“We need a really good plan,” Edwin said.
“Go on, then,” said Lanthorne, happy for Edwin to take the lead.
“We’ve got to sort out the geography, and we need weapons. Good ones.”
“You really know how to do this, Edwin,” said Lanthorne, hugely impressed. “I didn’t bring a weapon, though. Did you?”
“I’ve got the two lemonade cans but we haven’t managed to fill them with dirt yet. Let’s see if I’ve forgotten anything.”
He opened his backpack and rummaged.
“The screwdriver-torch and Mum’s penknife.” He shook the torch but the batteries obviously were completely dead. “I couldn’t stab anyone, but I’ll put the penknife in my pocket just in case.”
He held up the lighter. “I don’t mind threatening to set fire to something.” The lighter went in his other pocket.
“I’m very good at biting,” Lanthorne said.
“Biting it is, then. That can be your weapon. And kicking. And running away. We can both do that.”
They turned their thoughts to the floorplan of the building.
“I think we’re in one corner of the inne, and it’s probably all bedrooms here,” Edwin said.
“The stairs are right in the middle,” Lanthorne added. “And we know the room where they eat can’t be far away, because I heard those noises.”
“That’s where Trunke will be right now,” Edwin said. “He told me he was going to have his supper. Let’s hope he spends ages stuffing himself.”
“And if Swarme serves the food, we could wait for him out of sight and speak to him when he’s on his own.” Suddenly Lanthorne clapped his hands together. “What if his room’s in this part of the inne? It might even be next door!”
Edwin was doubtful. You never knew what to expect in this world, but he didn’t think the inne’s staff would sleep in rooms near the guests. “We can’t just keep an eye on the passage in case Swarme turns up,” he said. “We’re bound to miss him if we do that. We need to go downstairs and actually find him.”
“I can’t wait to see the look on his face,” said Lanthorne excitedly. “I won’t tell him I gave you his clothes, though.”
Or that my mum put them in a bucket of Persil and dumped them in the garden, thought Edwin. He put his gloves back on for the umpteenth time that day.
“Did you come across any other cupboards we could hide in, if we had to?” he asked.
“None I was sure about. What if we opened a door and somebody was there, in bed?”
“Do you think they’d scream if a Shiner suddenly came in, like we scream if we see a ghost?”
“Why do you scream if you see a ghost?”
Edwin wasn’t sure how to answer. It seemed to him the obvious thing to do if an apparition stepped through the wall in front of you. “Wouldn’t you scream?” he asked.
“It depends if I knew the ghost. Some of them are just plain silly.”
Edwin was silent for a long moment. Was Lanthorne suggesting that ghosts regularly popped up all over the place? This was a new thought he couldn’t deal with at the moment. He took an extra-firm grip of his backpack and slipped it over his shoulders. “Hoods down,” he said.
At least half of him hoped that the first door they opened would be a doorway home, but he also knew he couldn’t go through one of those until he had Mandoline safely in his arms. Doors in the inne probably only ever opened into places like the toilette room, in any case.
They crept to the end of the passage outside their room without mishap, and were quickly at the top of the staircase. Here, they had to take the plunge, literally, into near darkness and possibly great danger. Going down was easy for Lanthorne, but Edwin had so much to contend with—a hood, a backpack, near darkness and stairs—that he felt it was inevitable he would slip. After only four steps, he missed his footing and was thrown off balance. He fell sideways against the banister with a scuffling and clattering that must have sounded suspicious to anyone nearby. The two boys froze.
No one came to investigate, so they were able to carry on down—very slowly in Edwin’s case, although he had decided to push his hood halfway back. It was flapping against his face and irritating him.
At the bottom, they found themselves in the hallway that had no windows but four doors leading off it. It was dimly lit by the usual small lanthorne placed on a high shelf.
“What do you think we ought to do now?” Edwin asked. “Should we split up? If we’re both caught, that’s the end of everything. If only one of us gets caught, the other can… I don’t know.”
Lanthorne drew Edwin into the dark space under the stairs. “Why don’t you hide here while I try to find Swarme?” he suggested. “You don’t know him and I do. You can’t see in the dark and I can. We’ll come and collect you.”
“Absolutely not. I should go first, because it’s my fault we’re here.”
“Edwin, I know you’re very brave, but you’re being a bit silly too. What if you go up to someone and say hello, and it’s not Swarme? You mustn’t think you have to do all the dangerous things.”
“All right. I accept, under protest.” He had heard his father say this.
Lanthorne tiptoed back into the hallway and pointed to each of the doors in turn. “Eena meena mango mo, catch a maggot, chew him so.” So it was going to be the left-hand door.
“Good luck,” said Edwin. “Call out in a loud voice if anything goes wrong.”
Lanthorne listened at the door, opened it slightly and closed it again. He made a Nothing doing gesture and moved across to the opposite door. He listened again, opened the door, slipped inside and was gone. As he slipped in, hints of a particularly unpleasant smell slipped out.
Edwin resigned himself to an anxious wait. Minutes passed, and he could feel himself beginning to shake. I’ll give him just a bit more time. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets to keep them still, and tried to think of the best thing that could be happening to Lanthorne… He had met Swarme coming out of the laundry room, carrying a pile of towels. The brothers hugged each other and said, “Great to see you again.” Swarme turned out to be very clever and came up with an astounding plan that meant they wouldn’t need Trunke’s help any more. They would track down Auntie Necra, take back Mandoline, and Swarme would have a door home open and waiting.
Edwin ran through this story several times in his head, and still there was no sign of Lanthorne. He clenched his fists. It was time for him to do something now. Time for the hero to go into the telephone box and come out with all guns blazing. He took the lighter out of his pocket and flicked it on. The bright little flame made him feel better. If anyone threatened him, he would make sure he stood next to the most flammable thing he could find. There was also the penknife if he was backed into a corner.
Edwin approached the door, listened, opened it and slipped inside. It was a heavy door with padding around the edges which served to keep most of this unbelievable new smell from escaping. Once inside, he was pressed back against the door by the overwhelming odour of something undeniably rotten. This wasn’t the rottenness of green bread or squishy apples; it was the very spirit of decay, clinging and almost liquid. It seemed totally wrong.
Yet another passage lay ahead, with doors off it. Sickened by the unidentifiable stink, Edwin set off along it.
He drew level with the first door. This also seemed more solidly built, but he could distinguish sounds behind it. Was there a party of some kind going on? He heard laughter and a cheer or two, which sounded quite ordinary and should have made him feel more at ease, but didn’t. Nobody could have an ordinary party in rooms infected by this vile new smell.
Then things happened in a rush. There was the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching the door, and the latch moved. At the same time, a figure entered the passage at its far end. Threats were approaching him from every direction. Instinct told Edwin to run and not let anything stand in his way. He charged down the passage, shouldering the figure, a man, into
the wall and making him spill whatever he was carrying. Edwin rounded the corner and found himself in the kitchen of the inne.
12
A Dish of Horrors
For Edwin, kitchens were meant to be warm and bright. They smelt of roast dinners and rhubarb crumble and invited you to come in and linger.
Here, he wasn’t even sure at first that it was a kitchen he’d run into, it was so bare and cheerless. There was a stone range, with a layer of undisturbed dust instead of a fire, and a large stone sink into which a crude tap was dripping. The smell was much, much stronger. Part of him wanted to stand still and gag at what he was breathing in, but his only concern had to be finding a place to hide from the person he’d just collided with. There were several doors that probably opened into larders but, remembering the face-punching shock when he came face to face with the rotting store of food in Jugge’s kitchen, he didn’t dare risk opening any of them.
He heard footsteps that were definitely coming in his direction. In the middle of the kitchen stood a chopping block on four solid legs. A large meat cleaver had been left on top of it and for a moment Edwin thought of picking this up and adopting a threatening pose. It was obviously too heavy for him and the saw lying beside it would be even less use. All he could do, in the end, was to stand behind the kitchen door and pull it further back against the wall. He put a hand in each of his pockets. In the right, his fingers found the penknife and in the left they took firm hold of the lighter.
Unable to see anything, Edwin listened carefully, breathing as softly as he could. The figure muttered something inaudible. Yes, it was definitely male. There was the sound of a door opening and such a gale of stink blew out of the larder, Edwin knew he would have passed out if he’d shut himself in there with it. It was the older brother, father and great-great-grandfather of the smell that had found its way into every corner this side of the heavy door, only now it had all sorts of disgusting extra strands added to it. It prodded the lining of Edwin’s stomach with aggressive fingers, shouting Be sick! Be sick!
The larder door slammed shut, and Edwin heard a new set of sounds. Something was banged down, onto the chopping block probably, and something else was slopped about. There was rattling too. Food must be being prepared for dinner and the figure hummed as he went about it.
Edwin couldn’t understand what was going on. Surely this was the person he had just knocked over, but the man seemed more intent on carrying on with his business than searching for the hooded boy who had run in here only moments before. Why didn’t he look behind the door? An unsettling game was being played.
Vigorous chopping was followed by a few moments of sawing and then the figure gave a grunt as of a job well done.
He’ll take it into that other room, and I’ll be able to find a proper place to hide, Edwin thought. Where does he think I’ve gone? And what’s happened to Lanthorne?
“You might as well come out,” said the figure in a teasing voice. “And don’t try running off.”
Edwin stood his ground.
“Is he in the larder?” asked the figure. “I don’t think so. Is he under the table? Can’t possibly be. He must be behind the door, then. Let’s be seeing you. Edwin.”
Edwin slowly pushed the kitchen door shut. He was now in plain sight.
“Lovely to meet you, Edwin. I’m Swarme.” He stepped towards Edwin with his hand outstretched. “On second thoughts, better not shake hands. Mine’s covered in…”
Edwin’s fingers relaxed their hold on the penknife and lighter.
“Where’s Lanthorne?” he asked, finding his gaze drawn to what was on the chopping block behind Swarme, in a shallow wooden dish.
“He’s safely outside. Which is where you’re going. I was about to fetch you, when you came charging towards me. How lucky was that? Even luckier that no one else saw you.”
Swarme was in his late teens, a lot taller than Lanthorne and he looked well-fed.
His cheeks would probably be considered chubby in this world of sunken faces, and there was a tinge of pink in his grey skin there. His nose, in contrast to his cheeks, was unnaturally thin, as if it were a temporary addition to his face until something more suitable could be found. His hair stuck out horizontally from each side of his head, like a pair of scrubbing brushes, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“Stop trying to peep behind me into the dish, Edwin. You won’t like what you see. You knocked the first lot right out of my hands when you clattered into me, so I’m having to prepare it all over again. The customers are hungry and I’m in a hurry. I’ll have to put you outside till I’ve finished my duties and we can work out what to do.” He took a firm grip of Edwin’s sleeve. “You really do shine, don’t you? Much brighter than any of our lanthornes.” He smiled, parting his dark lips and exposing a row of sharp grey teeth.
Edwin had always had an obstinate streak. As Swarme ushered him past the chopping block and did his best to conceal it, Edwin twisted his body so that he could look at it over his shoulder. He saw with horror that Swarme had been chopping and sawing human forearms, many weeks old and rotting, dividing them into equal portions. There was an assortment of hands piled up in the middle of the dish like chicken wings, their slender bones peeking through the corrupted skin.
And then Edwin was outside in the pitch darkness, not caring who heard him when he vomited nor where he sprayed it. Swarme was talking to him urgently and Lanthorne was there too, but Edwin wasn’t capable of conversation. Eventually he dropped face-down on the ground, paying no attention to where he was or what he was lying on; all he wanted was for the past few minutes to be wiped from his memory for ever. He knew what he had seen and what it meant. He now understood the smell which had seemed so completely wrong when he first encountered it.
In this world they ate people, dead, long-decayed people.
Shudders of nausea ran through him again, and tears soaked into the coat sleeves in which he had buried his face. What was Auntie Necra planning for his sister? It wasn’t a simple kidnapping any more.
In the end, Lanthorne’s relentless prodding made Edwin take notice of the world around him again. The three of them were sitting on a patch of earth at the back of the inne. The building was only a few feet away from them, although the darkness hid it.
“Edwin, try to breathe slowly and thoughtfully,” said Lanthorne. “That’s what we say to people who go floppy and suspect they might have died. Edwin. Edwin. Edwin.”
“Stop saying my name over and over again, Lanthorne. It’s driving me mad!” As if seeing a dish of neatly arranged human forearms wasn’t already enough to drive you into insanity.
“Well, if you’re talking, you must be all right,” said Swarme. “I’ve got to get back inside. They’ll be wanting their…” The faint outline of a door appeared in the darkness as he re-entered the kitchen.
“All right,” Swarme had said. Edwin was sure he would never be all right for the rest of his life, after what he had just witnessed.
“They’re eating dead bodies,” he said very slowly.
“Like the olden days,” Lanthorne whispered. “Swarme says it’s what they come here to do. They can’t get away with it in Landarn.”
A question needed to be asked.
“Do you?…” Edwin tensed, dreading the answer.
“Of course not!” said Lanthorne. “We’re very different.”
“Have you never, ever?”
There was a long silence.
“I don’t think so. Perhaps when I was very small. I don’t know.”
“Do you mean, your mother?…”
“Auntie Necra might have tried to feed me a piece of… something, when I was little. She likes the Old Ways, but my mum doesn’t at all. That’s why they’re always arguing. It’s why Auntie Necra doesn’t like me very much. I’m too modern. Isn’t Swarme nice?”
“Nice! Lanthorne, your brother chops up dead people and serves them to other people in a dish. How can that be nice? He eats them too, doesn’t he?”
“No!” shouted Lanthorne. He jumped up and moved away. “He doesn’t. He never has. He’s the food boy, that’s all. He hates what they make him do. He wants to go home!”
“Why doesn’t he go home, then?”
“Because Auntie Necra told the inne-keeper to stop anyone taking him back to Landarn. He really wants to be back home.”
The last word was stretched out into a wail. It sounded as if Lanthorne couldn’t cope with the idea of his brother being a cannibal. It would flatten most people.
Eventually there was a thump, as Lanthorne threw himself onto the ground some way from Edwin.
“Swarme doesn’t seem to mind what he does,” said Edwin. He wasn’t prepared to drop the subject that easily. “A normal person would lose their mind if you asked them to saw up bits of a body.”
“Auntie Necra tricked him into working here. She said he’d learn to be an inne-keeper and make his fortune.”
Edwin snorted. “I’d have run away in the first minute. I’d have walked home barefoot, no matter how far it was.”
“Don’t talk like that, Edwin, please. Swarme’s a good person, I promise. He says he can help us.”
Edwin fought down all sorts of angry responses. Swarme was humming to himself when he chopped up the pile of forearms, and you didn’t do that if you were sickened by your work. And what if Swarme planned to put him, or both of them, on the menu?
“Is he going to leave us out here all night?” he asked, willing to change the subject at last.
“We have to stay here until everyone goes to bed, and then Swarme’s going to come up with a plan.”
“That could take hours, and I’m getting cold.”
“Edwin?”
“What?”
“Are we still friends?”
“I suppose so.” At the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to give a definite yes.
“Now you know why I didn’t want to tell you about the olden days. If we mention them at school, they beat us with a stick.”
I’m surprised they don’t stab you and then serve you up for school lunch, Edwin thought savagely.
The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghules Page 11
