Flight

by Jason Lethcoe

  Tabitha nodded, adding, “The beings in Specter’s Hollow are often what mortals on Earth refer to as ‘poltergeists.’ The people there are hopelessly trapped in an ‘in-between’ place, both haunting and being haunted.”

  Edward shuddered. It sounded like a terrible place!

  Tabitha removed the golden ring from her belt. She gripped its edges and looked purposefully into its center. “Mavet,” she said in a firm voice. Edward watched as the ring grew in circumference, becoming large enough for the three of them to walk through. Inside the center of the ring the air shimmered and swirled with magical energy. Edward had seen Mr. Spines do the same thing once with his ring back on Earth. He’d forgotten that a Guardian’s ring could be used both as a weapon and as a transportation device.

  “Hey, couldn’t we j-just use your ring to take us somewhere other than Specter’s H-Hollow?” Edward said eagerly. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? After all, Spines had used his to help them escape Whiplash Scruggs back on Earth. But his excitement faded when Tabitha shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she said sadly. “I haven’t been taught how to do it yet. The Hollow is the only place apprentices are allowed to learn. The other portals are reserved for Higher Ranks.”

  Bridgette bit her fingernail, looking worried. “I don’t want to go. I-I don’t think I can do it,” she said. Edward had never seen her look so terrified. He moved close and gently took her hand.

  “You can do this,” he said quietly. They both knew they didn’t have any other choice. After a moment she nodded, agreeing to go.

  “Okay, everyone, stay close,” Tabitha said firmly.

  She ushered them into the center of the ring. As Edward stepped into it, the magical energy washed over him. It was a strange sensation, almost like being immersed in icy water. Then, just as suddenly, the feeling was gone and he found himself in a strange, new place.

  The entire world had turned from color into black and white. Petrified trees, bleached white with age, stood in sharp contrast to the blackened earth. Boulders littered the hill upon which they stood, scattered around like broken teeth. The sky was dark, but there were no stars or moon. The atmosphere felt heavy.

  “This place is really creepy,” Edward said as he gazed around, taking it all in. Suddenly he smelled something rotten.

  “Phew, what’s that h-horrible smell?” he asked, wincing.

  “I don’t smell anything,” Tabitha replied.

  “Really? You can’t smell that?” Edward said incredulously. “It’s really b-bad! Almost as b-bad as . . .”

  He suddenly remembered where he’d smelled that stench before. He’d been away from his old school for so long that he’d almost forgotten, but now the memories of the worst class he’d ever had came rushing back with horrible clarity.

  Care and Maintenance of Sewer Pipes!

  Edward glanced around frantically, half expecting to see his school somewhere in the immediate vicinity.

  “Hey guys, look over there,” Bridgette said in a shaky voice. Edward and Tabitha wheeled around to where she was pointing. A rusted archway stood behind them. On the top of the arch were words spelled out in flickering light bulbs. Edward felt a chill as he gazed at the sign. One of words was missing, the bulbs having burned out. But Edward could still make out a bit of the phrase:

  . . . SPECTER. . .

  And though it was an incomplete part of the name, that single word sent chills down Edward’s spine. Just beyond the arch was an abandoned, broken-down carnival. It was the scariest place he’d ever seen.

  A mammoth Ferris wheel towered above the silent midway. A few of its green, electric spokes flickered in the darkness, but most were burned out or missing. Beneath it, the twisted coils of a wooden roller coaster undulated like a skeletal dragon. Scattered across the rocky ground were numerous darkened booths and tents. Worst of all, the entire place seemed to be covered with pale, nearly transparent netting. At first Edward couldn’t figure out why there were nets everywhere, then he suddenly realized what they were.

  Webs! The entire carnival was covered with hundreds of yards of spider silk. The strands were everywhere, crossing the midway from end to end and as thick as telephone cables.

  “There can’t b-be any s-suh-spiders that b-big,” Edward stuttered nervously.

  “There can be here. In the Hollow, anything someone fears is possible,” Tabitha said.

  “There’s no possible way I’m going in there,” said Bridgette firmly. “I’d rather take my chances with the Groundlings.”

  “There’s no going back now, only forward,” Tabitha replied. “My ring will only take us in, not back out. The only way to leave this place is to face our fears.”

  “Well, I’m not going to do it!” Bridgette sounded hysterical. “I hate spiders. Whatever made those webs must be huge!” She quickly backed away from the imposing arch and the dark carnival beyond it. Edward noticed that one of the lengths of pale web stretched from the fairgrounds to a spot just behind her left leg. Before he had the chance to warn her, she backed into the big strand and tripped, falling backward.

  The huge line trembled, sending a vibration backward, toward the carnival. As the shaking line hit the network of webs, there was a sudden whine that sounded as if someone had turned on a huge turbine engine. The three of them watched, horrified, as the Ferris wheel suddenly began to turn and a warped calliope started playing.

  The deathly carnival had come to life!

  And that wasn’t all. There was something else moving along the surface of the webs. Bridgette screamed as she saw a long row of shapes scuttling toward them along one of the lines of webbing.

  “What’s that?” Edward cried.

  “They know we’re here,” Tabitha replied softly.

  “Yeah, but who’sthey?” he shouted back over the booming sound of the calliope. But before she could answer, Edward got a closer look at the row of scuttling things. At a distance he’d thought that they were spiders moving in a long row, but close-up he saw that they were something else. They were black roller coaster cars fitted with mechanical spider legs. The cars were coupled together like a train but they used their metal appendages to scuttle along the lines of spider silk.

  As the cars came closer, Edward could see that this was going to be much worse than he had anticipated. Inside each of the cars was a nearly transparent being. His breath caught in his throat as he realized what he was looking at. The cars were filled with ghosts!

  The passengers’ tattered clothing clung to their bodies in matted rags. Their faces, some of which had once been beautiful, were now tinged a sickly shade of blue. But it was their eyes that Edward found the most disturbing. They had no irises. And every single specter’s eyes were opened wide, unblinking, as if they’d witnessed unspeakable horrors.

  The spider coaster was now no more than twenty feet away. All the ghostly passengers turned their heads in unison and fixed their terrible gaze on the three of them.

  “Do something!” Bridgette shouted to Tabitha.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” Tabitha said in a defeated voice. “We have to face them. They’ve been sent to take us to the places we fear most.”

  Bridgette panicked. As the train slowed to a stop, she bolted, running away as fast as she could. The reaction from the ghostly passengers was immediate. Several phantoms shot out of the roller coaster cars, howling as they flew after her. In seconds, they had grabbed the terrified girl by the arms and hoisted her into the air.

  “Bridgette!” Edward shouted. He sprinted toward the hovering phantoms, but as fast as he ran, he couldn’t get to her in time. Her screams hung in the air as the phantoms carried her back toward the carnival.

  Panicked, he ran back over to Tabitha, but when he got there he saw that the ghosts had her, too. The young Guardian was trapped inside one of the roller coaster cars, her wings pinned down by two Groundling ghosts. She didn’t struggle, but stared straight ahead with a terrified expression. Before he could do
anything to help, the train of spiderlike cars suddenly lurched forward and rocketed away, scuttling back toward the waiting carnival.

  Edward’s heart pounded as he stared after the retreating cars. He’d lost them both! Despair washed over him as he listened to the thundering calliope music. He had no idea why the phantoms hadn’t waited to take him with them. He stood for a few minutes, stunned. Then, fearing for his friends, he began to run toward the carnival. As the massive, web-covered structures drew closer, Edward didn’t know which scared him more: what had happened to Bridgette and Tabitha or whatever horrors might be waiting for him when he arrived inside.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE MIDWAY

  Edward marched through the carnival, determined not to show any fear in spite of his quaking legs. He could see many of the spider coaster cars now, all of them containing ghostly occupants. The cars scuttled over his head, whisking their terrified victims to destinations along the huge network of spiderweb cables. On either side of him were cobwebbed booths filled with ghostly occupants, all of whom were engaged in terrible versions of carnival games.

  A hefty ghost swung a huge hammer, trying to ring a bell on a long pole. As the hammer came down it suddenly changed, turning into a python! The big man screamed as the snake grabbed him and wrapped him in its powerful coils.

  Terrifying clowns with fangs chased a group of young mortals through a garishly colored maze. Edward cringed as he listened to the screams echoing around him, partially drowned out by the endlessly playing calliope music. He pushed his way past several ghosts, anxiously scanning the area for any sign of his friends. He nearly bumped into a phantom that was throwing baseballs at milk bottles and trying to knock them down. But as Edward looked closer, he noticed that they weren’t bottles at all. Instead, they were tiny people! They shouted insults at the ghost, urging him to try to hit them. But as many times as the ghost threw the ball, he always missed. And the more balls he threw, the more frustrated he became.

  “Come on, Tony, is that all you got? You always were a weakling. What’s that we used to call you? Tony, Tony, skin and boney?” said the tiny man in front.

  Edward watched as the other tiny people took up the jeering chant. “Tony, Tony, skin and boney! Tony, Tony, skin and boney!”

  The ghost who was Tony screamed for them to stop and threw the balls harder, but the tiny people dodged them easily, mocking every throw. The man in front kept taunting him. “Never got over losing that baseball game when you were twelve, did ya, Tony? Let down the whole team. Life would have been different if you’d have won it, but you blew the whole thing. Poor Tony. A loser in life andin death!”

  Edward saw silver tears trickling down the ghost’s face as he continued to throw, goaded on by the mocking chants. Feeling sick, Edward walked on, trying to locate his friends. Specter’s Hollow really was a terrible place! He had pictured something different, perhaps a place filled with monsters. But now he understood that everyone’s deepest fears were individual. For some it might be monsters, but for others there were things in themselves that they feared more than any creature.

  Ghosts were all around him, but none of them seemed to pay him any attention. They were too preoccupied with their various tortures. Edward couldn’t understand why the spider coaster had come for Bridgette and Tabitha but not for him. His eyes darted around the carnival as he marched on, desperately looking for any signs of his friends. Because Tabitha and Bridgette were solid, he thought that spotting them among the nearly transparent ghosts would be easy. But he was mistaken. There were so many of the howling, miserable spirits that he couldn’t see them anywhere.

  Edward jumped backward as a female ghost screamed next to him. She darted past as a sewer rat, as large as a horse, chased her into a sideshow tent. Edward recoiled. He hated rats. They reminded him of sewers. And he didn’t care if he never saw the inside of one of those ever again.

  Suddenly, as if on cue, he caught the rotten stench he’d smelled earlier. This time it was much stronger. He forced himself not to gag. Where was it coming from?

  Cold fingers brushed his neck and he wheeled around. A ghost stood there with a malicious grin on his face. He was a thickset, thuggish boy with blond hair about his own age.

  “G-Grudge?” Edward stammered, recognizing the face of the bully that had tormented him back at the Foundry. The stocky boy’s grin widened, exposing his chipped front tooth.

  “Hello, Sticks,” the boy croaked, using the nickname Edward had hated. “Happy to see me?”

  “Buh-buh-but h-h-how?” Edward stammered. “Are you d-d-dead?”

  The phantom that looked like Grudge chuckled as if enjoying a private joke. “I’ve been looking for you, Bean Pole. It’s time for you to wake up.”

  And before Edward could do anything to stop him, Grudge’s meaty fist hit him on the side of the head. His legs crumpled and, as he fell, the world around him began to fade. There was one ridiculous thought that echoed again and again in his throbbing head as he lay on the ground with the calliope music thundering around him.

  How could a ghost possibly hit that hard?

  Chapter Eighteen

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  “Edward Macleod!”

  The shout jolted Edward upright. He looked around, confused. He wiped a line of drool from his chin, realizing that he’d been sleeping at his desk. It wasn’t possible! How could he possibly be here?

  “Glad you decided to join us, Macleod!” said the mocking voice. Glancing up with a feeling of dread, he saw the cold, blue eyes of his least favorite teacher, Miss Polanski, boring into him through her thick, greasy spectacles. Somehow he was back at the Foundry, his terrible boarding school, sitting in the middle of his Care and Maintenance of Sewer Pipes class!

  No! No ! NO!The smell from an exposed sewer pipe overwhelmed him. He’d smelled it since he first set foot in Specter’s Hollow and now he knew why. This was the place he feared more than anything else. There was no sign of the carnival anywhere around him. He gazed back at the blue-eyed teacher with horror. This couldn’t be really happening, could it? Maybe it was just an illusion . . .

  SMACK! Miss Polanski’s metal ruler smashed down, leaving a welt on the back of his wrist. He shook his hand, trying to relieve the pain. The pain was real enough to convince him that he wasn’t dreaming. But if this was real, then did that mean that the Woodbine and Bridgette and Mr. Spines had all been a dream?

  Not this. Anything but this! He reached his hand quickly behind him and was relieved to find that his wings were still there. At least he had those! It proved to him that he hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.

  Miss Polanski noticed the gesture and smirked. “If you think those things will fly you out of the sewer pipe you’re mistaken. It’s your turn, Macleod. Get over here and sanitize this pipe!”

  Edward reluctantly stood, enduring the familiar snickers and rude comments from his classmates. This was horrible! He never thought in a million years he’d ever have to set foot in this awful place again.

  At the front of the classroom, Miss Polanski handed him a length of heavy rope. His hands shook as he obediently tied it around his waist. He couldn’t get over the fact that he was about to be lowered into the rotten pipe. It was far worse than any nightmare he could imagine. After the rope was secure, Miss Polanski switched on a small crane that was connected to the rope and he felt the machine slowly hoist him into the air. Then the rusty apparatus groaned as it swung him around, leaving him dangling over the fetid sewer.

  Please no. Anything except this, he thought desperately. He gazed down into the darkness and filth below him, his heart racing with fear. A coarse brush and a bottle of disinfectant were shoved into his hands. The rest of the class was definitely enjoying Edward’s discomfort. Someone took up a chant, crying out in a raspy voice: “Bean Pole, Bean Pole, going down the toilet hole!” It wasn’t the most creative chant, but it was typical of the thickheaded students at the Foundry. Edward glanced up and saw the brutish fac
es of the other boys and girls in the class, smiling stupidly and shouting the chant as loud as they possibly could.

  Miss Polanski did nothing to stop it. In fact, Edward noticed that she’d even joined in herself, cackling and conducting the class with her bony finger as if it were an orchestra.

  Edward struggled against the rope, trying to free himself. He prayed that something would happen, that someone would suddenly show up and put a stop to this!

  Then, just as he was starting to be lowered into the pipe, the back door of the classroom burst open. Edward’s head jerked up. Someone had come to rescue him just in time!

  But when he saw who it was, his heart nearly stopped beating. Whiplash Scruggs, clad in his pristine white suit and plantation style hat, strode into the room. Edward felt a rush of terror greater than any he’d ever felt before. He was helpless, tied up and hanging over a sewer pipe with the person he feared more than anyone else approaching.

  “Well, well, well, isn’t this a revolting development?” Scruggs said, stroking his tiny, black goatee. “Seems we caught us a skinny bird that can’t fly. Am I right, Miss Polanski?”

  “Right you are, sir,” she said, flashing Scruggs a grin with her unusually pointed teeth. Scruggs navigated his tremendous bulk through a row of desks, knocking a couple of students out of their chairs.

  He drew close to the boy, a wicked smile on his fleshy face. “Mr. Macleod, you have caused me no end of trouble. Whatever shall I do with you?” Just the sound of his voice made Edward’s skin crawl. Whiplash reached out a ham-sized hand and clenched Edward tightly around the back of his neck. He had a powerful grip, and Edward fought the urge to cry out as pain ran down his spine.

  “Yes, my boy, more trouble than you can possibly imagine. Did you know that my master, the Jackal, has informed me that if I do not succeed this final time, I shall be . . . what was the word he used?” Scruggs paused, pretending to think. “Ah yes, I believe the word was ‘obliterated.’ Do you have any idea at all what that means, Mr. Macleod?”