Instantly the millions of spiders became aware that they were out in the open. Clicking their beaks in fear, they ran for cover.
The residents of Scream Street panicked and ran too, desperately trying to escape from the stampeding spiders. Hundreds of the shiny creatures were crushed underfoot — or, in the case of the Crudley family, slimed under goo.
Resus ran across the square to Luke and released the straps that held the bass drum to his back. “You OK?” he asked.
A shadow fell over the pair as Sir Otto Sneer reached down to retrieve the sword he had thrown.
“You!” hissed Luke.
“Who else?” grinned Sir Otto, puffing on one of his noxious cigars. “You see a plague of spiders; I see an opportunity to bring Scream Street to its knees!”
“But I was trying to save everyone,” said Luke, shielding his eyes as drops of rain began to fall from the black clouds above. “Including you!”
Sir Otto rested on the hilt of his sword and adjusted the scarf that covered his throat. Luke shuddered as he caught a glimpse of the damaged flesh beneath — the result of an attack the landlord had suffered as a child. “I have a fondness for spiders,” said Sir Otto. “I especially like their webs.”
“They’ll cover every inch of Scream Street!” said Resus.
“Not all of it,” growled the landlord. “If I confiscate anything that can be used to make that rhythm and keep it playing around my grounds, Sneer Hall should remain web-free. I’ll be fine …”
Unable to listen any longer, Luke jumped to his feet and lunged for Sir Otto. He froze as the point of the landlord’s sword pressed against his chest, glistening in the rain. “I wouldn’t do that,” grinned the landlord. “Werewolf or no werewolf, I’m pretty sure a blade can cause even you a lot of damage …”
Luke took a step back as Sir Otto turned to face the only other people left in the square: Resus, Cleo and Cleo’s parents. “Now,” he said, “to conclude my business here … Alexandria, give me Heru’s relic.”
“Never!” screamed Cleo. “My mum will never give you anything!” She flung her arms around her mother and pressed her face to her chest, feeling the soft heartbeat through her bandages.
Cleo’s expression fell. She took a step away from the mummy. “I-I can hear your heart,” she stammered.
“So?” demanded Alexandria.
“But mummies have their hearts removed before they’re buried.”
Alexandria Farr giggled. “You got me!” With a sound like a rippling stream, the mummy transformed back into Sir Otto’s shape-changing nephew, Dixon.
Cleo froze in horror. “Luke was right,” she sobbed. “You aren’t my mum!”
“No, he isn’t,” announced Sir Otto as he crossed the square towards the group. “Good disguise, though, don’t you think? And he didn’t do too badly with the back-story!” Dixon smiled at the rare praise from his uncle. A fork of lightning arced across the sky as the rain increased.
“You have deceived my family!” roared Niles Farr, rushing at Sir Otto with his fists clenched. Sir Otto quickly swung his sword around and the large mummy ran into it, the blade piercing his stomach.
Luke and Resus raced over as Niles fell to the wet ground.
“Dad!” screamed Cleo, dropping to her knees beside her father.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” mocked Sir Otto. “None of you mummies has any internal organs, as you’ve just made a big deal of pointing out to everyone.”
“You beast!” roared Cleo as her tears mixed with the pounding rain.
The landlord smirked. “Better a beast than a freak like you!” He took Heru’s heart from Dixon. “Sorry to stab and go,” he quipped, “but now I’ve got my first relic, there’s work to be done.”
Luke and Resus could only watch as Sir Otto led Dixon across the square towards the gates of Sneer Hall.
“Mr Farr?” said Luke.
“I shall survive this,” replied the mummy. “You must stop Sir Otto before the spiders smother the life out of Scream Street.”
Luke pulled Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street from his pocket and handed it to Cleo. “Look after this for me.” Taking one final glance at the mummy’s tears, he closed his eyes. His friends had been hurt, and that made him angry. It was time to transform.
Sir Otto and Dixon had just reached the gates of Sneer Hall when they heard the growl from behind. Rain battered their faces as they turned to see Luke — now a fully formed werewolf — prowling across the square towards them.
“You don’t want to do this,” roared the landlord, brandishing his sword. “I’ve got a weapon.”
Resus appeared behind Luke, pulling a similar sword from the folds of his cape. “That makes two of us,” he snarled.
Thunder crashed as Sir Otto slid the mummy’s heart into his jacket pocket and lunged at the vampire. Swords clashed in the rain, flashing brightly as a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky.
“Dixon!” bellowed Sir Otto over the sound of metal against metal. “Sort out that annoying werewolf once and for all!”
The younger man nodded, his lank hair plastered to his face by the rain. Closing his eyes, he allowed his skin to ripple and stretch as he changed shape once again. Within seconds a large, ginger-haired werewolf stood before Luke.
Cleo clutched Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street to her chest. “Luke’s dream,” she gasped. “It’s coming true!”
Thunder crashed as the two werewolves circled each other, fur flattened against their rippling muscles by the torrential rain. The smaller of the two creatures bared its fangs and howled, the sound echoing around the square.
Dixon lunged at Luke, ready to bite, but the small wolf was too fast to be beaten by such an obvious attack. It flung itself to the ground, back legs pulled up to protect its belly, and lashed out with razor-sharp talons, catching the aggressor’s chest and drawing blood. The creature’s thick ginger fur was briefly stained red before the rain washed it clean again.
Luke growled as his larger rival appeared in front of him once more and he braced himself for the attack. It didn’t come.
“What are you waiting for?” roared Sir Otto. “Tear his throat out so we can claim the other relics and get in from this cursed weather!”
There was a rippling sound, barely audible over the constant hammering of thunder, and Dixon reappeared. Rain cascaded down his greasy hair.
“Tear his throat out?” he asked, keeping one eye on the snarling wolf before him. “But won’t that kill him, Uncle Otto?”
“Sir Otto!” bellowed the landlord, swinging his sword angrily at Resus.
“Sorry, Sir Uncle Otto!”
“And yes,” his uncle shouted, “tearing the werewolf’s throat out will kill it. That’s the idea.” He thrust his sword at Resus. “What’s the point of having a shapeshifter in the family if he won’t obey your every command?”
“Maybe he realizes that what you’re asking him to do is evil?” suggested Resus, knocking the sharp tip of Sir Otto’s sword safely to one side.
The landlord’s eyes gleamed as another bolt of lightning crackled over the street. “You want evil?” he demanded. “Once I get my hands on Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street and the other relics, I’ll show you evil!”
Cleo clutched the silver book to her sodden chest. “You’ll have to come through all three of us to get this!” she shouted.
Sir Otto grinned. “Now you’re just trying to cheer me up,” he beamed. “Change of plan, Dixon. Kill them all!”
“All right, Sir Uncle Otto!” Once again, Dixon’s skin began to stretch and reshape itself. Within seconds the ginger wolf was back, howling at the sky.
Luke snarled. There was no way he was going to let this monster get to his friends. Dixon leapt across the square, Luke leaving the ground a split second later. The two wolves met in mid-air, snapping at each other with yellowed fangs.
The sound of clashing metal caught Cleo’s attention and she spun to see Resus backing across the square. Th
e vampire stumbled and fell, twisting away as the landlord’s sword clanged into the concrete where his head had just been.
Kicking out with a heavy boot, Sir Otto knocked the sword from Resus’s hand. It skittered away across the wet pavement, leaving the vampire helpless.
“This is too easy!” yelled Sir Otto, raising his sword high into the air, rain running down the blade and over his hands.
A bolt of lightning hit the very tip of his sword, racing down the metal in three raging arcs that burnt into the landlord’s flesh.
Sir Otto screamed as the force of the blast threw him back across the square. He smashed into a garden fence and collapsed, unconscious, blue sparks continuing to fizz along the blade of his sword.
The larger werewolf heard the scream and pulled free of his opponent, swiftly changing back into his natural form as he ran to his uncle’s side. Luke was upon him before he had even got halfway, pulling the terrified man to the ground and flipping him over with powerful paws. The small wolf roared and darted for Dixon’s exposed throat.
“Luke, no!” shouted a familiar voice, causing the werewolf’s head to snap up. Luke’s parents stood across the square, soaked by the storm. Cleo and Resus ran over to them.
“Are you OK?” asked the vampire.
“I wanted to find Luke, to check he was OK after he saved me,” explained Mrs Watson, unable to tear her eyes away from the werewolf, “but I didn’t think he would be … I didn’t know he had transformed fully.”
“He’s only changed on the outside,” said Cleo. “Luke’s still in there.”
Mrs Watson cautiously approached the wolf, which still sat on the trembling figure of Dixon. “Susan, be careful!” warned Mr Watson, rooted to the spot on the pavement beside Resus and Cleo.
Luke growled as his mum gazed into his eyes. “You don’t have to hurt him,” she said softly. “You’re better than this. Better than them.” The werewolf briefly exposed its teeth before whimpering softly and stepping off its victim to lay at its mother’s feet.
“Hee, hee!” teased Dixon as he jumped up, unharmed. “The monster wants its mummy!”
Mrs Watson glared at him and clenched her fists. “Luke is not a monster!” she asserted, swinging an arm round to punch Dixon in the jaw, sending him tumbling over the garden hedge. “He’s my son!”
Resus stood in Cleo’s garden, flaming torch in hand to keep any curious spiders at bay. “Luke’s parents are safely home,” he said as the front door opened and the mummy joined him. “How’s your dad?”
“He’s resting,” said Cleo. “I think losing my mum for the second time hurt him worse than the sword to the stomach.”
Luke appeared beside them, back in human form once more. “What have I missed?”
“They’re back out in force now the rain has stopped,” said Resus. Luke peered along the street. Millions of spiders scuttled over every surface, wrapping trees, fences and even entire houses in the sticky grey gossamer.
“What do we do?” asked Cleo.
“Short of burning Scream Street to the ground, I’ve no idea,” said Luke.
“You had the spiders under control with the drumbeat for a while,” said Resus. “We could try charming them again.”
“We lost the only instruments we had, fighting Sir Otto and Dixon,” said Luke. “We’ve got nothing that will make a loud enough noise.”
Resus suddenly grinned. “Maybe we have …”
“Mr Spectre,” called Luke, “we want to hear some more Buddy Bones!”
“At full volume,” added Cleo.
Resus pulled a skateboard from his cloak. “If we can drag the jukebox behind us on this,” he said, “the spiders might just enjoy the beat of the world’s greatest skeleton jazz drummer and come for a stroll!”
The phantom materialized in the garden. “Always glad to get requests from music fans, but two of those Mover guys just carted my jukebox off to Sneer Hall.”
“That must have been what Sneer was talking about,” said Luke. “He said he was going to surround his mansion with rhythm.”
“Why?” asked Resus. “Won’t that just attract the spiders?”
“Some,” said Luke, “but they’ll be too affected by the music to spin their webs.”
“His house will be safe, while the rest of Scream Street disappears,” said Cleo angrily.
“There’s nothing we can do, is there?” said Resus.
Luke shrugged. “Not unless we—”
He was interrupted by a sound. A regular tapping that rang out across Scream Street.
Tap, tap, tappity-tappity-tap.
Instantly the clicking and weaving of millions of spiders ceased as the beat floated between the houses.
“Where’s it coming from?” asked Cleo.
“Look!” said Resus.
Heru the mummy was tap-dancing on the roof of 5 Scream Street. A hatch leading back into the attic of the Movers’ house was open behind him.
Tap, tap, tappity-tappity-tap.
“Didn’t you shut him back in his sarcophagus?” said Resus.
“Yes,” said Cleo, “but I may have left one of his bandages sticking out so the lid wouldn’t lock properly … He is a pharaoh, after all!”
“He’s not a bad dancer, either,” said Luke.
Tap, tap, tappity-tappity-tap.
“But how come it’s so loud?” said Resus. “His tapping is echoing right across Scream Street!”
“He’s matched the frequency of the spiderwebs,” said Fool Spectre. “He’s using the webbing as a giant amplifier! Genius.”
“Well, he did say he should have been a star,” grinned Cleo. “Maybe he should have got that soap-opera audition after all.”
Tap, tap, tappity-tappity-tap.
Millions of spiders swarmed along Scream Street and up onto the rooftop alongside the tap-dancing mummy. They sat silently, patiently waiting their turn to scuttle back into the attic.
The mummy grinned down at where Luke, Resus and Cleo stood. “I watched as you tried to save the people of Scream Street from the spiders,” he shouted, still tapping. “And I saw you spare the ginger-haired man’s life.”
Tap, tap, tappity-tappity-tap.
“Go, Luke Watson,” Heru called, his voice vibrating down through the gossamer threads as he danced. “Go and rescue my heart!”
“I am NOT happy about being used as bait,” insisted Cleo as Luke and Resus pressed her into a giant spiderweb spun between two trees in the grounds of Sneer Hall.
“You’ll be perfectly safe,” Resus assured her. “We’ll only be behind those bushes over there. And these spiders aren’t going to do anyone any harm,” he added. A hundred or so spiders, the only ones now left in Scream Street, crowded around the base of Fool Spectre’s jukebox as Buddy Bones beat his drums. “I guess the jukebox drowned out Heru’s tapping and they didn’t follow the others into the attic.”
“Right,” said Luke, pulling Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street from his pocket. “You hold this and act as though you’ve been caught in the web. When Sir Otto comes to take the book from you, we leap out and get the heart back.”
Cleo squeezed his hand.
“What was that for?” Luke asked.
“To say thank you for trying to warn me about my mum,” smiled Cleo.
Luke blushed as he and Resus ducked behind a clump of thick bushes. “OK,” he called out. “Scream!”
“This has got to be the worst music I have ever heard,” roared Sir Otto Sneer as he stomped around the corner of Sneer Hall. He stopped when he saw that the screams weren’t coming from the jukebox.
“Well, well,” snorted the landlord. “What do we have here?”
“Stay back!” yelled Cleo. “I haven’t forgotten what you did to my family!”
Sir Otto puffed on his cigar. “Where are your two friends?”
“I’m alone,” said Cleo defiantly. “I came to get the mummy’s heart for myself.”
Sir Otto blew out a swirling cloud of smoke. “I
f you’re here by yourself, why have you got that?” The landlord’s eyes fell on the silver book in Cleo’s hand.
“I stole it,” snarled the mummy. “Luke’s not the only one with wishes, you know. Now, hand over the heart before I do something you might regret …”
Sir Otto laughed. “My dear little freak! You appear to have misread the situation. Here you are, trapped in a spiderweb, and here I am, taking Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street for myself. I win again!”
As Sir Otto plucked the book from Cleo’s hand, the point of a sword pressed into the scarf around his throat. “You’ve got it all wrong,” said Luke.
The landlord bit down hard on his cigar but remained calm. “No,” he snarled. “You’re the one who’s got it wrong!”
A strangled yelp from behind made Luke look round. Dixon stood beside the jukebox, hands around Resus’s neck.
“You think I didn’t know this was a trap?” said Sir Otto, snatching the sword from Luke. “Dixon, make sure no one finds their bodies.”
“What?” shouted Dixon over the drumbeat from the jukebox.
“I said, hide the freaks’ bodies once you have dealt with them!”
“I can’t hear you,” yelled Dixon over a wild cymbal solo.
“You moron!” bellowed Sir Otto. “All I want you to do is—”
Suddenly there was silence. Everyone turned to see Dixon, one hand on Resus’s throat, the other pressed against the OFF switch of the jukebox.
“Did you say something?” he asked.
“What have you done …?” hissed Sir Otto.
The spiders, suddenly free of the entrancing music, attacked. Luke brushed wildly at them as they swarmed up his legs. Dixon tried to run, but he was brought crashing to the ground by the teeming creatures. Within minutes, Luke, Resus, Sir Otto and Dixon were all trapped alongside Cleo.
Once the spiders had secured their prisoners, they turned their attentions to Sneer Hall itself, dragging lengths of glistening gossamer up the walls and over the roof. “My beautiful house,” cried the landlord.
“Never mind the house,” snapped Luke. “Get us out of here!”
Heart of the Mummy Page 5