying herself cross-checking the letters between both verses. After a moment or two she said, 'Yes... it's a concealment. You see this sort of thing all the time in the Cryptic Club Championships.'

'What's a concealment?'

'A jumbled message, often hidden within another message. It's just another way to hide secret details. To further encode your communication. The letters in the second body of text have simply been broken down and reworded. Each letter features in either verse. See?'

'Very clever,' LanceAsh said and by the way he looked at her he wasn't referring to the expertise of whoever'd initially encoded it, he was complimenting her on recognising it.

She pretended she hadn't heard. Which was unlike her—not to gloat, not to bask in these sorts of accolades. I doubt she'd had some polar shift though; I doubt the modesty bug had bitten her. More likely she was just tired. Still, it was clever.

8

The day drifted on... and never a single sign of any Deadhound. Had we been forgotten? Had the Charon overwhelmed the Behemoth forces in the north?

Yet, around 7:30 that evening something strange happened.

The sun hadn't yet set. The sky remained a dull blue but it was beginning to darken in the east. I sat there, starting to get proper fidgety, eager to be gone, turning my head to the sky, frowning at every distant sound, praying it was our Deadhound. Especially since Emily had recommended we needed to be out of there by 7 pm.

She was dozing again, her ear resting against her folded arms on the table, the map beneath her palms. I moved over to the well near the guesthouse. Above me loomed trees that hung with gigantic flowers, and occasionally beetles as big as dogs fluttered in, munching the petals to bits. Sometimes the Blackbirds swooped low over the crowns of those trees to tear those beetles to shreds. I was dragging up water in a large porcelain pitcher, flicking out the small blue frog things that came up with it. The fire still licked warmly at the chilly air and new blocks of wood spat and fizzled, sending showers of spiralling embers.

That's when Emily suddenly sat upright and gasped, 'Oh, my God!'

I looked round at her, wondering what the matter was. The sun had begun to dip behind taller peaks to our west and long blue shadows had cast over us and over parts of the city below. To our east the rocky, heather-clad slopes and the snow-smeared peaks beamed bright and golden with the evening sun. The breeze had grown more chilly.

'What's wrong?' I called.

But as I said it the Blackbirds abruptly began to twitter and squeal raucously and LanceAsh cried, 'By the Empress, movement at last!' He sat positioned near the edge of the slope and now sprang to his feet. Ramass'sia was suddenly striding toward the Air Terminus.

'Jake,' LanceAsh called, 'Emily. Look at this!' He pointed into the pale-blue heavens, and when I came out from beneath the trees I dropped the pitcher in astonishment. The sky was suddenly moving with the most colossal beast I'd ever seen.

I jogged out for a clearer view and Emily left the table, carrying the map in one hand, distracted now by this monstrous thing soaring toward us.

The sight took me back to the day I'd witnessed from the vantage of the Gomm village of Cahdrus, the Behemoth's Deadhound on Rotting Tree Hill. Back then I'd only seen it from a distance. Now, much closer, I realised these things were truly gargantuan.

It's four mighty wings easily eclipsed that of a B52 bomber and it bore a Behemoth Warrior riding on its haunches. Howling, it soared over us like a great black cloud, the wind gusts ripping at our hair and clothes as it dipped and pitched to our left, vanishing down the mountainside.

We hurried to the edge of the slope and watched it swoop in to land on the massive runway before the Air Terminus, the Blackbirds chattering noisily, agitated.

LanceAsh headed for his satchel and scabbard lying on the table. 'Come,' he called, 'this is our ride out of here.'

9

We were running then, charging down the cobbled path, LanceAsh sprinting in front, Emily lagging behind looking preoccupied, stuffing something in her pocket; behind us the cylindrical map casket lay deserted on the table.

'Come on!' I called to her, hitching my backpack over my shoulder, slowing so she could catch up. She looked troubled. 'What's wrong?' I asked.

'The map... the map just changed.'

I frowned. 'What?'

'I saw it. Oh, my God, numbers... Lots of numbers. They just appeared.' She shook her head, flustered, excited.

'What do ya mean numbers? What are you talking about?'

'I don't know. It just changed, Jake. The map changed. For a second there were numbers spaced all the way around the eye.'

I gave her a look—considering the week she'd just had, considering what Eli'shar had warned us about side effects, she could've been seeing things. Hallucinating.

'Jake,' she stressed, 'I saw it. I swear.'

'Okay, I believe you.' I gazed back at the casket with the map, left there on the table. I thought about running back for it but the Behemoths had made it clear we had access to it only while we were here. It had to remain in Khemmerat. 'We've gotta get moving.'

10

We made it into the Air Terminus, rushing through the enormous vacant building, clip-clopping quickly through its massive inner hall that swirled with cold mountain air. It lay open to the outside air via towering arches through which the evening sun cut long diagonal shafts. There looked to be rows of ticket windows, all three or four metres above our heads, all empty, the entire place quiet as a crypt except for strange hooting birds roosting far up in the gloom of the domed ceiling.

We trailed LanceAsh through a high archway with a sign reading Gate 7 and strode out onto the runway into the wild, chilly wind, panting hard in the high altitude air. Ramass'sia was assisting the Behemoth who'd just flown in, busy strapping the silver De Havilland Comet to the Deadhound's back. (They chatted as they worked, the Behemoth who'd just arrived perhaps passing on news.) The mighty flying beast grumbled and screeched as the straps dug into its haunches, snapping at bugs and small bats darting about its tusks. (The Blackbirds looked on suspiciously, now perched on the roof of the terminus.) A barrel had been axed open and the Deadhound 'refuelled', eating the bodies of small hairless animals that slumped out of it.

A being of our own height strode out of the terminus to greet us. She was dressed very smartly in a navy blue uniform, had black scaly skin, possessed snake eyes and a mouth like a bug's. She and LanceAsh briefly came together, LanceAsh gently placing his forehead against hers, their palms, fingers pointing at the ground, pressed together.

'LanceAsh,' she said, 'seems we always meet under such hurried circumstances.'

They drew apart, LanceAsh smiling. 'Yes, whenever there is some peril, the Gods in their infinite wisdom find need to send me to the job.' He turned to us. 'Jake, Emily. Please meet Imai Lumier, a dear old friend.'

'May Vaelyah charm your souls,' she said, the sound of her voice somewhat like water over pebbles. 'Alas, time is scarce and we have little time to be acquainted. I will be your hostess for this evening's flight down to Chessburn. We have been afforded the executive cabin for beings of your size and stature, so there is plenty of room.' She took a step backwards. 'Please, go on in and make yourselves comfortable. We will be taking off shortly.'

Ramass'sia and the second Behemoth finished securing the De Havilland fuselage to the Hound and Ramass'sia approached us as we trailed LanceAsh up the flightsteps. 'I have grave tidings, my friend,' he said to LanceAsh. 'Our Gunners have still not reached Chessburn. But we have learned the reason for their delay: they have been held up near the provincial border of Palemoth by Charon resistance. And they report signs of Urkomenis toads. Nevertheless, south toward Chessburn they still push.'

'Thank you,' LanceAsh said to him. 'May victory find us sweet and fast.'

We climbed the last of the wooden steps into the cabin.

11

As far as I could make out, nothing of the original De Havilland remained on the inside. All passenger seats had been ripped out. In place was something like the interior of a grand old stage coach, or an old train compartment: velvet-covered walls (dark crimson) and luxurious oak lounges with plush cushions, and everything smelling like old timber and varnish. Lanterns hung from the ceiling that burned with thick red candles. Down the back were beds and partitions divided by tall silk curtains. Up the front something like a bar complete with glass cabinets full of all sorts of spirit and wine.

The windows too had been modified, so when we boarded they were all open to the crisp alpine air. I thought they seemed far larger than their original size, more like portholes on a ship, but they gave impressive views of the surrounding mountain peaks.

We plopped into deep lounge chairs, still puffing heavily. Emily still with her face looking grave and uncertain. LanceAsh, who'd been so caught up in the arrival of the Deadhound, had only just noticed her angst. 'What is the matter?' he asked.

I looked up as he came over but Emily stayed silent. I told him, 'Emily thinks she saw something alter on the map.'

He looked intrigued. 'How so?'

She sighed heavily. 'Look, maybe it was nothing.'

'Tell me, Emily,' he said, his eyes narrowing, 'what did you see?'

She squeezed her brow. 'Numbers. I thought there were numbers. I don't know.'

He gazed intently at one of the windows in the direction of the guest house, as if considering the map back there in its casket. 'Numbers? Or more pictographs?' he asked, looking back at her.

'LanceAsh, I'm not sure.'

'How many were there?

She shrugged. 'I can't remember. Six or seven?'

'And exactly where did they appear?'

Her face looked drained. 'I don't know, around the edges of that diagram. The eye.'

He watched her carefully. 'Emily, are you certain of this?'

She didn't speak. Didn't lift her chin to regard him.

'Emily? Are you certain?'

'Look, maybe it was nothing.' She sat back, looking suddenly as though heavy fatigue had hit her again, like she'd been awake for a hundred years.

I watched our pilot hurry across the landing strip from the terminal, as though he'd just arrived. Or maybe he'd been waiting in some office within the terminal supping coffee and doing crosswords. He was another like Imai, the female who'd introduced herself as our flight hostess—snake-eyed and bug-mouthed.

Imai's voice floated from above our heads somehow, though I could clearly see her standing up the front of the cabin. 'Please, we are about to take-off, find your seats and fasten seat belts.' She stood there as she spoke, holding some sort of metal cup over her gob. The metal cup had a ribbed tube running to a thin steel pipe that spanned the length of the ceiling where at regular intervals cone-shaped horns jutted out. The Comet's latest P.A. system, I guessed.

'LanceAsh,' I said, as he stood there contemplating Emily's news. 'Do you think we ought to go back and fetch the map?'

Imai turned toward the cockpit, blowing a whistle for our pilot. A pair of whip-cracks sounded from the cockpit and our Deadhound grumbled and roared.

LanceAsh eyed Emily closely. 'Emily, time is short. Tell me, do you believe you genuinely saw something appear on the map?'

She gripped her head in both hands. 'I don't know! Why does it matter?'

'It matters, my dear, because I am suddenly concerned the Behemoths missed something.'

The Deadhound shifted from its belly to its feet, the cabin rocking gently, we were moving.

Emily sat back and tiredly dumped her temple in her palm. 'LanceAsh, I saw it happen. But... but now I'm not even sure.'

LanceAsh turned for the front of the plane. 'Imai,' he called. 'Wait!

But the Deadhound was already scrambling along the landing platform.

'Imai,' he yelled, 'halt the Hound!'

'LanceAsh,' Emily called after him exhaustedly. 'It's okay, it's here. I have it.' She promptly dragged the map from her pocket.

He didn't look impressed. 'By the Empress! It was not yours to take!' He signalled Imai that matters had resolved themselves. 'It is okay,' he called to her. 'Take off.'

'I know,' Emily said softly. 'But when I saw those numbers I didn't know what else to do.'

He took the map from her, holding it with his remaining hand by its top edge, running his eyes over it, searching for any of these alleged changes. He didn't see anything. He gave Emily a sceptical eye.

The Deadhound now scurried down the runway, picking up considerable speed.

'Strap in,' LanceAsh ordered, dropping into a seat across the aisle. Without a second's hesitation there came another dull whip crack and we heard the pilot holler some command and the great beast broke into a gallop. The cabin rocked left and right, the leather strapping holding the Comet to the beast creaked and whined. The ground outside rushed by in a terrifying blur and I was still struggling to buckle my seat belt. The terminal grew small behind us, the end of the runway rushed closer, the beast galloping now at great speed.

'Hold tight!' LanceAsh ordered, and as he said it the Hound ran out of runway and leaped out into the sky...

And we plummeted straight down...

12

A God-awful sinking feeling gripped my guts as the fuselage lurched and I had this brief terrifying thought that it was breaking loose, that we were about to freefall to our deaths because the Behemoths hadn't secured it well enough.

But through the windows I watched those mighty wings flapping on either side of us, dramatically slowing our descent... and finally lifting us into the sky, great whooshing sounds thumping our ears as the beast climbed and climbed.

As we gained altitude, my fingers clawed the armrests so tight my knuckles turned as pale as egg white. Alarmingly the Deadhound had turned almost vertical. Another burst of anxiety gripped me as we found ourselves thrust back in our seats like astronauts rocketing to the moon, those mighty wings thumping heavily against the icy thin air. Emily had her eyes glued shut, her face screwed up, terrified.

'It will level off soon,' I heard LanceAsh saying calmly. 'Emily, try to relax.' I couldn't move my head to see him. Breathing grew difficult, the air thinning, and the g-forces against my chest felt as if a hog had lumped itself on me. Would it get worse? Would we black out? All I could think of was the De Havilland slipping off this great brute and plummeting to ground.

Ten terrifying minutes later, as LanceAsh had promised, the Deadhound finally began levelling off. And then stopped flapping altogether—its wings simply outstretched into the gloom. Had the beast exhausted itself?

'What's wrong?' Emily said gripping her seat. 'What's wrong with it?'

LanceAsh didn't look at her. He looked tired, maybe relieved to be finally on our way—or maybe he was just plain troubled by Emily's revelations regarding the map. 'Relax,' he told her. 'This is a speed tactic. The Deadhound has climbed to a significant altitude. It has now retracted its wings and will execute a kind of freefall all the way to the southern coast.' He smiled, perhaps as a way to relax her. 'The Gravity Express, one might say.'

Freefall? I didn't like the sound of that.

A couple minutes went by, the nose of the Comet (aptly named now, I decided) dipped forward, I felt the G forces ramp up against me once again. LanceAsh kept eyeing Emily. 'How do you feel?' he finally asked her.

She put her head back, her eyes still shut. 'Terrified!'

She spoke for us both.

Yet, soon I found my body slowly adjusting to the peculiar flight conditions. And I even managed to relax a tad. I peered out the window as the chilled wind gusted through my hair. Sunset was on the mountains behind us, and as we banked south-east I savoured the view of an already-distant Khemmerat basking under the pale evening sun. Both the breathtaking scenery and the chill brought goosebumps to my skin.

Soon the city was lost to dusk altogether.

LanceAsh moved about shutting the windows around us and the howling wind died away, finally leaving our hair and clothes to settle. LanceAsh eyed the map rolled up in Emily's hands. 'Emily,' he said calmly, 'I just need to verify. Then I shall leave you be.'

She didn't acknowledge him.

'These symbols or numbers you claim to have seen. Would you say they actually appeared? Or could it have been like Eli'shar warned: phantom visions?'

Her forehead wrinkled. 'LanceAsh, please, I don't know.'

'Emily,' he stressed. 'This map, as you heard, like all maps within the Book Of Nightmares, was enchanted. My concern is this: if you honestly saw symbols materialise on the vellum then one of the enchantments may not yet be entirely lifted. And if this is so, then we may be either in danger of it, or perhaps, there is yet more to the message than the Behemoths have so far managed to extract.'

Emily sighed. 'LanceAsh, I don't know what it was. Honestly. If the map hasn't altered since the Behemoths gave it to me, then yes, perhaps that's all it was. Phantom visions.'

He shut her window, took the map and spread it across a small wooden lounge table set in the floor before his seat.

She watched him a while, watched as he studied it closely. 'All I know is, I just want to get home.' She lay down on her lounge and shut her eyes.

THE CODEBREAKER

1

I WASN'T aware I'd fallen asleep. But somebody was shaking me. I stirred and looked about not knowing where I was. I discovered a sunny interior of a moving aircraft with all its windows open, and curtains strung down a long metal railing flapping and billowing madly in a gusting wind.

'Jake, come and see this,' I heard Emily saying.

I blinked, sat up. I noticed croissants and raspberry jam on plates. Saw I was in a large comfy bed on the inside of a plane. LanceAsh stood further up the aisle chatting with some strange being with mandibles on her face.

The Comet. That's right, we're in the Comet.

Emily's voice again: 'Jake. Come and look.'

I stood, yawning, and moved—intrigued—to the windows.

2

We were approaching the coast. It was a brilliant sunny day. And a magical view lay before us. Some miles ahead the many green humps of the Hidden Sea Hills could be seen sweeping toward us. Beyond them, hanging in the morning haze was the extensive layout of the Hell's Edge maze with Breathless Lake to its north, and Witchthorn Wood and the dazzling jungle threatening to smother it all.

But when Emily said, 'Look, Jake,' and pointed, I saw with dread the immense Dark River snaking from Hell's Edge through the hills and vanishing to the far western horizon. (All the way to the sink hole in the earth we'd been told about, and I remembered LanceAsh saying it ran through subterranean caves to Vrhûedh, the place from which the Charon spawned.)

That wasn't the half of it either. The area that would've been Sharkfins' farm in our world, the area around the Tigwater Moor and the village of Crowspine was alive with dark scuttling figures. And as we came in overhead we saw them clearly: Charon Skrargs. Hundreds of them. A section of the Hell's Edge wall had been battered inwards and they were pouring madly into the maze.

'Oh, my God,' Emily said horrified.

She'd been unconscious in the back of Scree's cart when those Charon monsters had swept out of the hills and charged us outside Khemmerat. So other than our first foray into this peculiar world, it was the first time she'd really laid eyes on them.

'My God,' she said, 'they're hideous! LanceAsh, are we going to make it?'

'Aye,' he told her, poised at the next window. 'Have faith. My Watchers stand ready to defend Warrior's Gate. I assure you, all is not lost.'

We crested over the centre of the maze, the vast shadow of the Deadhound rippling like dark silk across the maze floor and the tops of the walls, and we saw there the Watchers at Warrior's Gate, astride their Firecolts, swords drawn, ready for battle.

LanceAsh yelled up the aisle, 'Imai, get this beast on the ground. Time is almost shot!'

'But the Behemoth Gunners?' Emily shouted at him. 'Where are they?'

'They will be here,' LanceAsh assured her. 'Trust me. They will be here. Now, buckle in for landing.'

3

The Deadhound veered out to sea as we soared over the cliffs of Massacre Point, Gudrun's Fort looming on our left, gleaming in the morning sunshine. I thought we'd track around and come to land there on the top of the keep, but instead the Deadhound ignored the castle completely, flying on, trailing the steep, jagged, perilous shore line before banking sharply toward the Drop Off and steering us toward the Village Green.

The ground rushed toward us, the fuselage jolting and jumping, throwing us about in our seats as the sky dog screamed in to land. At the last second the Hound swooped upwards, its four mighty wings heaving against the air to slow us. My guts lurched into my mouth for a second as we were sent vertical again, facing the sky; the plates and cutlery sliding off our tables and crashing into the floor.

But the creature quickly levelled out, its legs touching down and kissing earth for the first time in almost twelve hours. With a fearsome roar, that majestic beast steadied and everything came to a grinding halt, our heads and arms flinging forward. Imai was out of her seat, rushing to the door, unlocking it, throwing it open. We unbuckled our seat belts and LanceAsh led us up the aisle and into sunshine. 'Thank you, Imai,' he said, 'for your hospitality. May we meet again under less pressing circumstances.'

'Indeed,' she said. 'Go now. And may the blessings of Vaelyah charm your footsteps.'

We were on the ground and running; behind us Imai pulled the Comet's door shut and the Deadhound reared up, turned and thundered over the edge of the cliffs. The colossal creature plummeted out of sight for two seconds before swooping upwards into the heavens.

4

We were in a blind sprint for the Archway, dashing from the direction of the barley mill. There were guards posted around the village wall and by all accounts the public'd been ordered indoors and off the streets because there was not a soul about—only hundreds of curious faces watching us through latched windows.

As we came up to the Archway I yanked off my backpack and in mid-stride flipped it open, fishing out the portal's key assembly. The gargoyles, Slugg and Hawg, stood beyond the Arch, assembled with another unit of Watchers on jittery Firecolts. They turned at the sound of our footsteps. The Watcher T.S. Wells pulled his steed round to meet us, his eyes keenly surveying every shadow beneath the sun drenched trees.

'LanceAsh,' he called, 'there have been rumblings at the centre of the stone labyrinth. We fear the Charon Skrargs are advancing.'

'Aye, they are,' LanceAsh confirmed. 'By the hundreds. Now keep at your post. Where is Alora?'

'At Warrior's Gate.'

'Good. I shall speed there immediately.'

I jammed the Crogen and Veisder into the stonework then wriggled the Scrivinas into place and watched the fingers curl about the assembly. The luminescent place names lit up around them in the stone work and I turned them, shunting the index finger of the Scrivinas to Burnchess. The Archway rumbled and groaned, then swallowed our artefacts.

LanceAsh took me by the shoulder, gathering me and Emily together. 'Listen, it's been an honour to ride with you both. But now here we are, on destiny's stage, the hour where it counts most! Now, promise me, when you reach Warrior's Gate, be mindful of the corrupted portal. Do not cross it. Do not touch it. Reap energy spills forth from it and while the Charon appear to be immune to its intense energy it will kill you pair instantly. You will be like a flies passing through an inferno. Heed?'

We nodded, nervous as hell.

'Good. Now be swift and be sure. I will go to my fellow Watchers at Warrior's Gate, we will hold back the damned scourge for as long as we are able. But without the aid of the Behemoths Gunners we will not hold out against them for long.' With his remaining hand he gently slapped both our cheeks and grinned. 'Now, go! The wishes of all Forgotten pass with you. May you drive the Dark scum back to the Barrows where it belongs!'

Emily swallowed and suddenly found herself gripping him in a tight hug. 'Thank you, LanceAsh. For helping me. For everything. Stay safe.'

He nodded. 'Go!'

5

Once through, we were running, snatching the artefacts free of the monument and then simply charging down Castle Grove. The other world had gone. Just like that. Vanished. Only Burnchess village, our village, stood around us now—no castle, no stunning Chess Stones, no unbroken village wall. Just the old familiar ruins in that old familiar town.

We reached the Ring Of Letifer within three minutes, both of us red faced and sweating, both of us catching our breath, wondering precisely where this Termination key could be.

The stones of Letifer are huge things—similar to those of Stone Henge. Except the Burnchess stone circle isn't quite as spectacular, or as wide. Or as famous. There's about seven or eight with one in the middle, the one they call the Hoar Stone that stands three metres high on a slight tilt in the thick moist grass. 'Where do you think it is then?'

Emily pointed. 'The directions translated by the Behemoths say it's in the Hoar Stone, remember? It must be sitting in the top of it somehow.'

'Okay. How do we get up there?'

A work crew down near the castle ruins was arranging tables and chairs for the post Challenge street banquet. And market vendors were busy setting up their stalls for the afternoon's trade when festivities for the post Challenge celebrations would kick into full swing. Other than that there was no one else about. Just the distant roar of surf against the cliffs and the carefree chirp of sparrows in the trees. Still, it told us the Challenge was indeed going ahead.

A delivery of fish was being made by ox cart to one of the market stalls, and that's where we caught sight of cattle farmer and butcher Beechworth. He was at the top of his ladder, smoking his beloved pipe, hanging a sign above his stall. DEAD MAN'S MEAT—DELIGHTS OF THE FLESH!

'Right,' said Emily. 'There's our solution. Oh, and remember, everyone's bound to be asking where the hell we've been. So let's just tell them I had to go off to some Cryptic Club retreat and you came along.'

I frowned. 'Really? People are gonna buy that?'

She sighed. 'Well, I don't know. What else can we say?'

'What if I went to Lords to watch the cricket?'

'Yes. Good. You went to see the cricket. I went to a Cryptic Club retreat.'

The strange thing was, vendors at the market didn't seem to give a toss about our sudden and unexpected presence after being officially missing for almost a week. No gasps of surprise, no crowds suddenly descending on us to see if we were alright, asking where we'd been, what'd happened. All stall holders simply went about their business like it was just any other day. Even old Beechworth, when we promptly said, 'Mr. Beechworth we need your ladder, it is of the utmost urgency,' all he said was, 'I'd've thought you pair'd be out at the old maze by now.'

There was no time to ponder this strange non-reaction except for a brief glance at one another. But Beechworth was obliging enough. Especially when I told him we needed his ladder for help in the annual treasure hunt.

In no time we had his ladder propped up against the Hoar Stone with him standing there in the grass at its base. 'But I was under the impression they completed the Dead Man's treasure hunt this morning,' he was insisting.

I was near the top of the stone by then. 'Ah, I believe this one's the second treasure hunt.'

'Really?' He slurped on his pipe a couple of times and blue smoke wafted onto the air. 'Tradition's always been one though.'

'I heard they're having loads this year,' I told him. 'Yeah, about fifteen, I think. Ten or fifteen. Something like that.'

'Fifteen? You don't say. Sounds a bit excessive.'

Emily clambered up behind me. 'Fifteen?' she murmured.

I just shrugged at her. 'Didn't hear you offering an explanation.'

As we climbed the last couple of feet to the top, Emily called out, 'By the way mister Beechworth, has anyone been out looking for us, do you know? Say, my mum? Or Charlie Crassly?'

He frowned. 'No. What on earth for?'

'Well, it's just that...' What was she going to say? She looked up at me, as if searching me for an answer. I shrugged. She said, 'Nothing. I guess it doesn't matter.'

I pulled myself to the crest of the rock and my eyes bulged. 'Emily, look at this.'

I shifted over so she could haul herself up beside me. Snug in the top of the Hoar Stone was a rounded lump of rock about the size of a cricket ball. It was stuck down a recess. Like a stone plug.

'Shit. Is that it?'

At ground level, Beechworth gripped his pipe in the ball of his palm, gazing up at us intrigued. 'Oh, 'ave ya found somethin' then?'

Emily frowned. 'Oh, I hope so.' Her fingers wormed about it, trying to wrestle it out.

'How come we never knew anything was up here?' I asked her.

'Have you ever climbed up here before?'

'Well, no, but I've lived in this town all my life; surely someone must've been up here in that time; surely word would've got out. Even a tiny rumour.'

'Right, are you going to sit there and blab on about it or would you care to help me get it out?' She sent me one of those irritating looks that would've sent me into fits of agitation not even a week ago. But instead of biting back I simply dug my fingers round the edge of that stone and together we tried working the thing out of there.

'Bloody hell,' I groaned with the exertion. It barely moved. I pushed her hands aside and levelled myself directly over the top of it, clawing at it. But it wouldn't move. It was either too darn heavy or wedged in there too tight.

There came the sound of a blaring electric horn from the direction of the maze. For a second I thought it must've been some horn blown by LanceAsh or his colleagues. Until I remembered we were back in our own world. Emily checked her watch. 'That's the first Challenge siren.'

'Yes,' Beechworth was saying, jabbing his pipe back in his gob, gazing at his watch. 'That means thirty minutes until kick off.'

I caught Emily's eye. 'We have to pray LanceAsh holds off the Charon long enough,' she said.

'Went in the Challenge meself once,' Beechworth decided to tell us.

I managed to gain some purchase on the stone and slid it upwards by about two millimetres. 'Slowly, Jake,' Emily murmured, 'slowly now.'

'Funny story, actually,' Beechworth went on, 'on the day of the race they told us we had to wear kilts...'

I'd extracted enough of it to at least have my fingertips clinging around the top of it. Emily gripped it now, both of us guiding it slowly upwards.

'...but no underwear,' Beechworth said.

'Thanks for the image,' I grunted, sweat dripping off my forehead, down my forearms, making the job slippery. Suddenly the stone met the tiniest bit of resistance, and it slid from our fingertips, dropping back into its recess. 'Damn fucking thing!' I growled.

'It's okay,' Emily said. 'At least now we know we can do it.'

I squeezed my fingertips around it again and once more began to slide it painstakingly upwards.

'Anyway I'm glad to say, it turned out fine,' Beechworth went on, poking his pipe in our direction. 'Becawz we all came to the agreement that g-strings were the perfect compromise. And it so turns out I had a couple spare in the wardrobe—the ones Lucy used to wear.'

I glanced up at Emily. 'You hearing this?' I murmured.

'Ignore it,' she said, 'just concentrate on getting that stone out... and slowly this time.'

'Yeah, I know!' I got it up again, almost to the lip and again Emily got her fingertips around its sides.

'...poor Lucy,' came Beechworth's saddened voice. 'Ya couldn't fault her. Best damn lamb I ever had.'

'Mister Beechworth, please!' Emily spat. 'Could we have some quiet here? We're trying to concentrate. This is extremely crucial.' She had her thumbs jammed into the sides of the recess. If the thing slid now she was going to lose some skin. I saw her grimacing but I went for a better finger-hold, and all the weight of it hung against the joints of her thumbs for a moment. But it worked, the stone didn't drop. And once I found a surer grip I managed to finally lever the damn thing free.

'Holy shit,' I said panting, 'we did it!' I began shifting down the ladder. But Emily wouldn't move. 'Come on, Em, we've got it, let's get moving.'

She turned to me. 'Let me see it a moment.' I rolled my eyes and offered it to her wondering what the fuss was about. She took the stone from my grip, turning it over in her palm.

'What's wrong?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'It doesn't look right.'

'Oh, wow, wotta you got there?' Beechworth asked, craning his neck up at us.

I ignored him. 'Wotta ya mean it doesn't look right?'

Emily dragged hair from her face. 'I don't think this is it. Remember what the Behemoths said? The Termination Stone should be blue in colour, that we'd recognise it for the intricate etchings across its surface. And it's tapered, pyramidal they said. That means it should look like a four-sided key.' She looked at me perplexed. 'This has none of those characteristics.'

'Bloody hell, wotta ya talking about?'

'This isn't the Stone, Jake.'

I grabbed it out of her grasp. 'But this is where the clues said it'd be!'

'I know.' She gazed into the cavity and stuck a hand in there having a good feel about. 'Nothing,' she said. 'This stone's just a plug. Whatever was here is gone. Someone got here before us...'

We looked at one another with sudden dread. Goon!

Hell, I couldn't believe it. Goon! Straight away I threw my attention to Beechworth. 'Mr Beechworth, have you seen that snake Goon hanging round here this morning?'

'Goon? Radford Goon?'

I nodded. 'Yeah.'

'No one's seen him for weeks, lad, let alone this morning.'

'Yeah but are you sure?'

'Sure as lambs feeds us, lad. At least while I've been here.'

Emily eyed me closely. 'In that case, perhaps it was never here at all.'

I frowned at her. 'Wotta ya mean?'

'Bloody hell, Jake, the Termination Stone. Maybe it was never actually here!'

'Yes, I heard you. But what about the clues?'

'Maybe the information in the map is flawed.'

She was climbing off the Hoar Stone then, Beechworth holding out his spare hand in case she needed support. I sat there at the top incredulous, watching her, pipe smoke twirling round my nostrils. I waved the fumes out of my face. 'But how could it be flawed?'

She jumped down onto the grass. 'Okay, maybe it's not flawed. Maybe it's designed to send enemies to the wrong place. A wild goose chase.'

'A wild goose chase?' I looked up and down Castle Grove, suddenly at a complete loss about what to do. I couldn't believe this. I just couldn't believe it. All that fucking effort to get to this point and now this. 'Okay, what do we do?'

'Did you hear what I just said?' she yelled at me. 'I don't know!' She dragged the map out of her jeans pocket and unrolled it across the lawn. I slid off the tall rock, springing into the spongy grass.

Beechworth stood there looking at the map over her shoulder. 'Oh my,' he said, 'the treasure maps get more intricate each year, don't they?'

I sighed. 'Look, Em, we've got to go back and tell LanceAsh.'

She didn't respond.

'Emily!'

'What!'

'We have to go 'n' tell LanceAsh!'

'There's no bloody time, Jake!'

'So, wotta we s'posed to do for fuck's sake?'

'I don't know. Just shut up and let me think!'

This was it as far as I was concerned. We were done. Burnchess' goose was cooked. Beechworth stood there hands on hips, looking at me. I shrugged at him, like, You got any ideas?

The second horn sounded from the maze. 'That's twenty-five minutes,' Beechworth said. I glanced at my watch.

'Okay,' I heard Emily say, 'okay. What if this means something?'

I wasn't even listening anymore. Far as I was concerned we had to get back and tell LanceAsh the whole damn game was up.

'Something in those symbols,' I heard her muttering.

I sighed. 'What bloody symbols?'

'The ones I saw in Khemmerat yesterday. The ones that just appeared. Remember?' She pointed at something on the vellum with Beechworth nodding as though in full agreement, although it was obvious he didn't have a fucking clue what was going on. Well... neither did I for that matter. 'The Behemoths spoke of elemental magic. Remember?'

I don't know how she recalls details like that. If there'd been an impromptu quiz about whether or not the Behemoths had mentioned elemental magic I would've written down Did they?

'It's true,' she insisted. 'They said the Knights often used those Grimmersow things, their strange bone weapons, to enchant these maps.'

'So what?' I said. 'The Behemoths tested it. They said all enchantments were lifted.'

'Jake, when I was sitting there, just before the Deadhound arrived... the fire behind me flared. Remember?'

Beechworth had his lips pursed, frowning, as if trying his darndest to remember.

I rolled my eyes. 'No, Emily, I can't.'

'Embers landed on the map, Jake. Small glowing embers. Last night I was too exhausted to think straight. But today it's so clear to me. I swished the embers off the map. That's when the numbers appeared. I swear. Here and here and here.' She jabbed her finger at the vacant spots on the map where the seven serpent heads curled from the outside of the large staring eye. 'I swear, Jake.'

Was she delirious? Was it on-going side effects thanks to the Behemoth medicine?

'Embers?'

'Yes,' Emily said. 'As in fire. One of the elements.'

'Are you certain?'

She wasn't. I saw the truth in her eyes. But I looked down at the map. Studied the water damage—those cloudy brown splotches. And the blackened edges too where flame had nibbled at it sometime during its existence. 'Maybe we gotta try fire then,' I said. 'Maybe we gotta try burning it.'

Emily nodded. And she stood up, looking squarely at Beechworth with that smoking pipe hanging from his gob.

6

'Smoking's a bad habit, Mr Beechworth,' she said, snatching the pipe from his mouth. She dropped to her knees and upended the smouldering tobacco onto the map. I crouched too, the both of us watching intently for any signs of change.

But there was nothing.

'Right, that's it,' I spat angrily. 'We go back to LanceAsh. We tell him everything's gone to shit.'

Emily ignored me, turning the map round to her face. 'I don't understand, I just don't understand. Maybe we've got to try another elemen—' She gasped. 'Oh, my God! Look! Did you see it?'

'See what?'

'The bloody symbols! The numbers! Oh, my God, they just reappeared again.'

'Bullshit. You're seeing things!' I hadn't seen shit. She was hallucinating.

The pipe was still smoking. Emily dumped the last of the burning tobacco onto the map. Again, nothing.

'Happy now?' I said.

But as the small embers smouldered, she pressed her fingers into the vellum. And before my eyes, the map came to life.

The eight serpent heads glowed a soft lime green colour... before a mysterious array of inky black numbers emerged in a clockwise sequence, beginning at the inside corner of the "eye", one number before the next, before the next, and so on... swimming up like gupping fish from the depths of some dark pond. Only one serpent head remained blank during this event though, showing no number at all; that one was situated on the inside corner of the eye, just below the head that'd kicked it all off.

My jaw dropped. 'What the hell?'

'Quickly, a pen,' Emily screeched and Beechworth fumbled a biro from his top pocket, dropping it. Emily snatched it out of the grass and began furiously scribbling down the numbers. They were present for only three or four seconds before they began to fade, just enough time for Emily to get them down.

71 62 85 29 35 52 48

She studied them for a moment or two.

'How the hell did that just happen?' I asked.

'I don't know. A combination between flame and touch maybe?'

'What do you mean?'

'Flame's obviously not enough on its own. Perhaps the trigger is to physically touch the map while it's alight.'

'And you don't think the Behemoths tried that?'

'The Macellarius Knights were human, Jake.' She handed Beechworth back his pen and pipe; his pipe which he now studied with a frown like it must've contained strange magical properties. 'The touch needed to be performed by humans. Who knows? Maybe the Behemoths just didn't think of that.'

She eyed the pictograms on the map for a little while, mumbling to herself. Then she promptly stood up and set her keen eyes both ways along Castle Grove. Firstly toward the Archway with its magic gateway and crumbling Chess Stones. Then in the direction of the castle ruins. 'Bloody hell, Jake, I think this is a map of the village.'

I blinked dumbly at her and then at the map. 'What? How can you tell?'

'It's got to be. These weird serpent heads. They all represent the Chess Stones, look.'

I looked.

'The pupil must represent this stone circle.'

I studied the map. 'Really?' Was she on to something? 'So, how does that help us?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. Perhaps the initial decoding of this map was simply meant to lead the unsuspecting on a wild goose chase. Lead us to think the Termination Stone lay here in the stone circle. But maybe it's still hidden somewhere. Maybe these numbers tell us where.'

'How?'

'I don't know.' She studied the workings done by the Behemoths. 'Unless...'

I watched her... 'Unless what?'

'The Chess Stones,' she said. 'They have names, don't they? Each of the Chess Stones has a specific name.'

'Do they? So what?'

'They could be hiding a message. Mr Beechworth, do you happen to know the names of the Chess Stones?'

He frowned. 'Hhmm, let me see... One of them, well, I think it might be called Scarecrow. Not even sure of that's actually. And the others... hmm, well, actually now I think about it, I'm really not certain.'

Emily sighed and rolled up the map. 'Come on, Jake.'

'Where're we going?'

'I have an idea.'

We took off and Beechworth called after us, 'Oh I say, do you still require my ladder?'

7

We burst through the front doors of the Hare Of The Dog just as the horn blared a third time. 'We're down to twenty minutes,' I panted.

'Yes, I know,' Emily said as she charged toward the stairway. 'Come on, hurry.'

Four flights of steps later we reached the top of the Inn and I trailed Emily into the family lounge. The panoramic window sucked in a vast wash of sunshine and Emily hurried across the floor to the book case. She plucked out a book titled The Chess Stones of Burnchess. 'Ever bothered to read this?'

'Yeah, loads of times,' I told her. Truth was, never. The pictures were quite good though.

She slapped it down on the wooden reading table, flipped open the cover. In the introduction ran a list of the eight Chess Stones highlighted on an aerial shot of the village.

'See?' she said. 'I knew it.' She grabbed a bit of scrap paper and, going clockwise, beginning with the one on the eastern end of the Archway (which corresponded with the serpent head that'd lit with the first number) she set to work jotting down the names of each one.

BLAKWREN WOORMSTORK BLUDCROW BONEVULTURE

GHOSTFINCH DEDEAGLE SCARRHAWK ROTFALCON

Then below them she scrawled the numbers we'd unearthed.

71 62 85 29 35 52 48

'What the hell are you doing?'

'Look, this is pure guesswork,' she declared, 'but these numbers that emerged on the Behemoth map possibly act as another book code.'

'Really?'

'I don't know, but I want to find out. Okay, first number, 71. Could be the 71st letter. Let's eliminate the obvious first and assume we're meant to work clockwise. That would give us...' She counted them off. '...the letter C.' She wrote this down. 'Now the next number could mean the sixty-second letter...' Again she counted. '...the letter A.'

The next was 85 but before she even got counting, she stopped. 'It doesn't work. There's not enough letters! That means it's not going to work anticlockwise either!' She huffed. 'Okay, so it's more complex than that. Maybe I have to break the numbers up.'

'Wotta ya mean?'

'Remember what I said? Sometimes you have to apply a bit of effort to these things? So, 71 could mean seventh letter of the first word.' She wrote it down. E. 'And 62 would be sixth letter of the second word... S. Then... 85. Eighth letter, fifth word. Being N. And 29...' She stopped again. 'Shit, that's not going to work either! We've only got eight words!'

The next horn from the Stone Maze sounded faintly through the walls of the inn. She checked her watch. 'Blast this! Fifteen minutes before the race gets under way. Even if we left now it's going to take us ten minutes just to get out there.'

'Come on,' I urged, 'don't quit. You're used to this sort of thing. You blew everyone away in the College Cryptic Championships for fuck's sake!' It was the first time I'd ever acknowledged it openly.

'I didn't have an entire village riding on it though, did I!'

'Well, wotta we do then?'

She smudged the heels of both palms into her eyes. 'Just let me think! You've got to stop shouting.'

I threw my hands in the air and turned away, gazing through the large window, seeing the Village Green, the Vale, and Wolfcrag Forest.

Behind me Emily addressed the map again, running her eyes over the numerals, over the names of each Chess Stone. 'There's got to be a solution here!' she hissed at herself. 'Think, Emily, think!'

I had a sudden thought. 'Wait. What if you've got them out of order?'

'What do you mean?'

I pointed. 'Well, what if you've got Blakwren where Bludcrow's s'posed to be, or Scarrhawk where Ghostfinch goes? How do you know they're in the right order?'

'Well, I don't know, do I, Jake? Until we stumble upon a pattern it's all guesswork. All I did was jot down the numbers in the clockwise sequence they appeared on the Behemoth map. That's why I've started with Blakwren. It corresponds with seven-one. That was the first number to appear on that "map", in the serpent head on the inside of the eye. If we laid this over a diagram of Burnchess, that serpent head would correspond with the eastern Chess Stone at the Archway, the one called Blakwren. To me it's the most obvious pattern to start with.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Yeah okay, I get it.' I didn't have a fucking clue what she was talking about.

She was jotting again. I watched as she scribbled 71. 'Okay. Maybe it's seventh word, first letter,' she says. 'Going clockwise again we get... S. Next one, 62. Sixth word, second letter. That'd be E. 85. Eighth word, fifth letter. A'

She worked through them all until she said, 'Oh, my God, look at this!'

I gazed down at what she'd scribbled.

S E A R C H T

'Search T?' she whispered to herself. 'What's search T?'

'Search somewhere beginning with T?' I said.

'Tigwater!' she exclaimed.

'Holy shit! You're right!'

'No,' she says. 'Wait a minute... There's eight Chess Stones. But only seven numbers here?'

'So? So, what?'

She tapped the inside corner of the "eye". The second serpent head that was featured there. 'Remember, this serpent head didn't present any numbers. What if it's intentional? What if there's a letter missing?'

'Why would there be a letter missing?'

She rolled her eyes. 'Bloody hell, Jake, think about it. This is a coded map. The Knights or whoever devised it, didn't want the concealed information readily accessible. Don't you get it? That's the whole idea of a secret message. Deciphering it isn't meant to be simple.'

'Yeah, I know. But how do we solve it?' I watched the side of her face as she prodded the bottom of the map. Then she said, 'Look at this map designation. The Roman numerals. XV. 15.'

'What about it?'

'What if it's not the map designation at all?' she said. 'What if it's actually part of the code? Fifteen. First word, fifth letter? That'd give us W.'

S E A R C H TW

'Holy shit, Em, that's Tigwater for sure. Plain as mustard! T and W. Tig. Water! Come on, let's get outta here.'

But Emily wouldn't move.

'Emily, come on, let's go!'

She shook her head. I saw here frowning. And then her mouth fell open. 'Oh, my God!'

'What?'

She was now scribbling again, unscrambling and rearranging the letters.

'Em, come on! Time's running out!' I was already striding for the door.

'Jake. Look.'

I stopped, irritated, eager to get moving. 'What?'

She hurried over and thrust what she'd scribbled in front of my face.

W A R C H E S T

THE BLUE STONE

1

EMILY FLEW from the room, I tore after her.

'Warchest?' I yelled.

'The Knight's Warchest!' she called as she tore down the landing toward Dad and Louise's bedroom. 'That's got to be it! The antique box Mum gave Dad for his birthday. Remember?'

I thought back to his birthday. We were sitting there at the table on the rooftop. Louise gave him that stupid chest thing I thought was a shoebox.

'But it was bloody empty,' I called after her.

She wasn't listening, she just went bursting headlong into their room.

2

I rushed in close behind her, a room I'd barely dared enter since my mum passed away. I'd watched her die in that room, on that bed. But across the way on a stand by the window, there it sat... the Warchest3. The curtain was drawn and sunlight slanted through, illuminating it like some heavenly object. Emily rushed over and flipped its lid open without fanfare. I drew alongside her and both of us leaned forward to peer inside. The sunlight beamed down, the interior went golden. But there was nothing inside.

'Totally empty,' I said. 'Like I told you.'

She put her hand in, felt about. The four sides of the interior were each inlaid with a thin sheet of stone, possibly slate. And etched into these were numerous archways; four along each side, two at either end.

There was a candle and matches in the drawer of the bedside table. Emily snatched them out and didn't muck about. She lit one and threw it inside.

Nothing happened. The match just flared, illuminating the interior, before beginning to die.

Until she touched the casket.

Blinding white light instantly lit the edging around one of the carved archways, as if illuminated from the outside. We squinted in the intense glare then looked at each other.

Emily reached in and tugged at the panel. And like a doll's house door, it swung effortlessly outwards.

3

By rights, the little doorway should've created a vent right through the side of the Warchest. We should've been able to stick our hand straight out the other side. But the outer panel of that small wooden casket remained unchanged and intact. Yet, on the inside, through that little doorway, we saw blood red dirt and stalks of yellow grass.

'Can you see that?' Emily asked bewildered.

'Yeah,' I said, my eyes boggling. And out of curiosity (or maybe it was just that we were so pressed for time) I promptly stuck my head into the chest to get a look through that small vent.

It was then the fifth horn blared. Ten minutes before the Challenge got under way.

'Careful, Jake.'

What I saw was amazing. 'Wow, you gotta see this.'

'What is it? What's in there?'

Essentially, I was peering through a small window with giant fangs framing my field of view. Actually, it was like being inside a fossilised dinosaur skull that was lodged there in the dry red dirt, looking out from the back of its mouth. Beyond those fangs lay a world of clouds clotted in a greenish-grey sky, and spherical vessels of wood drifted amongst them (vessels as big as cars) with no visible means of flotation or locomotion. On the horizon stood tall spires (a distant city?) and closer to me, near a misty pond, huge arachnids bickered with lizards, great scrappy chunks of skin flapping from their bare bloodied bones.

'This is awesome!' I said. 'It's like another Gate. Like the Archway. There's all this—' I fell silent. 'Holy shit.'

'Jake, what is it?'

There was something lodged inside the roof of the skull. Some strange blue artefact about the size of a milk bottle lying on a small ledge. 'There's something here. Like what you described. Take a look.'

I moved aside and Emily bent her head into the Warchest, levelling her face with the small doorway. 'My God. This must be another world like Forgotten.'

'Yeah, I know. Tell me you see that weird object. It's in the roof of the mouth to the right. On a small shelf. See it?'

'Where?' And a moment later, 'Oh God, Jake, that's got to be it.' She drew back and without hesitation shoved her arm through that tiny doorway, all the way up to her shoulder. She grimaced and squinted in an effort to reach the stone, her breasts squished up against the edge of Warchest. 'I can feel it. It won't move.'

She extracted her arm, turned around and slid her other arm through. If she'd hoped to improve the angle it worked. 'I've got it!' she said triumphantly and drew back, dragging the object with her...

But it got jammed at the opening of the Warchest.

A warbling growl suddenly echoed from the world beyond. Our eyes goggled at each other. 'What the hell was that?'

'I don't even wanna know,' I said, trying desperately to help Emily wrench that stone through the small portal. It was half in our world and half in the other, jammed in the doorway. The growl came again, louder this time. Closer. Suddenly the stone began wiggling about all of its own accord. As if something had hold of it on the other side.

'Shit!' I grabbed it in both fists, wriggled the tapered end through and then just yanked it as hard as I fucking could. This time I got it into the Warchest but no sooner had I done so than thick, cruddy talons jabbed through the open, furiously digging at the stone.

Mum's antique letter opener lay near the lamp. (The one Grandad brought back from someplace he called Ceylon.) I snatched it up just as those grimy claws began dragging the stone back into whatever world lay through there and I stabbed the opener deep into the fleshly knuckles of that hand. An unholy cry reverberated out of the Warchest, and the long gnarled fingers vanished back through the tiny portal, taking the letter opener with it. I snatched the stone out of the box just as a dark yellow reptilian eye appeared at the portal, blinking up at us, its owner screeching pure madness.

Emily squealed and the glassware in the room shook like mad as she rammed the small door shut. There came a sucking, grinding sound and a bright flash of light... and then silence.

The Warchest lay as we'd found it, as though a magic portal through its side wall had never existed.

We stood gathering our breath, looking at each other. 'Bloody hell,' Emily gasped breathlessly, 'that was a bit close for comfort.'

'No shit!' The electronic horn cried for the sixth time. 'Come on, let's go!'

THE SCRAMBLE

1

TAKING THE stone, we charged down the stairs and out to the garden shed, dragging out one of the trail bikes.

Emily was on her phone. 'Mum, listen, yes it's me Emily, don't say anything. I don't have time to explain but I assure you Jake and I are safe and well. Okay? Now listen, are you proceeding with the Challenge? Really? Well, it's got to be stopped! It's got to be called off! Where's Dad? What? In the maze? Someone needs to contact him and tell him there's a... um... terrorist bomb planted in there... Yes, a terrorist bomb! Yes, in Hell's Edge! What? What are you talking about? Music festival in Paganville? We never went to any music festival in Paganville. No, we were—' She gave me a strange look. 'Okay. No, Mum, you're right, yes we were over in Paganville. Yes, I should've told you. No, my battery was dead, I couldn't find anywhere to recharge it. Yes, I'm sorry I didn't ring you. Anyway, Mum, listen, I can't talk right now. Promise me to get hold of Dad and call off the Challenge!'

I shot her a glance as I rammed my bike helmet over my head. 'What was that all about?'

She put her phone away, looking puzzled. 'Mum seems to think we've been off at some music festival.'

'Really? Good, if Dad thinks he knows where I've been, then hopefully I won't get as severe an arse kicking as I anticipated.' I threw her the spare helmet. 'Now let's get the fuck outta here!'

2

We left Burnchess along the Lake Road in a wash of déjà vu: five days ago in Forgottenworld we'd sped this way. Emily had been unconscious of course but I certainly hadn't been and still had nightmares about holding for dear life onto that fucking Firecolt. We'd zipped through that savage jungle outside LanceAsh's village where tiny monsters'd fired crossbow barbs at us, where car-sized snails had slithered about, where six-legged monkeys and all those unseen critters had howled from the undergrowth.

Here things were tame by comparison: on our right the quiet, calm, expanse of Witchthorn Wood and its tall bare hillocks, and to our left the stretch of clipped green lawn running along the Hell's Edge wall with sparrows carelessly flitting about, and butterflies and bees buzzing about the daffodils and dandelions and cow parsley. And when we came up on Breathless Lake and zoomed by the ancient ruins nestled there on the banks I knew in that other world this was where the Gomm village of Cahdrus had been situated; and the worn stone blocks in the middle of the lake had been that mighty Waterhorse statue.

From there it's about eighty metres to the Hell's Edge entrance where it lies halfway along the maze's northern wall. A large rounded recess called the Devil's Mouth leads to the three opening corridors into the maze. The recess is like a gigantic bite out of a sandwich, and it was outside this area that we approached a load of bicycles and cars and ox carts parked amidst the daisies. But there was no sign of anyone vacating the maze.

'Oh, my God,' Emily groaned. 'Did Mum not pass my message on?'

I veered into Devil's Mouth and there sat three portable bleachers chock full of eager spectators and food vans doing hot trade. In the marshalling area race teams were going through warm-up routines, busy discussing last minute tactics, and old Bogwood's voice boomed over the P.A.: 'All competitors, can you please now make your way to the starting line. We are underway in two minutes.'

I eased up on the throttle, but inevitably all eyes had turned to watch us.

'Oh, my God,' Emily groaned again. 'Don't they know they've got to cancel the race?! Stop the bike!'

Hayley was in one of the stands with her mate Amber Calgarett. And behind them Mr O'Rourke sat beside Kate's mum Madeline. Hayley waved at me and tapped her watch, as if suggesting I'd pushed things a tad fine making it here. I sent her a confused smile, thinking, Shouldn't she be pissed off with me that I'd never fronted up for our trip to Lambeth? Or worried sick that I'd been missing?

Louise came marching over. 'Emily, honestly! What's this about a terrorist bomb?'

Emily jumped off the bike and took her mum in a tight hug. Louise looked baffled, wriggling out of Emily's grip and Emily said, 'Okay, did you alert Dad?'

Louise shook her phone in the air. 'Yes. But we couldn't get through to him at first. As usual we've been having issues with the electronics. We had to delay the start of the race for ten minutes while technicians did an inspection on the relay antennas that we put in place.'

'Good, delay it till next week if you have to,' Emily pressed, 'but get everyone out of here. Okay? Race officials. Competitors. Spectators. Everyone's got to leave. Now.'

'Don't be silly, the problem's sorted. We kick off in just over a minute.'

Kate and Mark hurried over—that knob Corey coming up behind them. The three of them were decked out in their race gear: shorts, vests, sneakers. They crowded around.

'It's about time you showed up,' Kate snapped at Emily. 'We would've been the first team to forfeit in twenty years. Now, hurry, here's your race top and map. The race is about to get under way.'

Distracted Emily took them and Mark said, 'So you pair seriously went to Vane In The Grass up in Paganville?' He looked right put out Emily hadn't invited him.

'No. Who told you that?' I said.

'Mister Jones said he took you up there on the Spitfire.' He frowned as he noticed our footwear. I hadn't realised it but we were still in those weird Behemoth fur lined boots. He laughed. 'Holy shit! What the hell are those manky old things?'

Without saying a word, Emily promptly left us. We all watched her go striding straight up to Bogwood and without warning she snatched the mic straight out of his grip. 'Ladies and gentleman,' her voice boomed over the P.A., 'can I have your attention, please?'

Bogwood looked right flabbergasted.

'I'm sorry to inform you all,' Emily announced, 'but due to unforeseen circumstances the Dead Man's Challenge has just now been cancelled. Um, I hope that doesn't ruin anyone's day but trust me, it's for the best.'

Bogwood went into some sort of jiggery panic, lunging at her, trying to rescue back the mic. She managed to evade his huge blubbery frame. 'Now if you'll all proceed in an orderly fashion,' she called, 'I need you all to calmly make your way to the nearest exit.'

He came back at her, wrestling the mic from her grip. She wasn't giving it up easily though, grabbing at his beefy arm as he was lifting it back to his sweating mouth. But he shoved her to the ground.

I didn't think about my actions next; I simply charged at him through the crowd, tackling the fat prick into the bleachers. His spectacles flew off and the mic bounced to the grass. I did my best to pin him to the ground as Emily snatched back the microphone. 'Ladies and gentleman,' she cried, 'this is not a drill! This is an emergency! There is a terrorist bomb primed to blow Hell's Edge sky high! So if you don't wish to be ripped into a million pieces I'd suggest you get out of the bloody maze! NOW!'

Only a handful got to their feet, looking about, no doubt waiting to see what everyone else was doing. And of this handful, only two took off screaming. The rest just sat there watching them run, and muttering amongst themselves: 'Is this a drill? Is she serious? A terrorist bomb? Honestly?'

Bogwood, being about a ton heavier than me, rolled me into the grass (I swear my imprint's still there to this day) and he grabbed Emily's ankle and yanked her off her feet. As she fell he performed a damn laughable walrus belly shuffle to reach the mic and with his sweating sausage fingers, prised it from Emily's grasp.

'Ladies and gentleman,' he spluttered as he lay there, 'please ignore what you have just heard. We seem to have a couple of pranksters on our hands.'

By then other members of the council had hurried forward, and security rushed over, Constable Newson amongst them, grabbing us by the arms, dragging us to our feet. Bogwood was panting. He couldn't even stand up without help. He passed the mic to Mrs Calgarett and vigorously tapped his wrist before turning away to catch his breath.

Calgarett took one glance at her own watch and suddenly got the point. 'Oh! Race teams!' she called. 'You have one minute. Please, make your way to the start line.'

At first, competitors seemed reluctant to move, more interested in the commotion than the race. But once the Razorbacks turned their backs on us and moved eagerly across to the start line, the other teams followed. And the spectators who'd initially jumped out of their seats at Emily's news now began to sit down; some still with looks of concern on their faces, obviously still eager to know whether this was a genuine bomb alert or not.

Louise pushed herself in front of Emily. 'What is the meaning of this, Emily?' she demanded, glaring at her. 'Just what were you drinking up there in Paganville?'

'Mum, I told you! There's a terrorist bomb planted somewhere in the maze! We've got to alert the officials at maze centre and get everyone out!'

Louise glared at Constable Newson, as if to demand Well, is there any evidence of such a thing?

'I'm afraid that's impossible,' he tells her. 'We've had tight security clamped on this place for the last week. We've seen no such suspicious activity. And even if there had been, our sniffer dogs would've detected any suspicious devices.'

Emily watched him for a good few seconds, her hands planted firmly on her hips. Then she conceded. 'Okay,' she said in a resigned voice. 'Okay. I was lying.' She looked from Newson. To her mum. And back again. There was sweat beads on her upper lip. She shrugged. 'What can I say? I was having a laugh. A bit out of character for me but then, hey, I've had a particularly testing week. Now if you'll kindly let me go I'll take my place at the starter's line like everyone else.'

Newson considered her argument a moment... and finally he stepped aside.

Emily got my eye as if to say We've got to move!

Bogwood, still panting, had taken back the mic from Mrs Calgarett and suddenly announced, 'We are go in twenty seconds.' Mark and Kate were frantically ushering Emily over.

Louise hissed, 'Emily, we shall talk about this later!'

Me and Emily drew far enough from all security personnel, Emily saying to me softly, 'Jake, we get back on the bike, okay, we drive straight to the centre of Hell's Edge and shut the portal. You hear me?'

I hesitated a moment. Taking a trail bike into the maze? Well, that was a two-year Hell's Edge ban right there. No appeals. No excuses.

But what choice did we have?

Bogwood began counting down, 'Ten... nine...' His voice boomed through the P.A. system. 'Eight... seven...

Kate and Mark still watched us.

'Six... five...'

They were desperately calling Emily over.

'Four... three...'

We hurried toward the trail bike.

'Two... one!'

And suddenly the starter's horn blared, echoing across the morning, heralding the commencement of this year's Challenge. The crowd roared as the dense pack of competitors thundered into the maze—except for Kate and Mark and Wankerson that is. They all stood there watching us completely dumbfounded as we shoved our helmets back on and jumped onto the bike. I kicked the dirt bike into life and, with Emily in behind me, I gunned the throttle and took off. The last thing I heard as we sped away was Louise screeching at the top of her lungs: 'Emily! What on God's earth are you doing!'

HELL'S EDGE

1

IT OCCURRED to me as soon as we sped toward the pack of competitors in front of us that I had absolutely no idea where the fuck we were heading. I've mucked around that maze for much of my life but it doesn't mean I know the direct route to maze centre. How the fuck were we meant to find it in quick time was something I hadn't even thought about till now. 'Emily!' I yelled as we squeezed round the edge of the teams and zoomed ahead of them into the central corridor, kicking up gravel into their faces. 'Emily, I don't know the way!'

'It's okay, I've got the map Kate just gave me. I'm going to direct you. Okay?'

'Yes, I'm listening!'

'Right... first of all, we want the second left. Then it's the first right then follow the passage straight to the end.'

I hit the brakes where she'd instructed, skidding left, straightening, opening the throttle, then swishing right, gunned it down the corridor, the stone walls tall on either side of us. The statues of warriors silently watching us zip by.

We zoomed right at the junction, straight ahead and then left again, down a long sweeping corridor, through another junction, around a corner, past a statue, then a well and a bird bath, then up another passage filled with manicured orange trees and hedges along the walls.

We came to a five-corridor intersection and I pulled to a stop. 'Okay, which way?'

Emily consulted her map, looking about like she was hoping to catch sight of the top of Warrior's Gate statue, maybe to gain some sense of direction. It was hidden beyond the high walls. Out of sight.

I sat there panting. 'Emily, come on, which way!'

She turned the map about. 'Well, we should be here,' she said, her fingertip on the map. She looked further on then pointed. 'Okay, go that way. Then I think it's left, then an immediate right.'

We tore off, screeching left, tyres scudding gravel into the walls. Then we cut right and left again until Emily fell quiet once more. I skidded to a halt. 'Emily! Where now?'

Apart from the sound of the insects I was suddenly very aware of the silence as the engine idled and sputtered. Far away came the occasional voices of other competitors. Mostly, however, save for the soft sounds of the wind, it was very still, very hushed.

I glanced back the way we'd come, half-expecting those damn Razorbacks to come belting round the corner and drag us off our bike and start clobbering us. 'Emily. Time's ticking!'

'Shut up. Let me think!'

I turned and gazed at the map in her hands. 'Look, if we came down these ones here,' I told her, pointing, 'then shouldn't we be there?'

'Yes, I know that!' She looked about. 'I'm trying to find us the quickest route so shut up for a second!'

I sat there waiting, trying to be patient. Finally she said, 'Okay, around the next left there should be a statue standing near a well and a bridge over the stream. After that you've got a long corridor. Go almost to the end of it then hook right.'

'A bridge over the stream?' This was Hell's Stream we were talking about. The contaminated waterway that'd knocked Emily's life for six. 'Em, ah I don't think I need to remind you but—'

'Yes, I know Jake, it's Hell's Stream. But do you honestly think they would've allowed the Challenge to go ahead if the contamination hadn't been brought under control?'

'Well, if it hasn't then we're as good as dead if we go anywhere near it.'

'We're as good as dead anyway if those bloody monsters get through that gate!'

I sighed. She had a point. I kicked the bike back into gear and we tore off down the corridor and took the next left. We zoomed past the statue and the well and before us came the stream. 'Hold your breath,' I yelled and I opened the throttle and we hit the bridge, getting airborne for a metre or two, then landing and wobbling and almost ditching the bike, but I managed to keep control and we took off down the corridor, and away from any possible lingering toxic vapour.

At a junction Emily called, 'Okay, go straight across and down there,' and pointed to a passageway veering right, 'now follow the bend, but slow down to take the third right. After that we'll be near the central corridors.'

2

We crossed the clearing to the next passageway, which was straight ahead, then sped on. There were more statues here, and patches of cow parsley with little white flowers growing along the walls. Bees zipped about. We slowed at a junction to gain our bearings. The blue sky above beat with a steamy morning sun.

'How far now?' I asked.

'We're almost there,' she said, 'straight ahead, second right, third left.'

We came to the right, then another right, virtually looping right around the maze centre, then it was straight across another corridor, and suddenly dead ahead we approached a wide arched opening in the wall.

'There it is!' Emily called.

I zoomed straight toward it but Emily suddenly screeched, 'Oh, my God, Jake, stop the bike!' and when I gazed ahead I saw it. Something was wrong.

I yanked on the handbrakes, bringing us to a skidding halt.

3

The centre of Hell's Edge lies in an area about half the size of a football pitch. Mostly it's grassed, except for a criss-crossed white pebbled path and some stone benches and two hedge rows running up both sides. Peculiar twisting trees, like grape vines, grow up and along the sheer walls, and along the paths stand tall birdbaths and stone vases and white stone statues. All of them are smothered in thick green creepers. The most spectacular feature is, of course, Warrior's Gate. It's as tall as any Chess Stone in the village, taller in fact, seeing as the Chess Stones are all in ruin. It's a tall armoured knight chiselled from white marble standing proud upon a large hollowed plinth. That day it stood stark and brilliant in the morning sunlight, its sword and shield cutting a menacing ivory silhouette against the blue sky.

We should have seen race officials but before us was blood. Lots of it.

Hell's Spring, the circular pond, sits in the middle of the grass quadrant, smack where the two pebbled footpaths intersect. That's about twenty metres directly in front of the statue and a good twenty metres out from the arched entry way where we now stood straddling the idling bike. That day, the earth around it looked as black as burnt meat; same with the stricken stream trickling off toward the north-western wall where it flowed out through the culvert, giving off a strange yellow mist. A barrier had been erected right across that portion of the clearing, dividing competitors from any potential danger. But it'd been bashed over. And someone's body lay there. Crumpled. Broken. Twisted. With their guts yanked out, thrown over the grass, and tossed across the white pebbled paths. Dismembered legs poked from a skirt while a torso lay at the end of another long blood trail, dumped by one of the marble benches; an arm had been wrenched free and the tortured face of some poor woman we didn't then recognise twisted in our direction.

That wasn't all. Another body lay slumped against the northern wall; a vast smear of blood and flesh ran along the stonework, as if the poor sod had been pecked apart and crudely pushed along the wall like a smear of strawberry sauce.

'Oh, my God,' Emily moaned with her hand cupped to her mouth, 'this is awful, this is just awful.'

I was instantly sick. I thought I'd vomit. But I held it in, swallowing heavily. We had to keep our heads here. This was do or die time. No second chances.

'Don't look at them,' I told her. 'Just don't look. We'll lose our nerve.' I went to push forward but Emily's nails suddenly dug into my arm. 'Wait, Jake, look!'

I followed her pointing finger and lost my breath. I hadn't even seen it.

A Skrarg.

It stood dead still in the shadow of Warrior's Gate near where Hell's Spring gurgles off into the maze. Blood glistened on its cork-screw horns. Blood ran down its oily black skin. Flesh oozed off its claws. The ugly, demonic insect thing with its strange human-like face filled of crab mandibles, and its dozen red eyes, remained oh so very still, watching us.

'Don't move,' Emily whispered. 'Just keep still.'

'Yeah, but what the hell do we do next?' I whispered back.

'The bike,' she whispered. 'Ride the bike straight at the Gate. We've got no choice. We're running out of time.'

I considered it. It wouldn't be easy. I'd learned a thing or two about Skrargs these past few weeks. And the most crucial point was their foot speed. No doubt it'd try to intercept us. I'd have to be at full throttle. I'd be at risk of slamming head first into the statue and killing us both.

'Emily,' I hissed. 'You gotta get off the bike.'

'What?'

'I'll be quicker without you. Just get off and run in case that thing comes after you.'

'No,' she whispered back sternly.

'Em, I'm serious, we don't have time to argue. If I need to dodge the bloody thing I'll do it better without you on the back, okay! Now, get off.'

It was still standing stock-still. Watching us keenly.

'I'm serious,' I told her.

She grumbled something as she got off, as she huddled out of sight behind the wall.

'Em, you gotta leave,' I said, looking round at her. 'Those things run like lightning. If it comes at you, you're dead. I'm serious.'

'And what if you fail?' she hissed. 'What if it kills you? Who's going to shut the Gate then?'

I watched her and sighed. I wasn't going to sit around and argue. Arguing with Emily is like banging your head against a wall, and she's always five steps ahead of you anyway. I shut her out and turned back to the Gate—

And got the fright of my life.

Someone stood right there in front of me, three metres away.

I gasped when I saw them.

But they stood there ever so still. A leather helmet covered their face. They wore a heavy cloak over their shoulders. Leather pants covered their legs, and grieves guarded their shins. There was ribbed leather armour around their trunk.

And there was something fucking familiar about the whole outfit.

Because I'd seen it before. At least twice. That day in July when me and Emily came back through the Doorway from our meeting with JennElise. Goon'd been wearing it, standing there at the Archway. And the other time was more recent. Just the other day in Ndola, before the Deltic locomotive'd skewed from the tracks. Goon'd had been in that outfit, astride that giant toad.

Today, if it was him, he stood there with that Grimmersow bone weapon drawn, holding it at his side like a butcher with a knife.

'What a pity it is that yer should come so far yet fall so short,' he rasped as if amused, briefly looking over his shoulder, keeping that lone Skrarg in check. 'But if yer do as I say I shall spare yer lives. Okay? Now, the Termination Stone. Hand it to me.'

I shook my head. 'I know it's you, Goon.'

'Give me the stone.'

'I know it's you,' I said again.

'The stone.'

'No. Fuck off.'

He sniggered and tilted that bone thing at me ever so slightly. I expected some lightning bolt to zip out and take my face off or something. But nothing happened.

I laughed. 'So much for your little magic wand!' But Emily yelled, 'Jake, watch out!'

From behind me came a sudden grunting sound. I spun in time to see a bizarre anomaly lumbering toward me. It was a humanoid figure. Tall as a doorway. I couldn't be sure, but it looked to be built of dirt clods; worms and bugs crawled through its limbs and face.

It lunged for me. I dodged to the side. But it clobbered me to the ground, the trail bike falling on my leg, the searing hot engine burning my knee. As I went, that blue stone burst from my grip and rolled off into the pebbles.

Emily dived for it. But the dirt-fiend lurched toward her while she was on her hands and knees, and it kicked her in the stomach, winding her. She screeched, collapsed to the gravel and lay there grimacing, sucking for air. I wormed my way from under the bike and scrambled to my feet in time to see Goon plucking our stone into his fist.

'Good,' he said as the dirt-creature abruptly broke apart and crumbled into a mess of soil and weedy clods. 'Very good. Now sit back and enjoy the invasion.'

'Goon,' I pleaded. 'Don't do this! Please! You don't have to do this!'

'Time for discussion is finished. Time for listening is finished.'

'But why? This is your village! How can you just stand there and let those things come through!'

'This village who cared nothing for me and my dear Carenza? No!' He pumped his fist angrily as he spoke. 'Time for everything is finished!'

I knew now there wasn't going to be any reasoning with him. Not today. Not ever. But damned if I was going to let his little invasion happen. And little did I know how close that was to happening. Because at that exact moment across worlds, in that exact spot, LanceAsh and about fifty Watchers of Chessburn were aligned on Firecolts across the clearing in two rows of defensive ranks as the Charon horde came howling toward them into the maze-centre.

The second row of Watchers were jumping into action while I stood on this side of the portal facing Goon. They pitched a hundred throwing stars directly at the oncoming horde, blowing almost the entire front guard to bits. Then with hollering battle cries, the first line of Watchers kicked their steeds into motion and charged out to meet the remaining Skrargs. They swung their swords as the two enemy fronts clashed head on; Firecolts rearing up on their hind legs, their gangly fore-arms scrapping, punching, and wrestling while the Watchers slashed their mighty swords, hacking limbs and skulls and bellies.

While that was happening I took a step back and said to Emily. 'Em? You okay?'

She was sitting there, hunched over, her arms around her belly, her breath slowly coming back, eyes on Goon. 'Almost,' she croaked.

Behind Goon, the beast had come a few paces closer to us, no doubt curious as to what was going on.

I lifted the trail bike from the pebbles. Goon watched me the whole time. I swung my leg over, kicking it back to life. 'You asked for this, Goon,' I told him, turning the throttle, juicing the engine, letting it growl a bit. 'I was gonna give you a chance.' I shook my head. 'But not now.'

He watched me carefully. Could he read my thoughts? If so then he knew I was about to run him down and grind him into the dirt. I honestly didn't give a shit if I killed him. He'd brought this all on himself. I hadn't come this far for him to fuck it all up.

'Come on then, Jake lad!' he yelled, standing there. 'Do yer best!'

I nudged the bike into gear and Emily wobbled to her feet, backing away. Then she squealed. I glanced around and saw her goggling at something. Now I saw it. The huge spider demon was suddenly charging our way.

4

'Holy shit!' I let out the clutch and pulled the throttle back and flew at Goon.

The monster was in the centre of the clearing by then, tearing across the stinking pond, its multiple eyes never leaving us, its mandibles nibbling at the air, its oil black skin glistening under the bright morning sunlight. Everything was a complete blur in the next few moments.

I shot at Goon and he stepped deftly aside and swished his bone weapon through the air. Such a subtle movement, but as soon as he did it something on the trail bike squealed and ruptured, followed by a deafening percussive thud and the whine of twisting metal.

The bike wheels buckled, the front end ditching, sending my tumbling ragdoll body over the handlebars. I was airborne for almost three entire seconds, hurtling toward the far end of the hedge as the trail bike went somersaulting into the clearing like a screeching, fizzing Catherine wheel on Guy Fawkes night.

I landed heavily, rolling. My legs and arms flapping about wildly. I sat up, dazed. I hadn't been doing enough speed for the bike to fling off into the air like it had, for me to fly as far as I did. I assumed Goon had done some nifty shit with that bone weapon.

By then I was on one side of the hedge while the bike had landed on the other. I did the foolish thing of standing up. The hedges there are about waist high. And what I saw turned me cold as stone. The Skrarg had changed course and was charging straight at me.

They say moments like that move in slow motion. But for me, time ground to a complete halt. I saw the beast clearly: its demonic red eyes glaring with the fire of a hundred hells, its mandibles spread wide enough to swallow my face, its vicious talons poised to tear my neck open. I had no Behemoth Gunner, no Dreadcannon to knock it down with. I could only watch it sort of hanging there, frozen in mid-dash, coming for me. I wondered distantly if the Charweeds would bother reanimating me this time? Would they even care?

BANG!

The world kicked back to normal time. Sound roared through my ears as that Skrarg raced at me. I had barely a second to live.

Then the most mysterious thing happened. The thick ropey vines that'd been coiled around the statues and vases and birdbaths, all suddenly sprung to life and shot out with dizzying speed at the Skrarg. They snared its limbs and wrapped it up like great coiling tentacles, literally stopping the beast in its tracks. One moment it was sprinting at me with all the blur and pace of a crazed race horse, the next it crashed face first into the grass in a mass of tumbling limbs and claws, throwing up clods of dirt. There it squirmed and wriggled and squealed, fighting the vines that pinned it down.

But there were too many, it couldn't get to its feet.

Fleetingly I thought the Charweeds must've been nearby, that they'd somehow commanded the vines. But I saw them nowhere. Instead, what I saw was a new figure standing there.

Like Goon, he was dressed in hooded mask and tunic and leather armour, but his was the colour of the deepest ocean. He too gripped one of those mysterious Grimmersows.

'Give them back the stone, Darkhawk!' he growled.

Goon (or was it Darkhawk now?) regarded him intently. 'And if I don't, Sir Herroncross,' he laughed, 'will yer make me?'

'Aye, and your next move will mean your death!'

To my left, beyond the hedge row, the stranded beast still thrashed wildly, trapped in its mesh of vines, squealing and kicking and lashing about.

'What say you?' growled the newcomer to Goon.

'Go to hell!'

The new bloke dipped his Grimmersow at the earth. The dirt began to shake, an immense invisible power surging through it. The earth darkened at Goon's boots as water pooled around his ankles. Droplets dripped upwards... and in the next second a shimmering water geyser cascaded high into the air, blasting Goon in the face, knocking him backwards. This Sir Herroncross charged.

Goon didn't see him coming. Blinking grit and water from his eyes. He stumbled, but managed to slash his bone sword in the direction of the marble statues aligned along the nearest wall. It took a second or two for something to happen but suddenly they creaked and moved; shards of stone and dust spitting from limbs and joints that were never meant to be mobile. They stepped down from their plinths, swords raised.

Herroncross hurled himself through the water barrier, flying at Goon, knocking him to ground with a well-aimed kick to the chest. The Termination Stone flew from Goon's grasp, landing in the gravel in a puff of dust. The statues trudged onward.

'Emily,' Herroncross yelled, 'the stone!' He rolled to his left as a stone sword swung past his neck.

Emily dashed out, scooped up the blue rock. Herroncross dodged another attack from the statues, somersaulting, evading three or four strikes, shoulder bashing one of them into the grass. He dipped his weapon at it. Water flooded instantly from the earth again and a great muddy whirlpool sucked that flailing thing into a bog. Great wads of grass then spiralled upwards like hands from graves, clutching the heels of the others, dragging them all down.

Emily sprinted toward me into the clearing. I thought she meant to run all the way to the Gate with it. The beast was still tangled up in those vines, Goon was being held at bay by Sir Herringbone or whatever his name was. So why not while she had a clear run at the portal?

But without warning Emily suddenly diverted and dived heavily behind the hedge closest her. I didn't know what the hell she was doing. Until I saw it: beneath Warrior's Gate, Skrargs were pushing through from Forgotten. The invasion was beginning.

5

I dropped to my hands and knees. Hoping the monsters hadn't spotted me. I crawled my way toward Emily. But the thing about the hedges in the centre of Hell's Edge is they don't stand as one continuous barrier. On either edge of the grassy quadrant the white pebbled paths intersect the hedges at their halfway point. So, while I was dug in behind the length further down, still shaking senses back into my head, Emily remained crouched behind the length further away—and between us? A gap in the row of up to three metres.

Emily scrambled down to the divide. And peered round the corner. The Skrargs had pushed through the portal and were now moving onto the grass, closely watching Herroncross and Darkhawk slug it out.

Thing is, if Emily dashed across the gap there was every chance she'd be spotted.

'Emily,' I hissed, 'what do we do?'

She gripped the stone. 'Just let me think.'

Herroncross and Goon were still knocking seven shades of shit out of each other—punching, grappling; Goon swiping Herroncross's bone sword out of his grip and lunging at him, with Herroncross then scooping up his discarded weapon, parrying and driving his fist into the back of Goon's neck.

Me and Emily were still a good twenty metres from our target. The handful of Skrargs hadn't yet seen us, still distracted by the clash going on between Goon and Herroncross. One or two sniffed about their cohort who still writhed and wailed in the clutches of those vines.

But as we watched them it was if it communicated something to them. Because when they straightened they turned and looked in our direction. And began coming our way.

I gulped. 'Emily, shit. I think they know we're here.'

6

Across worlds, in that very same spot, the Watchers had been overwhelmed. LanceAsh had been doing his best with his single arm. But Muxzhüm had taken a hit by the Skrargs, battered against the wall with LanceAsh in the saddle. Muxzhüm went down hard, snapping six of its legs. LanceAsh was pinned beneath him, several ribs broken and punctured through his chest, blood pouring into the grass.

The Watcher T. S. Wells, astride his Firecolt, Düzhener, rallied at Warrior's Gate. Alongside him Alora and Jude were battling fiercely. But the Skrargs pushed feverishly through them. The Charon beasts slashed the belly out of Düzhener and sliced both T. S. Wells' legs free beneath his knees. Both he and his Firecolt went down screeching, blood and yellow guts gushing across the marble; the tadpole things from Düzhener's blood flailed like beached fish.

Alora blew her war horn calling more troops to defend the Gate. But by now most had been incapacitated by sheer Charon numbers. And when Alora went down, gashed across the face, Jude, the third Watcher, suddenly turned berserker, dicing Skrarg limbs and cracking Charon skulls. But ultimately, inundated with surging enemy attacks, he was dragged from his steed and set upon.

7

Emily could clearly see the base of the Warrior's Gate statue from her position. I saw it through a small hole in the hedge. Like the Behemoth Guardians had explained, the plinth on which the statue stands is hollow. Shaped like a four-legged table with arched edges. In the hollow, on a flat stone floor, stands some sort of cairn carved from rock. When we were kids, me and Mark used to climb it and jump off. According to the Behemoths, that's where we had to get the Termination Stone.

Now, the rear arch of the plinth must've been where the corrupted portal was situated, where Skrargs had been squeezing through all summer. It stood out as a wall of shimmering blue light. You could see movement going on beyond it in that other world—Watchers and Charon tossing each other every which way. Meanwhile, the Skrargs that'd already made their way through that day were now coming toward us... fast.

'Emily, we're not gonna get there,' I whispered urgently. 'They're quick! They're dead quick! We won't outrun them.'

She was just staring at me. Was she in shock? Had she gone catatonic?

'Emily!' I hissed, but what she did then was either a moment of sheer brilliance inspired by her Cryptic Club experience, or a mere split-second action based on nothing but pure fucking lunacy.

'Jake, I'm going to lead them away.'

'What? Are you mental? They're too fast, Em! They'll catch you! Trust me.'

'We've no choice! We wait any longer there's going to be a hundred more of those things come through! You just make sure you get to the Gate. ' Without a 'Goodbye,' or a 'Good luck,' she tossed the Termination Stone across the gap at me and then she stood and yelled at the beasts, 'You want me? Well, come on then!'

Then she bolted.

The Skrargs took the bait. Scrambling after her as she ran toward Goon and Herroncross. With no time to waste I gripped the stone and vaulted the hedge, dashing hard for the Gate.

The next few moments sit like a blur in my memory. I remember noise and yelling, I remember screeching monsters, I remember the air roaring past my ears, but I never took my eye off the plinth beneath the giant statue and the cairn inside.

Emily told me later, that somewhere behind me, Herroncross drove Goon aside, jabbing his bone weapon at the ground, and dragged from the earth what she can only describe as a huge body of water that took on the form of hound. It sprinted toward Emily and intercepted one of the Skrargs about to claw her head off, and knocking it over the hedge.

I knew none of this at the time, of course. All I knew was I was in a blind sprint for the cairn. But out the corner of my eye I saw the remaining Skrarg finally tear itself free of the vines and scramble to its feet. As it did it came skittering after me.

I ran, hearing nothing, desperately pounding one foot in front of the other. I hurdled benches, dodged past birdbaths... and then I felt it, the monster, right there on my tail. And it let off a terrible high-pitched metallic squeal.

I stumbled as I came to the plinth and went to ground, grazing my knuckles and knees; the shimmering blue wall of the corrupted portal hummed like an engine. I saw the monster out of the corner of my eyes, my momentum pushing me into a forward roll and back onto my feet. I dove through the closest arch, sliding across the marble floor, crashing into the stone column, hoping like hell I wouldn't slide off into the portal.

I hit the column with my shoulder and slewed sideways, trying to scramble around. The beast was barely two metres behind me, squealing and ranting as I fumbled with the Stone. I dropped it. More Skrargs were scrabbling their way through the portal. The one pursuing me crashed into the arches... I scooped up the key and jammed it in the recess on the cairn. I turned the stone, the beast flew at me, its jaws so wide I could see right down its stinking throat...

8

Everything came to a grinding halt in that moment. I froze, knowing the beast was about to hit me like a tank, knowing it would tear me open. There was absolute silence for but a second, absolute stillness, absolute nothingness...

And then... it happened.

A flash of searing white light erupted without noise from the Doorway between worlds and fanned out like a wave across the entire stone maze. I'm told everyone within a hundred miles saw it that day, a fierce flash of lightning on a clear summer's morning. And then, like things do after such a strike, there came the shock wave.

A horrific boom shattered the air, throwing me out across the lawn, shaking the earth. Every soul in Hell's Edge took the hit that day, all of them knocked fiercely from their feet.

And that, as they say, was that...

END OF DAYS

1

TWO WEEKS after the events of the Dead Man's Challenge, the mysterious strike on the maze remained the talk of Burnchess. Folk spoke constantly of the almighty thunder clap that'd thrown everyone in Hell's Edge off their feet. But there were some who weren't convinced it'd had anything to do with thunder at all. 'It was silent,' they argued. 'Silent! You've never seen such a thing in your life!'

As for myself, I still nursed a stiff neck. And my own memory of the event was foggy at best. I remembered vaguely the "lightning strike" which had been followed up by some sort of sweeping force of energy. Anything else though was shrouded in a mental blank.

What I do know is after the shockwave ripped through Hell's Edge, I'd popped my eyes open and found myself lying there blinking up at blue sky, wondering what the hell'd happened. Emily had come belting up, screeching, 'Jake! Jake! God, are you all right?' She'd dropped to her knees, shaking me. 'Jake, can you hear me?'

I remember sitting up with her help, rubbing my face. I still had the motorbike helmet on. It was covered in scratch marks. Either the result of some beast's vicious fangs or I'd smashed my head into the stonework when the shockwave hit.

When I looked back and saw the Warrior's statue, I realised how far I'd been thrown. I was out by the other side of the pond. A good twenty metres from where I'd been. Amazing I hadn't broken any bones. 'Bloody hell,' I remember mumbling. 'What the hell happened?'

'You must've closed the Gate,' Emily had said. 'There was some sort of explosive pulse. You must've shut it down!'

I'd coughed and looked around. 'Really?' Then nervously I'd said, 'Where the hell are those Skrarg things?' We would've been sitting ducks if those creatures were still alive. But the truth of it was their crumpled carcasses lay scattered about like giant swatted spiders. One not far from the Gate. (Most likely the one that'd almost taken off my head.) The others strewn around the maze centre.

'I don't know how it happened,' Emily'd told me. 'I saw that bloke slash his bone sword against just one of them and every single one seemed to collapse in fits. Every one of them. Then the boom happened.'

Whatever'd happened to that bloke, Herroncross I assumed she was talking about, or where Goon (or was it Darkhawk?) had got to, was anyone's guess. Emily didn't have an answer. Like me, she'd been knocked flying and hadn't seen them depart. All I know is by the time Dad and Sergeant Finch'd come rushing into the area they'd long vanished.

2

They say the 'fertiliser contamination' miraculously cleared up overnight after that. If so, I couldn't say whether that was true or not. I never returned to take a look. But a day following the Challenge, police launched an investigation into the slain race officials killed at maze centre and one of the reports coming back was the stink had cleared out, the bubbling rot had dried up and the entire spring looked like a healing scab on an old sore.

It was revealed that charges against the Sharkfin's alleged involvement in the fertiliser spill had been dropped, and reported that Goon'd been responsible all along. Apparently he'd hypnotised poor old Sharkfin into admitting he'd blighted the land as part of the ongoing CFA dispute against the local shire. (Although, as far as I know, his Bed & Breakfast licence wasn't reinstated.)

As for the dead race wardens, the official word going round was they'd taken the direct brunt of the mysterious lightning strike. Death had been instantaneous. A case of wrong spot at the wrong time. But some refused to accept this line. The actual buzz on the grapevine spoke of something else: another killer cat. And folk were demanding to know what the police word was on this front. But so far the police hadn't responded.

It made you wonder if there was some sort of cover up at play. After all, what the hell'd happened to those Skrarg corpses? Dad and Finch must surely have seen them when they'd come charging into the centre of the maze. Not like you could miss the damn things. Big as buses they were. It made me wonder if Dad and Finch had also helped drag them away. I'd asked Dad about them, of course. I'd said, 'Dad, in the maze when you found us, did you find anything else? Like weird?'

He'd been cagey as hell. He'd said, 'Jake, there are certain details of a policeman's job he's not permitted to comment on. Even to members of his own family. And this, unfortunately, is one of those occasions.'

I didn't like that answer so I'd spent two days snooping around trying to find out. The police station's not large enough to store the likes of those monsters, but the community hall has a small warehouse tacked onto the side where you could've hidden a couple of freezers. Still, that particular warehouse remained empty of such things.

They must've shipped them off to Horsefall or Chingola Wildlife Reserve or some place. Me and Emily found ourselves discussing it endlessly. Sitting at the Hare Of The Dog's rooftop garden late into the evenings, chatting away like proper mates and all. And it was she who'd suggested the Skrargs had most likely been trucked out to some government lab in London.

'You can be certain the government bods know about it by now,' she'd said. 'I bet Charlie's under strict orders to keep his mouth shut.'

She had a damn good point. I hadn't even considered that. No wonder Dad hadn't said anything to me. Someone higher up the chain of command had obviously twisted his arm.

'Who knows,' Emily said, 'Charlie and constable Finch have perhaps even been threatened with their jobs if they go public with it. Or their reputations.'

She was probably right. Though it all didn't sit well with me. The official cause of death of the two race wardens was due to some mysterious lightning strike. But in reality they'd been pulled apart like barbecued chicken by those blood thirsty monsters. And the public, who had every fucking right to know, had had the wool pulled over their eyes.

'You can understand why they'd cover it up,' Emily had said, 'To curb mass hysteria. Mass panic. Can you imagine the public's reaction if this news got out?'

But I told her, 'It's not right, Em,' and she agreed with me. 'Oh don't worry, Jake, I'm with you. The thing is, if they keep sweeping stuff under the rug, sooner or later it'll spill out.'

I actually really valued our late night discussions. Turned out to be a healthy way of dissecting everything that'd gone on during summer. Fanny and the Mortons and the dead tourists; the secretive Charweeds; the fate of the Charon and its Skrargs, the fate of LanceAsh and his Watchers; our entire experience in Forgottenworld—Vynka, Ndola, the witches, the train crash, the map, the Behemoths, the Blackbirds, the Deadhounds, everything. When you sat back and thought about it you began to see exactly what we'd come through, began to realise we'd really shared something unique. Me and her. Something quite bizarre, something big. Something most people'd never endure together in an entire lifetime.

Emily wasn't the only person I spent time debriefing with, of course. I spent quite a bit of time with Hayley. Although, my debriefing sessions with her, ran along slightly different lines to the ones I shared with Emily. I never spoke of Forgottenworld with Hayley, of course. Truthfully, at times there wasn't much talk at all. Mostly because, well if I'm being perfectly honest, we had our mouths filled with each other, if you get what I mean. We had the perfect piece of 'debriefing' material to draw from too. A dusty, tattered copy of the Kama Sutra I'd uncovered in Staten's shop. (Although mostly we'd giggle ourselves silly over the bizarre images.) But seriously, after the mayhem of those last few days, after the trek across the strange world of Forgotten, after the nightmare Skrarg beasts, it was the only psychological (and physical) therapy I could put myself up for.

We lay there one warm afternoon on the grassy bank near the Massacre Point cliffs. Gulls squealed and a warm breeze rolled in off the sea. I rolled over to admire her face. Since my return she hadn't once asked why I'd gone to the Paganville music festival without her, why I hadn't invited her, or why we'd never been away to Lambeth. 'I stood you up,' I said eventually, 'you know that, don't you?'

'What on earth are you talking about?' she said with a frown.

'Our trip to Lambeth, remember?'

She shook her head. 'We never went to Lambeth.'

'I know. But we'd planned to, remember. I never showed up.'

'Yes, I know,' she said, looking at me like I was stupid. 'You told me you were going to Paganville to watch a band from your college. You even asked me if I wanted to go, remember?'

'I did?'

She laughed at me. 'Yes and I told you I couldn't because I got that job with the wildlife trust.'

I frowned. 'Really? You got that job? Well done.'

'Oh, my God,' she laughed, 'how many brain cells did you kill at that festival?!'

I lay back down and stared at the sky. Was this Jones' work? I mean, he was the last person I'd seen before I took Emily back to Forgotten. Maybe he'd hypnotised the town or some shit. Maybe he'd fabricated entire stories and then brainwashed the ones closest to us. If he had, it'd worked brilliantly.

I'd called him a couple of times in those days after the Challenge. I'd been up to his cottage. But he was strangely absent. Truthfully, I was still pissed off with him. I know he'd coaxed Emily out to that Dark River. Why? Well, because he knew her chances of dying had been pretty fucking high and that was the only way he was going to get us back to Forgotten. A reckless, heartless, gamble. The least he could've done was front up and apologise. But I hadn't heard shit from him since we'd got back.

Hayley lay there watching my face, picking at the grass. 'What are you thinking?' she'd asked. I rolled over and studied her eyes. 'Nothing. I think I'm really falling for you.'

3

Four days before me and Mark flew out for Thailand, Kate asked me to meet her, Mark and Emily over at the Lost Worlds Café. I thought this an intriguing development seeing as Kate hadn't really been speaking to both Emily and me since our alleged return from Paganville. Sure enough, when I walked in and crossed to our favourite booth Kate was busy lambasting Emily for going AWOL on the days leading up to the Challenge.

Ordinarily I'd have happily sat there and watch Emily cop a right royal roasting. But that day I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Actually I felt irked the way she was being treated, the way Kate was carrying on.

'You realise those five days you were gone we were meant to be finalising our preparations,' Kate argued. 'I still can't believe you decided to just go away on some romp up to Paganville. Without telling anyone!'

I could guess why Kate was so pissed off. She'd let Corey down. We'd embarrassed her in front of him. Made her look stupid. Surprisingly it didn't worry me one bit. Hopefully he'd never come back. Still, what the hell was Emily meant to say?

I felt like telling them. I felt like saying, 'Look guys, the real reason Emily wasn't here to attend training sessions is that she'd suffered a fatal dose of death. Okay? And the only way she could be brought back to life was by taking her to see some happy two-faced giant fuckers called the Behemoths. Oh, and by the way, we were pursued by gigantic poisonous toads, turned into trees by witches, chased by three hundred beasts from hell and were then flown home in the fuselage of an aeroplane which, incidentally, was strapped to a gargantuan flying monster. Any fucking questions?'

Emily glanced at me. For a brief moment I thought she was about to break our pact not to tell anybody about Forgotten. (We knew no-one'd believe that shit.) But I thought she was about to spill it all out. If she did it'd open up one massive can of worms. But she didn't. And we just eyed each other briefly, both of us knowing this little exercise was futile.

I felt a strange sense of solidarity with her right then. Like we'd formed some sort of bond in the last three weeks, me and her. And we both knew this attack on her wasn't fair. If it hadn't been for Emily, if she hadn't cracked the final puzzle on that map, the whole sorry village would've gone to hell and Kate and Mark wouldn't have been sitting here giving her a fucking mouthful. This was one time she couldn't brag about her cleverness, her wit, or gloat over another victory. And it was the one time I wished I could've seen her rub it in someone's face.

In the end she simply reached out and grasped both their hands. 'Look, I'm sorry for not telling you pair my plans leading up to the Challenge,' she told them. 'It was a split-second decision to go to, ah Paganville. Yes, I should've rung. But I didn't. I mean, exams were tough this term, you know that Kate, I told you. And well, I just needed to let my hair down for a while. So I got drunk, I had a killer hangover for five days. I won't make any excuses, but that's all I can tell you both. I'm sorry.'

4

The evening before I left I was in my room getting dressed and trying to do something with my hair. There was a going-away bash for me and Mark down in the bar, so I was trying my best to spruce up for Hayley. I had an hour until it kicked off, but before I delved into some serious drinking I planned to pay Jones a visit. I still had to know if he had anything to say for himself about Emily coming to grief at the Sharkfin farm. Plus I was also curious to know something else: was he responsible for half the town believing me and Emily had been up to Paganville?

But as I was leaving my bedroom Dad showed up. 'Jake, you mind if I had a quick word.'

I shrugged. 'What's up?'

'Well, there's a certain matter I've been meaning to raise.' He said this with a somewhat amused look on his face. 'I'll raise it with Emily too of course, but seeing as you were the one in control of the trail bike I think you're the one I ought to speak with first.'

So this was it. The 'talk' I'd been more or less expecting. About the Challenge day. Taking a motorised vehicle into the maze. Which, like I said, is banned under village rules. I checked my watch, I didn't want to keep Hayley waiting.

'I need to discuss your conduct during the start of the Dead Man's Challenge,' he declared. 'I'm sure you know full well the penalties for operating a motor vehicle within Hell's Edge...'

And so it went on. I argued that Goon'd been attempting to set light to the fertiliser, that me and Emily had simply been out to stop him. But Dad didn't buy that. So, cut a long story short, I copped a hefty fine and a two-year ban from the maze.

Such is life.

Dad left. I lingered a moment or two in my room, checking my reflection in the mirror. There was a knock on my door and Dad appeared again. 'One other thing,' he said.

'Yep.' I checked my watch once more.

'Tell me. Do you know anything about Mr O'Rourke's dune buggy? It's been reported missing, you see.'

I swallowed. The dune buggy? Shit, I hadn't given it any thought. The last time I'd seen it was in Chessburn, Forgottenworld. The day I'd driven it through the Archway with Emily dead in the back seat. 'Ah, no,' I said, perhaps a little too quickly. 'Why would I know anything?'

'You were the last one spotted riding it, I believe. Monday morning last week.'

'Really?' So, what the hell was I going to say? Tell him I'd borrowed it to drive Emily's carcass into another world? I said, 'Oh yeah that's right. I took it out for a little spin. Mark said he was gonna do it, you know, turn the motor over and stuff, keep it fresh. I thought I may as well seeing as he and his dad were on the road and all.'

He watched me closely. 'So you returned it?'

I shrugged. 'Yeah, took it straight back.'

'Then you departed for Paganville?'

'Yep. Just hopped on the ol' Spitfire and went straight up to Paganville.' I made a gesture with my hand, like a plane taking off. 'Ask Jones if you don't believe me.' I watched his face as he eyed me. I looked away. 'Brilliant festival though,' I said before he could ask any more questions. 'Cold Play was s'posed to close out the gig, but they had to cancel. You know how it goes. What can you do?'

After I left the inn I made my way up Castle Grove. The late September evening had already begun to darken. Stars were twinkling in the fading blue sky and the street lamps were glowing. My thoughts were ticking over about the Blue Wasp. I'd completely forgotten about it. So, what had become of it? I wondered. Had LanceAsh managed to get hold of it? I hoped he had. Then again, we'd been away from his village for a good few days. Someone else might have claimed it in that time; for all I knew they were banging across Forgottenworld in it right at that moment.

When I got to Jones' place all the lights were off. No one was home. I thought maybe he was in hiding. If so, no amount of knocking or dialling his mobile would make a difference. I strolled back onto the top of Castle Grove and happened to notice a light on over there inside the barley mill.

I didn't for a moment expect it to be Jones. But I thought if old Muldoon was in there tinkering away on his beloved Spitfire, well he might tell me where the Jones could be found.

I strolled over and as I drew near I heard voices. I thought at first Muldoon simply had the radio on. But then I swear I heard Goon's voice. I crept quietly to the window and peered in.

Sure enough there he stood. Goon and Charlton Jones both.

My first thought was to ring Dad immediately. Goon was a wanted man, wanted for questioning on such things as the fertiliser contamination and for running Dad into that ravine, and for his alleged hand in freeing all those mandrills from Chingola. I even had my phone out, but what I heard stopped me.

'...I ought to turn you into the authorities,' Jones was saying angrily. 'Two race officials dead. And let me name them so you can consider the families left to deal with their deaths. Mira Cartwright, primary school teacher, and Nicolas Haines, newsagent. Their blood is on your hands, Radford. Add them to the blood of Albert and Gladys Morton and that of Percival Fanneray. Not to mention the dead tourists.'

'I had no hand in the deaths of any of them, Charlton,' Goon argued, 'and yer know that.'

'No, but you're an accessory, Radford.'

Goon laughed. 'Oh, and such a small price to pay for the death of my Carenza.'

'If you'd had your way you would gladly have seen the deaths of thousands more! On both sides of the Gate! Is that really what you want? All that death for the sake of just one?'

'I am not finished, Charlton,' Goon said with a greasy smile. 'My attempts will not be so easily foiled next time.'

'Oh they will. Because as long as I'm alive I will make it my mission to stop you.'

'Is that so? Well, come on then. Tell me why the great Sir Herroncross doesn't turn me in right now? Hmm? Why don't yer call up that worm Crassly right this minute and report my location?'

'You know the code, Radford. We are Dominors. Or have you forgotten that?'

'Dominors? Ha, what good are they? None of us remembers how to revive the Knights and turn them back to flesh and bone! Admit it, the days of the Dominors—the great stewards of the Knight's legacy—are finished.'

'Even so, Radford, you know the code: to wayward stray is wayward lead. I am required to herd you back to the flock. Or kill you. We do not give each other up to any authority but our own. So, be aware, if you again try to bring the Charon to Strangeworld I will kill you.'

Goon sniggered. 'Yer think I will let yer do that so readily, Charlton, my old friend? Don't be a fool!'

'Radford, I won't allow you to continue this reckless nonsense.'

Goon coughed harshly. 'Is that so? Need I remind you that everything I had was taken from me!' he spat. 'Snatched like a feather in a gale. Everything! My family, my future, my life! Stolen from me! Just like that. By the very people I thought were friends. Now my new agenda at last gives me purpose! And I will not stop until this village lies in smouldering ruin and all who live here have perished. Yer understand? If the Charon can help me achieve this then all the better!'

Jones sighed. 'Very well. So, it begins. You have splintered what little there remains of the Dominors and from this day forth my agenda will be to stop you in your tracks.'

'So be it,' Goon hissed. 'But a word of warning: yer may want to call in reinforcements. I will not be bested so easily next time around, I can assure yer.'

Jones was silent for a moment. 'Strange that you would say that, Radford, because that's what I have done, I have activated the Bane of Moths .'

Goon looked intrigued. Yet he smiled. 'Yer've never been a good liar, Charlton.'

'Oh, I'm not lying, Radford. I took the package to Temple Ash. I activated the Bane and put out the call.'

Temple Ash? I thought, frowning, recalling that day when Jones'd given me Mum's scrap book with all those bizarre photos. Muldoon'd pulled the Spitfire into the gravel car park at the Temple Ash pub and handed him that package wrapped in brown paper.

'There are Dominors out there somewhere, Radford. Here. Or trapped within Forgotten. Sitting there biding their time. Watching for signs on the wind, or in the dripping of the rain. I will find them. You bring the Charon fight to us, and we will find a way to reawaken the Macellarias Knights. Your days are numbered, Radford. Be this your first and only warning!'

'Until we meet in battle then,' Goon said sternly, and with that Jones turned and walked away.

5

Even after I'd got my arse back to the Hare Of The Dog my head was still reeling. Most of the gang was already in the bar: Hayley, Kate, Emily, Amber. Mark too. Couple of others like Mr O'Rourke and Dad showed up. Louise was helping chefs lug out finger food and nibbles. I found a seat near Hayley and must've looked right distracted because she asked if I was okay. 'Yeah,' I told her. 'I just need a beer.'

Mark bought a round and prodded a chilled Raw City in my mitt. I guzzled hard, thinking long about what I'd just heard at the bus terminal. Dominors? Goon and Jones? Herroncross? So that was Jones then? No wonder he knew so much about the goings-on in Forgottenworld. No wonder he'd kept so damn secretive. And you had to wonder a whole lot of other things too now, actually. At maze centre on Challenge day, that Herroncross had commanded walls of water out of the earth. Commanded vines to take down that Skrarg. Summoned fists made of grass to drag those stone statues off their feet. If he could do that, then what about the day of the Great Storm that'd battered Burnchess? Had he (being Jones) possibly conjured that to foil Goon? To aid us? Had he also conjured the rain over the Archway the day Emily died?

And what the hell was the Bane of Moths?

My head whirled like mad. I kept wondering if I should pull Emily aside and tell her what I'd seen. But she and Mark were canoodling, and they were at it most of the evening. Normally Emily would've been right cagey about that sort of thing. Showing affection in public. But I guess things'd changed. I guess her and Mark's liking for each other wasn't such a big secret anymore. Maybe the vodka mixers had her lubricated sufficiently. Or maybe her recent near-death experience had forced some personality shift.

Anyway, I didn't get to tell her what I'd witnessed. But in the end there didn't seem much point. The summer had come and gone. I was flying out the next day. None of it would matter much after that.

Hayley held my hand. She kept saying stuff like, 'I'll miss you, ya know. You better not run off with one of those pretty Thai girls.'

I smiled. 'You've got nothing to worry about.'

The jukebox belted out tracks like Madonna's Get Together, and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. We all danced. Everyone up and shaking and moving about. Me and Hayley snogging, lip-swapping ice cubes from my scotch and dry. Mark did his Michael Jackson impressions while miming Teenage Dream, really camping it up. Admittedly, he's not bad at the moonwalk, and he's pretty handy at the old crotch grab. The entire performance was a total crack-up.

Occasionally I watched Kate over Hayley's shoulder. Tight jeans. Tight blouse. Dancing there in her graceful, sexy way. My own teenage dream. She was on her phone here and there. No doubt chatting and texting Mr Wankerson. He'd finally buggered off back to Cocktown or Arseville or wherever he's from. Funny how a few weeks of summer can change things. I'd been so sure I'd end up with Kate somehow this summer. But I guess some higher order writes your scripts. Because I knew then me and Kate weren't meant to be together. One of those sad facts of life. But it's true. I could feel it. Fifteen years of friendship had come to nothing. Funny how life goes.

I chatted to her once or twice that night. She seemed to have forgiven Emily and me for our vanishing act. She wished me a safe trip. I took a moment to ask her if she'd known about Emily's family tragedy. About the drownings. She said it was something Emily'd only shared with her once. (When I asked Mark he'd said the same thing.) That was about all me and Kate spoke about.

The drinking and dancing went long into the night.

6

It was after 3 am when Mark dragged me aside for a chat. We were all in the upstairs lounge by then, the moon casting an eerie pale light across the village Green and the Drop Off. The girls were yakking about Isabelle Allende and Paulo Coelho; authors I'd never heard of and would probably never read. It was one of those late night 'intellectual' conversations people seem prone to when they're blind, blurring drunk.

Me and Mark were over by the panoramic window. I said, 'What's up?'

He sipped his beer, looked at me strangely. 'You remember our bet don't you?'

I considered him for a moment or two, then I sat back, slurping some Raw City. 'Our bet?'

'Our monster bet.'

I remembered it once I thought about it. Something about two hundred quid on the line if he could prove some engineered Frankenbeast had been on the prowl. I now knew that hadn't been the case at all. But I also knew that Mark hadn't simply been seeing things either. Earlier in the summer I'd posed he'd merely witnessed some nutter in a monster costume. And yeah, for all I knew, once or twice that could've been LanceAsh dressed up in that strange ghost suit. But more than likely Mark had spotted one of those nightmarish Charon Skrargs snooping about in the lane beside his house. So what was I to do? Take his two hundred? Or tell him to keep his money?

He shrugged. 'Turns out you were right, brutha,' he admitted at last. 'There was no Frankenstein octopus—'

'Mark, listen, who cares? Keep your money. Better still, use it to pay the door fee for all the ping-pong shows in Bangkok we're gonna watch. You do that and we'll call it even.'

He smiled at the thought. But his face turned grave again. 'Look, what I'm saying is, it wasn't a Frankenbeast. No half-wolf, half-giant octopus. But it was an animal And something I still can't describe.' He patted a bulge in his jacket pocket. I thought it was the cash. Instead he said, 'Thing is, I've captured it on Dad's old camcorder.'

Camcorder? A bluff, surely. Like that time at school when I was sixteen and I snapped photos of nude breasts from a porn mag and tried to pass them off as this chick's from my Geography class to convince Mark I'd slept with her.

I smiled. By that stage of the night I was more than a tad drunk. 'Well, come on then, big boy! Let's get to my room, show me your packaaaage!'

7

In my room he takes out the camcorder. One of the ancient sort from the '90s with the 8mm tape. Yes, actual tape. 'Look, brutha, I need to warn you: it's strange. This creature. Whatever it is. It seems to disguise itself as a tree. That's why some nights I saw it and some nights I didn't.'

We were in my room hooking the cords up to my telly. I was slurping on another scotch. I giggled. 'A tree?' But where the hell had I heard that before? Something disguising itself as a tree. I couldn't remember.

'You'll see what I mean,' he says.

We got the footage on screen. He tells me he set the camera up in the laneway outside his room. 'Sunset, two nights ago,' he says. 'This is what I captured. Just keep watching.'

I was looking at a fiery orange sky rippled with dark cloud, trying to keep my eyes steady. I felt so drunk. In the foreground were the silhouettes of those damn weeping willows.

'The tree in the middle,' he says, 'that one there. Keep your eye on it. This is gonna freak you out.'

So, I'm watching... waiting...

Its branches shivered in the evening breeze. Some sort of bird tweeted in the background. Then it went silent. And all of a sudden several red eyes were glowing from the tree bark, looking back at the camera... I was absolutely stunned...

...and then...

A cut in the footage... we're in someone's bedroom...

...Emily appears on screen.

Mark, all goggle-eyed, gasps, 'What the fuck!'

'Hi, Mark,' Emily sang drunkenly from my TV. 'I guess by the time you see this you'll be in Thailand. So, here's a little something to remind you of me.' She turned around and stuck on some music; I recognised the tune—one I'd heard constantly coming out of Emily's room. Right There by Nicole Scherzinger. That funky tune with the dirty lyrics.

Emily comes back to the camera. Mark was still wide eyed. So was I. Emily's saying, 'Oh, by the way, promise me you'll delete this after you've watched it.' Then she started dancing... slowly, seductively, pulling off her shirt, singing, 'Me like the way you hold my body, Me like the way you touch my body...'

I gulped. 'Holy shit, Mark! Get this off before I'm scarred me for life!'

8

Hayley stayed over that night. (I think Mark and Emily had stumbled back to Mark's place. After all, Emily like the way he touch her body...) I had one last Glow-in-the-dark condom. Me and Hayley put it to good use. Sort of leaving things where we'd started.

And I'm happy to say, there were no Charweed hauntings that night. Wherever those two witches were I didn't care. I hadn't seen any sign of them since our return. Although, I did occasionally wonder if I should've gone back to their little black tarred cottage on the Howling. You know, to offer some sort of thanks. For what they did for Emily and me and dad. But, I don't know, the thought of them still chilled me. I still wasn't entirely sure that what they'd done to us wasn't some sort of fucked up experiment. Besides, they probably didn't want to be disturbed anyway. So as long as they stayed away and left me alone, I could live with that.

9

Next morning Dad came up to the village car park at the barley mill. Emily and Mark had already taken off for Newquay in Mr O'Rourke's old Ford Cortina with the chrome wheels; Louise had seen them off. Our plane wasn't due to fly out of Newquay Airport till two that afternoon. I still had a few hours.

Dad didn't really say much. He had work to get to, he'd said. Reckoned he had a morning of paperwork to sort out. He gave me a hug. It was nice, but he still felt distant. Hard to say why. I remember once he told me he'd been looking forward to having me around a bit more after school was done so we could spend more time together. I hadn't really thought about it, but it hit me right then how far we'd drifted apart since Mum's passing. It saddened me a little. But I guess that's one of the unfortunate things of life. You make plans... and then shit happens.

'Take care,' he said. 'Travel safe. I expect you'll have quite an adventure. Beautiful part of the world, Thailand.'

'Well, you make sure you look after yourself,' I told him.

He nodded. Smiled.

'And just in case you don't,' I warned him, 'I've told Emily to keep her eye on you.'

A short silence followed. He smiled. 'Well, I'm glad then,' he said. 'Look, while we're on the subject of her, I know at times you two are like dogs and cats but she thinks the world of you, you know.'

I watched him momentarily. I nodded. There was a niggling thought in my mind. I went to turn away but I had to ask him. 'Dad, look, did you know about the drownings? Emily's dad and brother?'

He eyed me. Then nodded. 'Yeah.'

I swallowed. 'Why didn't anyone tell me?' I said it without anger. I said it with nothing more than simple curiosity.

He sighed. 'Louise says she didn't want to burden you with their tragedy.' He shrugged. 'But my guess is the memories still haunt her.'

I stared at the cobbles. And nodded. When I looked up I gazed down Castle Grove for the last time. I eyed the Ring Of Letifer and the castle ruins and the gulls. Then briefly I turned and studied the Burnchess Arch behind me. I thought of Mum. Yes, I knew what those haunted memories were like. I pondered Emily, thinking how the memories must haunt her too. And I thought again of all the shit me and her had been through the summer just gone.

'I guess, in a way, she's nice to have around,' I said with a shrug. 'You know, sometimes.' I smiled. 'Don't tell her I said that.'

'I won't.' He squeezed my shoulder. 'Anyway, you better be on your way. Looks like Hayley's eager to get going.'

She was over in her dad's Land Rover. The one he planned to give her once he picked up some brand spanking new Pajero at Christmas. I hitched up my backpack, and me and Dad shook hands and I turned away.

I was almost at the car when I saw Charlton Jones striding my way. Seeing him made me instantly uncomfortable, made my hackles prick up a tad to tell the truth. Here was a bloke I once considered a friend. The person who'd sent Emily to her death. Was he approaching me to finally explain his actions? And what of that other bullshit I'd witnessed through the window of the Mill the night before? Him and Goon and that wee exchange in the bus hangar. They'd been calling themselves Dominors, a name I'd heard LanceAsh use once or twice. LanceAsh had said if the Charon ever rose up as a worldly threat again the Dominors were tasked with bringing the Macellarius Knights out of their stasis. But he'd also said the Dominors were an extinct order. So who exactly were Goon and Jones then? A couple of pranksters? A couple of fools who'd stumbled across those bone weapons and worked out how to use them one drunken night? Or were they really Dominors, the two warriors we saw fighting each other in the maze on Challenge day? One calling himself Herroncross, the other Darkhawk.

When he reached me he handed me a small scroll. 'News out of Forgotten,' he said, keeping his voice low. 'A detailed report on the defence of Warrior's Gate. Courtesy of LanceAsh.'

I took it, reluctantly. We'd heard nothing from Forgotten since our return. We hadn't heard if LanceAsh and his Watchers had been successful in fighting back those Skrargs. Or even if the Behemoth Gunners had ever turned up. Truth is, I was quite happy to leave it all behind. That world. Its people and its dangers. It'd been such an intense experience. One me and Emily were both still coming to terms with it. And I guess, at the end of the day, if we'd managed to stop the Skrargs stepping through that portal, then that's all that mattered. All I wanted now was to distance myself from it, digest it. Make some sense of it. Now this...

'LanceAsh was injured in the battle,' Jones reported, 'but he's okay. In his recovery he has found the strength and time to write this up. Thanks to you the Charon took a hit and the Watchers and the Behemoths seized the advantage. As such, they were successful in driving back the Charon. This report details their last stand.'

I nodded like I was listening to what he was saying. But my mind was still on other matters. 'I haven't forgiven you, Jones,' I told him, looking him dead in those unsettling eyes of his. 'What you did to Emily. Sending her out to Sharkfin's in the hope she'd die. That wasn't playing fair, mate. Nowhere near fair and you know it.'

He considered his reply. Then he said very plainly, 'I won't apologise, Jake. I had no other choice.'

'Yeah, I know why you did it. But in my book it makes you no better than Goon.'

'Thousands, if not more, faced death if we didn't act. So I hold no regrets about my actions. All's well that ends well.'

I held his glare. For the first time I didn't flinch from it, didn't feel insecure or weary of it. I simply felt undaunted, stronger.

'Look, whatever you think of me, Jake, I did what I did for the sake of this village, its people, our world. If those things had invaded then we wouldn't be standing here having this little chat. Understand?'

I shrugged. 'Hey, it doesn't change the fact you willingly sent Emily to her death.'

'I make no bones about my actions, Jake.'

I eyed him and sighed. There was no point trying to get him to see the error of his ways. He was as stubborn as they come. It would be like trying to pull an old tree from the earth. I considered grilling him about Goon and this Dominor business, but as I stared into his eyes I had a feeling that was best left up my sleeve. Information is power, after all. And if I ever needed to use it against him then it'd be there as a hefty bit of leverage. I shrugged again. 'Whatever.' I went to turn away.

'So, that's it?' I heard him say with an air of disgust. 'No "Thank you, Mr Jones, for helping us out"?'

I stopped, frowned and laughed. 'Thank you? What the hell for?'

'For repeatedly putting myself in harm's way to save your skin this summer. For covering for you fools while you were gallivanting around Forgottenworld. For rescuing your old man's car from that stinking, infested stream.'

My frown held up a moment longer. I'd been so caught up in the aftermath of the Gate siege I hadn't even considered Dad's car. And it dawned on me right then that Dad hadn't once asked me about it either. 'You found Dad's car?'

'Not only that, I washed and detailed the damn thing.' Jones pointed. I turned and saw the old Rover Metro parked in the car park, polished and gleaming under the morning sun.

I shrugged. 'Okay, thank you,' I said almost begrudgingly. 'Much appreciated. But if we're talking about gratitude and such then what about me? What about Emily? Especially Emily. After all the shit we went through for this place. We've copped nothing but a grilling from friends and family since we returned.'

He grinned. 'Oh trust me, Jake, your efforts have not gone unnoticed. I promise you. Perhaps not so much here in Burnchess, folk being oblivious to what you did and all. But believe me, the people of Chessburn and Forgotten hold you up as true heroes.'

I eyed him closely. Wondering if he was yanking my chain. But I saw only truth and conviction in his eyes. I must admit, the news helped alleviate some of my frustrations, if only slightly. I almost left him then. Hayley stood by her car, watching us, no doubt wondering what the hell we were chatting about. And I was eager to be off with her. Not wasting time here with Jones. Yet in truth, I was still prickled by this whole Emily thing. Morally, I just couldn't fathom how the hell he could've done that to her.

'The Behemoths know of you, right?'

He looked puzzled, almost suspicious by the question. 'Aye, they do. Why do you ask, lad?'

'No doubt you know how the Behemoths found that secret info that led us to the Termination Stone. That strange map thing from some ancient book.'

He nodded. 'Yes, the encoded Knight's map from the Book of Nightmares.'

'Yes, but it was info they shared with me and Em, Jones. Not you. Me and Em. I mean, you're far more familiar with that world and its denizens than we are. As far as I see it, it would've been so much quicker and far less complicated to give you that map. If they'd just given it to you, you wouldn't have had to put Emily's life in peril. You wouldn't have had to send her to her death. But that didn't happen. So I want to know this. Why? I've learned they don't trust you. I've learned they consider you guilty of some crime. But why? What did you do?'

He surprised me when he smiled. It was only slight and perhaps it was more a rueful grin than anything else. 'It's a long story, Jake. Perhaps one day I'll tell it to you. But not today. All I'll say for now is, there was an incident. A series of incidents actually. In the wash up, I had betrayed the Behemoths. Simple. I didn't mean to, I wasn't of sane mind you might say. But that's the way it happened.' He smiled again, almost sadly. 'Anyway, lad, you best get going. We shouldn't keep the lass waiting any longer.' He went to turn away. But then he stopped and eyed me. 'Jake, listen, one last thing. You ought to know, the Behemoths have begun the search for that fabled tome, the Book of Nightmares.' His voice went low. 'I tell you this because it seems we may not yet be out of peril. Apparently the shockwave from closing Warrior's Gate did not deal the knockout blow we had hoped. Behemoth scouts have observed abominations scurrying from the Charon Barrows at Vrhûedh. They have asked LanceAsh to be on high alert.'

I watched his face then hung my head. 'Jones, look, I'm sure you'll keep a close eye on things. Right now: I'm tired, I'm hungover. And I'm going away. Stay safe.'

10

Hayley drove me up to Newquay and we snogged for about ten minutes in the Land Rover in the airport car park with Death Cab For Cutie's You Are A Tourist playing on the radio. After that I lugged my backpack from the boot and we snogged again as a roaring jet came into land somewhere on the runway behind us. We said goodbye there and then. She said she'd come into the terminal and see me off proper but she promised her mum she'd get back in good time as her whole family was driving up to St. Austell for her great-grandmother's ninetieth birthday.

'I'll miss you, you know,' she said, 'I've really enjoyed being with you these last couple of months.'

'Me too,' I told her.

She took me in her arms. 'When are you back?'

I shrugged. 'Don't know. We'll see how the funds go I guess. Six months? A year?'

She gave me a saddened smile. 'And just when I was starting to fall in love with you,' she told me softly. That twanged my heart more than I thought. And I didn't know what to say. We looked into each other's eyes for a while then kissed again. 'Take care,' she said, finally pulling away from me.

I watched her get back into the car and put on her belt. She blew me a kiss, throwing me her gorgeous smile. As she drove from the car park I saw her wipe tears from her cheek.

I found Emily and Mark at the café inside the terminal, sipping coffee and chatting. Mark was munching on a bacon and egg butty. After last night's drinks I thought that was a hell of a good idea. I went to order one.

'No, brutha, my shout,' Mark said leaving the table. 'I mean, one wasn't enough. I'm going in for more. Emily, you want one?'

'No thanks. Another coffee if anything.'

Me and her sat there at the table by the window, watching the activity outside—planes and ground crew and airport vehicles zipping here and there. We didn't say anything for a few moments. Simply happy to enjoy the view. Not surprisingly I was reminded of Khemmerat: sitting at the guesthouse, waiting for that Deadhound. 'Remember the last time we sat gazing at a scene like this?' I asked.

'How could I forget it?' She laughed quietly, obviously still in disbelief. 'I still don't know if all that stuff really happened.'

'Yeah, I know, it's so bizarre isn't it. I mean—' I shrugged. I didn't know what to say. Part of me was like Emily, not quite believing it, not accepting we'd actually been away to some bizarre place. A place so different to what we know, so completely and utterly alien. It made no sense. And unlike our first foray into that world, this time it never left our memory, never faded. I could still smell the exotic smells of that world, feel the warmth of the sun on those long, hot days crossing the Kitwei Plains, still hear the screech of the alien birds, still feel the crisp alpine air of the Kalalushi mountains.

And sitting there in that café, a place so boring and normal with departure announcements sounding above us, just made it harder to swallow. 'I mean, was it real? Were we really there?'

There was silence again between us as we pondered our time with LanceAsh and Vynka and the Behemoths.

Emily gave the faintest of shrugs. I almost wanted her to insist it'd been another grand hallucination. I wanted her to have come up with some sane, logical explanation. But she didn't seem to have one this time.

'You'll be happy to know we're heroes now. Over there, I mean.'

She smiled but looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

I told her about Jones. What he'd told me.

She sat back and laughed again. 'Really? Heroes?'

'Yeah, for rolling round Forgotten and kicking arse at Warrior's Gate.' I chuckled and shook my head. I couldn't help making fun of it because it sounded so absurd. The most heroic thing I'd ever done was rescue Leanna Gray's kitten from the middle of the motorway when I was about fifteen—and I'd only done it for a chance to get in her pants.

'Heroes?' Emily said again as if she hadn't heard me the first time. 'Oh, my God.'

'Maybe they'll make statues of us,' I joked.

We eyed each other, both still in disbelief. It really did sound ludicrous. And we laughed through sheer disbelief. Or maybe it was sheer relief. To have come through all of that and survived.

There was silence again between us. I eyed Emily. She had this wistful look in her eyes I'd never seen before. 'Emily,' I said, 'I have to say thank you. For what you did. The village owes you big time. I honestly wish they knew that.'

'Owes us,' she corrected.

'No, it was you who cracked that code, Em. That had me beaten. We'd never have come through if you hadn't known what to do. I was just a passenger. Seriously.'

'That's not true, Jake. If it hadn't been for you, I'd be dead.'

Our eyes met and a chill passed through me. I didn't want to think about how close she'd come to checking out for good. How close had she been to becoming a permanent corpse in a box? For me it was one of those terrifying notions, like a bus narrowly missing you. Or not seeing a red light until after you'd zoomed through an intersection. Or when you'd walked along the edge of a cliff that only a day later had chipped off and thumped into the ocean. Close calls that went on haunting you long after the event.

I shrugged the memory of her dead grey eyes. 'Main thing is, we pulled through.'

'And saved the day,' she said smiling.

'By the way, it was Jones who dragged Dad's car out of Hell's Stream.'

She put her hand over her mouth. 'Oh, my God, I completely forgot about that. Really? He dragged it out?'

'Yep.'

She laughed and shook her head in disbelief.

Mark returned with our grub and another round of coffees. He watched me and Emily suspiciously as he sat. 'What?' he asked.

Me and Emily looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh.

'Hey, I can't help it,' Mark protested. 'I get the munchies when I'm hungover. You pair know that.'

That just made us laugh even harder.

11

Me and Mark flew via Manchester and transited through Helsinki and were probably somewhere over eastern Europe before I decided to take a look at that scroll Jones had given me. The cabin lights had been dimmed, hundreds of people were asleep or watching movies in the screens before them. I glanced at Mark. He was sleeping with his face pushed up against the window. Out there the moon shone in a vast black sky.

I got up and fetched my Blackwolf cabin bag from the overhead locker. The roar of the Finnair A340 engines was a constant dull hum in my ears. For a moment I couldn't help think about Deadhound wings flapping on either side of that old De Havilland fuselage. The memory brought on a small grin. How much quieter that'd been. I sat back down, switched on the overhead light and took the scroll from my bag. With Mark still asleep I unrolled the scroll flat on the fold-out table and read it.

It was like Jones had said. It was a detailed account of how LanceAsh and his Watchers had held off the Skrargs before the Warrior's portal closed with a bang. And how the back-up force of Behemoth Gunners hadn't arrived until an hour after we'd shut it. It made me appreciate how close we'd come to actually being invaded.

Yawning, I returned the scroll to my bag, and then my bag to the locker. Then I sat there, checking my phone to see what time it was. Turns out we had a million hours before we landed in Bangkok. I chose a movie to watch and reclined my seat and got comfy.

It was while I was sitting there that I noticed something quite strange.

A figure down near the galley. Standing in the darkness, watching me.

I blinked. They were dressed in an old diving suit, the ancient sort, the iron ones with the big bell helmet. It looked so out of place, I froze, my eyes goggling. Was anyone else seeing this? Did anyone think it bizarre that some idiot stood there in an ancient diving suit?

No-one else seemed to have noticed.

I frowned. Something suddenly seemed familiar about this. I'd seen an old diving suit somewhere... during summer.

But where?

The figure moved and disappeared into the galley.

I got up. Nervously I made my way up the aisle. When I reached the galley they'd vanished.

I moved to the other side. But in both directions the aisle was vacant.

I moved up and down the plane for the next several minutes. Checking the toilets. Doubling back. Scanning passengers as I went. I was just about to warn the flight attendants when I saw something that struck me with cold dread.

About fifteen rows from me stood the soul in the diving suit. Beside them was a gaping hole in the fuselage. It stretched from floor to ceiling. And it was sucking out passengers, but with absolutely no sound and instead of hurtling out at a squealing, flying rate, people were simply floating out. Gently. In silence.

The figure turned and regarded me one last time before they stepped toward the hole rent in the body of the plane. One second they were there, and in the next... they'd gone, sucked out into the deep, cold night.

My eyes burst open and I gasped.

Burning sunlight washed through the aircraft windows. All was quiet. Peaceful. The delicious aroma of coffee wafted on the air. The smell of sausages. Food. I was standing in the aisle. A beautiful Finnish hostess was trying to get by me. 'Are you okay, sir?' she asked, smiling.

I swallowed and shook my head, still looking about. 'Yeah.' I cleared my throat. I looked around. Saw no hole rent though the side of the plane. Saw no-one panicking, no-one screaming. Simply saw passengers waking up and stirring and the flight attendants dishing out trays of breakfast. 'Yeah,' I offered again, returning the smile, like all was good.

Yet when I got back to my seat there was something odd. Mark was still sleeping but there was something lying on my seat.

A black envelope.

Intrigued, I picked it up and looked about. Thinking someone on board must've placed it there. Or dropped it by mistake. There was no-one who looked like they'd lost anything, and no-one who looked suspicious. No-one looking at me furtively.

I turned the envelope over in my fingers. Nothing was written on it.

I sat down and opened it. Inside was a photograph. I frowned and took it out, turning it around to study it.

It was dated two days earlier. A caption read: Anomaly Spotted Inside Witchthorn Wood. I couldn't make out what it was. Except at first I took it for some tortured scarecrow. But when I studied it more closely it looked as though someone, a woman, was buried inside a tree. As though the trunk had been hacked open, and a vertical cavity had been dug and her body stuffed in there, foetal like. And I couldn't be sure but leaves looked to be growing from her skin, and thin branches from her fingertips.

I sat back, wondering if this was some piss take. Then I noticed something else. A small detail that absolutely chilled me.

Scribbled in the bottom corner of the photograph was someone's initials. Someone who'd been dead for three years.

R. E. Maddox.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't take my eyes off it. I gasped a deep breath, spluttering spit down my chin, dragging my hair out of my eyes to make sure I'd seen this right.

R. E. Maddox.

The initials of my mother. Before she'd married Dad.

I looked at Mark again, still sleeping there with his cheek jammed up against the window. I looked back at the photo, holding it close to my face making sure I'd read the initials right. I turned the photo over, my mind reeling. And on the other side I found something written there that confuses me still as I sit here in Nong Khai, Thailand, at the River View Inn that overlooks the Mekong River where I'm writing all this down:

'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.'

This is a message from the future

The fight is not yet over.

Take heed. You are all in grave danger.

_______________________________________

J49/J3.3 2GG.3 65/3.9 65/J5 J4J-8.3

_______________________________________
STRANGEWORLD Q&A

WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR STRANGEWORLD COME FROM?

Strangeworld came into being back in the early 2000's at the height of the Harry Potter phenomenon. I was (like a million other authors) going to be the next JK Rowling. I'd planned it so that my books would come out during the years between Harry Potter novels and fill that reader void. I was going to feed a global appetite. I really had it all worked. It was going to be so simple.

Trouble is, reality got in the way and time ticked on and before I'd even finished the first book the whole Harry Potter wave came and went.

But Harry Potter was the direct inspiration for Strangeworld. Sharon and I were living with my parents at the time. No easy thing living with your parents but the idea was to be rent free for a while and work on a deposit for a house of our own. I was working as a bottleshop attendant at the time and I'd get home late from my evening shifts and Sharon would usually be asleep by then. We were living in the single room down stairs and turning on the light might've woken Sharon. So I'd grab myself a can of scotch and dry and the latest Harry Potter novel and head to the bathroom (which doubles as the cyclone shelter). There I'd sit and read and sip my scotch. And it was there I began to hatch my plans for world domination. In a literary sense of course. I loved the characters I was reading about, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the magical world created by Rowling. It truly was inspirational. So much so that I just had to create my own little universe of amazingness that people could fall in love with. (Up until then I'd written two unpublished novels, both of which were crime/horror stories set in contemporary Darwin that I'd still like to publish one day, so anything fantasy-based was going to be a real departure for me.)

So I set to work. I enjoyed the idea that Harry comes from our world and steps into this magical place of wizards and witches and fantastic creatures. A concept I've loved since I was a kid, since the day I was introduced to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. For a boy who had such an over active imagination, I loved the thought that somewhere in our often mundane world there could be this secret, magical doorway to another place. So I came up with the Burnchess archway and its mysterious secret portal. And slowly (and I mean sloooowly) everything else began to edge into place.

SO, IS STRANGEWORLD A SERIES?

That's the idea. It's something I've had planned right from the start. Five books. Which was an interesting problem when I was planning Book 1. I found that, in order to know where all the characters were heading in Book 1, I needed to know where they were ultimately heading throughout the series. So I went out and purchased five notepads and wrote out step by step the plan for all five books. It was a fun exercise actually. To see where all my characters end up. Still, I'm not sure if I'll ultimately stick to those early plans because when you work through a book it slowly takes on a mind of its own and begins bringing up ideas you never initially thought of. But I suppose that's when the real magic in writing happens.

WERE SOME PARTS OF THIS BOOK HARD TO WRITE? THERE ARE SOME HEAVY CANCER SCENES INVOLVING JAKE'S MUM?

Yeah, some of those weren't easy in the sense that this is what transpired with my dear old dad. The way his cancer panned out. The way he checked out of this world. As one reader mentioned they are semi-autobiographical. There was a time when I couldn't even read back over them without shedding tears. But at the same time those passages were also cathartic to write. They helped me deal a little more with dad's passing.

SO WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE IN STRANGEWORLD: DAWN OF SHADOWS?

Well, Jake's dad goes missing so Jake returns from Thailand to help search for him. That sort of sets up a chain of events that takes our heroes back to Forgotten to battle a new wave of monsters. So there'll be lots of action, lots of adventure, and of course, lots of gore. There'll also be some new characters to meet, new locations to explore, and a pretty explosive ending. It should set up the rest of the series quite nicely.

Happy reading...

A. L. BROOKS

November 2015

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