by Robin Jarvis
Through the galleries the blackness moved, pouncing from corner to corner as each flame died. The boy could no longer hear Austen Pickering's voice and, when he spun around again, he saw that the lights ahead were also dwindling and beginning to fail.
'Too late!' Quoth shrieked. 'We are captured!'
With a rush of stale, swirling air, every light in The Neolithic Collection was suddenly snuffed out. Neil and the raven were plunged into a blackness that seemed almost solid.
'The doom hath descended!' Quoth cheeped forlornly.
Neil rubbed his eyes, but the darkness was absolute. This room had no windows so there was not even a pale glow from outside to guide him. 'Stop panicking,' he reproached the raven crossly. 'You're not afraid of the dark, are you?'
'Alas yes!' the bird replied. 'Neath night's mantle all manner of fell frights may stalketh—with gangrel limbs to drag the ground, clustering eyes and dribble-drenched snouts a-questing our hiding places. Oh, how the fetor steameth from their fangs! Aroint this umbral broth; 'tis the unseen fancy which inspireth the horrors tenfold.'
'This is stupid,' the boy answered, trying to sound calm. 'It was only the wind that put the candles out. But if it was a ghost, then I've seen them before and I'm not scared. Edie used to keep loads of them in the bomb sites during the Blitz, the same as other people keep goldfish.'
'Doughty and of the halest oak is thine heart fashioned,' Quoth whimpered in admiration. 'Yet, what sayest thou if the shades who dwell herein doth prove to be fiends most bloody and angersome? No wish hath I to be plucked untimely and robbed of mine gizzards. Spare this frail flower from the greed of the unclean eclipse!'
Neil rummaged in his pockets for the lighter, but remembered that he had given it back to Austen
Pickering. Then, unexpectedly, he let out a cheerful laugh. 'Why don't I just switch the lights back on?'
Groping through the dark, he felt his way around invisible cabinets until he came to a wall and passed along it, picturing their progress in his mind.
'The door to the passage should be near here,' he muttered. 'The switches are right next to it.'
Fumbling beside a long glass case, the ridges of the door jamb abruptly met his fingertips and at that same moment an anxious voice called out to him.
'Are you all right, lad?' Austen Pickering's concerned cry came echoing through the museum. 'All the candles have gone out. Stay where you are and I'll come find you. Blast it! The lighter won't work and I've left the torch back with the fossils.'
'Don't worry!' the boy shouted back. 'I'm going to put the—'
A frantic dab at his cheek caused his reply to falter. 'What's the matter now?' he demanded of the raven.
'Hush!' Quoth urged, his rasping voice now charged with genuine terror. 'We are not alone in this chamber. Hark—something hath stolen within!'
Neil held his breath, and his skin crawled when he heard faint scrabbling sounds coming from the direction of the far wall. It was a small and furtive scuttling noise which seemed to keep close to the skirting, travelling the boundaries of the large room as though shy of the open space which filled it.
'What did you say?' the ghost hunter called. 'I didn't catch it.'
But Neil was too afraid to answer. Whatever had joined Quoth and himself in The Neolithic Collection had overcome its reticence and given a sudden, pig-like grunt. Even now they could hear it snuffling across the floor, scampering under the cabinets and growling softly to itself.
"Tis a beast of the ancient wild!' the raven whispered fretfully. 'Or some frightsome bogle crawled from its brimstone grot. Master Neil, the great lights—command them!'
With the guttural breaths now sounding from the centre of the room, the boy hunted feverishly for the switches on the wall, but found only a blank expanse and his heart beat faster in his chest.
'They're not here!' he hissed. 'Quoth! I can't find them. I must have got it wrong. This is the door to The Norman Hall—I thought we were on the other side of the room!'
At the sound of their frightened voices, the bestial snorts ceased and a foul, exulting gurgle issued from the blackness.
'The fiend hath detected us!' Quoth yowled. 'We are discovered! Fly, Master Neil!'
A triumphant chattering whooped from the deep shadows as the creature bounded from beneath the cabinets, with a gnashing and champing of teeth.
Unable to contain his panic, Neil scrabbled with the handle of the door and cried out in despair. 'It's locked!' he wept.
'Then flee another way!' Quoth implored, hopping up and down in terror. 'The demon is upon us!'
Blundering sideways, Neil ran blindly across the room, but the snapping horror veered around in pursuit, its claws clattering over the polished floorboards.
'More speed!' the raven cried.
Neil flung himself through the gloom and the gargling snorts of the unseen beast rose to a horrible squeal.
Suddenly, the boy yelled in pain as he crashed into a table. Unable to check his momentum, he vaulted head over heels through the darkness, landing in a crumpled heap upon the other side.
Screeching, Quoth toppled from his shoulder and went tumbling backwards—straight into path of the oncoming nightmare.
Chapter 7 - Mary-Anne Brindle
For an instant, the raven lay upon the ground, wings outstretched and beak askew. Then the raucous shrieks of the marauding beast brought him to his feet and the bird bolted across the floor in search of his master.
Tormented with panic and terror, Quoth scurried in completely the wrong direction, quite forgetting in his fear that he could fly. Garbled cries howled from his throat, for his jaw had locked open and he could not move it. Behind, he could hear the fangs of the pursuing creature grind together as it lunged after him, and he swung his head from side to side, despairing for his life.
Then, with a painful thud, he ran headlong into the leg of a cabinet. The collision stunned him for a second, but his stringy legs continued to gallop and lurch onward despite his confusion. Thankfully, the aching blow clicked his beak back into place, and when the raven could direct any thoughts beyond the immediate throbbing of his skull, he let out a shrill squawk.
'Squire Neil!' he honked. 'Run whilst thou may. The scourge is biting at mine tail. Aiyee! Aiyee!'
Spreading his tattered wings wide, the raven darted forward, careering clear across the room until he raced into The Roman Gallery. Huge dim squares reared up on the bird's right and he stumbled towards them, skittering through the patches of melancholy light which fanned from those grimy Georgian windows.
After him the nightmare came and, dithering with terror, Quoth did not know which way to run.
Then he saw it.
Wheeling around, his breast heaving, the bird stared back into the dismal gloom and his puny legs dissolved under him. Catching his wheezing breaths, Quoth sank to the ground as, up to the brink of the dismal light, the creature came prowling.
Faint with fear, the bird saw a squat, outlandish silhouette, no taller than his master's knees. It lowered a mane-crowned head and Quoth's feathers prickled when he heard a grating babble issue from its unseen mouth.
'Gogus...' the imp-like figure panted. 'Gogus...'
Quoth could only stare whilst the alarming aberration hesitated, and he wondered what it was waiting for. Was it taunting him, wringing out every last morsel of fright before it leaped in for the kill?
'Quoth?' Neil's scared voice shouted from the other room. 'Where are you? Quoth? Are you okay?'
Shuffling backwards over the floorboards and shrinking against the wall, the raven shook his head vehemently, too petrified to cry out. But, at the sound of the boy's voice, the menacing apparition jerked its unwieldy head aside. With a furious chittering, the creature slapped the ground with its splayed claws and bounded back into the Neolithic room.
'Quoth?' Neil cried again.
Staggering to his feet, the raven spluttered, then shrieked. 'Squire Neil! 'Ware the demon—'tis thou it seeks! Save thyself
!'
Nursing his bruised shins, Neil felt horribly vulnerable. Hearing that warning, he hobbled through the darkness, his flailing hands striking the cabinets and cases as he battled his way across the room.
Suddenly, the veiled shadows on his left were filled with a loathsome yapping, causing the boy to forget his injuries, and he pelted forward. The doorway to the passage could not be far off; already he could feel a current of air blowing upon his face and he charged recklessly towards its source, slithering and skidding in his haste to escape. But the fiend was closing, and its jabbering cries became outraged barks as it scooted towards the boy.
Even in that unmeasurable dark, Neil could sense the open doorway as it reared before him. He did not think to reach for the light switches and he threw all his strength into one last sprint.
Too late—the berserking creature was at his heels. Launching its squat form from the ground, the small, misshapen figure leaped. Wrapping its arms about the boy's legs, it clung to him fiercely.
Neil howled in fright as powerful claws pinched and squeezed, and he toppled sideways, slamming into the wall. Squealing and snapping, his attacker held him with an iron grasp and would not let go.
'Gogus!' it raged. 'Gogus... Gogus!'
'Get off!' the boy cried. 'Let go!'
'Gogus...' was his only reply, and the vice-like clutch tightened all the more.
'Help!' Neil bawled. 'Help!'
At that moment, the night was filled with ferocious screeches as, swooping through the air, Quoth came shooting to his aid. 'Afright not, my master!' he crowed. 'Yon runted minikin shalt bear the mark of the raven afore thy boggling serf is slain.'
With talons outstretched, Quoth plummeted down. Towards the feverish barks and grunts he flew, his master's cries jangling loud in his mind. His one thought, to do all that he could to save Neil—whatever the cost to himself. Across the beast's large, ill-proportioned face, the raven's claws gouged long scars and the enemy yowled in fury.
'Avaunt ye!' Quoth commanded. 'Creep back to thy venomous lurks. Begone!'
Incensed by the bird's harrying onslaught, the small figure loosened its grasp around the boy's legs and retaliated. Before he realised what was happening, Quoth was plucked from the air and his squawks were throttled in his scrawny throat as those mighty claws hooked about him.
'Gogus!' the monster gargled madly, shaking Quoth as though he were a mouse in a cat's jaws. The raven jiggled and flapped hopelessly, coughing and choking as he fought to breathe.
'Quoth!' Neil called, finally able to move his legs. 'What's happening? Quoth?'
The grunting horror let out a frustrated hiss and discarded the annoying bird, hurling him into the darkness as it swung back to pounce upon the boy once more. Mewling piteously, Quoth rocketed across the room.
'Run, Master Neil!' he wailed, before his head smashed into a Neanderthal display and the dazed raven slid down the cracked glass, burbling a warbled chirrup as he dropped to the ground.
Framed in the open doorway, Neil heard his friend's collision and prayed he was unharmed. Yet there was nothing he could do, for in that instant, the pigmy-sized creature jumped up at him again and Neil let out a yell of fright as he tumbled backwards into the passage.
Immediately, the clamouring barks ceased.
Neil sat up in consternation. The stupefying dark was gone and the passage was lit with a dim light. He let out a long, grateful sigh.
'Be still!' a breathless voice hissed in his ear, and a filthy hand was clapped over the boy's mouth before he could make any further sound.
'This way!' he was told. 'They'll be here in a minute. Don't let them find us.'
With rough, hauling movements, the owner of that frightened voice dragged the struggling boy away from the doorway and pulled him into a shadowy alcove, where he was thrust into the corner and forced to crouch on his haunches.
'Stay put and do as I say.'
His face was pushed against the wall and the weight of his captor was pressing against his back to keep him there, but Neil managed to twist his head about and glare at the person who had seized him. Anger and resentment ebbed away, to be replaced by an uproar of confusion and bewilderment, for he was staring up into the face of a young woman.
The gas lamp in the passage burned low, so that the flame barely flickered, and the resulting phosphorescence bathed everything in a deathly, dappled pallor. Under this chill radiance, the woman's skin was painted cold and grey. Beneath those crinkling brows, her small eyes darted this way and that, glimmering like an owl's in the ghastly illumination. A cloud of dark, matted hair fell about her tensed shoulders in an unkempt, twining tangle, and snarled hanks fringed her high, furrowed forehead.
Scouring the gloom, she cringed deeper into the alcove, bunching herself into as small a shape as possible. The crisply starched linen of her nightgown crackled faintly.
Neil's mind surged with questions. He had no idea who she was. Had she broken into the museum? Did the vicious animal in the other room belong to her? Peering past her into the shadowy passage, the boy realised with a jolt that there was another riddle to which he did not know the answer. Mounted upon the panelled wall, enclosed in a globe of frosted glass, was the gas lamp which saturated the corridor in its pallid, corpse glow. But Neil was certain that all the lighting within The Wyrd Museum was electric. There were no gas lamps.
'You'll do it, won't you, boy?' the woman spat, bringing her face close to his. 'Mary-Anne can make you—and she will if you force her!'
Neil wormed around a little more, his nose edging clear of the woman's stifling palm. A sickly, antiseptic smell hung heavily in the air, but a sharp jab at his throat concentrated his mind on a new danger. In her other hand the woman was holding a knife.
'You'll know the way out, won't you?' she said in a threatening whisper. 'Nice clean boy like you. Come a-visiting, have we? Been shown what they wanted you to see? No one gets to come down this way—not agreeable, not refined. Offend the paying relatives, it would.'
The woman pressed the flat of the blade against his skin and the dim gas flame reflected an anaemic sliver of light up into her eyes. Neil looked into them and swallowed uneasily. Those small, shifting pupils were filled with a wild, dancing desolation and he knew that she would not shrink from slitting his throat.
'You want to live, boy?' she demanded. 'Then take Mary-Anne out of this. She'll spike you if you don't. Already killed once this night, she has—can't endure it no more.'
The woman rocked forward to glance down the passage once more and, as she moved, Neil saw that her nightgown was sprayed with large, spattered stains. In the sombre light, the ugly marks and blotches were a purplish black, but they glistened wetly and the boy knew that he was looking at blood, freshly spilled from the vein.
'Peace, now!' Mary-Anne entreated, her voice rising with panic. 'They're coming. Rokeby's been found. Josiah Rokeby—you devil! Even with your neck pricked, you'll do for me!'
Gripping the knife so tightly that the blade sliced into the skin of her forefinger, the woman shivered, and Neil could feel that her every sinew was hideously taut and strained. Suddenly, she whipped the blade away from the boy's throat and wrenched her hand from his mouth, as she swept the matted tresses from her ears, pushing herself against the alcove wall.
'No!' she whimpered, her mouth dry with horror. 'He is with them. Oh, sweet heaven! Save Mary-Anne Brindle from that one.'
Wailing, she shook her head violently, banging her skull on the panelling and beating her temples with her fists. Then, abruptly, the tantrum was over and she sat there, panting feverishly. Her face half-hidden behind an untidy curtain of hair, Mary-Anne peeped out at the passage and nodded slowly.
'Tick-Tock Jack has found him,' the woman murmured. 'It's that one she should've stuck. No time for hiding now, not with Tick-Tock after her. Oh Lord, Jack Timms will knock the life out of her this time. Her's won't be the first head he's broken.'
Still crouched in the corner, Neil heard
the sound of running footsteps approaching down the corridor, and the noise caused Mary-Anne to spring to her feet. 'Let them pass!' the woman cried, hugging herself in distraction. 'Rokeby had earned it. All the wardens warrant the same, but he and Tick-Tock the most. Dear Jesus, let them run by her!'
Only a few minutes ago, when he had faced that gurgling fiend in the Neolithic room, Neil had thought he had been afraid. But now, gazing up at this petrified, insane woman, he truly understood the meaning of real fear. Like a fountain of despair, the terror flowed out from her, breaking in wave after hopeless wave from her blighted, tortured form.
The noise in the passage was louder now. Heavy boots were pounding over the floorboards and Neil felt an overwhelming desire not to be found. Squeezing himself as far into the corner as he could, he waited, not daring to look up.
'There!' a rough male voice yelled. 'She's there!'
The woman screamed and angry shouts boomed within the corridor as her enemies thundered forward. Leaping from the alcove, she hared away and Neil heard her high, fluting shrieks as she disappeared from sight. He shrank further into the gloom, anxiously holding his breath.
Suddenly, three dark, burly figures hurtled past his hiding place, momentarily obliterating the feeble gaslight, and the boy knew that Mary-Anne would not escape them. Foul, drain-dirty curses blared in his ears, but all sounds were instantly drowned when another fierce, bellowing voice roared through the building.
'Get back here! I'll teach you to pink old Joe!'
It was a repellent, contemptible pronouncement and Neil's scalp crept with the inexhaustible hate and malice which fuelled it. Then there came a shrill screech, accompanied by a frantic scuffling. The woman had been caught.
'I'll learn you!' the spite-charged voice snapped. 'Pin her still, lads!'
Deafening screams tore the gloom and, as savage, battering thuds shook the walls, vile jeers galed from the darkness.
Neil clapped his hands over his ears, but the brutality jolted through his bones and nothing could shield him from the woman's howls.
