Hamish and the WorldStoppers

by Danny Wallace

  Hamish looked at Alice. She winked at him.

  ‘PAUSEWALKERS!’ he shouted. ‘NOW!’

  This is It!

  The very instant he’d realised his error, Buster had clambered up the town clock and stuck a spanner on the clock face to stop the minute hand from moving any further.

  There. That should do it. And he knew precisely what to do next.

  He slid down again and jumped through the door of the ice-cream van.

  He’d made a few modifications he was certain might come in handy.

  At the fairground, all was complete and utter insanity.

  It was chaos!

  Children were running everywhere, some of them banging spoons on tins and saucepans, while confused Terribles spun around, trying to catch them and bumping into one another.

  ‘GEDDUM!’ yelled the WorldStopper General, furious at this distraction.

  ‘CRUSHEM! CRACKEM!’

  Hamish kept one eye on the crazed and flailing giant. It seemed panicky.

  ‘HOOS CHECKIN THA TIME?’ it roared. ‘HOOS WATCHIN THA CLOCK?’i

  At the bottom of the rollercoaster, three Terribles tried desperately to scramble over one another, doing whatever they could to climb up the poles at the bottom. They couldn’t understand why they kept sliding down.

  Quickly, Venk splurted out even more of the super-slippy hygiene gel that was keeping the poles so slidey.

  ‘WE NEEDS TO SEE THA CLOCK!’ shouted the WorldStopper General.

  ‘GRAB DOZE WEANS AN’ STOPPEM!’

  But the Terribles were no longer listening to their master. They had other things to deal with.

  ‘MEXICAN FOOT STAMP!’ screamed Grenville, in his element, as a bunch of kids stamped on a Terrible’s foot. ‘CHINESE TONGUE-PULL THAT RIDICULOUS BEAST!’

  Through the middle of them, Elliot ran, squirting hot sauce from his dad’s old aftershave bottle as Terribles spluttered and pawed at their eyes.

  ‘WHATSA

  TIME?’ roared the WorldStopper General, his exasperated spit now landing in huge great puddle-clumps on the ground.

  BOOM! Down came one of his feet!

  BOOM! Down came the other!

  One Terrible had now made it to the very top of the rollercoaster and was peering out at the town clock. But it hadn’t changed! It was just the same as it was when they started! Confused and confounded, it shrugged its angular shoulders and made a pained face at its boss.

  ‘CHECK THA FROZEN’S WATCHES THEN!’ yelled the WorldStopper General.

  ‘WE GUESS HOW LONGS WE GOT!’

  But every watch on every person showed a very different time.

  4.13!

  9.29!

  17.37!

  ‘WE’S GONNA RETREATS!’ shouted the WorldStopper General, panicked and realising he was in no way prepared for this kind of organised revolution.

  ‘WE’S GOTTA RETREATS!’

  Hamish checked The Explorer. The only watch that showed the true time! He had to time this just right . . .

  He waited . . .

  He waited a moment more . . .

  Then . . .

  ‘Now, Clover!’ shouted Hamish. ‘Go!’

  And, as a Terrible brought out the Bugle to sound the Screech of Retreat, Clover flung off the incredibly realistic bright green bush costume she’d been hiding in all along. . .

  . . . aaaand . . .

  GRABBED IT!

  ‘Alice!’ she shouted. ‘Catch!’

  To the WorldStopper General’s horror, Clover threw it up, up, up in the air . . .

  . . .The Bugle spun, and pirouetted, and slapped straight into Alice’s hand like she was catching a boomerang. She stared at it, stunned, for a second.

  ‘Go!’ shouted Hamish, tapping his watch. ‘RUN!’

  But Alice did not move. It was like she was frozen.

  ‘NOW, ALICE!’ shouted Hamish again. ‘GO!’

  But still she just stared at the Bugle.

  And now the WorldStopper General, seeing exactly what was about to happen, began to stomp towards her . . . She looked up to see him approaching . . .

  Which is when Robin jumped in front of the WorldStopper General and began to wave his arms.

  Hang on – Robin?

  ‘It’s 12.03!’ shouted Starkley’s once-most-nervous kid. ‘It’s 9.15! It’s half past June! It’s seventy minutes to yesterday!’

  It was enough to confuse the great beast for a second. What was this small boy banging on about? This child who stank of worms?

  He’s buying time! thought Hamish. Which is exacly what the WorldStoppers are running out of!

  Alice snapped out of it. Her face flipped from confusion to determination. She could do this.

  And, as the WorldStopper General lost patience and swatted Robin away and into the bouncy castle, Alice Shepherd ran like her life depended on it, which, to be honest, it did.

  She ran with amazing speed and dexterity.

  She ran between legs and jumped over long arms that tried to grab and slap her to the ground.

  She leapt over spit-puddles and slid through the mud, and, as she reached the end of the fairground, the Starkley Under-12s 100-metre champion did everything she could to escape the clutches of the fearsome, furious WorldStopper General, now crashing and roaring behind her.

  Next to a sign marked:

  FARMER JARMER’S PRIVATE PROPERTY

  she slid to a halt.

  Hamish had told her his hunch. He’d better be right about this.

  And just when WorldStopper General’s enormous, grasping hands were so almost upon her, Alice Shepherd heaved that great shell-like Bugle right into the vast and swaying field of sunflowers at the fairground’s edge . . .

  ‘NOOOOOOOO!’ bellowed the WorldStopper General.

  ‘THE BUGLE! ISS AMONGST THE FUNSLOWERS! RETREATS! RETREATS!’

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Fireworks! Explosions overhead!

  Hamish stood alone, lit by flashes of green and red and blue, smiling at his Explorer. They’d done it. The Pause was over. The noise and colour picked up exactly where it left off, with the kind of huge, full explosions you could feel right there in your chest.

  The brilliant flashes from above were like strobe lights, capturing split seconds of life, like a camera flash. On the ground, you just couldn’t tell who was still and who was moving.

  Hamish looked around him cautiously. The people of Starkley all stared up at the sky as the fireworks reached their powerful finale . . . The Terribles seemed still too . . . but were they?

  And, as the final BOOM! echoed and bounced around the buildings of Starkley, there was a smattering of appreciative applause as thick smoke drifted across the fair.

  And then there was nothing.

  But, as the smoke began to clear, the screams began.

  ‘What the heck are THEY?’ yelled one man, tripping over himself as he ran.

  ‘MONSTERS!’ screamed another.

  ‘Look at the size of it!’ shrieked a woman, pointing at the WorldStopper General, who towered over the town, blank-eyed and unmoving.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ screamed Mr Ramsface, the spell of meanness now apparently broken. ‘Oh my goodness!’

  The screaming continued as the grown-ups began to run from the fair, every now and again slapping into another stopped, slimy Terrible and screaming louder still. The screams of terror were soon joined by the mighty cheers of the Pausewalkers.

  They had stopped them. They had stopped the stoppers. They were the StopperStoppers!

  Hamish looked at Alice triumphantly.

  ‘They’re frozen!’ he said, poking one finger up a Terrible’s jelly-like nostril.

  There was now just one thing left to do.

  The One Thing Left To Do

  The plinkety-plonk of the National Anthem was the next thing anybody heard as Buster motored the ice-cream van through the fairground and skidded to a halt in the mud. The music was louder this time though. B
uster had clearly added some serious bass.

  ‘Why’s it so muddy?’ he said, from the window. ‘It hasn’t been raining, has it?’

  ‘That thing!’ said Hamish, pointing at the WorldStopper General, still towering above them, frozen in time. ‘He spits when he talks!’

  ‘I called the army like you told me to,’ said Buster. ‘Spoke to a very nice lady on reception called Sandra. She said she’d pass the details on.’

  ‘What have you done to the van?’ said Alice, surprised. It certainly looked different. Buster had changed the tyres to the type you’d normally see on a tractor. It looked like one of those monster trucks you get in America. It was ginormous!

  ‘Just a little modification for Stage 2 of the plan,’ he said, proudly, and far higher up than he’d ever sat before. ‘Do you like the new respray? I thought black and gold gave it a certain important look.’

  ‘Pausewalkers!’ shouted Hamish, as Buster set a gigantic blue light flashing. ‘On your bikes!’

  The van sped through the woods now, rumbling over the bumps and lumps and making light work of them. Behind it, a dozen Pausewalkers rode their gleaming Vespas, lights cutting brightly through the night.

  Inside the Battle Van, Hamish thought of his poor family. This had to work. Alice studied the map with Dexter.

  ‘We have to head for the cliffs,’ he said, pointing up ahead, and frowning at the memory of it. ‘We have to go over the bridge . . .’

  One after another, the team shot over Starkley’s little grey bridge, leaving the safety of town behind. That little bridge reminded Hamish of the last time he’d thought of it. When was that again?

  ‘Of course,’ said Hamish, remembering that day at Grenville’s. ‘There was a map at the Postmaster’s. It was marked ROUTES with all the arrows pouring out of the woods. I thought it was for postmen. But it was for Terribles! It makes sense – the Postmaster knows Starkley better than anyone and they got to her first! She was first to be taken! Her map helped them plan their raids. It told them precisely where everyone lived!’

  ‘That must be why they always came at night at first,’ said Alice. ‘Because they knew people would be in bed!’

  Excitement and fear hung heavy in the air as they passed a sign marked THE CLIFFS.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ said Dexter, with fear in his eyes. ‘We have to go by foot from here.’

  ‘Then by foot we will go,’ said Hamish, determined.

  Waves crashed against the foot of the cliffs as Hamish hopped out of the van.

  The air up here was wet with the spitter and spatter of the sea. An unforgiving wind whipped around the gang.

  ‘So this is it,’ said Hamish, heroically, spying the cottage in the distance.

  ‘What?’ said Clover, over the roar of the sea.

  ‘I said “so this is it”,’ said Hamish, a bit less heroically this time.

  ‘Can you SPEAK UP?’ shouted Clover. ‘Only it’s really LOUD here.’

  Hamish’s hair was damp now and he wiped it from his eyes. The cottage looked small from here, lit by one old and orange gas lamp hanging at the door, squeaking as it swung in the wind.

  ‘Hamish . . .’ said Buster, close to Hamish’s ear, and Hamish turned to face him. ‘I hope you find your dad.’

  Hamish saw the sadness in Buster’s eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Buster,’ he said. Then, ‘You know, I think your dad would have been so proud of you tonight.’

  Buster smiled.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hamish. ‘If we’ve saved the world – and who knows if we have yet – then a large part of that is down to you. Plus, look what you did to the van. I think if he’s watching somewhere, he’ll be telling everybody . . . “that kid there . . . that’s my son”.’

  Buster smiled, then had to look away. He nodded to himself and smiled some more.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Alice, as the crash of an angry wave rose high into the air.

  The old stone cottage was just as creepy as Dexter had described.

  Well, actually, it turned out Dexter wasn’t very good at descriptions, because it was far, far creepier.

  The entire building seemed damp. Not from the sea, but like there was an invisible river running down its front, keeping it permanently moist.

  ‘Secure the area!’ yelled Hamish. ‘Clover – make sure the whole place is surrounded! Venk – take some Pausewalkers and make sure help is coming!’

  Hamish studied the cottage. Its door was made of ancient, splintered wood, with an old black knocker in the middle like a snarling dragon. Gargoyles hung from either side of the roof. And there were flies and egg-sized black bees everywhere.

  Who knew what was in there?

  Bravely, Hamish pulled open the door.

  He blinked.

  He saw absolutely nothing inside.

  Just blackness.

  Beside him, Alice trembled.

  ‘I know I said I wasn’t scared of anything,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘But there is one thing.’

  ‘The dark?’ said Hamish. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’

  Then Hamish remembered the little keyring with the torch attachment he’d packed in his original PSK. He knew that would come in handy! He turned it on and held it out in front of him. But this blackness was too black. It was powerfully black. It was like the light from his little torch was just sucked away into the void. He was going to need a lot more power than this.

  ‘Let me give that a little boost,’ said Buster, smiling.

  Five minutes later, the van and every Vespa they had were shining their headlights into the nothingness, on full-beam.

  Now Hamish could make out the first few steps . . .

  And so, nodding at Alice and taking one deep breath, Hamish stepped inside.

  The Depths

  Down, down, deeper and deeper inched Hamish, holding his tiny torch in front of him.

  With every pitch-black step, he expected to reach the bottom.

  But this was not a basement. These steps seemed endless.

  He could sense there were no walls either side of him now. Just the steps. The steps that seemed to be getting narrower and narrower and narrower, until he could only move forward by putting one foot directly in front of the other.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he asked, nervously.

  ‘I’m still with you,’ said Alice, putting one slightly shaking hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m not going to leave you. We’re in this together.’

  So on and on they went, secretly dreading they might hear a creak, or a shriek, or anything from the depths that might indicate a leftover Terrible was slinking or skittering about.

  Where would this lead them, this black nothingness? Was this one step too far? The stupidest thing they’d ever do? A trap?

  ‘Wait!’ said Hamish, finally. ‘I think I’m at the bottom!’

  He tapped his foot. The floor had changed. It was harder. Tiny pebbles and chipped stone crunched and gristled underfoot. Hamish’s torch began to flicker and struggle in the soul-sucking blackness.

  ‘Try the matches again,’ said Alice. ‘Please.’

  Hamish struck one and, as it fizzed to life, he thought he could make out something of interest, a few metres away. The light of the match grew feeble, so he lit another, moved a few centimetres forward, then lit one more.

  The air was thicker down here. It felt as if he could feel the dank moss tickle his throat as he breathed it in. It was cold too and both Hamish and Alice could watch misty plumes of their breath rise in the brief glow of each dying match.

  It was almost perfectly silent, save for a few distant clanks and clunks, like old radiators in the dead of night . . .

  Hamish could now sense something directly in front of him.

  He reached out to touch it.

  It was cold.

  Wet.

  Slimy.

  Right there, barely an arm’s length away, was a vast iron door.

  Hamish felt
for the lock.

  It still had the key in.

  Down the corridor they walked.

  There was more light here – an ancient brass gas lamp hung at the end of the passageway, casting long shadows across the stones of the wall.

  Their footsteps sounded so small in this place.

  ‘It’s so cold,’ whispered Alice.

  ‘Wait,’ said Hamish, his arm out in front of him. ‘Look . . .’

  At the dimmest end of the horrible underground corridor was another door – this one arched and scratched and scuffed.

  There was no handle – just a small round hole at the top. . .

  ‘There must be a handle on the inside,’ said Hamish. ‘We’re going to have to reach inside and find it to open the door . . .’

  Alice shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Who knows what’s inside that hole? There could be more Terribles. Or maybe it’s where they keep their Requines! Or maybe there’s a spider monster, or a giant rat, or the suckers of a fifteen-metre octopus, or just a massive wet tongue! Let’s get the others. We can’t do this alone.’

  ‘We’re here now,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s just us. You and me. It’s up to us.’

  If he could have seen Alice properly in this darkness, he would have seen the palest, most sick-looking girl in Starkley.

  But then she shut her eyes and squeezed her arms around herself.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, firmly. ‘Let’s do it.’

  From somewhere on the other side of the door, they could suddenly hear whispers. Movement. The hair on the back of Hamish’s neck stood up. Alice felt goosebumps rise all the way up her arms and shoulders and she shivered.

  ‘I’m going for it,’ said Hamish, and slowly he slid one arm into the hole, breaking a thin film of slime and feeling it pop like a bubble and run down his wrist.

  He shut his eyes tight.

  Please don’t be a spider monster. Please don’t be a massive tongue.

  Alice could hear more shuffling from behind that door now. She could hear breaths and footsteps and clanks and bangs, and –

  ‘Hurry, Hamish!’ she said, not wanting to think what might be about to grab onto his poor arm. ‘I don’t like this!’