Rise of the Ghostfather

by Barry Hutchison

  “Sorry,” said Smithy, his voice coming from somewhere around the Ghostfather’s middle. “That was me.”

  “How … how dare you?” boomed the Ghostfather.

  “You ready, Smithy?” asked Tabatha.

  “Not really,” Smithy confirmed. “But I’ll give it a go.”

  “Then let’s do it!”

  The Ghostfather’s arms raised jerkily. Energy crackled from his fingertips, turning his midnight-black digits into flickering shades of electric blue. The space behind Denzel creaked and groaned as reality was pulled aside like a pair of curtains.

  Scrambling for cover behind the altar, Denzel gazed into the swirling vortex of colours and shapes that was the Spectral Realm. As he watched, some of the shapes took form, becoming things that were almost, but not quite, as frightening as the Ghostfather himself.

  Denzel heard a wind whistling through the tomb, but couldn’t feel it. The Ghostfather clearly could though. His feet began to slide on the floor as the portal pulled him closer.

  “N-no! Not again!” he wailed. “Not again!”

  “OK, Smithy, time to abandon ship,” said Tabatha. “Three, two, one, go!”

  Tabatha came rolling out from inside the Ghostfather’s towering frame. Smithy, however, did not.

  “Smithy?” said Denzel. “Smithy, what are you doing?”

  “He’s … he’s so strong,” said Smithy, and at first Denzel thought his friend couldn’t break free. He quickly realised that this wasn’t the problem though.

  “So much power. I can use it all,” Smithy continued. “I can see it all. I can see everything. How it works. How it’s all connected. I can see everything that has ever happened. I can do anything.”

  “What you’re going to want to do is get out of there,” Tabatha said. The Ghostfather’s feet carved little trenches in the stone floor as he was dragged towards the swirling portal. “Hurry! Before it’s too late!”

  “Just coming,” said Smithy. “There’s something I want to do first.”

  “Smithy, hurry!” Denzel cried. “Whatever it is, it’s not important. Get out!”

  “It is important,” said Smithy. “It’s very important.”

  The Ghostfather’s body fell forwards and hit the floor. Now off-balance, it began to slide faster and faster in the direction of the portal.

  “It isn’t more important than you, Smithy! Please, get out!” Denzel hollered.

  “You’re running out of time, kid!” Tabatha added. “Get out of there and you can take me to the cinema.”

  “Almost … done it…” said Smithy.

  “No time,” warned Tabatha. She ran at the Ghostfather’s thrashing body, dived towards it and phased cleanly through it. When she came rolling out, she was clutching a limp and frail-looking Smithy in her arms.

  Tabatha kicked them both away from the portal just as the Ghostfather tumbled the last few metres towards it. His fingers dug frantically into the ground, slowing him down, but it wasn’t enough. With a whoosh, he was sucked inside, and went tumbling into the swirling abyss of colour beyond.

  “We did it!” said Denzel, rushing to where Tabatha was laying Smithy on the floor. “Guys, we did it! We got rid of him!”

  Smithy smiled weakly and gave a thumbs-up. “Nice one.”

  “What were you thinking, you idiot?” Tabatha demanded. “You could’ve been stuck in there with him!”

  “It was important,” wheezed Smithy. He grinned goofily. “So … the cinema?”

  Tabatha scowled for a moment, then sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But nothing romantic. Something violent.”

  “Deal,” said Smithy. “There’s this great one with a woman in it. It’s based on a true story.”

  Tabatha frowned. “That’s a bit vague.”

  “He means King Kong,” said Denzel. “I know, I know. Don’t ask. Long story.”

  Denzel turned, smiling with relief at a job well done. They’d stopped the Ghostfather. They’d saved the world. Somehow despite all the odds, they’d—

  “Um, guys,” said Denzel.

  The others looked up at him.

  “Should the portal still be open?”

  The others considered this for a moment.

  “Ideally not,” said Tabatha.

  She and Smithy got to their feet. The hole in reality was widening slowly, growing a centimetre or two every second. Inside the dancing vortex of colours, they could see the shape of the Ghostfather. He had stopped tumbling now, and was standing upright, energy crackling across his body.

  “Is it just me, or is he getting bigger?” asked Smithy. “It’s like he’s absorbing the energy.”

  “He’s either getting bigger or closer,” said Denzel. Neither of these options struck him as being very good. “How do we close it?”

  Tabatha rubbed her tongue against the front of her teeth for a while as she thought this through. “We, uh… Well, I mean, we…” She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “What do you mean you have no idea?!” Denzel yelped. “It was your idea to open it!”

  “And that was a great idea,” said Tabatha. “Truly a first-class plan. I think we can all agree on that.”

  “Yep,” said Smithy.

  Denzel was too terrified to reply, and just gestured in the direction of the portal, using nothing but body language to argue that no, it wasn’t a first-class plan, actually. It was a terrible plan.

  “All we need now is a second plan,” said Tabatha. “The first plan was a success, and now we just need a second plan to tidy up the loose ends.”

  Denzel didn’t think an ancient evil ghost absorbing the power of the Spectral Realm could really be classed as “loose ends” but he ignored that and concentrated on more pressing matters.

  “So what’s the second plan?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Tabatha admitted. “I came up with the first plan – I was kind of hoping one of you guys would come up with the second.”

  Smithy clicked his fingers. “I’ve got it!”

  All eyes turned his way.

  “We shut the portal to the Spectral Realm!” he said. Grinning proudly, he tucked his thumbs into a pair of imaginary braces and leaned back, looking very pleased with himself indeed. “I thank you.”

  Denzel blinked several times. “No. But… I mean, yes… I mean, obviously that’s what we have to do. But how do we do it?”

  Smithy’s grin fell a little, but not all the way. “Well, it seems to me like Tabatha and I have both come up with great plans, Denzel. I think it’s only fair that you figure out the last bit.”

  “Yours wasn’t even a plan!” Denzel protested, but there was no time to argue.

  The Ghostfather was definitely getting larger, and definitely getting closer too. He approached with slow, lumbering footsteps, his shiny black body awash with all the colours of the rainbow, and several others that hadn’t made the cut.

  Denzel’s mind raced. He estimated he had maybe a minute until the Ghostfather was big enough and large enough to reach through the portal. One minute to stop him. One minute to save the world.

  “Magic,” Denzel said. “We need magic. That’s how they closed it before.”

  “I know a few tricks, but nothing that could close this thing,” said Tabatha.

  “I know one brilliant trick,” said Smithy. “Does anyone have a watch, or a piece of jewellery on them? Preferably one they don’t mind losing, because I haven’t actually managed to get the trick to work before.”

  “Not that sort of magic!” Denzel told him. “I meant proper magic like—”

  He stopped.

  Piece of jewellery.

  Follow the Ghostfather.

  Scrabbling at the hideous yellow robe, Denzel frantically pulled it open, revealing his bare chest below. He’d hoped to find the pendant there, but no such luck. It must have been taken by the cultists.

  Spinning on his heel, Denzel saw the Shakarath crawling slowly up the stairs at the other end of the tomb. Vaulting the altar, h
e broke into a run, his bare feet thumping on the floor as he closed in on the old man.

  “Where is it?” he demanded, stumbling to a stop beside the Shakarath. “Where’s the necklace?”

  “You’ll never find it,” the Shakarath hissed. “I’ve hidden it in the last place you’d ever think to—”

  Denzel fished in the pocket of the old man’s robe. “Got it!”

  The Shakarath sighed and slumped on to the steps as Denzel turned back to the portal. He almost screamed when he saw how close and how enormous the Ghostfather was now. He’d be through any second, and there’d be no hope of stopping him then.

  The necklace hummed in Denzel’s hand. As he held it by the chain, the pendant rose to point in the direction of the portal, as if being pulled in.

  “Follow the Ghostfather,” Denzel whispered, then he released his grip and watched as the pendant went rocketing across the room.

  As it flew, it seemed to grow. By the time it passed the event horizon, it was five times as big as when it had started.

  By the time it thwacked the Ghostfather between the eyes, it was the size of a tractor tyre.

  As the Ghostfather reeled from the impact, the edges of the portal began knitting together. The howling wind died as the hole in reality sealed shut.

  Just before it did, a furious roar echoed around the tomb, but then was cut off as the portal ceased to exist.

  For a long time, there was nothing but silence, and then Smithy finally broke it.

  “And stay out.”

  There was a sudden commotion from the doorway up the stairs behind Denzel. He turned, raising his fists, bracing himself for a sea of angry cult members to come rushing in.

  Instead he was met by two very familiar faces.

  “There you are!” barked Boyle, as he and Samara came racing down the steps. Several more Spectre Collectors appeared through the doorway behind him, many of them Japanese. “We were worried sick!”

  Boyle checked himself. “Samara. Samara was worried sick,” he corrected.

  Denzel flopped down on to the steps, exhausted but happy. It was over. It was finally over.

  “Anything exciting happen before we arrived?” asked Samara.

  Denzel glanced over to Tabatha and Smithy and smiled. “Nah,” he said. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  Denzel and Smithy sat in the back of a van, with Boyle and Samara in the seats up front. It was the same van the boys had first been bundled into all those weeks before, when they’d thought they were being kidnapped.

  Back then, Denzel hadn’t even known that Smithy was a ghost. It was amazing how much his life had changed in such a short space of time.

  The trip back from Japan had been much quicker than the trip there. It had involved several teleportation hops though, so Denzel wasn’t sure which journey he’d preferred. Given the choice, he’d probably have walked back home.

  When they’d returned, there had been a big debriefing, where Denzel, Smithy and Tabatha had explained everything that had happened. The Japanese Spectre Collectors had connected via some big floating-head magic thing that Denzel didn’t really understand, and informed them that all the cultists had been rounded up.

  Denzel had been worried that the Japanese chapter of the organisation might all have been horribly killed, but it turned out that they’d just been locked in their own dining hall, with enchantments placed on the doors to stop them breaking out.

  Once the Japanese delegate’s massive floating head had left, conversation turned to the subject of recapturing all the ghosts who had been let out of containment. Boyle and Samara had told Denzel they’d need his help for that, which was when Denzel had dropped the bombshell.

  “I don’t think I can,” he’d said. This had earned him some confused looks from the other Spectre Collectors present. “I don’t think it was me seeing the ghosts in the first place. I think that was the Ghostfather.”

  A test was arranged. One of the few remaining gems was brought up to the meeting room. It contained a poltergeist like the one Denzel had first seen in his house way back at the start.

  They’d set it free from its gemstone prison. Denzel had looked around the room for a while, trying to see the same smoky octopus shape he’d seen before.

  But no. Nothing. His power had gone.

  After the poltergeist had spent the next five minutes tossing things around the room before Boyle finally caught it, the meeting had been called to a close. Smithy had asked to speak to Samara and Boyle privately, and when they’d emerged ten minutes later, all three of them had looked … weird. Not happy, but not sad either. Or both, maybe, at the same time.

  And now Denzel and Smithy were in the back of the van on a quiet street across town from Spectre Collectors HQ.

  “So what’s the plan?” asked Denzel. “What are we doing? Is it a ghost thing?”

  He shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course it’s a ghost thing. It’s always a ghost thing.”

  He smiled at Smithy, but Smithy didn’t meet his eye.

  “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Denzel asked.

  Boyle was facing front, looking ahead at the street. Samara was half turned in her chair but she wasn’t meeting Denzel’s gaze either.

  “What’s going on?” Denzel asked.

  “I did something,” said Smithy. “When I was in the Ghostfather. I did something.”

  Denzel frowned. “What did you do?”

  “I wasn’t sure it would work, but we checked, and… It worked,” Smithy continued. “It worked.”

  “What worked?” Denzel asked. “What are you on about?”

  “You were the best friend I ever had, Denzel,” said Smithy. “Dead or alive.”

  “You’re my best friend too,” Denzel began, then his brain processed what Smithy had said. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘were’?”

  He patted himself down. “Oh God, did I die? Am I dead?”

  Smithy smiled sadly. “No. You’re not dead. I wish you were.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot!” Denzel said.

  “Then we could hang out all the time,” Smithy quickly added.

  “We hang out all the time now,” Denzel pointed out.

  Smithy gave a small nod and an even smaller sigh. “I’ll never forget you, Denzel,” he said, his voice cracking.

  The van doors opened on to a street that Denzel knew all too well. “What is this? What’s happening?” he demanded, turning to Samara and Boyle.

  He saw the dust in Samara’s hand a fraction of a second before she blew on it. He tried to hold his breath, but only succeeded in inhaling a large quantity of the dust in one big gulp.

  “Goodbye, Denzel,” he heard Smithy whisper. “I’ll miss you.”

  Denzel frowned and looked around him. He was standing on the pavement. Was that right? How long had he been standing there for? He couldn’t remember. Was this where he was supposed to be?

  He had a niggling feeling that it wasn’t, and that he’d been somewhere else very recently, but he couldn’t remember where. He watched a white van driving away up the street and the niggle grew more insistent for a moment.

  He tried to focus on it, but the front door of a house opened across the road and he lost his concentration. Two men appeared and waved to him.

  “Denzel. There you are,” said his parents, beckoning him in. “Come on, we’ve ordered Chinese.”

  The niggle in Denzel’s brain stopped, and all doubt left him. This was right. This was where he was meant to be.

  “Coming, Dads,” he said.

  And then, Denzel Edgar hurried across the road, up his garden path and finally returned home.

  Denzel sat on a low wall around the back of the school, eating a thick sandwich from an overflowing lunch box. He’d always liked this spot. It was quiet. Peaceful, even.

  Sure, the bin beside the wall absolutely stank, but at least he was out of the way of the older kids here, and less likely to get himself beaten up for looking at someone the wrong way
.

  He was just about to start on the second half of the sandwich when a scruff y-looking shorter kid appeared beside him, startling him.

  “Where did you come from?” Denzel asked, looking the boy up and down. He’d never seen him before, and yet there was something about his dishevelled appearance that seemed familiar.

  “Around,” said the other kid.

  He hopped up on to the wall beside Denzel, produced a scrunched-up paper bag from his pocket and then tentatively looked inside.

  “You going to eat that?” he asked, eyeing up Denzel’s sandwich.

  “I was, yeah,” Denzel confirmed.

  “Want to swap?” the boy asked, holding up his paper bag. Denzel regarded it warily.

  “What have you got?”

  “Egg.”

  “What kind of egg?”

  “Just egg.”

  Denzel shook his head. “No, you’re all right.”

  He held his lunchbox out. “You can have that chocolate though.”

  “Nice one. Thanks!”

  The boy took the chocolate bar from the box.

  “It’s vegan though,” Denzel warned.

  The boy replaced the chocolate bar in the box.

  They sat in silence for a while. Denzel wasn’t used to having anyone sit round here with him and yet it didn’t feel unnatural. It felt … right, somehow.

  “Here, what would you rather, right?” asked the new kid.

  “Go on.”

  “Have all these amazing, mind-blowing things happen to you, but never be able to remember them,” the boy said. “Or never have anything amazing happen to you at all?”

  Denzel chewed his sandwich while he considered this.

  “First one, probably,” he said.

  The new kid smiled. It was a big, broad, goofy sort of smile that made Denzel want to laugh.

  “I hoped you’d say that,” the boy said, holding out a hand. “I’m Smithy,” he said. “And I reckon this could be the start of a beautiful friendship…”

  COPYRIGHT

  First published 2019 by Nosy Crow Ltd

  The Crow’s Nest, 14 Baden Place, Crosby Row