Krankenstein's Crazy House of Horror

by Jeremy Strong

  They slaved away as if their lives depended on it – which quite possibly they did. It was complete chaos. Charlie and Ben were exhausted by just being there in the thick of it. On top of that, alarm bells were beginning to go off in Charlie’s brain. He turned to Ben.

  ‘Do you realize where we are? Look around, Ben. What do you see? Child labour – slavery.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. Bit like the Victorian times Crumblebag was banging on about.’

  ‘It’s not like Victorian times. This is Victorian times.’ Charlie’s face was even paler than normal.

  Ben stopped dead and stared all around. His pal was right. In which case –! He grabbed Charlie’s shoulder excitedly. ‘We’ve time-travelled!’ he cried.

  Charlie wasn’t excited at all. In fact he was getting more and more worried. ‘We’re stuck in Victorian times, Ben, in a House of Horrors. I don’t want to be stuck here. I want to be at home in my bedroom, in my bed, with a choccy biscuit and a hot-water bottle. It’s these jim-jams, these horrible Cosmic Pyjamas. They’ve done this and now we’re stuck and –’ Charlie was rudely interrupted by a loud trumpet blast.

  PAH PA-RARRRR! ‘Oi, you two snails!’ yelled Pimples. ‘Yes, you two!’ he bellowed, pointing at the two boys. ‘Get over to the grub tub and take the food up.’

  Charlie gulped. Ben shuffled his feet. Neither of them had any idea what Pimples was going on about.

  ‘Don’t just stand there! Get on with it!’ yelled the boy on the ladder. BLARR! BLARR!!

  Small-Tall came clomping past on her tins. ‘Follow me,’ she urged.

  Gratefully, the boys fell in behind as she led them across the crowded kitchen to a large hole in the wall, like a fireplace, but without any fire. A thick rope hung down from the shaft above. Attached to the rope was a gigantic basket, divided into two halves. The boys stared at it.

  ‘That’s the grub tub, innit?’ Small-Tall explained. ‘We load up the basket wiv food for Them Up There, an’ you two get in, an’ we haul on the rope an’ you get carried up that chimney hole until you get to The Grubbery. Then you hop out the basket, get the food an’ take it to the table.’

  ‘What’s The Grubbery?’ asked Charlie, who could feel all his insides slowly cartwheeling down into his shoes.

  ‘It’s where we give the monsters their grub, innit?’ explained Small-Tall. ‘Talk about statin’ the bloomin’ obvious.’

  The boys peered up the dark, dark shaft that disappeared upward. ‘I can’t go up there,’ whispered Charlie, boggle-eyed.

  ‘This is our chance, Charlie,’ said Ben excitedly. ‘We can go up there and see them – the monsters!’

  ‘I don’t want to see the monsters,’ Charlie answered flatly. ‘I want to go back home and when I wake up I want to find that it’s all been a terrifying nightmare and I’m not wearing these horrible Cosmic Pyjamas.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re strange, them jim-jams,’ muttered Small-Tall. ‘I thought they was strange when I first set eyes on ’em.’ She reached out to touch.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ cried Charlie.

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘You don’t know what might happen.’

  Small-Tall gave Charlie a suspicious look. ‘You’re strange, you are. I was only goin’ to touch ’em. I wasn’t goin’ to rip ’em off or anyfing.’

  By this time they had finished loading one half of the basket with big bowls of soup for the monsters and giant chunks of bread. Small-Tall said they’d better get in, sharp-like, or there’d be big trouble and questions asked. Ben scrambled into the seating half and looked at Charlie.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘It’s cool.’

  Charlie climbed up into the basket, very slowly. ‘If I die, Ben,’ he began heavily, ‘I want you to know that I’d like daffodils on my grave. Oh yes, and I also want everyone to know that this is ALL YOUR FAULT.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ben, cheerfully agreeing.

  ‘Is he always like that?’ asked Small-Tall.

  ‘Yep,’ said Ben. ‘And he’s still my best friend.’

  Small-Tall called over three of the older children. They grasped one end of the rope and began to haul. In a few seconds the basket had disappeared completely into the dark shaft. The rope creaked and the basket slowly revolved, swinging to and fro and banging against the grimy sides of the shaft.

  Ben became more and more excited. ‘We’re going to see the monsters, at last!’ he whispered in Charlie’s ear.

  Charlie let out a moan. ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m dizzy,’ he complained.

  ‘I can see light up above us,’ said Ben. ‘We’re almost there!’

  ‘Great,’ Charlie whimpered.

  The light from above gradually filled more and more of the shaft until the basket arrived at The Grubbery and hung there, swinging gently. A dirty-faced boy shuffled quickly across to them.

  ‘And about time too,’ he grumbled, pulling the basket on to a stone shelf. ‘I thought the food would never arrive. Hurry up. You know what this lot are like when they’re hungry.’

  Charlie and Ben stared into the stony chamber, and there were the monsters, ready, roaring and waiting, banging their huge knives and forks on the table. It was as if all the boys’ nightmares had been collected together and put into one room.

  ‘Charlie!’ hissed Ben, shaking his friend. ‘Have you fainted again? Charlie!’

  5 The Freak in the Fridge

  Far away, down many long, dark passageways and in a large, high-ceilinged stone chamber sat The Stitcher. Her wrinkled brow was scrunched into a moody scowl. She was brooding on her miserable childhood.

  The Stitcher had never been a happy child. To put things simply, she was a scaredy-cat. She was scared of everything from ants to zombies, and especially zombie ants – the really big ones. It was probably her mother’s fault. (The Stitcher’s father had been killed in an accident. He had invented the world’s first fully automatic vacuum-powered toilet. Unfortunately, when he tested it for the first time, it sucked him down the pan and he was never seen again.) The Stitcher’s mother was not a loving person. She didn’t go in for kisses and cuddles and bedtime stories. In fact, she didn’t go in for much at all, except telling off her daughter.

  ‘Don’t stick your tongue out at me or The Scissorman will come and CUT IT OFF! Stop picking your nose or you’ll sneeze giant slugs out of your nostrils for the REST OF YOUR LIFE! Eat your bowl of cold porridge or Mr Megagob will feed you FISH-HEADS and RABBIT POO for a month!’

  The Stitcher’s mother had an endless list of bogeymen she used to scare her little daughter. And The Stitcher was VERY scared. She would hide under her bedcovers, hardly daring to set foot on the floor in case one monster or another grabbed her.

  The Stitcher was three when she made her own very first monster. She had been given her first doll and she had quickly decided that it was far too pretty with its blue glass eyes and frilly dress and rosebud lips. So she got a black pen and put spots all over its face. Then she drew on a moustache. When she looked at what she had done she laughed for the first time in her life.

  After that The Stitcher pulled off both arms and both legs and swopped them round, so one arm was where a leg should have been and one leg was on backwards. The other leg was where her arm should have been.

  Then she sat up in bed, grimly gripping her terrifying creation, holding it in front of her like a magic shield, and for the first time in her life she began to feel safer. Twisted Dolly would protect her.

  The older she got, the more complicated her monsters became. She used anything she could lay her hands on, surrounding herself with monsters of her own. They were her bodyguards, her friends, her constant companions.

  But her great dream was to be able to bring her monsters TO LIFE! If only she could do that. At first she thought that all she needed to do was feed them. She would force spoonfuls of porridge into their hard faces, but their heads just got smothered in mush, of course. She made holes in their bellies and poked food insi
de. The monsters became smeared and greasy. They were plastered with ancient food and stank more than a pile of dead fish.

  The Stitcher didn’t mind. It made them even more awful and that meant they were even more powerful. But they still weren’t alive. As she got older The Stitcher’s brain was eaten up by the problem of how to make her monsters come alive.

  The Stitcher became crabby and nasty and bent double with thinking too hard. She was crabby when she was twenty, more crabby when she was thirty, even crabbier when she was forty. Now she was eighty and so old she had gone from being crabby to being squiddy – all tentacles and venom.

  She lived in her House of Horrors, a despairing, dank dustbin of a place, stinking of onion and cabbage. The Stitcher liked to chew on raw onions or cabbages, just as you might suck chocolate. It was here that she had invented her particle-synthesizer and learned how to bring her monsters to life. Now she was plotting her revenge. She hated to see people happy. Most of all she hated children and their laughter.

  And now, at last, The Stitcher KNEW! She knew how to make her monsters come to life! She had THE KNOWLEDGE! She had THE POWER! And she had THE MONSTERS! She was already building an ARMY of monsters – Weatherman, Grumpfart and the rest of them. It was an army she would send out into the world to create misery and mayhem. And at their head would be – HER MONSTERPIECE!

  DE DE DE DURRRR!!!

  It was almost ready and this time it WOULD NOT BE AFRAID! (At least, that’s what The Stitcher was hoping.) Only a few details remained. The Stitcher called for Grumpfart and her noxious companion rumbled forward, with a burp here, a belch there and a great deal of tuneless trumpeting from her orchestral bottom.

  ‘What shall I –’ SPPLLLLRRURRPP! – ‘do?’

  The Stitcher opened her eyes, smacked her lips, pulled out a loose tooth, examined it and pushed it back into her gum with her tongue.

  ‘Open the fridge,’ she ordered, and Grumpfart exploded and erupted all the way across the room. A gigantic fridge – although actually it was a freezer cabinet – stood there, reaching almost as high as the ceiling. She pulled on the handle and the door swung open with a hollow thud.

  Clouds of icy air came pouring out. As the fog dispersed a shape began to emerge. It was a body. The body of a monster. A monster monster – a monster twice the size of any monster The Stitcher had created before. This was Krankenstein!

  DAN-DERANN-DAN-DANNNNN!!!!!

  ‘Bring me my wonder-child!’ cried The Stitcher.

  Grumpfart took hold of the ropes coiled beside the monster’s feet. She bent her back, struggling to pull the giant forward, and the strain forced a gigantic explosion from her body.

  SSSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP-SPPPPPPPPPPPPPOOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!

  The juggernaut stood there, tottering, on a wheeled tin tray that rattled and squeaked as it was dragged across the floor. Finally, Krankenstein stood in the centre of the room.

  Icicles hung from the freak’s clothes. He was encrusted with ice and frost, and he dominated the whole room, such was his immense size. What a GRUESOME GHOUL!

  His legs were huge, as thick and powerful as an elephant’s. He had rhino-sized feet. His head seemed to be a large bucket. In fact, it was a large bucket, upside down and with two round holes for the eyes and a long letterbox slit for the mouth. Most surprising of all was probably the fact that he had seven arms. (The Stitcher had never been much good at counting. She had only meant there to be six.)

  But strangest of all, on one shoulder The Stitcher had perched her old, old companion, her first doll. Perhaps she thought it would bring them both luck – bad luck, of course.

  The Stitcher eyed her creation from top to toe and she was pleased. ‘With this creature I shall terrorize the entire world and make everyone as miserable as I am! Hmmm,’ she cackled.

  At that moment a nearby door creaked open and a small, grubby face appeared round the edge. The Stitcher arched an eyebrow.

  ‘Is that my little spy? Come in, little spy, come in,’ she rasped and waited while a small child slipped noiselessly across the room to The Stitcher’s desk, holding her nose.

  The Stitcher gazed at the child eagerly. She pulled open a drawer, fiddled inside and brought out a bar of chocolate. She placed it carefully on top of the mess on the desk.

  ‘Now then,’ crooned The Stitcher, ‘what did you spy, my little spy, with your little eye? Hmm?’

  The child stared at the chocolate with huge eyes. The Stitcher nudged it closer and licked her lips. ‘Tell me everything,’ she prompted.

  ‘Got two visitors, ain’t we?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, two kids, older than me, two boys.’

  ‘Hmmm. I don’t like boys,’ snarled The Stitcher. ‘What are they doing here?’

  The child shrugged. ‘Dunno. One of ’em’s still in his pyjamas.’

  ‘Really?’ The Stitcher said again. ‘Typical boy; lazy, good-for-nothing slop-in-bed. If he doesn’t watch out, Mr Spankbott will see to him all right.’

  ‘Yeah, an’ they look weird, them jim-jams. Got funny pictures on ’em, they have.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me about funny pictures and pyjamas. Reminds me of bedtimes when I was a child. Hmmm. I hate bedtime. My head is always full of nightmares.’ The Stitcher shook her scraggy grey locks as if to get rid of some bothersome, biting insects. ‘Tell me about them boys. Good workers, are they?’

  The child shrugged. ‘Dunno how they got here. They says they was playin’ and then, wham bam, they landed in the soup.’

  ‘Hmmm. Two boys, eh?’ smiled The Stitcher. ‘I could use two boys. I need a couple of victims for Krankenstein. He needs to be tested. Ha ha ha! They’ll be just right for my monster to have some fun with. Oh, I am going to enjoy this! Bring me those boys NOW!!’

  6 The Monster Munch

  Ben shook Charlie hard and patted his cheeks. For a second or two he wondered if he ought to give Charlie the Kiss of Life but quickly decided that would be going Way Too Far, even for a best friend.

  ‘Charlie, wake up!’

  Charlie stirred and opened his eyes. ‘Where am I?’ he began, before remembering he was in The Grubbery, surrounded by monsters. He almost swooned again, but instead he clutched at Ben and pointed wildly towards the table.

  ‘Monsters, Ben!’ he squawked.

  ‘Just treat them like they’re part of your family,’ his friend advised, ‘then they won’t seem so scary.’

  ‘Ben, my sisters ARE monsters, and they already scare me to bits,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘This lot are a hundred times worse.’

  ‘All we have to do is feed them,’ Ben said. ‘Come on.’

  They began to ferry the contents of the grub tub to the table. This gave them an opportunity to take a proper look at the diners. They turned out to be a pretty monstrous bunch, even if they were all sporting an unusual collection of headgear – saucepans, tin bowls and, in one case, an old seaside bucket.

  Dracolio, swathed in a torn and cobwebbed cloak, was half vampire, half Italian ice-cream salesman. He sat at the table picking bits of carrot out from behind his fang-brace. Handy Mandy was next to him, with her handy ear (or ear-y hand). Weatherman and Pizza-Face sat opposite.

  ‘Did you see the vampire?’ hissed Charlie, as they went back to the basket for more food. ‘He had a teeth brace! A vampire, Ben! With a teeth brace?’

  ‘Maybe he’s got wonky fangs,’ suggested Ben. ‘Give me a hand with this soup.’

  They carried bowls of soup and bread across to the table. All went well until Pizza-Face demanded more pepper on his soup. ‘I want pepper, NOW!’ he bellowed at poor Charlie.

  Poor Charlie was so nervous he shook the pepperpot until the top came off. Clouds of pepper rose from the monster’s bowl and a moment later he gave a monstrous sneeze.

  A-A-A-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

  Pizza-Face sneezed so hard his nose flew off his face, bounced across the table and landed with a splosh in Handy Mandy’s soup.

  ‘Eee
k!’ She screamed with terror, glanced nervously at the others and quickly changed her fearful look for one of anger.

  ‘I mean, urgh, how disgusting! Oi! Flatface! Here’s your nose!’ she yelled, using her spoon to catapult the dripping nose back across the table. It was a lousy shot, which was hardly surprising considering that one of Mandy’s hands was attached to the side of her head. The nose went zooming off and this time hit Weatherman.

  ‘This – is – not – good,’ he began, before getting re-tuned into another weather forecast. ‘… sunny skies and warm temperatures. Don’t forget to wear a hat and have the sun lotion to hand. The north of the country will be higher up than the south and the coast will be wet round the edges.’

  ‘Will you stop-a going on about the weather before I make-a you wet round-a the edges?’ roared Dracolio. He beat his fists on the table until he managed to catch the edge of his soup bowl, sending it spinning into the air, scattering its contents, including Ben’s missing sock and shoe, in all directions.

  Charlie had backed up against the wall while all this was going on. What with the monsters and the bellowing, he was as white as a cow turned inside out. Meanwhile Ben calmly carried on piling food on to the table.

  Charlie wished he didn’t feel so scared, but he couldn’t help himself. He stayed by the wall, hoping that the monsters wouldn’t notice him. But they did.

  ‘Why you not-a working?’ roared Dracolio suddenly. ‘Bring-a that food here or I stick-a you in-a cornetto.’

  Charlie didn’t feel like being stuck in a cornetto so he hurried to the table with a pile of sausages. He couldn’t help staring at the big pan on Dracolio’s head and wondering if it was non-stick or not. And then there was that extraordinary fang-brace.

  ‘Whass-a matter? You no see a brace before?’ growled the monster.

  ‘Not on a vampire,’ Charlie couldn’t help pointing out.