Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  ‘I could really do with a mint now,’ George said.

  ‘Did he speak to you, Lucy?’ Lockwood asked.

  ‘No. But he was trying to tell us something.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with ghosts. They never spell it out. Well, it was presumably a warning, but we’ve got to keep on going. There’s nothing else we can do.’

  We continued along the passage, more slowly than before. Not three metres further on, roughly where we’d seen the apparition, we came to a flight of stairs.

  It was a spiral staircase, tight and narrow and heading steeply downwards. The passage led directly to it, and the entrance was fringed with smaller blocks of stone.

  ‘Four degrees centigrade,’ George said matter-of-factly. The light of his thermometer shone against his glasses and made his frosted breath plume green.

  ‘Seems we’re going down,’ Lockwood said. ‘Was this on the medieval floor-plan, George?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . Actually – yes, I think so. A connecting stair from dormitories to refectory. Want me to check?’

  ‘No. No, let’s get it done.’

  We set off down the steps. Lockwood went first, then me, with George bringing up the rear. It was not a comfortable place. There was a strong feeling of being somewhere very old and very far from natural light. Despite the cold, the air was close, and the walls pressed tight on either side. We had to bend our necks to avoid the layers of cobwebs on the ceiling. The smoke from our candles made my eyes water, and their guttering wicks cast disconcerting shadows on the smoothly curving stones.

  ‘Don’t trip on a bit of the Fittes kid, Lockwood,’ George said. ‘He’s down here somewhere.’

  I scowled back at him. ‘Ugh, George. Why would you even say that?’

  ‘I guess because I’m nervous.’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah . . . fair enough. So am I.’

  We all felt the strain now; our senses were on red alert, waiting for the slightest trigger. Outwardly it all seemed quiet – no sounds, no death-glows, no floating wisps of plasm. But this meant nothing. The Red Room had started the exact same way.

  The staircase opened out briefly into a tiny square chamber, with blocked arches on either side, before continuing its way down. Lockwood paused. ‘We’re at ground level here,’ he said. ‘Must be right behind that tapestry. You remember – the one with the picture of that dodgy bear.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said. ‘This is where that cold spot was.’

  ‘Yes, we’re down to three point five degrees,’ George said. ‘That’s the coldest reading in the house.’ His voice was tight. ‘We’re getting close.’

  ‘We’d better go slow now.’ Lockwood handed out some spearmint gum. Chewing mechanically, we started down the steps again, spiralling towards the cellar level. A thought occurred to me.

  ‘This staircase . . .’ I said in a casual voice. ‘It’s not . . . It wouldn’t be the staircase, would it?’

  Behind me, George chuckled. ‘No. Don’t worry. That was the other one.’

  ‘You’re sure? Did the legends definitely say it was the main staircase of the hall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We descended steadily, step by careful step, going round and round and down. Lockwood’s candle dimmed and flickered, then grew strong again.

  ‘Well,’ George continued, ‘they didn’t expressly say it, as it happens. They just mentioned some “old steps”. But everyone’s always assumed it was the main one, what with those carved dragons and skull niches and all the rest of it.’

  ‘Right . . . So they just assumed . . . But naturally, it would have to have been that main staircase, wouldn’t it, if it had been anywhere.’

  ‘Yep. That’s right.’

  ‘Though we didn’t get any psychic readings at all there, did we?’

  ‘No. And we’re not getting any here, either.’ George spoke with unusual firmness. ‘It’s just a legend.’

  It certainly seemed so. I didn’t doubt it for a minute. And so it was only for my private reassurance that I took off a glove and tucked it in my pocket. It was only out of merest curiosity that I let my fingertips trail against the stonework as we spiralled slowly down.

  To my relief, all I could feel was the chill in the wall. It was a deep, dry, lifeless cold that had sunk into the stones over a great many years. It stippled my skin, and made an electric charge run up the hairs on the back of my neck. An unpleasant feeling – but that was all it was. Just cold.

  I was about to take my fingers away when I heard the sounds.

  They were faint at first, but swiftly drawing nearer. Boots stamping. Boots, and the clink of metal. The stairwell echoed with it, and with the voices of many men. There was the rustle of their tunics, the scrape of swords. Suddenly they were all around us, keeping pace with our descent. I smelled burning tar and smoke and sweat, and an overwhelming stink of fear. Someone cried out in a language I didn’t understand. It was a simple cry of desperation, a plea for help. Chain mail clinked, a blow fell; I heard a moan of pain.

  Onwards, downwards went the boots, and with every step we took, the dreadful atmosphere of terror grew stronger and more palpable. Now there was not one pleading voice, but several – and as I listened, their cries began to rise in volume and become more desperate and shrill. Louder, ever louder . . . soon they swallowed up the other sounds – the tramping boots and rattling mail – until it seemed there was just a single swelling outcry deep down in the earth, a hysterical screech of fear . . .

  I snatched my hand away.

  Gone. I took a gulp of smoky air, and anxiously scanned the wall. Thank goodness. Just for a moment my shadow had seemed a little different. Taller, thinner, sharper and more hunched . . . No, it was still the same. And the sound had gone.

  I fumbled my glove back onto my numbed fingers. Gone . . .

  Except that it hadn’t. I could still hear it. Faint and far away, the echo of the scream went on.

  ‘Erm, guys . . .’ I said.

  Lockwood stopped dead in front of me. He gave a cry. ‘Of course! I’ve been an idiot!’

  George and I stood and stared. ‘What?’ George said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s been right in front of us all this time!’

  ‘What has?’

  ‘The answer to it all. Ah, I’m such a fool!’

  Frowning, I held my gloved palm against my head. I was listening; listening hard. ‘Lockwood, wait,’ I said. ‘Can’t you hear—’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ George said. ‘Lockwood, you’ve been acting odd for days. Tell us what’s going on. Clearly it’s about Fairfax, and since it’s his job that’s put us in such danger, I think you owe us an explanation.’

  Lockwood nodded. ‘Yes, I do. But first we’ve got to find the Source. Then—’

  ‘No,’ George said. ‘Not good enough. Tell us now.’

  The scream was swelling, faint but growing in force. Candles flickered. Shadows distorted on the walls. ‘Lockwood,’ I pleaded. ‘Listen.’

  ‘We’ve got to stay alert, George,’ Lockwood said. ‘There’s no time to explain.’

  ‘Speak quickly, then, and use short words.’

  ‘No! Both of you – shut up!’ They looked at me. My fingers scraped at my temples; my teeth were clenched. The dreadful sound had just erupted at full volume from the walls. ‘Can’t you hear it?’ I whispered. ‘It’s the screaming.’

  Lockwood frowned. ‘What? No . . . I don’t think so.’

  ‘Take it from me! This is the staircase! We need to get off it now.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation, but Lockwood was too good a leader to ignore so strong a warning. He grasped my hand. ‘All right, we’ll get you down to the bottom. Maybe the noise will stop there. Maybe it’s only you, Lucy, who can—’ He broke off. His fingers clenched mine; I felt him stagger on the steps. There’d been another swell in the sound; for the first time it broke through some physical barrier, became audible to ears less sensitive than mine.

  I l
ooked back. George had frozen too, his eyes stretched wide. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him. The scream was just too loud.

  ‘Down!’ Lockwood shouted; at least, I could see him mouthing the word. ‘Down!’ He was reeling, but he still held my hand tightly. He pulled; behind me George came tumbling, fists jammed tight against his ears. We threw ourselves downwards through the spiralling light and dark, with the candle flames leaping crazily and our shadows veering up the walls.

  All around us rose the scream, issuing directly from the steps and stones. Its volume was appalling – painful as repeated blows – but it was the psychic distress it carried that made it so unbearable, that made your gorge rise and your head split and the world spin before your eyes. It was the sound of the terror of death, drawn out indefinitely, extending on for ever. It spiralled around us, clawing at our minds.

  Down, down, and round and round, and all at once the shadows rushing with us were not our own, but darker shapes with sharp cowled heads, and thin, thin arms stretched high along the walls. Down and down – falling, jumping, tearing through the clinging cobwebs. Round and round – and on the walls the hooded figures rose and fell, keeping pace on either side. Shadow fingers swooped and plunged; the stairs went on for ever; and still the screams tore into our skulls like stakes of red-hot iron, so that all I wanted was for the terrible noise to cease—

  At which we fell out at the bottom of the steps into a small square room.

  We collapsed upon the floor. Our candles fell from our fingers, went skidding along the stones. Our heads spun; we could not get up, thanks to the noise and the sickening giddiness of the descent. The screaming had not stopped. And now the racing shadows spilled out from the stairs along the margins of the room, their silhouettes swooping faintly across the walls as they danced and capered in a hellish frenzy. Shadowy ropes swayed broken on their wrists.

  ‘The monks,’ I gasped. ‘It’s the monks! The ones they killed here.’

  Seven monks, the story said. Seven monks, for crimes of blasphemy, had been thrown into a well.

  I raised my head, looked across the tilting floor. There, lit by horizontal candlelight: a broad, round, stone-lined hole of fathomless blackness, set into the centre of the floor. And close beside it . . .

  Between us and the well a small and shrunken figure lay: a huddled heap of bones and rag, its outlines softened by successive layers of cobwebs. The neck was twisted at an odd, unnatural angle. One hollow jacketed arm reached out towards the hole as if it wished to drag itself forward and slip down into the dark.

  The Fittes boy had almost made it to the foot of the stairs, then, before the screaming killed him. I guessed he’d tripped and tumbled in his frantic flight, and ended up breaking his neck.

  At least it had been a quick end for him. The sound was driving me mad. I pulled myself to my feet. It was hard to do it; it was hard to move or think. At my side, Lockwood and George did likewise. Blood was trickling from Lockwood’s ear.

  Like a drunken man, he grappled us by the collars, pulled us in close. ‘Find the Source!’ he shouted. ‘It must be here. Somewhere in this room!’

  He shoved us away. George stumbled and, as he did so, drew close to one of the silhouettes upon the wall. At once a translucent hand stretched out of the stonework beside him, long-fingered and bony, with white hairs on the arm and a frayed rope-end dangling from the wrist. It reached for George. Lockwood was faster; he wrenched a salt bomb from his belt and threw it at the stones. Grains ignited, burning green. The arm drew back. On the wall the shadow flexed and undulated furiously like a snake.

  Out across the room we went, Lockwood, George and I, stumbling, flailing, searching to and fro. It wasn’t any good. The room went nowhere. It had no exits, no shelves; there was nothing in it but the walls and the stones and the deep, dark, waiting well.

  A flash of whiteness, an explosion of salt and iron. George had flung a canister of Greek Fire at shadows in the far corner of the room. Mortar fell from the stones; the chamber shook. For a moment the nearest silhouettes flickered, then their dance went on.

  Desperation took us. We were all at it now, mounting a last attack. Iron filings, salt bombs, flares – we threw them at the walls, trying to obliterate the ghostly shadows, trying to silence the dreadful sound. Stones cracked, smoke licked outwards, curtains of cobwebs went up in flames. Burning particles of salt and iron skimmed and spattered across the room in a dozen colours. And still the shapes of the murdered monks kept dancing, still their screams went on.

  No good. A great heaviness suddenly engulfed me. We’d never find the Source, and now our belts and shoulder-straps were empty, our ammunition used up, our energies spent . . . I slowed, came to a dragging standstill. Elsewhere, George had drawn his rapier and was striking blindly all around him, scarcely conscious whether he made contact with the wall or not. Lockwood stood close beside the well itself, brow furrowed, looking about wildly, evidently still hunting a solution.

  Poor Lockwood. There was no solution. Our Talents were useless, our weapons gone.

  My arms dropped; my head hung low. We’d never find the Source. We’d never find it and the noise would never, ever stop.

  Unless . . .

  I looked dully at the well.

  How stupid I’d been. There was a way to make the screaming stop. To go at once from noise to silence, from pain to peace and quiet. And it would be so, so easy to achieve.

  Over by the steps George had dropped his rapier. He’d flopped down on his knees, and was cowering low, arms cradling his head. On the wall behind, the exultant shadows danced in triumph.

  I shuffled forward. Ahead of me, the brick-lined lip: the shaft of soft grey stones leading into peaceful darkness . . .

  Yes. It was easy, it was obvious. I’d known it all along. After all, this was what the house had promised, when I stood hesitating in the lobby all those hours ago. This was where I’d known it would lead me – step by easy step, past all those flittering Type Ones and the ghost-fog and the evil whispers, past the bloody room and, finally, spiralling down the stairs. This was where it was always going to end. In this place. The place where the silence was, at the heart of the Hall and its haunting, where the silence went on for ever. It was very simple now. Just a couple more strides and the screaming would stop. I’d be part of that silence too.

  I took the first step swiftly; as I began the second, a sudden pain flared at my chest: a sharp, cold spasm. I hesitated, clawing at the cord around my neck. It had come from the locket . . . A burst of energy; I’d felt it even through the silver-glass. That Annie Ward – troublesome to the end! Well, no matter. She could be lost with me.

  The well-shaft waited. It promised me so much. I would hesitate no longer. With nothing but relief, I took the last steps forward and walked out over the edge . . .

  And hung there, leaning out above an abyss of black.

  Something had grasped me; something held me tight. Something hauled me back onto the safety of the stones.

  Lockwood: his face haggard, hair dishevelled, his greatcoat torn and stained. Blood ran down the collar of his shirt. He gripped me tighter round the waist and pulled me to him.

  ‘No,’ he said into my ear. ‘No, Lucy. That’s not the way it’s going to be.’

  With that he let me go, ducked his head, shuffled off his loop of chains and dropped it to the floor. ‘Matches!’ he shouted. ‘Give me your matches. And your chains too!’ He fumbled at his belt. ‘I want the extra iron, and any silver seals you’ve got. Come on, do it! We’re being dumb,’ he cried. ‘The well’s the Source, of course it is. That’s where the Visitors are.’

  The force of his will broke through the ghost-lock, broke through the sapping power of the relentless scream. I threw off my chains, unclipped the seals. I opened a belt-pouch, took out the box of Sunrise matches, while Lockwood ripped a final canister free of his belt. The big one. The one with the dark red wrapper. The industrial-strength flare with the long, long safety fuse, to g
ive you time enough to get well clear.

  Lockwood brought out his pocket-knife and sliced the fuse away, so that only a tiny nub remained.

  ‘Take it!’ he shouted. ‘Light the end!’

  He was already away from me, dragging our chains towards the well, fighting against the suffocating sound. Around the walls the seven shapes paused in their swooping; they too seemed suddenly alert. Spectral arms pushed through the stone, reached out towards us; alongside them the first cowled heads broke clear.

  I struck a match, put it to the oiled fuse. A spark flared, a tiny filament of light.

  At the well’s lip, Lockwood kicked the chains and seals into the hole. He stumbled back, took the canister from me, shouted in my ears, ‘Run, Lucy! Get to the stairs!’

  But I couldn’t move. I still felt the deathly pull towards the well. My body felt immersed in tar; I didn’t even have the strength to turn.

  The Visitors were free of the walls now; they drifted inwards from all sides. Two of the nearest had almost reached George, still hunched upon the floor. The rest converged on us, bone-white faces insubstantial beneath their rotting hoods. Sockets gaped, sharp teeth glittered. And still the screaming rose.

  Lockwood took the cylinder, stumbled to the edge. The nub of fuse had almost burned away.

  He dropped it in. The fuse-glow lit the well-stones for an instant and was gone.

  Lockwood turned. I saw for an instant his slim pale face, his dark eyes meeting mine.

  Hooded shadows swooped upon us.

  Then the screaming stopped, the shadows froze, and a millisecond later the world exploded in a soundless burst of light.

  23

  I woke suddenly, in a state of pain. My eyes snapped open, and for a long-held moment my sisters were there, and Lockwood, and Annabel Ward in her pretty summer dress with its orange flowers. They were all smiling at me; I saw them distinctly, their shapes gently overlapping. They probably floated in some kind of cloud.

  I didn’t buy any of it; besides, I had a pounding headache too. So I stared at them grimly until they broke apart and faded, and I was left in a different, darker place.