Too Ghoul For School

by Barry Hutchison

  For Michael Lopez,

  co-founder of the original

  Spectre Collectors. I hope

  you’re still having grand

  adventures, old friend.

  B. H.

  Denzel Edgar was halfway through some particularly unpleasant maths homework when he saw the ghost.

  He’d barely taken out his workbook when he first felt the icy tingle down his spine. He was sharpening his pencil when all the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Denzel looked around to find where the draught was coming from, but every window and door was shut tight.

  He was wrestling with a head-wrecking bit of algebra when his eraser jumped out of his pencil case and flopped on to the dining room table. Denzel stopped writing and looked at the rectangular rubber with its graphite-stained ends. He looked at his pencil case. Then, with a shrug, he placed the eraser back inside.

  A moment later, it hopped out again. This time, Denzel didn’t move to return the rubber to the case. Instead, he just stared at it, wondering quietly what was going on. As he stared, his breath formed wispy white clouds in front of his face. It reminded him of being outside in December, only he was inside. And it was June.

  Denzel’s whole body began to shiver. He felt cold from the inside out, but he felt something even more troubling, too.

  He felt like he was not alone.

  “Wh-who’s there?” he whispered. The words sounded smothered by the suffocating silence of the house. He heard nothing, saw nothing, but felt … something. A tickle of movement across his face and through his hair, as if the air itself were taking form around him, becoming something different, something more.

  Down on the tabletop, Denzel’s eraser stood on end. It walked towards him, rocking from side to side the way his dads would walk the wardrobe from one end of his bedroom to the other whenever they took it upon themselves to reorganise the place. Unlike the wardrobe, though, the rubber was walking all on its own.

  Instinctively, Denzel slapped his hand down on the waddling eraser. He felt it squirm in his grip as he forced it back into the pencil case and zipped it inside. The pencil case twitched and wriggled, so Denzel slammed his schoolbag down on top, and quickly backed away from the table.

  He could feel his heart beating at the back of his throat. His dads wouldn’t be home for another hour or more. He was all alone in the house.

  So why couldn’t he shake the feeling that he wasn’t?

  And then he saw it, reflected in the glass of a picture frame: a dark shape lingering in the corner of the dining room, spreading up the walls and across the ceiling like a nasty case of rot.

  At first, Denzel tried to convince himself he’d imagined it. The dark thing behind him wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. He was going mad, obviously. That last equation had fractured his poor overworked brain, making him see … whatever that thing was.

  He knew if he could just summon the courage to turn round he’d find nothing there but the empty wall. Maybe there’d be a shadow or something, but nothing like the writhing tangle of smoky black tendrils that was currently reflected back at him.

  Slowly – ever so slowly – Denzel turned. As he did, he closed both his eyes, so by the time he was facing the corner, he was still none the wiser as to whether anything was actually there.

  He wanted his eyes to open, but his eyes were having none of it. It took several deep breaths and a whispered pep talk before his right eye relented. His left one, however, remained fully committed to staying shut.

  To Denzel’s dismay, when he opened his eye he saw that the corner wasn’t empty. The thing that lurked there looked like a cross between an octopus and a chimney fire. It was as black and intangible as smoke, with six or seven long tentacles all tangled in knots. The shape seemed to pulse in time with Denzel’s crashing heartbeat, getting faster and faster as Denzel’s panic bubbled up inside him.

  One of the thing’s tentacles reached out for him, and Denzel stumbled back. He raced for the door leading into the hall and pulled it open. The tentacle whipped past him, slamming the door again and holding it shut.

  Denzel ducked and scanned the room, searching for something to defend himself with. The best he could find was a little plastic model of the Blackpool Tower that a neighbour had brought them back from holiday. It wasn’t the ideal weapon with which to battle a malevolent supernatural entity, Denzel suspected, but it was the only one he had.

  “S-stay back!” he said, thrusting the Blackpool Tower towards the smoke thing, pointy-end first. “I’m w-warning you.”

  One of the smoky tendrils lashed out. A snow globe – another holiday memento – exploded against the wall above Denzel, showering him in glass, glitter and a tiny reproduction of Edinburgh Castle.

  Yelping in fright, Denzel covered his head, just as a dining chair flipped into the air and slammed down beside him with a smash. Denzel dived for the door again, but the tendril still had it held closed.

  The window! It was Denzel’s only chance of escape. Waving the Blackpool Tower in what he hoped was a vaguely threatening way, he leapt over the broken dining chair and raced towards the window. He was making a grab for the cord that would pull up the blinds when the whole thing exploded inwards, knocking him off his feet and on to the dining table.

  Denzel’s momentum carried him over the polished tabletop. As he slid off the other side, the table tipped, shielding him from the smoke thing – and whatever had blown his window to bits.

  Cautiously, Denzel poked the top of his head above the table edge, just enough to give him a view of the room. Two figures stepped through the gap where the window and part of the wall used to be. It was hard to make them out through the cloud of plaster dust, but from their silhouettes it looked like the bigger of the two was carrying an assault rifle.

  Denzel looked at the small plastic Blackpool Tower he’d somehow managed to keep hold of during his short flight across the room. After a moment’s consideration, he quietly set it down on the floor.

  “Scanning for hostile,” barked the figure with the gun. It was a man, that was all Denzel could figure out. Youngish, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure. He jabbed his little finger in his ear, trying to clear out the ringing noise from the explosion. Someone must have heard the sound. Help would be on its way. With a bit of luck, no one would kill him before it arrived.

  “Any sign?” asked the other figure. This one was a teenage girl, Denzel reckoned, and sounded far less confident than her partner.

  “Can’t pinpoint it,” the man said, and something about his voice this time told Denzel he was a teenager, too. A red light blinked on the barrel of his gun, as he slowly circled on the spot. “But it’s here.”

  Denzel glanced over to the corner. The black shape was still there, pulsing and twisting as before. He found himself gesturing towards it with his eyes, trying to draw the strangers’ attention to it without being noticed himself.

  “Perhaps the Third Eye of Sherm will shed some light on the situation!” the girl said grandly. Denzel heard the boy sigh as his partner began to mumble below her breath. The room was still one big cloud of white dust, but through the fog Denzel saw a shape illuminate in purple light on the girl’s forehead. It was an oval with a circle in the middle, like a child’s drawing of an eye.

  “The Third Eye of Sherm!” boomed the girl, in a voice that rolled around the room. When the echo faded, the boy gave a disapproving tut.

  “Do you have to do that every time?”

  “Yes,” said the girl. “It’s tradition.”

  “It’s dumb,” the boy replied. “Besides, it blows our element of surprise.”

  The girl jabbed a thumb back towards the hole where the window had been. “Um… Hello? I�
�m not the one who obliterated the wall. The front door was literally five paces along the street.”

  “You have your traditions, I have mine,” said the boy. “Whatever. Can you see it?”

  “The Third Eye of Sherm sees all,” said the girl.

  “Yes, but does it see the hostile?”

  The girl turned and scanned the room. The purple glow of the eye on her forehead swept across the walls like a searchlight, passing right across the smoke-thing. “No,” she admitted. “It doesn’t see that. It can’t be here.”

  The boy gave his gun a smack with the heel of his hand. The light flickered then came back on. “You sure? I’m definitely reading something.”

  “What do you trust more? Eight billion pounds of advanced tracking technology,” began the girl. She tapped her forehead. “Or this baby?”

  “Eight billion pounds of advanced tracking technology,” said the boy, without hesitation.

  Denzel wanted to scream to them that both the tracking technology and the fancy glowing eye were both rubbish, because the “hostile”, as they called it, was right there in the corner of the room, just sort of hanging about looking ominous.

  He watched both figures turn around another couple of times, each carrying out their own search. He’d expected to hear sirens by now, but there seemed to be no sound at all coming in through the hole in the wall. It was almost 5pm. The street should be filled with the teatime rush.

  Denzel glanced over to the dark shape in the corner, and suddenly got the feeling that it was looking back at him. It had no eyes, but he could feel its gaze drilling into him, piercing right down into his soul.

  “Oh well. False alarm, I guess,” said the girl. The dust cloud was settling, and Denzel could just make out that she wore a dark-red robe with what looked to be ridiculously wide shoulder-pads. She wiped a hand across her forehead, and the glowing eye disappeared. “Let us slip away like the Shadows of Shak’tee!” she said, making an elaborate gesture with her hands.

  The boy looked her up and down. “What was that meant to be?”

  “Just something I’m trying out,” the girl replied, sounding a little embarrassed. “I thought it’d make me appear more, you know, mysterious.”

  “It makes you appear deranged,” the boy said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Denzel felt his stomach tighten as the two figures turned back towards the hole in the wall. The dark cloud began to throb more quickly, and Denzel could almost sense its excitement. Soon it would have him all to itself, and Denzel got the feeling that was just what it wanted.

  “Wait, d-don’t leave!” Denzel yelped. He pointed to the corner, where the dark thing now twisted into knots. “It’s there. It’s right there!”

  The two figures turned sharply, the girl raising her hands in front of her, the boy taking aim at Denzel with his weapon. They stepped closer and Denzel got his first clear look at them as they emerged from the cloud of dust.

  He had thought the girl was wearing a robe, but could see now it was a flowing red cape draped over a dark-green tunic. A belt of gold-coloured rope was tied around her middle, and there were more rings on her fingers than in a jeweller’s shop window. She looked younger than Denzel had been expecting – fourteen, maybe, possibly even thirteen like him.

  The boy beside her was a little older, but not much. He was dressed in a military uniform, but not one from any army Denzel had ever seen. The camouflage pattern on the outfit was made up of shades of silver and blue, with shiny blue boots that reached halfway up his shins. Not really the ideal colours for hiding in bushes, Denzel thought. His sleeves were rolled up, and his gloved hands gripped the stock and barrel of his weapon, which Denzel was somewhat dismayed to note was pointing at his head.

  The boy’s eyes narrowed, then he shot the girl a sideways glance. “Third Eye of Sherm sees everything, does it?”

  “Well your scanners didn’t pick him up, either!” the girl protested.

  “Duck!” shouted Denzel, as an I’ve Been to Legoland Windsor ceramic plate whistled through the air towards the intruders. The boy reacted quickly, ducking just before the plate hit him. The girl wasn’t so lucky.

  “Ow!” she yelped, as the plate smashed against the back of her head. “That really hurt!”

  “Where is it?” demanded the boy, spinning in the direction the plate had come from.

  “There!” Denzel cried, pointing to the corner again.

  “He can’t possibly see it,” the girl protested, gingerly touching the back of her head. “I mean… You can’t, can you?”

  “Great big black cloud thing!” Denzel yelped. “Lots of tentacles. It’s literally right there in front of you!”

  The boy raised his weapon. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

  He squeezed the trigger. A piercing squeal filled the room.

  And everything in Denzel’s world went white.

  When the light faded, the black shape was nowhere to be seen. The boy clacked a switch on the side of his weapon and a hand grenade-sized red gemstone dropped from the bottom. The girl bent low to catch it before it hit the floor, then hurriedly wrapped it in what looked like the thin branch of a tree, muttering as she fumbled with the knot.

  “Bullseye,” crowed the boy. “Boom!” He turned to Denzel, his satisfied grin quickly turning to a cold stare of suspicion. “You knew where it was. How?”

  Denzel got to his feet, kneading his eyes with his finger and thumb. The glow of the light was still burned into his retinas, and when he blinked the usual darkness had been replaced by a shimmering white fog.

  “I could see it,” Denzel said.

  “You could see it?” snorted the boy, looking him slowly up and down. “How could you see it?”

  “I just sort of pointed my eyes in its general direction, and there it was,” Denzel said. “How could you not see it? It wasn’t exactly difficult.”

  “No, not difficult,” agreed the girl, slipping the bound gemstone into a small leather bag that hung from her belt. “Impossible. You can’t see poltergeists. It can’t be done.”

  Denzel shrugged. “Well, maybe it wasn’t a polter-thingy, then.”

  “Poltergeist. And of course it was!” said the girl. She glanced at the boy. “I mean… It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Sensors said so,” the boy replied.

  “Well, yes, but … that doesn’t prove anything. They’re not exactly reliable.”

  “More reliable than your stupid magic eye.”

  The girl gasped. “How dare you doubt the Third Eye of Sherm?”

  Denzel left them to their bickering and gazed around at what was left of the dining room. The gaping hole in the wall was the worst of it, of course, but there was plenty of other damage, too.

  The top part of the table had come away from the base, and at least two of its chairs were in pieces. The display cabinet where the crockery was kept had been knocked over, and most of the plates lay smashed on the floor.

  The carpet was thick with dust, splinters of wood and shards of glass, and there was an oval scorch mark on the wall where the smoke-thing had been.

  “My dads are going to kill me,” Denzel mumbled. He turned to the intruders, suddenly angry. “Who are you two? What right do you have to come in here and trash my house?”

  “We’ve got every right,” snapped the boy, jabbing a finger right up in Denzel’s face. “That was a Class Eight hostile apparition. Left unchecked it could’ve done all kinds of damage.”

  Denzel gestured around at his dining room, just as the lampshade fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor. “And what, you thought you’d give it a hand?”

  The boy stepped forward so he was leaning over Denzel. Denzel held his ground, trying not to show how much his legs were shaking.

  “Yeah, but the difference is it doesn’t tidy up after itself,” the boy said. “Unlike us.”

  He eyeballed Denzel for a few seconds. Denzel stared back, trying not to flinch.

  The boy unclipp
ed a walkie-talkie from his belt, but the girl put a hand on his wrist to stop him and smiled hopefully. “Wait, can I try?”

  The boy sighed. “Not this again.”

  “I’ve got it this time, I’ve totally nailed it. Promise. Just let me try.”

  The boy glanced at Denzel, then at his partner. He shook his head, but lowered the radio. “Fine. Whatever. Do it. But be quick.”

  The girl clapped her hands excitedly, then stepped back. “OK,” she mumbled. “Here goes. This is it. This time there’s no stopping—”

  “Get a move on,” the boy snapped.

  “Right. Yes. Here goes.”

  Denzel watched as the girl’s fingers danced and weaved through the air. As she waggled her digits, she chanted. It sounded like gibberish to Denzel, but after a moment the girl’s fingertips began to sparkle and shimmer.

  Lowering her hands, she turned to the gap in the wall. “Here we go,” she whispered. “It’s going to work this time. I can feel it. It’s going to work.”

  Denzel leaned left and right, trying to see out through the hole. “What’s going to work?” he asked.

  “Just wait. Any minute now,” said the girl. “Any minute…” She squealed with excitement. “There! Look!”

  Denzel watched as a grey squirrel hopped in through the damaged wall. It stopped on the carpet and peered around the room, its nose twitching. A moment later, two sparrows fluttered in, carrying something between them.

  “Is that… Is that a duster?” Denzel asked.

  “Yes!” the girl shrieked. She hopped excitedly from foot to foot as a stag ducked its antlers through the gap and trotted into the room, clutching a broom in its mouth. “It’s working! It’s actually working!”

  “Great,” said the boy flatly.

  The girl grinned from ear to ear as a family of ducks waddled into the room, carrying a number of power tools between them. “Brace yourself,” she yelped. “This is going to be the most magical clean-up ever!”

  Three minutes later, the dining room had descended into chaos. The sparrows were pecking at the stag’s eyes, while it kicked the remaining dining chairs to pieces and tried to use its antlers to make kebabs of the ducks.