by Paul Zindel
Jackson reloaded the gun. He was desperate to give his aunt even a shred of hope. The words flew out of him. “Alma’s going to the cathedral. She found an inscription, a special book.”
“You shouldn’t have… told me” came his aunt’s voice from the receiver. “Now Ramid knows.”
Jackson looked up quickly. Skull Face was gone. It had vanished from the field.
Tortured, bestial sounds erupted from the receiver—then a disconnect.
Jackson grabbed the ladder, lowered one end to the ground, and started down. He started to tremble as he realized where the creature was heading.
13
DOOMTIME
The veterinarian told Alma to leave Coffin with him overnight in the kennel. He explained to her, gently, that although the bullet wound was shallow, there would be drainage, and he needed to give the dog another round of shots in the morning. “He’ll be as frisky as ever in a week. You can take him home tomorrow.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
Alma didn’t mind leaving Coffin with Dr. McGinn. Coffin liked the doctor, and his ears shot straight up at the sight of a sleek Irish setter in the dog run next to his. Still, Coffin whined when Alma had to leave.
“Don’t worry, boy,” Alma said, rubbing his massive, shaggy head. “I’ll be okay.”
The young private was waiting in the landrover when Alma came out. He drove her south to Salisbury and pulled to a stop in front of the North Gate. Alma thanked him for the lift home, got out, and headed across the grounds of the close. There were lights on in the cathedral. Alma knew it would be the Reverend Kalley working late on Saturday night. He always did a lot of the behind-the-scenes work to prepare for the Sunday services. He’d be doing everything from placing hymnals and offering envelopes in the pews to checking the condition of the choir robes.
The moonlight made the piping of the scaffolds creeping up the façade of the cathedral shine like a spiderweb. The scaffolding branched out along the sharp-angled slate of the main roof, then across onto the transepts. It made Alma dizzy to look up at the spire work platforms, where a construction elevator shaft rattled and creaked in the wind. Lesser pinnacles topped the bell tower itself, reaching up toward the night sky with the sharpness of spikes.
Alma entered the cathedral through the open door of the south transept. She felt safe inside its centuries-old medieval walls. She remembered the many times she had come into the sanctuary when there had been an organ playing and the voices of the choir drifted down from the balcony. She walked to the tiled base of the tower, where the children of the congregation had begun to build their annual Calvary display for Easter.
Beside it, under glass, was a detailed model showing the cathedral and the progress of its restoration.
“Reverend Kalley,” Alma called up to the choir balcony.
“Hello?” came the cleric’s deep voice. A moment later she saw his smiling bearded face peering down at her from the railing.
“It’s me, Alma,” she said.
“So it is. What are you doing up so late, young lady?”
“I wanted to look up something else in the cathedral library,” Alma said. “May I?”
“Of course,” the cleric said. “If you need help, let me know.”
Alma was so worried for Jackson, she thought about telling the Reverend Kalley everything, but she had promised Jackson she wouldn’t tell anyone. She simply said, “Thanks.”
The cleric gave a wave and disappeared from the railing.
The entrance to the library was off the tower lobby, across from a faceless ancient clock. She opened the heavy oak door and went into the small musty room with its half-vaulted ceiling. Closing the door behind her, she flicked on a bank of fluorescent lights. The huge old parchment book on Stonehenge was on the shelf where she’d left it hours before.
Alma took the book and sat down at a reading table. She turned to the section about the monster and read again the riddle inscription that had been found on one particular stone from Stonehenge.
In the Tomb Of the final Doom. Alma read, her finger tracing each line in the old book, hoping she could find something to help Jackson. There were legends about wizards, and visions of dancing stones. Stonehenge was mentioned as having power over pestilence. The book said a single pebble from Stonehenge was enough to cure a well of a toad infestation.
She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms.
Finally she found a part Jackson would want to know. It told how the “Beast of Doom that walks at Stonehenge” could be killed only by a single sarsen stone which had been brought to Salisbury Cathedral centuries ago. “Where is the Doom Stone now?” Alma mumbled, speed-reading forward through the parchment pages. All she found was another riddle:
Doom Stone, tombstone
In final repose,
The longer it stands,
The shorter it grows.
But where exactly was it? She copied the riddle down on a piece of paper and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.
THUMP
Alma heard the noise from above her. It was a dull, solid sound as if someone upstairs had dropped a heavy sack. She opened the door to listen. For a moment there was a delicate tinkling, like that from a metal wind chime. Then silence.
The silence became heavy, then jabbed at Alma like a stick in the ribs.
She left the library and went to the base of the tower again. “Reverend Kalley?” she called up to the choir balcony.
More silence.
“Hello, up there,” she called louder. “Reverend Kalley, are you all right?”
Now the silence frightened her. She remembered a game the kids at school had played once about who had seen the most dead people. One kid had seen a train crash with two dead people. Another knew a family where three people died in a fire. Since living at the crematorium, Alma knew she’d win that game now hands down, though she didn’t like the way her mind had turned to thoughts of death and bodies.
She started up the stairs of the tower. The balustrade was thick and elaborately carved as it rose toward the shadowy choir loft.
“Reverend Kalley?” she called again, as she reached the second floor. The door to a storage room had been left open, and a line of hanging white choir robes swayed like headless ghosts in the breeze from an open window. A cluster of empty hangers began to make the tinkling sound again. What if the minister had passed out or had a heart attack? she thought. Several kids at her school had said they had seen or found people with heart attacks.
The wind from the window picked up, billowing the robes. Alma pushed her way among the flapping sleeves, trying to see if the cleric might have had an accident—perhaps fallen on the floor. The metal hangers clicked against each other, and she reached up to push them apart.
Alma first saw the feet and solitary dark robe. She lifted her gaze up through pleated whiteness to the form, saw the glistening red dripping down from the black frock, a terrible wetness making the fabric cling to a shape. Staring down at her was the Reverend Kalley hanging from a hook, his eyes frozen wide with only bone where the flesh of his neck had once been.
Alma screamed, and screamed again. She turned and struck out at the robes as they fluttered up to block her escape. She made it out of the room without falling. Now her cries reverberated in the vast space of the cathedral. She rushed toward the stairs but stopped fast at the terrifying sight waiting for her.
The monstrosity appeared to be smiling at her. It stroked the membrane furrowed on its brow. The hair on its body was singed, and what was left of it bristled up toward its neck. Several of its twisted teeth turned in upon themselves, were pronged to rip flesh wide.
She backed around the railing the only way she could go, toward the stairs that led higher into the tower. Moonlight crashed through a rosette of stained glass as the creature advanced. Its yellow and menacing eyes were locked onto Alma’s face and thick mane of hair. The monster’s cheekbones were covered with red, soiled like the face of
a greedy child who’d eaten recklessly.
She started up the stairs with the monster after her. Her shrieks now formed into words. “Help! Oh, God, help me!” The solid and ancient stone of the cathedral, which had made her feel warm and safe, now smothered her sounds like a tomb. The wooden stairs narrowed as she went higher. The indoor scaffolding of the tower started at the third floor, and the monster swung out onto it. It grabbed the piping, rattled it like a toy, then climbed faster, swinging and roaring like a maddened primate after her as she raced higher.
Where is the Doom Stone? she found her mind screaming.
Jackson raced toward the close in the dune buggy. He was panicking, traveling too fast. The buggy almost flipped in a field of burrows. He’d traveled a long distance to a dead end in a farmer’s high-fenced field. At one point he traveled too far west. Only the distant, moonlit spire of the cathedral pulled him back on course.
He couldn’t think about what might happen if the creature reached Alma before him. He was frightened for his aunt—the ghastly animal sounds she had made on the phone. If she was driving back to Salisbury, she might go directly to Langford’s. He considered stopping at the guest house, but he knew she’d know where he was headed.
Jackson pulled out the radio on a dirt road in Lower Woodford and turned on the power. When his aunt still didn’t answer, he flipped frequencies.
“Can’t anyone hear me? Can anyone hear?”
A man’s voice came on.
“I need to talk to Sergeant Tillman,” Jackson asked. “Can you get me to him?”
“No,” the voice said bluntly.
“Tillman or Lieutenant Rath.”
There was heavy static, then the voice came from the receiver. “They’re airborne.”
“It’s an emergency. Can you call them?”
“Who is this?”
“Jackson Cawley. They know who I am. Tell them the creature they’re looking for is heading for Salisbury Cathedral. Just tell them!” Jackson said. “Tell them!”
He had to hang up and grab the handlebar of the buggy with both hands as the dirt road became a jolting washboard. On an open field Jackson heard a throbbing clamor coming out of the south. An immense troop helicopter broke clear of a stretch of pines and swooped over him like a flashing spaceship. Instinctively, Jackson grabbed the flare pistol from his belt. He waited until the chopper was clear, then pulled the trigger. The flare traveled fast, hundreds of feet high into the air, and exploded at its apogee like a rocket. He knew if Tillman or Rath didn’t get his phone message, whoever was on that helicopter would send them this one.
The chopper turned, began to circle the fire in the sky. Jackson kept his foot heavy on the accelerator. He managed to load the pistol with the third and final cartridge, and tucked it back under his belt.
He hit the town on North Castle Street.
When he reached the close, the sidewalks and grounds were deserted. The doors and windows of the brick and stone buildings and homes were closed tight. The only outdoor lights still burning were around the cathedral itself. Jackson braked the buggy to a halt. He slung the radio’s strap over his shoulder, jumped off, and ran across the vast lawn.
The massive front doors of the cathedral were locked, their carved arches reaching high like weathered hands raised in prayer. But light spilled from the south transept, and he quickly ran to its entrance.
As he went inside, he heard the screams, cries from on high as from a tortured angel.
“Alma!” he shouted, tracking the sounds to the base of the tower. He looked up hundreds of feet into the air and saw her on the spiraling staircase of the spire. The monstrosity was closing in on her, thundering on the scaffolding.
Jackson summoned a cry that racked his body. “No!”
The creature stopped its climb, looked down to see Jackson racing two, three steps at a time up the tower steps.
“Save yourself,” Alma cried out to Jackson.
The monster looked back up to Alma. Within moments it could have been on her, its claws digging in to disembowel her high in the spire. Jackson watched it cock its head, twist its neck, insectlike, to stare back down at him. It was weighing information, considering a plan of action.
“The Doom Stone can kill it,” Alma called to Jackson.
“I know.”
“The book said it’s here at the cathedral. The stone’s here!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” Alma said.
Jackson called up to her, “Don’t talk. It understands everything we say.”
The creature roared, reached out, and shook the scaffolding violently. Several boards jiggled loose and fell hundreds of feet down to crash on the tower floor. The monster started down.
“Go back, Jackson. Go back!” Alma screamed.
Jackson got as high as the yoke level of the tower. Three rows of the cathedral’s huge bronze bells hung between him and the creature as it lowered itself onto the opposite balcony.
He took the flare gun from his belt and held it ready. Again Skull Face roared, great currents of slime seeping down from the cavity that was its nose.
Alma’s voice cracked as she called to Jackson. “There was another riddle in the book. I think it has something to do with where the Doom Stone is.”
“Don’t tell me,” Jackson warned Alma, keeping his stare locked on the creature. “Don’t even think about it.”
The monster stood between him and the staircase that led up into the spire. It moved slowly around the platform, slices of moonlight falling through the vents of the bell tower and into the abyss between them.
TICK TICK
A maze of pipes and ducts was exposed from a section of the wall under reconstruction. One row of the giant bells, clappers poised, was held raised by a pulley system. The creature watched Jackson, saw him looking at the bells and the ropes. Jackson remembered the grimace on the creature’s face when the engines on the chopper had roared in the cemetery.
“You don’t like the noise, do you?” he asked Skull Face. “Other people’s noise.” He gave the pulley rope a sudden, hard tug, and the bells fell free.
The yoke creaked under the tons of moving weight. As each clapper hit the mouth of its bell, a deafening tolling began. The monster shrieked, appeared confused for a moment, but still blocked the stairs. Jackson shoved the flare gun back under his belt, grabbed a plank from the scaffolding, and threw it hard at the creature’s feet. It jumped to one side.
Jackson raced up the stairs toward Alma, the radio bouncing against him on its shoulder strap. He heard the creature coming after him, rattling the pipes and boards of the scaffolding. Jackson pulled another plank loose, hurled it down at the creature. “It’s still coming,” Alma screamed. She followed Jackson’s lead, began pulling planks loose from the pipe platforms. One of the boards hit the monster. It roared but kept on coming.
Jackson reached Alma on a platform seventy feet from the top of the spire. She was waiting with the paper upon which she’d copied the second riddle. There were chunks of discarded stone and broken tools on the platform. He pushed them off the edge. They cascaded down toward the creature, slowing its climb.
Jackson read the riddle quickly.
“We know there’s a Doom Stone,” Jackson said. “And we know that somehow it’s supposed to kill Skull Face. But where’s the stone? What does The longer it stands, The shorter it grows mean?”
Alma said, “Maybe it’s part of the altar of the cathedral. Or the pinnacle.”
“Let’s hope it’s the pinnacle,” Jackson said, grabbing her and leading her up the stairs to the last platform of the spire. There was a small mason’s table.
ROAR
The monster’s arms flew up onto the platform, swinging its claws left, then right into corners like a bear raiding a rabbit’s nest.
“Help me,” Jackson said, grasping the table. They summoned up every ounce of their strength and pushed it over the edge of the stairs. It tumbled down, smashing hard onto
the shoulders of the creature, then slid and fell more than three hundred feet to crash into the tile at the tower’s base.
Jackson felt a draft.
The creature locked its claws on the platform and began to pull itself up to its prey.
Alma screamed, hit out at the beast with a plank, as Jackson ran his hands rapidly over the inner walls. He realized one section wasn’t stone, only covered with weathering. He ripped the covering off. A small slab of the spire was a temporary aluminum plate. Moonlight cut in around its edges.
Jackson kicked and the metal plate flew open. The top of the outside scaffolding ring lay shifting in the wind.
“Go!” he shouted, pushing Alma through the narrow opening. At first she felt only the planking beneath her feet swaying from the suspension ropes. Jackson was out after her, knowing the slit would be too narrow for the monster.
The creature’s claws shot out through the small hole. Jackson grabbed Alma’s hand, pulled her after him toward the perimeter of the platform.
At first Alma was disoriented. When she looked down, she saw lights going on in several of the buildings of the close. It was a dollhouse village, she thought, until the reality of the perspective, that they were some three hundred feet below her, clutched suddenly, violently at her throat.
She began to scream, backing away from the edge.
“What’s the matter?” Jackson asked.
“It’shigh!”
“Of course it’s high.” Jackson kept them moving away from the creature’s thrusts and the hole in the spire. He held tight to Alma’s hand, moved around the platform, keeping close to its center. “Look up at the pinnacle,” Jackson said as a cold night wind struck them. “Is it gray with yellow streaks? Is it the Doom Stone?”
The wind snapped Alma’s hair as she held tight to Jackson and looked up.
“No,” she said. “It’s white with curlicues, like cement that was poured into a mold.”
Through cracks in the planking Jackson saw two other platforms below them suspended by ropes. “Can you climb down the ropes to the next platform?”
