by Chris Ward
25
Davey’s Absence
Wilhelm disappeared for a couple of hours, then showed up again around midnight, bringing with him a stolen climbing harness. Benjamin, he explained, didn’t have the skills to do the kind of underside climb Wilhelm’s small frame and bravado were designed for. Instead, they affixed a pulley rope to the leg of Benjamin’s bed and lowered the pulley out through the window. Benjamin went first, with Wilhelm holding the rope secure. With his feet in a brace, Benjamin tugged on a central rope to lower himself to the ground.
Despite the horrors of the afternoon, it proved far quicker to get down to the lobby by going around the school’s outer wall to the main entrance, rather than cutting through the school itself. All afternoon, Benjamin had watched cleaners spraying chamomile on the ground outside, but now, while he waited for Wilhelm to descend, the pungent scent of the calming flower thick in his nostrils, Benjamin stood nervously back by the wall, trying not to imagine more ghouls climbing up out of the ground.
Wilhelm hopped down from the rope, making Benjamin jump. His friend was like a mouse—utterly silent. ‘Here, wipe this on you. Just a bit on your clothes is enough. I didn’t want to do it in the room because the teachers might smell it.’
Benjamin dipped his fingers into a pot of thick grease. ‘What is it?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose.
‘Haulock repellent.’
Benjamin didn’t have a chance to ask what it was or who had figured out it repelled the reanimated refuse sacks; Wilhelm was already running along the base of the wall, heading toward the lighter sky that indicated the clifftop. Benjamin glanced warily back toward the area of upland where the ghouls had come from, then hurried to catch up.
By the time he had reached the main doors, Wilhelm was already inside, bent low beside the glass, watching for signs of activity. The lobby, though, was as empty as always. The office, too, was silent and dark.
‘I need to get inside,’ Benjamin said.
Wilhelm winked. ‘I thought you might.’
Since that first night, Benjamin had tried twice to get into the admissions office, but both times he had found the door locked. Mrs. Martin had perhaps wised up that someone had been inside, but Wilhelm, with his seemingly endless inventory of shady skills, had the door open in no time, a wooden knitting needle that had aided him secreted back into a pocket.
‘Wait here,’ Benjamin said. ‘I won’t be long.’
The phone was in its old place on the desk. He picked up the receiver and, hearing the dial tone, bent to dial the numbers, when he paused. What was his phone number again? He remembered the code and the first three digits, but the last four….
His father had taught him the number when Benjamin was three. It had never changed, but he had forgotten it completely until his parents had instilled it into his mind in the form of a code.
Zero—that was where everything started, at the bottom of the tree. Seventeen—the number of the house directly across the street. Three—the number of trees in No.17’s garden. And then double two—the number of trees in the gardens on either side of theirs.
Four—the number of wheels on Daddy’s car. Three—the number of wheels on Benjamin’s tricycle. Ninety-two—grandma’s age (he knew now Dad had made it up, but Grandma had forever after been ninety-two and would likely remain that age).
And the last two digits. Which were … thirteen.
Why?
Like the rest, there was a reason, but it was gone now and would likely stay gone. He shook his head as he dialed them, knowing that he would need to write them down or he would forget.
The phone rang. His mother answered.
‘Hi.’ Putting on a fake child’s voice hurt him more than he had anticipated. He grimaced as he said, ‘Is Davey there? It’s Kyle from Davey’s class at school. Can he come over to play?’
Kyle was a made-up name, one he hoped wouldn’t make his mother suspicious. His mother was an intensely private person; she wouldn’t give out details over the phone to an adult, but perhaps a child might break through her defenses.
‘Hey, Kyle. Don’t you know what time it is?’
Benjamin nodded against the phone. He sniffed. ‘Yep, I do. I just want … Davey to come over.’
Benjamin’s mother sighed. ‘Kyle … I know, love. I wish I could promise David could go over tomorrow, but I’m afraid David isn’t here right now. He’s still in the hospital.’
Benjamin gulped. His cheeks flushed, and he had to swallow down a sob.
‘When will he come home?’
Again, his mother sighed. ‘I don’t know, love. He’s having a long sleep, but I’m hopeful that he’ll wake up soon.’
Part of Benjamin’s master plan had been to fake being upset, but now he realised he truly was. And not just because he was stuck in a dark office, speaking to his mother down a phone line that might as well go to another world, but because he knew from his mother’s answers that his theory was right.
‘I miss Davey,’ Benjamin as Kyle whispered.
‘I miss David, too,’ his mother answered. ‘But I haven’t given up hope that both of my boys will be back home and playing together before we all know it. You get off to bed now, Kyle. Sweet dreams, honey.’
Mum! Benjamin gritted his teeth to stop himself from crying out for her as the line went dead. He put the phone gently back in its cradle, then wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his nightclothes.
A long sleep.
Benjamin nodded. His mother had used the kind of phrase an adult might on a little kid to hide a serious sickness. Benjamin wasn’t stupid, though, he knew what she meant. David was lying in a hospital bed somewhere, in a coma.
Something had happened to him, too.
26
Between the Walls
‘Just pass me a pencil, dunce.’
‘Choke on it.’ Benjamin jabbed the pencil into Godfrey’s notebook so hard the nib snapped, but not before it ripped a hole through the top three sheets of paper.
‘You little—’
‘Is everything all right back there? Godfrey, is Benjamin bothering you?’
Godfrey looked up at the front of the class, putting on his most vomit-inducing expression—mouth flattened, cheeks puffed out, one eyebrow raised, the other pulled into a half-frown.
‘No, Professor Eaves. He was just struggling with a question. I think he finds even simple challenges difficult.’
Professor Eaves cast a despairing eye at Benjamin, then turned back to the blackboard. ‘See that you try to concentrate, boy. You’ve caused enough upset around here already.’
Near the front of the classroom, Miranda twisted in her seat to give Benjamin a supportive smile, and Godfrey blew her a kiss. She retorted with a stiff middle finger, which was rapidly pulled back under the desk as Professor Eaves turned around.
‘And I think that’s all for today. I’ll see some of you after lunch for philosophy.’
As the pupils stood up and filed out, Benjamin squeezed through the desks to Miranda. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Are you going outside during break?’
‘Sure—’
‘Hey, and what little love affair is going on here?’ Godfrey draped an arm around Miranda’s shoulder, which she removed with a violent shrug.
‘Leave us alone,’ she hissed.
‘Sorry, can’t do that. I’ve been specifically asked to look after little Benjamin here.’
Benjamin tried to elbow Godfrey in the ribs, but the bigger boy caught his elbow and shoved him toward the classroom door.
‘Not so fast, runt.’
Benjamin glared, wishing Godfrey would explode like some of the ghouls had. When Professor Loane had announced the teachers’ selection for his chaperone over breakfast, Benjamin thought it was a sick joke. Only when Godfrey showed up at Benjamin’s door ready to escort him to class did the horrifying reality set in.
‘Why don’t you—’
‘I have the authority to punish you with up to a hund
red cleans,’ Godfrey said. ‘Per offence. Of course, I’d have to accompany you to the Locker Room, but I’d be prepared to take one for the team to see you suffer. You know, every Tuesday there’s a special shipment to the Locker Room for cleaning. Boy’s underwear. I hear Snout sometimes does a load in his pants.’
As he had already done multiple times, Benjamin scowled and tried to walk away, but it was no good. For the rest of the day, Godfrey stuck to him like a clinging vine, and contrary to feeling protected, by the end of fifth period chemistry, Benjamin was ready to concoct some chemical monstrosity to end his misery. The best he could do was to slide a note to Miranda asking her to meet him in the science wing after dinner. He hoped that, with the teachers around while they ate, Godfrey’s attention span might wane long enough for him to get away.
At dinner, though, Godfrey’s crew surrounded Benjamin as they joined him at the back of the line. Despite his protestations, he was ushered to a corner table and forced to sit with Godfrey on one side and Snout on the other, and three of Godfrey’s other minions grinning inanely at him from the other side. Two tables over, Miranda and Wilhelm could do nothing but watch.
As the bully poked at Benjamin’s food, and then, with a snigger, began to swap out Benjamin's vegetables for less savoury ones in his friends’ bowls, nothing would have given Benjamin greater satisfaction than to crash his tray down over Godfrey’s head.
‘A bit of brown on that one,’ Godfrey said. ‘You’re young and healthy, so it won’t hurt, will it?’
Benjamin fumbled with his fork as the urge to thrust it into Godfrey’s eye made his fingers shake. He groaned in despair as it dropped under the table.
‘Oops, better go pick that up,’ Godfrey said. ‘I hope the floors were washed last night.’
Benjamin stooped to climb under the wide table, and as the tablecloth fell back down, shutting him into a world with only the legs of Godfrey’s friends for company, he felt a momentary sense of freedom. He looked around for his fork just as Snout shifted on his seat, letting rip with a loud guff that brought shudders of laugher from above. On the other side of the table, Derek flapped a hand in Benjamin’s direction, and a thick stench filled his nostrils. Eyes watering, Benjamin turned to look for a way out, then realised what table they were sitting at.
Wilhelm’s secret door was right underfoot.
In a moment, Benjamin had pushed his fingers into the tiny crack between the boards and pulled it up. As he lowered his legs into the gap, he spotted a clod of congealed custard that had fallen by Snout’s feet. He scooped it up with his fork and dropped it on to the little V at the front of Godfrey’s shoe, so it would slowly work its way down into his sock over the next few minutes. Then he ducked his head and pulled the secret door back into place.
At first, the sheer dark of the under floor space came as a shock, but as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, lit only by thin slivers of light through loose boards, Benjamin began to acclimatise. The space was barely high enough to crawl on all fours, and with the thudding of feet beating an irregular rhythm and the roar of voices above him, he felt like he was trapped inside someone’s ear. Once Godfrey discovered his disappearance, though, they would conduct a search, so he moved quickly, crawling across the floor through dust mites and cobwebs until the slivers of light were gone and the cacophony was behind him.
Then he came to a set of steps heading down, and soon the ceiling opened up, allowing him to stand as he made his way into a wide room with a strange source of natural light—boxes of old light bulbs stacked in the corners gave off a faint glow as they reanimated. They weren’t alone, he realised. Dusty tables and chairs reverberated, the faint tapping of their legs like the marching of thousands of ants. Old pictures on the walls creaked from side to side, and a piano in one corner played slow notes in a discordant rhythm.
The room was an old ballroom, and in its abandonment, the place had come alive. How these rooms could exist undetected he had no idea. Surely someone besides Wilhelm, and now himself, knew they were here—
‘Welcome.’
He spun. At first he couldn’t see who the deep, muffled voice belonged to, until something stepped out of a doorway leading through to an old reception room.
The motorbike was standing on end, infused with human bones, with a skull embedded into its front tire. It moved by rolling forward on its back tire, maintaining balance in a way that Benjamin assumed had come with practice.
‘Don’t be afraid. I am not one of them. My eyes are blue, look. At least, they can be.’
Benjamin was still too stunned to even consider whether he was afraid, but when the creature’s eye sockets filled with an abrupt orange glow, he realised what it meant.
He took a step back. ‘Ghoul….’
The orange turned to yellow, then darkened to green before morphing into blue. A revving that could have been laughter came from inside the motorbike’s chassis.
‘Ghouls are mindless,’ the voice said. ‘Myself and my fellows are not. Wilhelm told us about you, Benjamin. Welcome to our special place. You are as welcome here as he. Come.’
The motorbike spun round on its balancing wheel and rolled away through the reception room to a door at the far end. A kick-start lever poked out of its chassis and depressed the handle. The door opened out to a balcony promenade encircling a large auditorium. Seats had been removed or adapted and now several dozen other reanimated creatures lazed around, talking, playing cards or games, while another group up on a stage performed some kind of music Benjamin could barely describe. It sounded sharp and dissonant, an attempt to make factory noise rhythmical, and several of the creatures twisted and circled one another in a space cleared below the stage.
‘Our common room,’ the motorbike said, the kick-start lever gesturing like a tyrannosaur’s tiny front paw.
Among the sea of machines and vehicles sat the gatekeeper Benjamin remembered from his first day, holding a hand of playing cards on an outstretched window frame. And there, in front of a television showing an old black-and-white movie, lounged the sin keeper from the locker room.
‘Hey!’ the motorbike shouted suddenly, accompanying his call with a fierce roar of his motorbike engine, loud enough to make Benjamin jump. A hush fell over the assembled, and representations of heads all turned up toward the balcony.
‘We have a visit from young Benjamin Forrest,’ he proclaimed. ‘See that he’s made welcome.’
A series of hellos and unlikely waves followed, and then, as the motorbike turned away from the balcony, music and games began again.
‘This place is incredible,’ Benjamin said. ‘Wilhelm told me nothing of it.’
‘We asked him not to, until it was necessary. Too much information at once can be enough to fry a young brain.’
The motorbike rolled away toward another door, where, inside, a comfortable sofa sat against a wall.
‘Please relax,’ the motorbike said. ‘I’m sure you had some pressing reason for coming down here, but you can spare a few minutes of your time, I don’t doubt. And I imagine you didn’t finish your dinner. Here.’
The kick-start lever expertly scooped something up off of a tabletop and sent it looping through the air. Benjamin caught it just before it struck him in the face. It was soft, and smelt delicious. An apple pie, still warm.
‘A small welcome gift,’ the motorbike said. ‘And I do believe I haven’t introduced myself. You can call me Moto. It’s rather easy to remember, I’m sure. And once more, welcome, Benjamin Forrest, to the world within the walls, or as we simply like to call it: Underfloor.’
27
Rescue Plans
‘You don’t have to worry about Godfrey,’ Moto said. ‘We are quite well in control of who comes down here and who doesn’t. He will find the floor free of any secret doors, and your disappearance will be a mystery.’
‘There’s so much I don’t understand. Why are all these rooms shut off? There must be more rooms here than in the rest of the school.’
Moto’s head-wheel spun, his jaw sliding from side to side in what Benjamin assumed was a gesture of amusement. ‘More years ago than most can remember, this school was founded by men seeking to create a safe haven for those unfortunates who found themselves marooned here, to nurture and protect them from the ghouls, and worse. This they did to a certain level of success, but there were never enough of them to control as they would like. As always, when humans are involved, wars were fought, alliances formed and broken. Over time, a general truce was struck that survives to this day. We allow them their section of the school, and in turn, they allow us ours.’
‘The teachers know you’re here?’
Moto’s head spun again. ‘Of course. Though perhaps those who command here now are a little unfamiliar with us as a whole. We, of course, have the capacity to far outlive them, and quite possibly the world itself, although no one can be sure yet, for obvious reasons.’
Benjamin’s head spun worse than Moto’s front wheel in his expression of a nod. ‘I don’t understand anything about this place,’ he said. ‘All I know is that I’m here, and that back in England something has happened to my brother.’
‘Your brother? How would you know?’
Benjamin explained about the phone call, and Moto’s eyes flashed with surprise.
‘Well, I’ve never heard anything like that before. Have you spoken to the headmaster about all of this? He alone may have the answers. He is not … how could I say … like other humans.’
Benjamin shook his head. ‘He’s gone to somewhere called the High Mountains on a consultation mission and he’s not back yet.’
Moto did his unique spinning nod again. ‘He has gone to seek the Dark Man. Perhaps there is trouble brewing. If he has not returned, that bodes badly for all of us.’
‘Can you help me find him?’