The Nightmare Game

by Gillian Cross

  Lorn remembered his blue eyes staring into hers the first time she sat in the circle. What is your name? he’d asked, and she’d stared at him blankly, not knowing what to reply. When he said, Your name is Lorn, it had felt like a sign of belonging, of leaving her old life behind.

  That was how it had been for each of them. Zak had given them a way to survive. We don’t remember. We look forward. How could she stand against him now and ask them all to look back? She almost gave up and sat down.

  And then she remembered Robert.

  When they brought him into the cavern, he’d been horribly injured, his leg clawed open by the nightbird. The shock of finding out where he was—and how tiny he’d become—was fresh and raw in his mind. But he’d still had the courage to challenge Zak, refusing to let go of the truth he knew.

  My name is Robert Doherty, he’d said.

  He wouldn’t pretend, and he wouldn’t forget. From that first moment, he’d been determined to get back to his real home. And his real size.

  And he’d done it.

  He’d made the long and dangerous journey back to the place where he really belonged and somehow he’d managed to reverse the terrible change that had brought him to the cavern. Even Cam and Zak, who’d gone with him, couldn’t explain how it had happened, but everyone knew it was true. Robert had rejected Zak’s picture of the world—and achieved what they’d all thought was impossible.

  That was the way to get the others to listen to her story! If she could get them to remember that, they would know that Zak wasn’t infallible. Lifting her head, Lorn looked around the circle again. Everyone was watching her now.

  “The old man had it wrong,” she said firmly. “He thought he had his daughter under the ground forever, with no way out, but the robbers knew better—because one of them was Robert Doherty.”

  She felt the shock as she spoke his name. They thought she was the first one to break the rules of storytelling by cutting through the neat line between real and imagined. They didn’t realize that Zak had already done it.

  Sitting down slowly, with everyone’s eyes fixed on her face, she braided her fingers together in her lap. In a steady voice, she launched into the story. As she wanted to tell it.

  “You all know what Robert’s like. When he decides that something needs to happen, he won’t give up until he’s done it. From the moment he found out about the old man’s daughter, in her miserable prison, he was determined to rescue her. With two brave friends, he planned a daring rescue, risking his life to snatch her away to a new life. And he almost succeeded. At the risk of their lives, he and his friends broke into the old man’s house and carried her off, running through the night with the old man chasing them. But, just when they thought they’d escaped, when they thought the girl was free at last—that’s when they lost her. . . .”

  The Terror Body

  5

  ROBERT WAS ALONE IN THE FRONT ROOM WHEN HE FIRST PICKED up the phone.

  “Hello?” he said.

  There was no answer. Only a strange rustle.

  “Hello?” he said again. “I can’t hear you.” He was about to hang up when the voice came at last, out of the blue.

  “Out . . . out . . .”

  His brain froze.

  It was Hope’s voice. That was exactly how she’d sounded when he and Tom had lifted her out of that horrible, dank hole under the Armstrongs’ conservatory.

  He didn’t know how he replied. He couldn’t think about anything except the sounds coming down the line. Was it possible? Could Hope really be there? Talking to him?

  “. . . out . . . out . . .”

  When Emma came in, he hardly noticed. But she must have seen something strange in his expression, because she crossed the room and stood beside him, listening. Then—so quickly that it took him by surprise—she pulled the phone out of his hand and hung up.

  Robert reached out angrily to snatch it back, but she held it behind her body and shook her head. Her face was white and tense.

  “It wasn’t really her,” she said. “It can’t have been, Rob. It must have been some kind of recording.”

  “But it was her voice—” Robert protested.

  “How can it have been?” said Emma. “The past doesn’t change. You know what happened to Hope. We rescued her and took her to the wood—and she shrank away into the cavern. There’s nothing left of her now, above the ground. She’s smaller than my little finger. With no way back.”

  Robert looked away. Emma was right, of course—but he didn’t want her to be. He desperately wanted the voice at the other end of the line to be Hope’s. Because Hope was Lorn. The friend who’d saved his life by taking him into the cavern. What he wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to see her again. To speak to her.

  “It was a recording,” Emma said. “And you’d better stop fantasizing and think about that properly. Don’t you realize what it means?”

  For a second, Robert didn’t understand. He just stared blankly at her, wondering why she looked so grim.

  Emma walked back to the door and closed it quietly, to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. Then she spelled it out. “If there’s a recording, then there has to be someone playing it. And you know who that’s got to be. There’s only one person who’s likely to have a recording of Hope’s voice.”

  She was right, of course. Only Hope’s family had known she was there, under the floor. If he had been listening to a recording, one of them must have made it. And no prizes for guessing which one, Robert thought. That family was dominated by a single, terrifying person.

  “So you think Mr. Armstrong’s tracked us down?” he said slowly. “You think he knows where we live?” It was horribly easy to picture that heavy slab face leaning in close to the phone. The thick, cruel finger waiting ready over the PLAY button, poised to send the fragile thread of sound moving toward them.

  “. . . out . . . out . . .”

  “He knows where we live—and he wants us to know that he’s watching us.” Emma shuddered. “He’s trying to scare us. We were idiots to think he’d just go away and leave us alone. If he’d kept Hope hidden under the floor for years, he was never going to give up overnight, was he?”

  “But he knows he can’t get her back,” Robert said. “He saw her shrink. We were all holding on to her and she just disappeared.”

  “You think he understood what was happening?” Emma shook her head. “There’s no way he could have worked it out. I wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on if you hadn’t told me about the cavern already.”

  Robert didn’t look convinced. Emma pulled an impatient, exasperated face at him.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “He knows that Hope disappeared, but he thinks we did it. So he probably thinks we know how to get her back.”

  “If only.” Robert nodded ruefully. “If we could only find out—”

  He didn’t finish, because the phone started ringing again. Before he could stop himself, he snatched it out of Emma’s hand. In spite of everything they’d said, he couldn’t quite believe there was no point. If there was even a chance—

  “Lorn?” he said desperately. Emma made a quick, impatient sound and he flapped his other hand at her, straining to hear. “Be quiet, Em.”

  But he knew he was being stupid. This time he could hear the flutter of the tape and it was obvious that the sounds were simply being repeated, exactly the same as before. After a few seconds, he put the phone slowly back into its cradle. Emma was right. It was Mr. Armstrong at the other end of the phone.

  They were being watched. He might be outside the house at that very moment, waiting for them to come out. Wherever they went, they’d never be sure that they were alone.

  “What are we going to do?” Emma said.

  Robert sighed gloomily. “We can’t do anything, can we?”

  “But we must,” Emma said. “We’ve got to get our bikes back. Suppose he sees us doing that.”

  They’d ditched their bikes in the
dark, when they were running away with Hope. They’d climbed over fences, to get from one back garden to another, and it was impossible to carry Hope and cope with the bikes as well. All three bikes—theirs and Tom’s—were still hidden in one of the gardens.

  At the time, it hadn’t seemed important—not compared with Hope’s safety. But Tom’s mother was already asking awkward questions. They needed their bikes back.

  “We’ll just have to be careful,” Emma said at last. “Mr. Armstrong’s got to take a break sometime. And he won’t expect us to be out so late, will he?”

  Robert pulled a face. “I hope not. I really don’t fancy meeting him in the dark.”

  THEY LAY IN BED, FULLY DRESSED, WAITING TO HEAR THE SOFT snoring sounds that meant their parents were asleep. As soon as it was safe, Robert ducked under the covers and phoned Tom.

  “Hi, Tosh,” he whispered. “Ready to go?”

  “Thought you’d never call,” Tom whispered back. “My mom’s been asleep for hours. See you down by the park in ten minutes?”

  “No problem. But be careful. We think Mr. Armstrong’s watching our house.”

  Robert heard Tom’s quick gasp, but he didn’t stop to explain. They had a long way to walk, and it was time they got started. Hanging up, he dropped his phone into his pocket and slid out of bed, pulling on his sneakers.

  Emma was already out on the landing, waiting for him. She didn’t risk speaking, just beckoned impatiently and led the way downstairs. As they crept out of the house, Robert looked up and down the road, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

  Was Mr. Armstrong hiding somewhere close? There was no sign of him, but that didn’t mean anything. Every bush and every shadowy corner was a possible hiding place. His eyes darted left and right as they crossed the road.

  As they went around the corner, Robert looked down the side of the park and saw Tom away at the far end, by the wood. But he wasn’t watching for them. He was facing the other way.

  “He’s talking to someone,” Emma hissed. “Who on earth—?”

  Robert’s heart thudded. The figure beyond Tom was half hidden in the trees, but he could see that it was a man. And surely there was only one man who would stop and talk to Tom so late at night. Only one, terrifying person . . .

  “Mr. Armstrong’s got him!” he gasped. “Come on.”

  He and Emma broke into a run, racing down the side of the park toward Tom. But as they drew closer, the dark figure in the trees began to look shorter than Robert was expecting. Less threatening. Maybe it wasn’t Mr. Armstrong. But if it wasn’t—who could it possibly be at that time of night?

  They were only a dozen steps away when the dark figure walked out of the trees, stepped around Tom, and came down the pavement toward them. As he reached them, he lifted his head and looked Robert straight in the face.

  For a split second, Robert found himself staring into a shadowy face that he knew—and didn’t know. Even in the orange light from the streetlamps, he was aware that the man’s sharp eyes were impossibly blue and bright. They made everything else seem far off and insignificant. Somewhere, off to his left, he could hear Emma muttering something, but that was in another world, another life. There was no room in his brain just then for anything except the face in front of him.

  What do you want? Why are you here? It was the man he’d seen on the plane, at the start of all this strangeness. Their eyes had met as they walked past each other. And after that—I was small and alone. Down on the dark ground.

  He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t move at all. He could only stare.

  Then the man turned his head, breaking contact. He stepped off the pavement and went past the two of them. By the time Robert had gathered his wits enough to look around, he’d already disappeared.

  Now—when it was too late—the questions came flooding into Robert’s head. He wanted to run after the man and make him answer them. But he couldn’t. Emma was tugging frantically at his sleeve.

  “Rob. Rob—look at Tom! What’s the matter with him?”

  Reluctantly, Robert turned back. Tom was standing very still, gazing at the empty pavement where the man had been standing.

  “He’s not all right,” Emma said. “Come on!”

  She and Robert covered the last few steps at a run and Emma caught hold of Tom’s shoulder and pulled him around to face her.

  “Tom! Wake up. You can’t go on standing there like a zombie.”

  The word hit Robert like a blow in the chest. Zombie was the word Emma and Tom had used to describe him—when he wasn’t really there. The Robert they could see had just been an empty shell, because the real Robert had been down in the cavern, with Lorn and the others.

  That couldn’t have happened to Tom. It couldn’t. Robert took hold of his arm and shook him fiercely.

  “Don’t do that,” Emma said.

  But Robert couldn’t help it. He had to get some reaction. “Tosh! Snap out of it!”

  Very slowly, Tom blinked and began to move, knocking Robert’s hands away.

  “Cut it out!” he muttered shakily. “What’s your problem, Robbo?”

  “I thought there was something wrong,” Robert said. “I thought—”

  I thought that man had changed you. I thought he’d sent you down to the dark ground.

  “There’s no time to hang around thinking,” Tom said. His voice was strange, as if he was struggling to speak clearly. “If we don’t get going, it’ll be morning before we’ve fetched the bikes. Come on.”

  Without waiting for the others to answer, he turned away and began to walk briskly up the road, toward the city center.

  “What was all that about?” Emma said.

  “Did you see—that man?” Robert said tentatively. He was already beginning to wonder if the whole thing had happened inside his own head. “He was—did you see him?”

  “Of course I saw him.” Emma scowled. “Couldn’t miss him, could I? Not with you standing there, goggling at him like a codfish and blocking his way.”

  “I’ve . . . seen him before.” Robert was still trying to make sense of it all. “I saw him on the plane. Remember?”

  “On the plane?” Emma looked baffled.

  “I told you. When I went off to the washroom, I passed a man coming the other way. It was him. As I went past, he looked straight into my eyes, the way he was looking at Tom just now. And a couple of seconds later—pow! Everything exploded and disappeared. When I woke up, I was small and lost and alone.”

  Emma gave him a long, cautious stare. “So?”

  Robert was sure she knew what he meant. But she was obviously going to make him spell it out. “Well—now he’s looked at Tom,” he muttered. “So is Tom—?”

  “Tom’s nothing like you were,” Emma said firmly. “When you came back from that washroom, you were polite and laid back and—empty. Tom’s not like that at all. Look at him.” She pointed down the road. Tom was striding away energetically. “We need to stop worrying about him and concentrate on catching him. Come on.”

  She broke into a run and Robert jogged to keep up with her. But he was still worrying. Was Tom really all right? Or was the Tom they could see now just an empty zombie? Was the real Tom somewhere in the wood with Lorn and the others, down on the dangerous dark ground?

  6

  THEY’D LEFT THE BIKES RIGHT OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE city, in the development where the Armstrongs lived. It took them over an hour to walk there, ducking into the shadows from time to time to avoid anyone who might cause them trouble.

  All the time they were walking, Robert was trying to work out a way of asking Tom about the man from the plane. But every question he invented sounded sillier than the one before. Hey, Tosh, are you just a zombie? Is the real Thomas Hastings down in the cavern with Lorn? They were all pointless. If the Tom they could see really was a zombie, he wouldn’t know anything about it.

  Robert did once get as far as saying, “You know that man—?” But Tom changed the su
bject immediately, with a sharpness that discouraged any more questions. There was something he didn’t want to talk about. Robert could tell that. But there was no real chance to discover any more. What they were doing was hard enough on its own.

  And Emma kept hassling them. The nearer they came to the development, the more she worried about how they were going to find the right place.

  “I just don’t remember,” she muttered. “We were going so fast, and there were so many gardens. We could spend all night looking.”

  “It’s OK,” Tom said. “I’m pretty sure I know where we need to be.”

  Emma didn’t look convinced but, when they finally reached the estate, Tom turned confidently off the main road. He began to work his way through the network of little streets as though he knew exactly where he was going.

  “We go right here,” he murmured, “and then right again—and the road curves around to the left. The house we want is about halfway along. With a red door.”

  Robert didn’t remember, but he recognized it as soon as he saw it. An immaculate semi-detached house with identical net curtains at every window and a neat, paved path leading up to the front door. There was no light showing at any of the windows, and no one around in the road. With luck, they could sneak in and out of the side gate without being noticed at all.

  Even so, it was hard to take the first steps. They hovered on the pavement for a moment, looking nervously at one another.

  Last time, it had been simple. Once they’d rescued Hope, they’d been so desperate to escape that they were ready to do anything. It had been easy to open any gates that blocked their way, easy to slip into strange gardens and clamber over rickety fences. But it was different now. As they looked at the house, all the dangers they’d ignored before jumped into their minds. What if someone calls the police? What if there’s a dog in the garden—or an angry man with a gun?

  Emma bit her lip. “We should have come in the daytime. Just knocked on the door and explained what we wanted.”