The Darkest Corners

by Barry Hutchison

  ‘Shall I take your n-n-nose first?’ he whispered, and as he spoke he started to shiver. He pulled back a little and I saw swirls of cold air rising up from his skin. ‘What?’ he muttered. ‘What is happ—?’

  He stopped moving, his face fixed in a frown. A layer of frosty white crept up from inside his bloodstained shirt. It spread like a rash across his scarred throat and carried on right up to the wound in his scalp.

  A boy of around five years old leaned round the frozen Doc and showed me his proudest grin. His silvery-grey eyes sparked with mischief.

  ‘I.C.?’ I wheezed. It was the boy I’d met in the Darkest Corners. The one I’d saved from Doc Mortis. He’d had the power to freeze things with his touch, but he’d been unable to control it. Apparently in the weeks since then he’d learned how.

  ‘That’s my name; don’t wear it out,’ he said. ‘Do it, Big Nose.’

  There was a growl and a huge fist connected with Doc’s head. He shattered like glass, and a man in a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat was revealed behind him.

  ‘For the last time,’ said the man in a voice like gravel, ‘don’t call me Big Nose.’

  ‘It’s not my fault you’ve got a big nose,’ I.C. said. ‘You’re so touchy about it. I’d be more worried about my ears if I was you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my ears?’

  I.C. gasped. ‘You mean you don’t know? They’re massive!’

  I looked past the boy and up to Mr Mumbles. My old imaginary friend glared down at me, and I couldn’t quite decide if my day had just got better or worse. Finally, he reached out a hand. I stared at it for a few seconds, like I’d never seen one before. Then I took hold of it and he yanked me smoothly to my feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Thank him, not me,’ Mumbles growled. He pointed to his throat. ‘You’ve got something there.’

  I felt for my own throat and realised that the frozen hand of Doc Mortis was still gripping on. I yanked it off and threw it to the floor, where it broke into several sharp shards.

  ‘So, just to be sure now,’ I said, ‘he’s really dead this time?’

  Mumbles prodded some of the broken fragments with his foot. ‘Don’t see him getting up from that, do you?’

  ‘The way things have been going lately? I’m not going to rule it out. Besides, you were just a pile of dust at one point, and here you are now.’

  I.C. wrapped his arms round my waist and hugged me tightly. I could feel the cold emanating from him, but he was beginning to warm up.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d see you again,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, I promised you you would,’ I replied.

  ‘Yeah, but Big Nose said you were a… what was it again? A back-stabbing weasel, that was it.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  Mr Mumbles stared at me impassively. Or, at least, he tried to, but there was a hint of a smirk at the corners of his scarred mouth.

  ‘You’re not really a back-stabbing weasel, though, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I assured him. ‘I’m not.’

  I.C. sighed with relief. ‘Good.’ His brow furrowed. ‘What’s a weasel, anyway?’

  ‘An animal. A bit like a stoat.’

  I.C. gasped. ‘Like a boat?’

  ‘No, like a stoat.’

  ‘Oh, right. What’s a stoat?’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ I said.

  I.C. finally stepped back and I turned to Mr Mumbles. ‘The barrier’s gone.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘It’s my fault. My dad tricked me.’

  Mumbles nodded. ‘I tried to warn you.’

  ‘Everyone’s dying.’

  ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘But not like this,’ I protested. ‘They shouldn’t die like this. None of this should be happening.’

  ‘But it is happening,’ Mumbles said.

  ‘How can I stop it? How can I fix this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think you can.’

  I had to lean on the wall to stop myself slumping to the floor. I’d already guessed it was too late to stop my dad’s plan, but having it confirmed still hit me like a hammer blow.

  Was this really it? Was this what the world would be like from now on? Monsters and horror and death at every turn?

  ‘I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you?’ I snapped. I was angry with myself, but Mumbles was a much easier target. ‘I bet you’re loving being out of the Darkest Corners. Being free.’

  ‘Free?’ Mumbles growled. ‘How am I free? It wasn’t the place that was the problem, it was the things that lived there. But they’re all over here too.’ He shoved me towards a window and gestured down at the town. Flames had very nearly consumed it completely. Even from this distance, through the glass, I could hear the screams of the dying. ‘I didn’t escape the Darkest Corners. The Darkest Corners is here with me.’

  I watched the fire dancing until I couldn’t watch it any longer. ‘What am I going to do?’ I croaked.

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to find my dad,’ I said. ‘And I want to kill him.’

  Mumbles tugged the rim of his hat, pulling it lower on his head. ‘I could get behind that.’

  ‘What? You mean you’ll help me? Why?’

  ‘He messed with my head too, remember?’ Mumbles said. He jabbed a thumb towards I.C. ‘Besides, he’d never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t.’

  I.C. grinned broadly. He reached a hand up towards Mumbles. The man in the hat hesitated, looked a little embarrassed, then took I.C.’s hand in his.

  ‘How did you two find me, anyway?’ I asked as we headed for the exit.

  ‘Luck. We were after Mortis. Didn’t know you’d be here.’

  ‘Right. Well that was some good luck then.’

  Mumbles grunted. ‘Who said it was good luck?’

  We stepped round the broken bodies of the porters outside the cupboard. ‘Was that you?’ I asked.

  Mumbles nodded. ‘They weren’t the only ones. There were a dozen of them in here when we arrived.’

  ‘Really?’ I whispered, suddenly alert.

  ‘Were. Past tense.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um... well done.’

  ‘Never get tired of killing those things.’

  I glanced down at I.C., who was two knuckles deep in a nose pick. ‘Right. Good,’ I said, as brightly as I could manage. ‘Shall we go?’

  Ameena jumped out from inside the 4x4 as we approached. Her face lit up when she spotted me, then fell when she realised I wasn’t alone. When she spotted that one of my companions was Mr Mumbles, she looked ready to jump back in the car and speed away.

  ‘Relax,’ I said. ‘He’s on our side.’

  Ameena didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t make a run for it, either. She shifted her gaze to I.C. and he smiled broadly up at her.

  ‘Hello,’ he chirped.

  ‘Uh, hi. You’re the ice kid I’ve heard so much about?’

  ‘That’s me!’ he said proudly. ‘And this is Uncle Mumbles.’

  ‘Uncle—?’ I began, but Mr Mumbles stared daggers at me.

  ‘Shut it.’

  ‘They’ve already met,’ I told I.C. ‘She broke a baseball bat across his face.’

  ‘It’s OK, his nose would have blocked it,’ I.C. said, then he jumped sideways to avoid a dunt from Mumbles.

  ‘How’s Billy?’ I asked. I could see him sitting in the back of the car. His eyes were staring straight ahead as his fingers prodded at the stitches in his lips.

  ‘Well, he’s not his usual chatty self,’ Ameena said. ‘Tried to find something to cut the stitches, but no luck.’

  I handed her a scalpel. ‘Try this. Grabbed it when Doc was on top of me. Was going to use it, but I.C. took care of him before I had to.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ Mumbles said. He took the knife and wiped some frost from the blade. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ Ameena asked. ‘He’s already pretty freaked o
ut. Having you come at him with a scalpel might—’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Mumbles growled, and Ameena didn’t argue any more.

  We climbed into the car, Ameena and me in the front, Billy sandwiched between Mumbles and I.C. in the back. He didn’t freak out like I expected him to – and like I probably would’ve in the same situation – but he did shoot me a worried look.

  ‘Hello, I’m I.C., what’s your name?’

  For obvious reasons, he didn’t get a reply.

  ‘He’s Billy,’ I said. ‘Billy, I.C. and Mr Mumbles.’

  Billy let out a high-pitched groan when he saw the scalpel. ‘Relax, kid,’ Mumbles said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  I could feel everyone in the car holding their breath as Mumbles leaned in with the blade. Everyone expect I.C., who was quietly singing a song. I didn’t catch many of the words, but from what I could gather it was about Mr Mumbles’ nose, and the sheer size of it.

  Mumbles clamped one hand on the top of Billy’s head, and brought the blade closer to the stitches. Billy closed his eyes and did his best to control his shaking. Mumbles breathed out, then held it. Then he placed the razor-sharp steel against the first stitch.

  ‘Careful,’ I said, and everyone jumped.

  Mr Mumbles scowled at me, then tried again. I didn’t interrupt this time. The blade tugged. Billy whimpered. And then the first stitch popped loose.

  ‘Drive,’ Mumbles said. ‘The rest should be easy.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait until they’re all done?’ I asked. Billy tried to nod, but the hand on his head held him steady.

  ‘The rest should be easy. Drive.’

  Ameena looked to me for guidance. I shrugged, and she fired up the car. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Wherever my dad is.’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t tell me where he was going. I ran away before I found out.’

  I leaned round to Mumbles. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Here’s one: shut up and let me concentrate.’ Another stitch was sliced open and Billy’s lips loosened a little.

  ‘You sure you don’t know?’ I asked Ameena. ‘He didn’t even give any hints?’

  ‘No, he never really told me anything. Bump coming!’

  Mumbles pulled the scalpel away from Billy as the 4x4 bounced back down on to the road.

  ‘Great, so he could be anywhere,’ I sighed.

  ‘Yeah. Except...’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Except I think he’d want to rub it in. You know? That he’s won. He knew he could never really escape the Darkest Corners. He knew he could never get back to the real world the way it was. That wasn’t the reason he was really doing any of this.’

  ‘He wanted to hurt me,’ I said, my voice hushed. ‘He told me he was doing all this just so he could hurt me. He wanted me to bring the Darkest Corners here so I’d have all this death on my conscience.’

  ‘Exactly. And I reckon he’d want to revel in that. He’d go somewhere that’d always remind him that he won. Somewhere he could gloat.’

  ‘Can’t you sniff him out?’ I.C. suggested. ‘You know, with your big nose?’

  Mumbles sighed. ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’ I.C. gasped. ‘I thought you’d be able to smell Australia with that thing!’

  Mumbles snapped back at him, but I wasn’t paying any attention now. I was thinking about his and Ameena’s words. Somewhere that would remind him he’d won. Somewhere he could gloat.

  It hit me then. Somewhere that would break my heart.

  ‘Home,’ I said, and my voice cracked with the weight of the word. ‘Take me home.’

  By the time we were halfway to the village, Billy’s mouth was open. Fresh blood seeped from the holes above and below his lips, and the stitches lay scattered across the floor in the back of the car.

  Mumbles was sitting back in his seat now. He looked cartoonishly large, squashed in, his head touching the roof.

  ‘Thanks,’ Billy said, wiping the worst of the blood on his sleeve.

  ‘No problem,’ Mumbles shrugged. ‘Stings for a while, but you get over it.’

  Billy nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said again. He tried a smile, but it clearly hurt too much for him to quite pull it off.

  The car’s occupants fell silent after that, save for I.C. singing softly about the scale of Mr Mumbles’ facial features.

  It was Billy who eventually spoke. His throat was dry, making him hard to hear over the sound of the 4x4’s engine.

  ‘Why’s she here?’

  He was staring at the back of Ameena’s head, looking almost like the bully he used to be.

  ‘She’s OK,’ I said. ‘She’s on our side. It was all just –’ I glanced across at the girl in the driving seat – ‘a misunderstanding.’

  Billy didn’t seem satisfied with this answer, but he didn’t press the issue. ‘So... what happened? To the world, I mean.’

  All eyes went to me for the reply.

  ‘It was my fault,’ I said. ‘My dad tricked me into using my abilities. I brought the barrier down, and now everyone’s dying.’

  ‘You can stop it, right?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘But, your magic power thing. The stuff you can do. You can stop it. I mean, you’ve got to stop it.’

  ‘I can’t do any of that any more,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t work in the Darkest Corners, and the Darkest Corners is now here.’

  Billy leaned back and looked out through the windows. We were approaching the village again and the sounds of madness and chaos were already reaching out to meet us.

  ‘So, what, everyone dies? That’s it?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Ameena said. ‘And it wasn’t your fault, Kyle.’

  I looked at her. ‘It was.’

  ‘No, it really wasn’t. He’d been planning this for years. He had all kinds of back-up ideas figured out. He would just have kept coming after you until you eventually broke. He was actually impressed you lasted as long as you did, but he would never have given up. One way or another, he’d have worn you down.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Mumbles said. ‘He thought I’d be enough to get you to open the gateway, and look what happened there. You coped with everything he threw at you. In the end, he had to resort to tricking you. He didn’t break you. You broke him.’

  I gritted my teeth and stared ahead through the windscreen. ‘Not yet. But I’m going to.’

  ‘He’ll be well protected,’ Ameena said. ‘He built up a loyal following over there. You won’t just be fighting him, you’ll be fighting an army.’

  ‘If that’s what it takes,’ I said. ‘But I don’t expect any of you to come with me if you don’t want to. This is my fight now.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ Ameena said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Me too,’ Billy added.

  ‘We could all get killed.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Billy shrugged. ‘Whatever. What’s left to live for, anyway?’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Bill,’ Ameena cheered.

  ‘Mumbles?’ I said.

  ‘I’m in.’

  ‘What about I.C.? Won’t it be too dangerous?’

  ‘He can handle himself. I’ve been training him.’

  ‘Yeah, but for what? A fortnight?’

  ‘He’s a fast learner.’

  ‘Super fast. Zoom zoom!’ I.C. added, then he reached round the back of my chair and gave me a pat on the head.

  ‘I dunno. We should probably get him somewhere safe.’

  ‘Where do you suggest?’ Mumbles asked, and there was no real answer to that.

  ‘I want to come. Want to help,’ I.C. insisted.

  I realised in that moment that I had something I had never had before. I had friends. Real friends, who were prepared to stand by me, whatever the cost.

  Oh, sure, one of them was a borderline teenage psychopath who used to beat me on a daily basis, and the other three didn’t technically exist, but I never said they were perfect.

  ‘T
hank you,’ I told them. ‘But we’re not taking I.C. in there. It’s too dangerous.’

  Before anyone could reply, a roar from overhead made everyone but Mr Mumbles duck.

  A fighter jet screamed above us through the darkened sky. ‘Hairyplane!’ I.C. cried, and he banged his head off the window while trying to get a better look.

  ‘The air force,’ Billy cried. ‘They’re sending in the military. It’s going to be OK.’

  I almost laughed with relief. Not because I thought the jet would swoop down and save us, but because it meant we weren’t alone. With what I’d seen on TV and what I’d seen up close, it had begun to feel like Billy and I were the only real people left. But we weren’t. There were others. At least one.

  I watched the jet bank sharply to the left. Then I noticed that there was something else flying close beside it, virtually invisible in the dark. It looked to be black or charcoal grey, with dragon-like wings and a long, whip-like tail.

  The jet levelled off and the black shape closed in. Its wings were spread out, mirroring those of the jet. It glided above the plane, then dropped down and clung on like a limpet. I could almost hear the pilot’s screams of confusion and fear.

  ‘It’s going down,’ Ameena said.

  ‘Pull up,’ I whispered. ‘Pull up, pull up, pull up!’

  But a moment later the sky was lit up by a ball of orange flame as the plane struck the hillside. Ameena slammed on the brakes, dazzled by the sudden light. We watched the flames licking over the grass and saw the smoke curling lazily into the air.

  ‘He ejected,’ I said, fooling no one. ‘He ejected and got out.’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Mumbles grunted.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Ameena interjected. ‘Maybe Kyle’s right. Maybe…’ But she couldn’t think of a convincing argument.

  ‘He could’ve saved us,’ Billy croaked. ‘It might have been OK.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ I said, with more venom than I should have. ‘The whole world’s affected, Billy. There are billions of the things flooding every town and city on Earth. How was one plane going to help?’