Dan and the Shard of Ice

by Thomas Taylor

  Then, with a flourish, Venn turns and wishes his audience goodbye. He leads us down the escalator. Behind us, the crowd lean over the railing to watch us descend. As I look back I see for the first time that a huge TV screen is hanging from a neighbouring building. The image on it changes as Ned’s camera comes on-line, showing a Ned’s-eye view of the situation. In this way, the audience will be able to see everything that happens to us in the Shard. Right now, though, the only thing on the screen is a giant close-up of my startled face. I look back at Ned and find he’s staring right at me. I can’t help noticing his free hand is a fist of knuckles.

  ‘To begin this investigation, we will enter the famous Shard through the public entrance,’ Venn says to Ned’s camera, shoving me out of the way. ‘From there we will ride the elevators to the very summit of the building, to the spectacular viewing platform. But first, we will meet a member of staff who has a strange story to tell.’

  We reach the bottom of the escalator where a woman in a Shard uniform leads us into the building. At the end of a corridor, we find ourselves at the gleaming ticket desks and gift shop. The place is dimly lit, and I wonder why. Surely not just to create a spooky ambience for TV. A quick scope of the place shows there are no ghosts lurking here. There is a gaggle of staff waiting near the ticket counters though. Venn leads us straight to them.

  ‘Greetings,’ he says, with a cheesy bow. ‘My name is Venn Specter and I am here to investigate. Which one of you is…’ He discreetly checks a card in his hand. ‘… Tim?’

  ‘That’s me,’ says a short man in a Shard uniform who doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Those hands, as well as his face, are covered in dozens of little pieces of skin-coloured sticking plaster.

  ‘Ah, Tim,’ Venn croons. ‘They say you have witnessed a strange and terrible thing. They say you have seen…’ Venn pauses for effect. ‘… the poltergeist.’

  Tim jumps at this, and looks even more like a rabbit staring at approaching headlights.

  ‘I… I… yes,’ he manages to say. ‘I saw it. At least, not it. No one can see a poltergeist. I saw what it can do.’

  ‘Aaaah!’ Venn sighs with satisfaction, motioning Ned to zoom in a bit on Tim’s face. ‘Do tell us what happened, Tim.’

  ‘Er, well, I was here at night, just as we were closing up the shop…’

  ‘A night like this?’ Venn butts in. ‘At around the same time we’re here now?’

  Tim gives a little squeak of fright and nods.

  ‘Ah, good,’ says Venn. ‘Proceed.’

  Tim gulps. ‘I was just straightening up the postcards and guide books and that, when I… well, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.’

  ‘Yes?’ Venn leans in even closer, his teeth yellow-white above his goatee beard as he leers at Tim.

  ‘Well, I turned round and I saw, I saw…’ Tim dries up, as white as the back of a postcard himself now.

  ‘Yesss?’ Venn hisses, like he’s about to explode. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘A… a… a pencil!’ Tim’s hands jump to his mouth. ‘A pencil floating in the air! Flying on its own! It jabbed me again and again and again. There was blood on my face. I grabbed it, but then… then the whole display of gift shop pencils just exploded! There were hundreds of them, all flying at me. Stabbing and stabbing and…’

  Tim breaks down in sobs. Venn rolls his eyes, but indicates for Ned to keep the camera on the blubbing man.

  I dig a packet of tissues out of my pocket and give one to Tim. Then, before Venn can stop me, I ask Tim a question of my own.

  ‘When this happened, yeah?’ I say. ‘Had you been doing or saying something that might have provoked an attack?’

  Tim blinks at me.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I was just doing what my supervisor told me to do. Which was tidy up.’

  Something about the angry way Tim says ‘supervisor’ makes me want to press him on this, but before I can ask any anything else, Venn whispers in my ear. ‘Zip it, kid! Get your own TV show.’

  Venn is just about to go back to his own numbskull line of questioning, when Tim’s head snaps up.

  ‘What’s that?’ he says. ‘Did you hear it? I heard a sound.’

  Well, actually I did hear something – a clattering sound from deep in the shadows of the darkened shop. We all go quiet, and Ned starts to pan the camera around slowly. There is nothing there, only shadows and darkness.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ says Venn in a dramatic whisper. ‘Something is happening. We are not alone. Come, follow me as I investigate further.’ Then he puts the jade ring pendant to his eye – the one he claims lets him see ghosts – and begins to creep forward like an intrepid explorer into the unknown. The rest of us follow.

  Normally I’d laugh at the sight, but not this time. What was it we heard? I strain my eyes into the gloom, but I swear I can’t see any ghostly presences. There’s no one there at all.

  Tim, who creeps forward beside me, is shaking all over. I know because his torch beam is quivering all over the place. I take the torch from his hand and stroll forward, sweeping the light from side to side, ignoring Venn’s hisses of protest. Well, I’m the expert in the room, aren’t I? Even if I’m the only one who knows it. Then my torch beam lights up something on the floor.

  It’s a keyring.

  The others gather round, and for a moment we all stare at it. Then Venn jumps in to make the moment as exciting as possible.

  ‘Ned, are you getting this?’ he says, snatching the torch from my hand and shining it onto the keyring like it’s a rare and magical artefact. ‘Dear viewers, as you can see this keyring is nearly a metre away – a whole metre! – from its rightful place in this immaculate and well ordered shop.’ He swings the beam over to the very neat display of keyrings nearby. ‘There is only one possible explanation. It has been moved here by ghostly forces from beyond the realm of the physical world. It has been flung here…’ He pauses for dramatic effect, shining the torch up into his face. ‘… by the poltergeist!’

  6

  THE VIEW FROM THE SHARD

  It takes Venn a full five minutes to finally exhaust the dramatic potential of a fallen keyring. And he’s good, I’ll give him that. By the time he’s finished, Tim is a nervous wreck, and the rest of them are pretty spooked too. Venn wraps up the scene, gives Tim an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and asks him to lead us round to the lift.

  ‘Why’s it so dark everywhere?’ I ask when we reach the gleaming doors to the elevator.

  ‘Power problems,’ Tim says, opening a security panel beside the lift with a shaking hand and inserting a key. ‘It comes and goes. Been happening since… well, since all this weirdness started.’

  ‘Power problems?’ I ask. ‘How are we going to use the lift if there’s something wrong with the electricity?’

  ‘We’re on the emergency generator,’ says Tim, as the doors slide open to reveal a mirrored interior.

  ‘Oh.’ I glance at Si. Suddenly I’m not so sure about getting into this lift.

  ‘Is it safe?’ asks Stacey’s mum, pulling her daughter close.

  ‘Yes, dear lady.’ Venn steps into the lift. ‘There is no danger while you are with me. Come, please do not be afraid.’

  I look at Stacey’s mum, half expecting this to be the moment she comes to her senses, but under the glare of the camera – and the sickly smile of Venn Specter – she just gives a shrug and steers Stacey into the lift.

  ‘Is the weirdy boy with the funny glasses coming too?’ Stacey asks her mum, pointing at me.

  Everyone stares at yours truly.

  Ah, this is nuts. I shove my hands in my pockets, and get into the lift. The door slides shut, and we start to climb. But by the way my stomach is pressed down, it feels more like ‘take off’ than a gentle ascent – it’s so fast!

  ‘The Shard is the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe,’ says Tim, who seems to have slipped into tour guide mode. ‘It is 310 metres tall, and this lift travels at six metres per second. The wi
ndows are cleaned by professional mountaineers, who abseil down from the summit. We hope you enjoy your visit to the Shard today.’

  Then the doors open, and we’re out. But this isn’t the end of the journey. The Shard is so tall, that you have to change elevators half way up. Fortunately, Tim forgets to give us any more tourist stuff as we rocket up to our final destination: the summit of the Shard.

  The lift doors swish open onto a darkened corridor. The only light is from emergency strips set just above the floor.

  ‘We have arrived.’ Venn breathes the words into Ned’s camera, turning the torch onto his face again. ‘We must keep our wits about us. For I sense the powerful presence of a paranormal entity.’

  I can’t help giving a snort. The only thing I can sense is the powerful presence of Venn’s cheesy lines and naff delivery. I step out of the lift first, and throw a smile to Stacey. I’m pleased to see she’s apparently unfazed by Venn’s attempts to scare us. Shame I can’t say the same for her mother and Tim.

  ‘Stay close to me, darling,’ Stacey’s mum says in a quavering voice as they follow me out.

  Around a corner are some stairs up to the viewing level. I take them three at a time, eager to see what’s up there. Then I skid to a stop, my mouth falling open as I come face to face with the view from the Shard.

  ‘’Tis wondrous!’ gasps Si, floating up behind me, and staring out through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  And it is. London at night spreads beneath us like a carpet of gleaming jewels, divided by a ribbon of velvety black that can only be the Thames. The lit dome of St Paul’s Cathedral shines silver-white, amidst tiny stacks of bright office windows. I see the pods of the London Eye like gleaming pearls on a necklace. I see the distant face of Big Ben like a pocket watch of gold. The red and white sparkle of traffic flows throughout it all.

  ‘Ooh, pretty!’ says Stacey, as the others arrive beside me.

  ‘It is, sweetheart,’ says her mum, and even Venn stops yabbering for a moment to goggle at the sight of London glittering in the night.

  ‘Nearly as pretty as the pretty lady,’ says Stacey.

  There’s a long pause. I think we’re all so amazed by the view that we don’t realise at first what Stacey has just said.

  ‘What pretty lady?’ says her mum.

  ‘That one,’ Stacey says, pointing into the dark behind us. The air is suddenly freezing.

  We all turn where we stand.

  Slowly.

  Even I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when we see that no one’s there.

  ‘Oh, she’s gone now,’ says Stacey. ‘Pretty lady? Pretty lady, come back!’

  She starts to run to the stairs, but her mother grabs her. Tim makes a whimpering sound and clutches Ned’s arm. I raise my eyebrow at Si.

  ‘I saw nothing,’ he says. ‘But there is… something here. Can you sense it, Daniel?’

  I nod. I don’t want to start speaking out loud to my invisible sidekick, not with Stacey and her mum there, and Tim close to wetting himself. But I want Si to know that, yes, I can sense something: that faint fizzing crackle in the air when a ghost is close.

  Venn raises his jade ring to his eye and begins to prowl around the viewing platform, keeping a constant running commentary going for Ned and his camera. Goodness only knows what the audience down below in the street are making of Ned’s live feed to the big screen. Not to mention the rest of the nation, glued to their not-so-big screens at home.

  I wonder about asking Stacey to tell me exactly what she saw, but her mother is clutching her so close that I decide not to push it. Instead I turn to Tim.

  ‘Down below, when I asked you if you’d done or said anything to provoke an attack, yeah?’ I try to sound business-like and reassuring. ‘You said something about your supervisor. It sounded like you don’t like her very much.’

  Tim gives me a startled look, then glances at Ned. I guess he’s making sure the camera’s mic is out of range.

  ‘My supervisor’s a proper tyrant.’ Tim’s whispering, but he seems pleased to steer the conversation back to everyday things. ‘She’s always bossing everyone around. No one likes her. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Well, I’m just wondering if you said anything to her when she told you to tidy up. Not to her face maybe, but perhaps you muttered something under your breath?’

  Tim gives a nervous smile.

  ‘Yeah, I might’ve done. Don’t ask me what though. She’s a right nasty old witch, that one.’

  There’s a sudden, deafening sound…

  … that drowns out Tim’s words. Across the window pane beside us a razor thin fracture has appeared, reaching from one side of the viewing platform to the other.

  Venn comes running back.

  ‘The window’s broken!’ he says into the camera. ‘Are you getting this, Ned? The window’s cracked from side to side!’

  ‘Could it be a bird?’ Stacey’s mum’s voice is a tiny frightened squeak. ‘A pigeon flying into the window?’

  ‘No way,’ says Tim. ‘Even if you fired a hundred pigeons from a cannon, they wouldn’t crack this glass. It’s virtually bullet proof!’

  A new sound reaches us now, on an icy breeze. It’s like some great frost giant has just breathed out over us, with a dismal moaning sigh.

  ‘You must be able to hear that!’ Venn says into the camera. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, something is happening in the Shard. Listen!’

  The wind grows stronger, its moan growing deeper and yet more human.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ I say, steering Stacey’s mum, with Stacey clinging to her coat, toward the stairs back down to the lift. Tim is already running that way with his hands over his head as if the sky is about to fall on him. I look back and see Venn hesitate, his eyes wild. I get the feeling he’s struggling to keep up his TV persona in the face of some genuinely spooky stuff.

  ‘We shall… withdraw.’ He shouts into the camera, above the roaring wind. ‘To assess these… extraordinary events, which… which…’

  The wind grows louder, reaching a sudden shrieking crescendo. Venn Specter gives up and runs, terrified, down the stairs…

  …just as the window explodes inwards behind him.

  Chunks of glass the size of ice cubes rattle down the stairs around us, as the winter wind roars into the viewing platform in a blizzard of snow. We stagger to the lift, Tim scrabbling to get the key in the panel. The lift doors slide open with a ping, and we pile in.

  ‘Are you getting this?’ Venn gasps at Ned.

  The big man turns the camera round, sees that the red light is still on, and gives a quick nod. Tim jabs the buttons of the lift, and the doors start to close.

  Then they stop.

  Stacey’s mum has jammed her foot between them.

  ‘Where’s Stacey?’ she cries. ‘Oh my God, I’ve lost Stacey!’

  We look about us. It’s true – the little girl isn’t in the lift. I jump back out into the corridor again. And that’s when I hear something from back up the stairs. A little voice carrying down to us on the bitter wind.

  ‘Pretty lady,’ says Stacey. ‘I wish I could be pretty like you.’

  Stacey’s mum screams.

  I rush toward the stairs, to where Stacey must be. But I don’t even reach the first step before I’m lifted clean off my feet by an icy blast that flips me over and drives the breath from my body. I crash back down in the doorway of the lift. I try to stand again, but a second gust propels me further back, pinning me and the others to the back wall of the lift. We can only watch in horror as the doors slide shut.

  Then the lift is falling. And no, I’m not exaggerating – I really do mean falling! It’s like the cable has been cut or something. We all rise up off the floor, weightless for a moment as the elevator hurtles down to earth like a plummeting stone.

  7

  GOING DOWN…

  I just have time to think two thoughts:

  1. Woo, I’m weightless! I’ve always wanted to kno
w what that feels like. :-)

  2. Shame I’ll be dead in, like, one second flat though. And I do mean flat. :-O

  Then I’m tumbling to the floor of the lift again in a pile of limbs, Venn’s beard, Ned’s camera, Stacey’s mum, and Tim. There is a terrible, screaming sound all around, and the lift is juddering, slowing all the time. At about the point I expected to be smashed into atoms, the lift rattles to a halt. It gives a final shake and then smacks the ground with a rude, bone-jarring crash.

  But we’re still alive.

  ‘What on earth happened?’ Venn says, staggering to his feet.

  ‘Emergency braking.’ Tim’s muffled voice comes up from somewhere beneath Ned. ‘The lift can’t just fall… cof.’

  ‘Did you…?’ Venn turns to Ned.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ says Ned, getting to his feet and turning the camera back onto Venn as if nearly falling to your death in a runaway lift is all part of a day’s work. ‘Camera’s still rolling.’

  The lift doors slide open, and we stagger out. My legs feel like they’re made of marshmallow. Si rises up through the carpet at my feet in a cloud of hazy ectoplasm, his eyes still ratting round their sockets. I guess the force of the fall sent him ghosting down through the floors below. And that reminds me we’re only half way down the Shard right now – at the point where we had to change lifts going up.

  ‘Stacey!’

  Stacey’s mum begins to wail. She’s still in the lift, jabbing at all the buttons.

  ‘Why won’t it go? I’ve got to go back for Stacey!’

  ‘It’s no good,’ Tim explains. ‘This lift is out of action now.’

  ‘But my Stacey is all alone!’

  I glance at Si and he raises an eyebrow in reply. Stacey may be a lot of things right now, but one thing she is not is alone. The real question is: who, or what, is the ‘pretty lady’?

  ‘My dear woman,’ says Venn, placing his hand on Stacey’s mum’s shoulder, and motioning Ned to zoom in close. ‘I swear to you by all that is holy, in this world and the next, that I will find your daughter.’