by Adam Slater
Chapter Eight
Callum barely made it to his first class on time. He had spent so long skulking in the backstreets of Marlock trying to avoid Ed and his mates that he had to duck into his English lesson without even having taken off his coat and rucksack. He dodged out of class the instant the bell rang and raced to his locker. But his plan backfired. Mrs. Higgins stopped him to give him a telling-off for running, and Ed slouched past slowly, enjoying the spectacle. He caught Callum’s eye and mouthed, You’re dead.
Ed had disappeared by the time Mrs. Higgins was finished with Callum, and he was late for his next class as well.
The talk in the cafeteria at lunch was still all about yesterday’s murdered teen. One of the tabloids had managed to sneak a photographer into the alley where the body was discovered, and now the bloody message Callum had seen scrawled on the wall in his dream was plastered all over the front page. The accompanying article was as stuffed with unanswered questions as Callum’s own head.
Although it seemed like he had seen ghosts every day of his life, Callum knew almost nothing about the supernatural. Now that he felt he needed to know more, he didn’t know where to begin. He’d never read a ghost story, or watched a horror film. Who needed stories about ghosts when you saw real ones on every corner?
I bet Melissa Roper reads ghost stories, though, Callum thought. She was into alternative stuff like healing crystals and dream catchers, and she was always clutching the latest fat fantasy novel. Maybe she could help him.
As if on cue, he spotted her, sitting on her own as usual, on the far side of the room. Well, there was no time like the present….
Melissa looked up in surprise as Callum set down his lunch tray next to her.
“Hey, Callum!”
“Hi,” Callum replied sheepishly. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
“Go ahead.” Melissa smiled. Callum sat. “Thanks again for yesterday, by the way. Guess it got you in trouble with Ed Bolton, though.”
“You’ve no idea.” Callum forced a laugh. There wasn’t any point in dragging Melissa into that mess. “Listen, I wanted to ask you something…. You know about the supernatural, right?”
“Well, I know some stuff,” Melissa answered eagerly. “You know, like traditional charms, how to protect your cows from curses and your babies from being kidnapped by goblins. Stuff like that.”
Callum must have looked blank, because Melissa rolled her eyes and went on.
“Everybody knows about how vampires hate garlic, right? Well, there are charms like that for all kinds of things. Iron keeps away the fairies. Rowan works against witches and demons.”
“Really?” It had never occurred to Callum that he might be able to treat ghosts like a medical condition—take two rowanberries and get rid of your haunting, like taking paracetamol for a headache. “That’s pretty interesting.”
“It is interesting,” said Melissa, nodding furiously. Then she stopped. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, no, I mean it,” said Callum quickly. Melissa probably had every reason to be defensive. She got teased a lot—even if she did bring some of it on herself. “How about local legends?” he added tentatively. “Do you know anything about local ghosts?”
“Well, not personally,” Melissa laughed. “I haven’t met any. There’s a haunted cinema in Altrincham where the projectors turn themselves on and off, and the seats are always snapping up and down. I’ve been there,” she added proudly. “And at Knutsford there’s a ghost pig that runs around the lanes with six lighted candles on its back. Every place has local ghosts. Some of them mean special things. If you see a banshee washing clothes in a river, that means you’re going to die.”
Callum looked sideways at Melissa. “How about black dogs? What does it mean if you see the ghost of a black dog?”
“They mean a lot of things.” Melissa frowned and blew her flyaway curly fringe out of her eyes. “There are black dogs in folklore all over Britain. They’ve got about a million different names—Black Shuck, Striker, Trash. Also Wist Wolves and Yell Hounds, Churchyard Grims—”
“Wait!” Callum exclaimed, holding up a hand to stop Melissa mid-flow. “Churchyard Grims. Tell me about those.”
“The Grim is a portent of death.” Melissa’s eyes went very wide. “They’re big black dogs that haunt burial grounds. They’re supposed to be the ghosts of animals that have been sacrificed to the devil—the devil takes the animal’s soul in place of the human souls buried there, you see. Or else the Grim is supposed to protect the human souls buried there from the devil. I forget which. Maybe both.”
Callum’s mind raced. There was a name for the black dog he’d seen. It was a Churchyard Grim. He hadn’t made it up. It was a portent of death, a sacrifice to hell. No wonder Gran had been spooked when Callum asked about a black dog.
But since when did Gran know anything about the super-natural? She was practical and down-to-earth, with her gardening books and her DIY battles with the immersion heater. So why had she reacted so strangely? It didn’t make sense.
“Is that helpful?” Melissa prompted. Callum jumped out of his reverie and realized he’d been staring straight at her during the lull in the conversation. He looked away quickly and fixed his gaze on his chips.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Why did you want to know anyway?”
“I live near an old churchyard,” Callum said. “You know, Nether Marlock. I just wondered if it had any stories connected with it.”
Melissa gave him a sharp look. “Black dogs especially?”
Callum sighed. “Yeah.”
“Have you seen it?” Melissa asked softly.
Callum put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, pulling at his hair. He couldn’t decide what to tell her. He didn’t know her very well, after all, and the truth would make him sound like a crazy freak.
“You’ve seen something, haven’t you?” Melissa’s voice was eager. She didn’t sound like she thought he was crazy; she just sounded curious. “What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I came along home with you after school sometime you could show me where you saw it. I love that old church. All those medieval gravestones with the skulls on them, and that yew tree that’s supposed to be a thousand years old! I could come and take a look, see if I know what it is, the thing you saw—if we see it again, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Callum repeated reluctantly. “Maybe I was just imagining it.”
“Maybe you weren’t,” said Melissa. “And maybe I can help.”
Callum let out a long breath. It had taken Melissa less than ten minutes to prove that she knew more about the supernatural than he ever would.
He smiled at her again.
“Maybe you can.”
There was a double period of science after lunch, a lab class on elements and compounds. Callum liked the chemistry teacher, who made a real effort to keep her students interested, but in spite of Dr. MacKenzie’s best efforts, Callum was having trouble focusing. His mind was still in Marlock Wood.
Dr. MacKenzie was exploding bubbles. She had spread a mess of apparently harmless froth on the fireproof lab table and was setting the bubbles alight with a gas jet tube attached to a Bunsen burner. Each bubble that she lit made a sudden explosion of flame, big as a bunch of balloons.
“Melissa, come and have a go.”
“You must be joking,” called Ed Bolton from the back of the class. “She’ll burn the whole school down.”
The class laughed and Melissa flushed.
“Come on, Melissa, it’s perfectly safe.” Dr. MacKenzie handed over the gas jet. Melissa took it tentatively.
“Okay, now just touch one of the bubbles with the flame.”
Melissa stretched out her arm, holding the flame as far from her body as possible, and went for the smallest of the bubbles. The gas compound inside it exploded with a little burst of fire, and then was gone. Ed cheered sarcastically.
“Call
um?”
Callum jumped. He hadn’t been paying attention. He looked up guiltily.
“You’re missing a great effect. Have a go.”
Dr. MacKenzie walked around the table towards him.
“No thanks, Dr. MacKenzie,” Callum said. “I’ll do it wrong.”
“Nonsense. There’s nothing to it. When you’ve seen how the experiment works, we’ll run through the formula again.”
“Have a go, Scott, show Roper the right way to do it,” said Hugh Mayes.
Callum sighed inwardly. He’d have to do it now. He reached for the flaming pipe, his fingertips feeling numb. He shook his hand, trying to wake them up, but the tingling was getting worse. Tingling …
MOVE!
Without stopping to question the urge, Callum leaped sideways, almost falling into the lap of the girl in the next seat. At the same instant, Dr. MacKenzie caught her foot on a large book bag carelessly left jutting out from under the table. Grabbing at the ledge of the worktop to catch her balance, the flame-tipped hosepipe flew from her hand. Spewing its jet of burning gas, the pipe landed in the chair where Callum had been sitting less than a second earlier. Before Dr. MacKenzie could straighten herself up and turn off the gas tap, the blue flame had burned a sizeable hole into the back of Callum’s chair.
If he had still been sitting there, the flame would have bored the same hole straight through his chest.
Chaos erupted in the classroom. Several of the girls screamed.
“Callum! Are you okay?” Dr. MacKenzie gasped. “My God, how did you ever get out of the way in time?”
For a moment Callum was speechless. Finally, he managed to murmur numbly, “I … I saw you lose your balance. I just moved.”
“Thank goodness! I’m so sorry. Katie, how many times have I told you not to bring that bag into my classroom….”
The teacher’s voice faded away as Callum tuned out her angry words. His mind was already miles away. Because he knew full well that he hadn’t seen her lose her balance. He’d been moving before she had tripped, without any idea why he was doing it.
His Luck had saved him again.
What’s happening to me?
The visions, his tingling fingertips, the strange hauntings%—and if all this weren’t enough, there was Ed to deal with too. After the final bell went off, Callum was out of the school building ahead of almost everybody, but not Ed. He was already heading down the High Street with Baz and Craig, no doubt planning to lie in wait for Callum again.
Callum stood still and watched them go; there was no point in hurrying now. Better to take the scenic route, down Back Lane and along the footpath through the fields behind Warren’s farm. Ed and his foot soldiers would never think of going all the way out there.
The other advantage of the long walk was that the last stretch along the lower edge of Marlock Wood avoided the church. He still had to pass the shell of the old mill, with its two spectral mutilated young apprentices who’d had the bad luck to fall under the water wheel, but there weren’t as many ghosts as on the road.
It was dusk when Callum finally trudged along the row of ruined alms cottages, their broken windows dark and their empty rooms open to the sky. For a moment, he was surprised to see that there was no light beckoning from the window of Gran’s cottage. Then he remembered—it was Thursday, the evening she taught a watercolor class in the church hall up in the village. He was supposed to get tea ready for them both. Cheese toasties again, probably.
As he reached down to unhook the gate, Callum realized that this was the first time in three days that he’d actually bothered to go through the gate rather than jumping over the wall in blind terror. Letting out a short, mirthless laugh, Callum walked up the garden path towards the front door, reaching for his key.
And stopped.
Something had happened to the door. Dark splatters stained its green paint. They looked almost wet, but it hadn’t been raining. Besides, the shapes reminded him of something….
As Callum took a step back for a clearer view, the shapes came into focus and his stomach plummeted into his trainers.
It was a message written in blood.
There was just enough light in the sky for him to make out the glistening letters, shining black against the faded green paint. Although some of the writing had run, the letters dripping clotting tails down the door, the ghastly message was still clear enough to read.
BEWARE THE DARK REFLECTION
Callum stared at the meaningless words. He had no doubt that the message was for him—and written by the same person as the writing found beside the murdered boy in London. Whoever they were, they had found him.
Fear rising, Callum fumbled in his pocket for the key. His fingers were trembling. No, not trembling—tingling …
Callum whirled around.
Standing at the gate, less than a dozen paces away, were the ghostly white-faced boy and his demonic black dog.
The Grim’s teeth flashed in its pitch-black muzzle. Callum took one terrified step backwards down the garden path, then another, waiting for the creature to pounce.
But the strange dog remained still, a low growl rumbling in its throat. Instead, its pale master began to walk slowly towards Callum, his right hand held out as if to touch him, and in the last of the fading daylight, Callum saw that the boy’s thin white fingers were dripping with glistening blood.
Chapter Nine
His hand clutched tightly around the cold metal key in his pocket, Callum took another slow step backwards.
Don’t run! Don’t run!
Another step. Callum swallowed, preparing himself. His only chance was to get into the cottage. To put ten centimeters of solid door between him and this terror. The dead boy was at the open gate, still walking steadily towards him, his depthless eyes fixed on Callum.
BEWARE THE DARK REFLECTION
Was that what the message was warning against—the dark reflection of this boy’s eyes? Another step. How many more before he reached the cottage? The boy was on the path now, the huge dog prowling at his heel. Callum didn’t imagine that the door would hold the Grim for long.
They were too close. He wasn’t going to make it….
Callum felt his heel bump against the doorstep. Moving like lightning, he half-twisted around, slamming his body against the door as he twisted the key in the lock.
For once, the latch turned on the first time.
The door flew open under the force of Callum’s impact. Caught off balance, he fell over the threshold and tumbled into the dark sitting room. He scrambled backwards, trying to kick the door shut, but the hem of his anorak, ragged where he’d torn it on the rose bush the previous night, caught beneath the door and jammed it open.
Nearly weeping with terror and frustration, Callum tried to tear his coat loose. With sheer brute force he ripped it out from under the door. He was free now, but with the torn part of his anorak bunched up against the carpet, the door still wouldn’t shut.
The figure of the pale boy seemed to fill the doorway. One more step and he’d be in the house, and Callum would be alone in the darkness with him and the black dog.
“Stop!” Callum yelled desperately, his voice cracking with fear. “Stay out!”
The spectral boy flinched as if Callum had struck him. He actually took a step backwards and teetered on the edge of the doorstep.
For half a second, Callum was too surprised to move. Then, pulling himself up onto his knees on the worn carpet, he cried out wildly, “Get away! Stay out of this house! You can’t come in!”
The phantom stumbled. He was off the doorstep now. He lifted one foot to try to bring it forwards, but it was as if an unseen hand was preventing it. His eyes flashed with anger. Beside him, the black dog gave a chilling growl of frustration.
Callum took a deep breath and tried to get a grip.
“Just. Stay. Out.” Callum glared at the spirit as fiercely as he could as he tugged at the shredded nylon wedging the door open.
A
stonishingly—unbelievably—the ghost answered.
“I can’t come in.”
Callum froze. The ghost was talking to him. The boy’s voice was hollow and echoing, as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Just the sound of it was enough to raise goose bumps on Callum’s exposed arms.
“What’s stopping you?” Callum demanded.
“You are.”
Callum straightened up slowly. His heart was still thundering in his ears. Surely it couldn’t be that simple. Was he really safe, or was the ghost-boy playing some trick?
“What about your dog?” he said. He could see the enormous beast behind its master, crouching on the brick path like a great black shadow.
“Doom cannot enter either.” The pale boy shrugged. “Few creatures of the Netherworld can cross your threshold unless invited. And certainly not if you have expressly forbidden it.”
The specter waved a hand at the tree overhead. “Rowan at the door, and holly growing under all the windows. They too are barriers.” The boy’s bell-like voice was compelling. Callum found himself paying close attention to each word.
“I hardly dare venture one step off this path into your grandmother’s garden, for her beds and borders are rife with such old wards,” the boy continued. “Ash, hazel, garlic.” The boy gave a twisted smile, revealing sharp white teeth. “She keeps you well guarded.”
“Garlic?” Callum tensed. “Are you some sort of vampire?”
“Nothing so mundane. My name is Jacob.”
Even in the dark, Callum could see cold amusement on the ghost’s face. It glowed with a pale light of its own, faint, but enough to illuminate the bloody letters on the door.
“Did you write that?”
The ghost gave a single nod.
“Whose blood is it?” Callum asked.
“Mine,” replied Jacob, holding up his emaciated right hand. Liquid trickled down the slender fingers, crimson against the bone-white skin. “As was the blood I used in my last warning. You are in danger. Mortal danger.”
Callum leaped to his feet.
“Don’t threaten me!” he shouted, flicking the switch for the outside light. Callum thought that ghosts were supposed to prefer the dark, but the electric lamp had no effect on the specter at the door. If anything, the contrast made his black hair darker, his eyes more depthless. The dog behind him was hidden in shadow.
