“Just after 3am,” Samara said.
“In the morning?”
“That’s generally what the ‘am’ bit means, yeah,” Samara said. She bit her lip. “Are you OK?”
Denzel swung his legs down off the bed and yawned again. “Yeah. Why?”
“Not upset about your parents or anything?” Samara pressed.
Denzel shook his head slowly. His brow furrowed. “Uh… No. Not… I mean…” He cleared his throat. “No. I’m fine. It’s… It’s for the best.”
Samara glanced back at the door, then knelt down in front of Denzel. “That’s Quinn talking, not you. She did something to you so you’d stop being angry at her and join us. She messed with your head.” She looked deep into his eyes. “Do you trust me, Denzel?”
After a moment, Denzel nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
“Good,” said Samara. “I think Quinn is up to something. I’ve had suspicions for a while, and what she did to you and your dads has got me even more worried.”
She glanced back at the door, as if worried someone might be listening there. “You said something about her having a plan. Do you know what she meant?”
“No,” said Denzel, shaking his head. “Just… Just that she said it would get rid of the ghosts. Once and for all.”
“But that’s impossible,” Samara whispered. “How could she do that?”
“There’s something else, too,” said Denzel. “I didn’t tell anyone because, well, I didn’t know what to do.”
“What is it?” asked Samara.
“The poltergeist. It … spoke to me.”
Samara’s eyes widened. “Spoke to you?”
“Yes. Well, no. Well, sort of,” said Denzel. “It spelled out a message. You know, with its arms or legs or whatever they are.”
“What did it say?”
“It said ‘help us’,” Denzel told her.
Samara blinked in surprise. “Help us?” she said. “Help who? The ghosts?”
“I don’t know,” said Denzel. “I thought you might.”
“No idea,” Samara admitted.
Denzel looked up at the ceiling for a moment as he steadied his nerve, then back at Samara. “Then maybe we should go and find out?”
Denzel glanced nervously back into the corridor as Samara closed the door of a room marked Spectral Storage 4. His eyes darted to a CCTV camera mounted near the ceiling.
“You sure no one will have seen us?” he whispered.
“Positive,” said Samara. She held up her wrist, revealing a watch-like device with a red light blinking on it. “Signal jammer. I stole it from Boyle earlier and programmed it to loop the feeds. Anyone watching will just see an empty room.”
“I thought tech stuff was Boyle’s department,” said Denzel.
Samara shrugged. “I like to dabble.”
The room was several metres long, with rows and rows of metal boxes lining the walls. Samara brushed her fingertips across a few of them, and sparkles danced in the air at her touch.
“And it definitely said ‘help us’?” she asked.
Denzel nodded. “With its tentacle things,” he said. “I thought it was attacking me, but it wasn’t. It was asking for help.”
“If that’s true then maybe that’s why it came to you in the first place,” Samara said. “Maybe that’s why you could see it. Come to think of it, the Freeform – the binmonster – it didn’t actually attack you, either. Normally something like that would’ve torn you in half, or ripped your head off, or eaten your—”
“All right, all right! I get the picture,” said Denzel.
Samara chewed her lip. “What if they both came to you for help?”
“But why ask me?” said Denzel. “What can I do?”
Samara stopped at one of the boxes, then backtracked to the one before it. “This is it,” she said. She shot Denzel a worried look. “But I’m really not sure about this.”
Denzel half-smiled. “Do you trust me, Samara?”
After a moment, Samara nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
Denzel winced. “Just so you know, I was sort of hoping you’d say ‘no’ there, and I could go back to bed and forget this whole thing.” He took a deep breath. “But let’s do it. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?”
Samara opened her mouth, but Denzel quickly stopped her. “Please don’t answer that question.”
“OK,” said Samara. “Here goes.”
She pressed her hand against the front of the box and muttered something below her breath. There was a loud hiss, like steam escaping, and the box slid smoothly forwards until it was sticking several centimetres out of the wall.
They peered inside and saw a red gem wrapped in thin willow branches. Samara unwound the branches, then stepped back and stood by Denzel. “Anything?” she whispered.
“No,” began Denzel, but then he saw it – a tiny curl of black smoke snaking up out of the box like the tentacle of a baby octopus. “Wait, yes, I see it. It’s coming out,” Denzel said.
He took a shuffled step closer to the box. “Hey, it’s OK. Don’t worry. We won’t hurt you,” he soothed, then he jumped back and screamed as the smoke exploded out of the box.
It flew upwards like a startled octopus, slamming its long tentacles against the ceiling. Samara clamped her hand over Denzel’s mouth and followed his gaze. “Where is it? Up there?”
Denzel nodded. The poltergeist pulsated and squirmed, as if getting ready to attack. Pulling Samara’s hand away, Denzel swallowed nervously. “It’s OK,” he said, raising his hands to try to calm the ghostly shape. “You said you needed help. That’s why we’re here.”
The ’geist shifted from side to side on the ceiling, as if drifting on the wind. Its pulsating slowed, just a little. “But I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong,” Denzel said. He smiled hopefully. “So, uh, fancy a chat?”
The poltergeist lunged. The tips of its tentacles all came together to form a point – a point which, to Denzel’s dismay, was right in the middle of his head. He felt a sensation of icy cold flood through him, like his blood was turning to liquid nitrogen in his veins. He opened his mouth to scream again, but all that rolled out was a gasp of frosty white air and a somewhat muted, “Ow.”
Images began flickering through Denzel’s head, like the pages of a flipbook being turned at super speed. He saw faces and places he didn’t recognise, heard voices shouting to him in languages he couldn’t understand. Eyes, teeth, doors, rooms – his brain went numb as thousands of pictures and sounds and sensations all flooded his senses at once.
And then it stopped. Everything stopped.
He was looking down on an empty white space. At first, he thought he was alone, but then he felt them beside him, supporting him, and there was a rush of relief that swept all the way up from his toes.
“Keep watching, Denzel,” his dads whispered, each taking one of his hands and squeezing it. “This is important.”
As they spoke, the whiteness thinned like a mist, revealing shapes lurking within. He saw himself, stumbling along a dimly lit corridor, clutching his stomach and doing the walk he knew he only did when he was desperate for a wee.
“I don’t remember this,” he said.
The dream-Denzel – because this felt like a dream – looked relieved when he found a bathroom and stumbled inside. There was a flash as time leapt forwards, and a much less stressed Denzel emerged into the corridor.
Both Denzels gasped at the sight of Knightley and Rasmus. They were moving along the hallway, a third figure held between them. It wasn’t until they drew closer that Denzel recognised the old woman from the supermarket. Her head was back to normal, and she made a grab for Denzel as she got close.
“Help me! You don’t know what she’ll do. You don’t know what she’ll do!”
The dream-Denzel started to ask Knightley and Rasmus what she was talking about, but then Rasmus was opening a bag and blowing, and a swirl of dust fluttered up into Denzel’s nostri
ls, and filled his head with light.
Denzel’s body convulsed violently. A hand caught him – the real him – by the arm. He heard Samara calling to him and the light began to fade. “N-no,” he stammered. “Not yet.”
More pictures flashed before his eyes, even faster this time. He saw gems – hundreds of gems – smashed to pieces. He saw Quinn opening a box. It was the one he’d picked up at the armoury, he thought. The one Boyle said had been stolen.
He saw her standing with her arms aloft, her body encased in an eerie electric glow.
He saw a rip in the world, bright and swirling with colour. He saw reality turn itself inside out. He saw chaos and death and destruction.
And then he saw nothing but darkness.
In the dark, Denzel reached for his dads’ hands, but they were no longer there. They were gone. Taken from him.
The ache Denzel had felt behind his eyes since his confrontation with Quinn fizzled then faded away. Denzel blinked, and he was back in the room with Samara and the poltergeist, which was pulsing gently on the ceiling.
He stumbled sideways into Samara’s arms. “Are you OK?” she asked. “What happened?”
Denzel took a series of deep breaths, trying to steady his nerves and stop himself vomiting all over Samara’s neatly pressed robe. “Doesn’t matter what happened,” he managed. “It’s what’s about to happen that we need to worry about.”
Convincing the poltergeist it had to go back into the box wasn’t easy, but after around twenty minutes of pleading, promises and persuasion, it reluctantly squeezed itself back inside.
Over the next hour and a half, Denzel and Samara sat on Denzel’s bed while Denzel did his best to explain everything he’d seen and heard. The fact that Denzel didn’t really know what he’d seen and heard made this quite tricky.
From what he could piece together, he’d got up to go to the toilet the night after the supermarket encounter, spotted Knightley and Rasmus with the old woman, then after she’d tried to ask Denzel for help, Rasmus had wiped his memory.
Beyond that … he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what the stuff with Quinn and the big hole in the world was telling him.
What he did know was that he was angry. Quinn had wiped him from his parents’ minds, and then did something to his head that had somehow made him not care. Whatever she’d done had worn off when the poltergeist had stuck its tentacles into his brain though, and Denzel was now itching to face Quinn down.
“So…” said Samara, drawing the word out until it had at least two syllables. “She’s going to put a hole in the world?”
“Right,” Denzel said. “I mean, I think so. That’s what it looked like.”
Samara shrugged. “We do that a lot. I did it at the supermarket, remember? It’s a short cut. It sort of folds space so you can hop from one spot to another.”
Denzel shook his head. “No, it wasn’t like that. It was … colourful. Inside. There were shapes moving. Sort of swirling around.”
Samara raised her eyebrows. “That sounds like the Spectral Realm. Why would she be opening the Spectral Realm? That’s… Well, I mean, it’s insanely dangerous, for a start. There are so many rules against it, there’s no way she’d even try.”
“Well, she’s going to,” said Denzel.
“Assuming we can trust a poltergeist who implanted a vision into your head.”
“Hey, if you can’t trust one of them, who can you trust?” said Denzel.
Samara smiled. “Yeah, it’d still be good to know for sure, though. We can’t really confront her with ‘A ghost told us you’re up to something’. We need more.”
“You said you had suspicions already,” Denzel reminded her.
“Yeah, but just that. Suspicions. Not evidence.”
Denzel thought for a moment. “Maybe Boyle could help.”
“No,” said Samara. “No. Boyle’s a good guy, but boy, he loves his rules and regs. If he finds out we’ve been sneaking about… No. Not a good idea.”
She glanced down at the device on her wrist and stood up. “Speaking of Boyle, though, I’d better get this back to his locker before he starts looking for it.” Samara paused with her hand on the door handle. “You’ll be OK for now? Don’t go confronting Quinn. Not yet.”
Denzel nodded. “I know.”
“OK, then.” Samara smiled. “It’s all going to be fine,” she said, then she turned the handle, opened the door and let out a gasp.
Boyle stood right outside, like he’d been lurking out there just waiting for the door to open. Samara looked him up and down, pausing just briefly on the rifle he held in both hands.
“Uh, hey, partner,” Samara said. “I was just checking in on our new recruit.”
Denzel stood up and appeared at Samara’s back. “Boyle. Hey. How you doing? Ready for some more training?”
Boyle’s eyes narrowed. “Director Quinn wants to see you both,” he said.
Samara and Denzel exchanged a glance. “Us?” Samara began. “Why does she—”
“Now,” Boyle said. He pivoted on one foot and nodded along the corridor in the direction of Quinn’s office. He held his hand out to Samara, palm open. “And I’d like my scrambler back.”
Quinn was writing at her desk when Boyle marched Denzel and Samara in to see her. She didn’t look up until the door closed with a soft click that somehow managed to sound deafening in the hush of the office.
For a long time, the director didn’t speak. Instead, she just tick-tocked her gaze slowly between Samara and Denzel, like she was trying to decide which one to shout at first.
At last, her gaze settled on Samara. “Well,” Quinn said. “I’m very disappointed.”
“I know, I know,” said Samara. “We should’ve done more magic training by now. It’s my fault, I’ve been—”
Quinn twitched. “Stop,” she said in a tone so cold Denzel could have sworn the temperature actually dropped a degree. “You took Boyle’s scrambler. You went to Spectral Storage. Why?”
Samara tried to smile, but it was fooling no one. “Just some extra training,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Tell the truth, Samara,” Boyle snapped. “You’re only making it worse.”
“It wasn’t her, it was me,” Denzel said. “It was my idea.”
Director Quinn’s eyes crept across to him. “Was it really?”
“We know what you’re up to,” Denzel said. “We know what you’re planning. We know everything.”
“Do you?” asked Quinn, raising an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
Denzel sniffed. “What?”
“You know what I’m planning.” Quinn placed her elbows on her desk and leaned forwards on them. “Do enlighten me.”
Denzel cleared his throat. “Well… You took that thing from the armoury. The disruptor thing.”
“The Spectral Disruptor. Yes. And?” Quinn asked. “I regularly make modifications to our equipment. That’s no secret.”
Quinn caught the expression of surprise on Denzel’s face and laughed. It was a dry scrape at the back of her throat that set Denzel’s teeth on edge.
“The old woman. The Corporeal. You said she got away, but she didn’t. Knightley and Rasmus had her. Last night.”
Quinn’s laughter died in her throat. Her eyes darted to Boyle and Samara, just for a moment, then settled back on Denzel again. “I’m afraid you are mistaken, Denzel.”
“No! I’m not,” Denzel continued. “She’s here! She asked for my help, and so did the poltergeist. They’re afraid. Of you. Of what you’re planning to do!”
Quinn steepled her fingers in front of her. “And what, pray tell, am I planning to do?”
Denzel ran out of steam at that point. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Ha. As I thought,” said Quinn. “That’s because I’m not planning to do—”
“But I know it involves opening the Spectre Realm!” said Denzel.
“Spectral Realm,” Samara corrected.
“Sorry. Spectral Realm
.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Boyle grunted.
Quinn’s not-quite smile became a not-at-all smile. “Who have you been speaking to?” she asked, then she waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter.”
She tapped a finger on her desktop for several seconds, looking Denzel up and down. “Do you know how many ghosts there are in the world, Denzel?”
Denzel shook his head. “No.”
Quinn nodded slowly, then turned to the others. “Samara? Boyle? Would you like to tell him?”
“Uh, we don’t know,” said Samara. “No one does.”
“It’s impossible to know,” Boyle added.
“Precisely!” said Quinn. “We have no idea. We’ve never had any idea. And yet we go out there, day in, day out, catching them, putting them away, catching them, putting them away. The same thing, over and over and over again, like we’re stuck in a loop.
“Do you know how many lives have been lost thanks to this never-ending battle of ours?” Quinn continued. She pointed towards the ceiling. “Not just them up there, but us. Down here. My life. Yours. The lives of thousands of children who never got to have a childhood.”
She inhaled so deeply through her nose Denzel felt like she was sucking all the air out of the room. “And for what? What difference have we made? There are still ghosts. There are still creatures lurking in the shadows and monsters under the bed. Ten thousand lost children, and we have achieved precisely nothing.”
“We’ve saved people,” said Samara.
“And for what? What thanks do we get?” Quinn demanded. “And have you seen people?” she asked, spitting the word out. “Most of them don’t deserve saving.”
“What are you going to do?” Samara asked.
“I’m going to free us. All of us,” Quinn said. “And you’re going to help me, Denzel.”
“Me? How?”
“I’m going to need you to tell me if we’ve got them all,” Quinn said.
“Got all what?” asked Denzel.
“The ghosts. You’re going to make sure there are none of them left after I open the Spectral Realm and suck them all inside.”
Too Ghoul For School Page 10