Then he reached into his school bag and dragged out Einstein’s underpants.
Melvyn groaned. ‘Oh, Alexander, you don’t still believe in those things, do you?’
Alexander replied fiercely: ‘Mel, our friends have disappeared. It’s all wrapped up with what Uncle Otto was talking about. And you heard Jamie – there was something in your garden, and now it’s got the Titch and TB and The Hurricane and Felicity and Really Annoying Girl.’
‘OK, but listen, Alexander, if this all turns out to be a load of old rubbish and the others are just off sick or whatever, then from now on you’re on your own. For good.’
He stared at Alexander while all the implications of that sank in. Alexander nodded, and began to put the pants on his head.
‘Not here in the street, for heaven’s sake,’ hissed Melvyn.
‘Just gather round,’ said Alexander. ‘Form a human shield.’
As Jamie and Melvyn hunched together to protect him from the gaze of an unforgiving world, Alexander pulled the pants down over his head. He concentrated hard, praying for that curious trance-like state of genius to descend on him.
‘Any ideas yet?’ whispered Melvyn.
‘Pants,’ said Jamie.
‘I’ve only just . . . Wait, hang on. Yes! It’s obvious, really. We go back to where this began.’
‘The Big Bang?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Your garden. And it’s on the way to Felicity’s house, so if we can’t find anything, we’ll go on there.’
‘Finish chips?’ said Jamie.
‘Sorry, Superstrong, but time is of the essence. You’ll have to eat them on the way.’
‘You might want to do something about those first,’ said Melvyn, pointing at Alexander’s head.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alexander, wrenching off Einstein’s underpants and returning them to his bag.
Melvyn’s mum and dad both worked so there was no one at his house. They went round to the back.
‘Look,’ said Jamie, pointing at something in the middle of the garden.
‘Cedric!’ said Melvyn.
The three boys rushed over. Cedric was lying upside down on his shell. His stumpy little legs had long since given up their feeble attempts to get the right way up. His eyes, however, were open and undimmed. He could see his death approaching, and faced it nobly, without fear.
Alexander picked him up. ‘Poor little guy. TB must have dropped him last night. Weird, though. He’s normally pretty careful with Cedric. I mean, apart from that whole thing where he threatens to use him to bash people’s brains out and that sort of thing.’
‘Because of the baddies. They made it all wobbly.’
Alexander looked at Jamie. His eyes were far away.
‘He seems to be perking up,’ said Melvyn, pointing at Cedric.
The tortoise was looking around at the boys. He poked out his tongue.
‘I think he’s hungry,’ said Melvyn.
Jamie smiled and put his hand deep into his pocket. ‘Saved some chips,’ he said. ‘For special.’
‘Do tortoises eat chips?’ Alexander wondered.
‘Everyone eats chips,’ said Jamie.
They put Cedric down on the grass, and Jamie offered him a chip. He looked a bit wary to begin with, but soon got stuck in, as though he’d been eating chips all his life. Jamie clapped his hands, and when Cedric finished the chip, he gave him another.
‘He was sick of all that lettuce,’ said Melvyn. ‘Must have been desperate for something decent. Haven’t got any Coke in there, have you?’ he added, pointing at Jamie’s cavernous pocket.
Jamie shook his head sadly, and they carried Cedric over to Melvyn’s dad’s bird bath and gave him a good old drink of water.
As Cedric was lapping, Alexander said, ‘OK then, Melvyn, you must admit that this is suspicious. You know how much TB loves Cedric, and he wouldn’t have just left him like that unless something serious had happened.’
Melvyn thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘You’re right. But how does this help us find the others?’
‘I’ve been working on it. We all know that Cedric and TB have a special bond, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And tortoises are quite good at sniffing stuff out.’
‘Are they?’
‘Definitely. I saw this David Attenborough thing about them once. They can sniff water from miles away. And TB’s got to have a bigger smell than water, hasn’t he?’
‘Yeah,’ said Melvyn, twigging. ‘Water doesn’t smell of hardly anything. So you think Cedric could track TB?’
‘I reckon.’
Jamie had been following the discussion. He nodded vigorously.
‘Pretty brainy,’ said Melvyn. ‘And you’re not even wearing the pants.’
‘I think sometimes the effect carries on for a while. A sort of echo. Or like when you stare at a light bulb, and even when you look away, you can still see the image of it.’
‘Cool,’ said Melvyn. ‘An underpant-shaped light bulb.’
‘The last we saw of TB was when he plunged into the hedge. So that’s where we’ll start.’
They reached the place in the hedge where you could squeeze through into the graveyard. Jamie put Cedric down in front of the gap.
‘Sniffy sniffy,’ he ordered, and Cedric seemed to respond. He strained his long wrinkly neck forward, and moved his head from side to side. Then, slowly, he began to trundle through the gap.
‘It’s working!’ cried Melvyn.
‘Hold on,’ said Alexander urgently. ‘There’s something I’ve got to get.’
He rushed over to the garage, and came back carrying the aluminium case.
Melvyn laughed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘I’m deadly serious,’ Alexander replied, snapping the case open. ‘They look like toys, but . . . Well, the thing is, if Otto’s right and there is something nasty lurking out there, then he might be right about these things too.’
‘Gimme,’ said Jamie.
Melvyn shrugged and put his hand out.
‘Bang bang,’ said Jamie.
CHAPTER 33
GRAVE ADVENTURES
‘SHOULDN’T WE PUT him on some sort of, er, lead?’
Melvyn and Jamie both looked at Alexander and then started laughing.
‘What, you’re worried that Cedric might outrun us and disappear?’
‘They’re faster than you think, tortoises,’ Alexander replied defensively.
‘Whatever,’ sighed Melvyn.
So Alexander improvised a leash by knotting his shoelaces together and looping one end loosely around Cedric’s neck.
‘That is one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen,’ said Melvyn when Alexander had finished. ‘It looks like you’re taking it for a walk.’
But then Cedric, as if sensing that his moment had at long last come, that it was now down to him and him alone to save his strange unshelled, bipedal, hairy-headed friends, strained forwards and heaved himself through the gap in the hedge and on into the verdant depths of the graveyard beyond.
The graveyard behind Melvyn’s house was exactly the way all graveyards should be. The church at its heart was old and spooky, with a high bell tower and gargoyles and odd spiky bits sticking out of it for no good reason except to make it look even older and spookier. The graveyard itself was as overgrown as a jungle, and you almost expected to see a huge python coiled around a tree trunk, or garish parrots flitting through the gloom. A path wove between the trees and bushes, but you still really wanted a machete to hack away at the overhanging branches and sprawling beds of fern and bramble.
Most of the graves were so ancient that the names carved into the headstones had long since become unreadable, worn away, or covered with moss and lichen. Even the new gravestones of the recent dead soon seemed to list and sink into the mire, and flowers left by the bereaved would wilt before the final snuffle had been sniffed, the last tear dried.
Although the graveyard should have been a perf
ect playground for the local kids, something about its creepy, seeping damp and atmosphere of lethargy meant that it was a haunt of last resort, the place you’d go when there was nowhere else, when every other possibility for fun had been used up. Plus the graveyard ate footballs and cricket balls and frisbees and small children, absorbing and digesting them the way . . . well, the way a Borgia admiral ate cosmonauts.
Cedric was blind to both the beauty and the terrors of the graveyard. Tortoises are good at putting things out of their minds. They are one-thing-at-a-time animals. When they eat, they eat, when they sleep, they sleep. And when they track, they track.
Cedric was like a stately galleon, surging through the green waves. He conspicuously ignored the tasty leaves on either side. If there’d been a beautiful lady tortoise, hoisting up her shell by the side of the path, he’d have ignored her too.
‘Don’t like it here,’ said Jamie, expressing the thoughts of all of them. ‘Something not nice.’
‘I know what you mean, Jamie,’ said Melvyn. ‘It’s always a bit rubbish in here, but there’s something else today. Something wrong.’
‘Look at this one,’ said Alexander, staring at an old grave. It was just possible to read the name on it:
MATTHEW WALSH, B. 1848, D. 1860
PLAYING WITH THE ANGELS
‘He was only twelve,’ said Melvyn.
‘But that was the olden days. It’s different now . . .’
They looked at each other, checked their weapons, and once more followed Cedric’s urgent lead.
In a few more minutes the old church loomed up before them, towering as grim and as dark as a Transylvanian castle. At the sight of it, even Cedric’s courageous soul seemed to quake. The worthy reptile’s step faltered; his head, which had been thrust so eagerly forward, drew back into the protective sanctuary of the shell.
‘They’re here, aren’t they?’ said Melvyn.
There was no need to answer. As well as the palpable sense of evil pervading the atmosphere, there was something else: a sour smell in the air, sulphurous, dense, cheesy.
‘Jeez,’ said Melvyn, ‘that’s thick enough to spread on your toast.’
‘No thanks!’ said Jamie. ‘I want jam.’
Alexander picked up Cedric. His work was done. ‘Give us another chip, Jamie.’
Jamie reached down into his pocket again, and found one encased in a snug little coat of fluff. Alexander put Cedric and the fluffy chip in his bag.
‘Let’s check out the church,’ he said, his eyes narrowed, his lips drawn tight. This was his fighting face.
The ancient, blackened oak door to the church was set in a stone archway carved with intricate designs. Alexander turned the big iron hoop that lifted the latch. The door creaked slowly open. The only light inside came through the age-dulled stained glass of the windows. Red. The rusty red of old blood.
Alexander did a hand signal, indicating that Melvyn should check the pews on the right, and Jamie the pews on the left. Then he had to tell them what to do using ordinary words, because neither Melvyn nor Jamie knew what the heck he was on about. And then the three friends walked slowly along the aisle, their ray guns at the ready.
As they advanced, the tension crackled like lightning, and the mouldy-cheese smell grew even stronger. Alexander took a handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it bandit-style around his face. It didn’t help much with the stink, but it made him feel more like a desperado.
They reached the front of the church without encountering anything suspicious (apart from that stench like Satan’s thong).
‘Maybe Cedric got it wrong,’ suggested Melvyn hopefully.
‘No, they’re here somewhere,’ Alexander replied. ‘I’m sure of it.’
They spent another few minutes searching the church. They found nothing. Alexander began to hope that they were wrong.
‘See what Cedric thinks,’ said Jamie, pointing at Alexander’s bag.
‘Good idea.’
Alexander put Cedric down on the stone floor of the church. The tortoise immediately started to behave in a most peculiar manner, scooting about hither and thither. He rushed from one corner of the church to the other. Well, rushed by tortoise standards.
‘What’s got into speedy?’ said Melvyn.
‘I don’t know, but—’
Alexander didn’t finish his sentence because Cedric had returned to the middle of the church, and now he was revolving slowly. And as he revolved, he butted away at the flagstones with his blunt head.
‘Downstairs,’ said Jamie.
‘Do they even have a downstairs in churches?’ asked Melvyn.
‘They do,’ said Alexander. ‘It’s called the crypt.’
CHAPTER 34
GRUESOME DISCOVERIES OF A GRIM NATURE
‘CRYPT? WHY DO they have to call it something like that? They’re making it sound way creepier than it needs to be. Anyway, how do we get down?’
‘There,’ said Jamie, pointing to a small wooden door in the corner.
Tucking Cedric under one arm and holding his ray gun in the opposite hand, Alexander led the way to the door. He turned the handle carefully, and pushed. He had to stand back from the hot wave of stink that flowed out like blood from a severed artery. When the first rush had passed, Alexander stepped forward again. A stairway spiralled down from the door. There was nothing to see except for the stone walls being gradually swallowed by the darkness.
He turned and faced the other two. Melvyn looked scared. But he hadn’t run away, and Alexander knew that true courage meant being scared and still not running away.
Jamie didn’t look scared at all. In fact he looked quite happy. He was smiling that gummy smile of his. It was impossible not to grin back at him.
But that smile was also the reason why Alexander couldn’t let him come with them down into the crypt.
‘Jamie, I’ve got a special mission for you.’
Jamie’s smile slowly faded, and he looked puzzled. ‘Got mission already. Save Felicity and tiny Titch and, and, and everyone.’
‘Yeah, I know, Jamie, but you see, you’re Superstrong, so we need you to watch our backs. The guy who watches your back has to be the best, because if they get behind us, then we’re done for. And you’ve got to look after Cedric too. You know, take care of him for TB.’
That was the clincher.
‘OK,’ said Jamie uncertainly. ‘Superstrong.’ He showed his biceps, but without his usual bravado.
‘So you wait here for us then?’ Alexander said, putting Cedric back in the bag again and handing it to Jamie. ‘You can sit on one of the benches.’
Jamie nodded.
Then Alexander reached into his school bag and dragged out Einstein’s underpants. He thought about wearing them over his trousers, Superman-style. But then he thought that if ever he needed their help it was now, and so on his head they went, pulled firmly down over his ears. Sometimes to fight hard you have to think hard.
Melvyn didn’t even smile when he saw the pants.
‘You ready?’ asked Alexander.
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘Great. Let’s do this. And keep it quiet.’
The steps of the spiral staircase were worn and slippery and narrow, and Alexander stumbled three times on the way down. There was a thick rope along the wall to act as a handrail, but it sagged when you grabbed it, and was hardly any use at all. But soon he saw below them another low arch, where the stairway opened into the crypt. An eerie green light seeped from the opening, like pus from a septic toe.
There was just enough room at the bottom of the stairs to stand beside the arch without being seen. Sensing Melvyn close behind him, Alexander peeked out. It took a few seconds for him to get used to the strange light, and a few more for him to even begin to understand what he was looking at.
The crypt was about a quarter of the size of the church above it, and it was full of old church junk: splintered pews and headless statues and sections of broken stained glass. But th
ere were things in that crypt that did not belong in a church. There were what looked like complicated electronic devices, but their forms were curiously curved and organic, and they pulsed as though alive. Coiling snakes of plasma tubing ran between rippling screens, and those screens showed kaleidoscopic images and shapes, beautiful and terrible to behold. Alexander was most disturbed, however, by the walls. The stone and brick had been coated with a layer of gently pulsing green slime, like the secretions of some grotesque mollusc.
Nothing moved in the crypt, and yet everything seemed alive.
And then Alexander’s horrified and fascinated eye reached the far end of the crypt. A row of greenish shapes, fat and rubbery, glistening like the insides of some dead beast, were arranged against the wall.
Alexander stepped out into the crypt. Without looking, he knew that Melvyn was still with him: neither of them wanted to be alone in this place.
As he approached the shapes, he was gripped by a horror such as he had never known before. They were semi-transparent, and Alexander thought he could see through them to the wall behind, which seemed to be hung with paintings: religious scenes, perhaps. The Good Shepherd; a Nativity; a Crucifixion.
And then Alexander realized that these things were not behind the shapes. They were inside them. He moved so that his face was close enough to the glistening, waxy surface for him to be able to feel the brush of his own breath as it bounced back; close enough to see his own reflection in the surface, strangely superimposed onto what lay beneath.
And then the shape within the shape moved. A shudder. And then the shape within the shape opened an eye.
Alexander recoiled, as if slapped.
‘Felicity!’
CHAPTER 35
THE FIREFIGHT
IT WAS HER. Felicity. It was her face inside that thing. Not just her face, but all of her. And that eye was now staring at him. He fought the urge to flee, screaming, from this hellish place.
He heard Melvyn’s tremulous voice beside him. Until he spoke he’d forgotten he was there.
‘It’s them,’ Melvyn murmured. ‘All of them. What’s happened?’
Alexander glanced at him. Melvyn’s face was ghastly in the green light. Then he looked at Felicity again. Both her eyes were now open and staring at him. And her face showed so much pain, so much horror. Her mouth moved in a silent scream.
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