The Society of Dread

by Glenn Dakin

  Theo cried out with pain. A shiver of excitement went through the slimy horde of twenty or so. Theo used his teeth to bite into one of his gauntlets and tear it off. Before he could take any further action he was jerked into the middle of the vile, slurping bodies. He felt a jelly-like lip suck at his ankle. Blood was trickling from his leg.

  ‘That’s enough!’ he shouted. He summoned all his anger and plunged his right hand into the middle of the nearest creature.

  Fwoom! It went up in a column of blue flame, emitting a ghostly shriek and shedding burnt fragments of feeler across its comrades. Where the ashes fell, the creatures screeched, howled, wailed and slithered away into the gloom.

  Now Theo stood, smeared with ash and slime, in a circle of clear ground, with the creeping things seething a respectful distance away from him.

  ‘No!’ came a thin, unearthly voice. ‘Do not fighting us.’

  A tingle shot up Theo’s spine at the sound. For a moment he forgot his peril and stood in awe.

  ‘You – you can speak!’ Theo said. Suddenly he felt more optimistic. If these things could talk, then they could think – respond to reason.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said, strictly following the formulas he had been taught at Empire Hall. ‘My name is Theo Wickland.’ Then, he added, ‘Some people know me as the Candle Man.’ He raised a still-smoking hand with streaks of ash on it.

  The creatures pulsed in the darkness, as if pondering, en masse, their reply.

  ‘We are the crelp,’ one of them said. ‘Do not fighting with us – for we – we only wish to killing of you – as is our custom.’

  The unearthly frankness of this sent more chills through Theo.

  ‘Why do you want to kill me?’ he asked.

  The crelp seethed again, fluttering and squelching in the dark.

  ‘Because dead is better for humans. Better for us – for what we wanting to do,’ came a low, eerie reply.

  Theo frowned as the circle of crelp seemed to edge nearer to him.

  ‘Do not attack me, or I will fight you,’ Theo said in as polite a way as possible. ‘We seem to have got off on the wrong foot,’ he added. Then he remembered that the crelp didn’t have feet. Another gaffe.

  ‘You – um . . . speak very well,’ Theo said.

  ‘We can speaking your tongue because we have taken some humans inside of us,’ a crelp said. ‘We absorb you, so now we can talking with you. Please let us eat Theo.’

  ‘No!’

  Theo held up his hand; it burnt with green fire. The creatures withdrew nervously.

  ‘Are there people like me, down here?’ Theo asked. ‘Are there other humans? Your – your kind took one – by mistake, called Chloe.’

  The crelp bubbled and fluttered the edges of their jelly-like skins in the darkness. Theo could hear noises like hissing and spitting as if the creatures were arguing among themselves. Finally, one creature slithered nearer to Theo.

  ‘You do not hurting us again?’ asked the creature.

  Theo frowned. ‘Only if – if you’re good,’ he said. ‘And answer my question.’

  ‘Then, the crelp will taking you to special place.’

  ‘What place?’

  ‘Follow. We will take you to our secret larder.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Man With No Face

  ‘The furnaces,’ croaked Magnus, gazing up at the smoking edifice before them. ‘I never thought to set eyes upon them.’

  The fires from the great building illuminated the scene in sudden bursts like the lightning from a brooding storm.

  Some great and sinister work was at hand. From tunnels in the rock wall, coal trucks were arriving. Slaves in ragged clothes operated a giant turntable that received the trucks, emptied their load down a chute, then turned the trucks around, back into the caves.

  ‘If the Great Furnace is working again then at least part of the legend is true,’ Magnus breathed.

  The prisoners looked up through the fumes as a dark figure emerged from a doorway in the Furnace and began to descend a stairway towards them. The slithering creatures scattered as he approached, as if repelled by loathing – or fear.

  ‘What legend?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Mr Norrowmore knew the tales,’ Magnus said sadly. ‘Our old leader, now gone. He spoke of the Great Furnace and the Wonderful Machines that lay below. Power enough to rip a world apart. I – I didn’t listen. I told him that those days – those fears were over.’

  ‘What fears?’

  ‘Shut it!’

  Sam was smashed to the floor by the gnarled staff of Hollister. As soon as he hit the ground, he was covered in black, stinging tendrils.

  ‘No!’

  A commanding voice, so cracked and hoarse it was painful to hear, tore through the air. Its owner gestured towards Sam and a sudden blast of searing flame sent the creatures slithering and hissing into the shadows.

  ‘Only I decide life and death down here,’ the figure rasped.

  The prisoners looked in disbelief at the man who had spoken. A dark figure with smoking hands, cloaked like some ancient warlock, towered over the cringing Sewer Rats. As they gazed at the one who reigned over all in this terrible place, the truth slowly dawned on them.

  The man had no face.

  His head was one great mass of charred flesh, a grotesque, ash-grey scar. No hair, no features remained, just two, deep-set, glimmering eyes, the slightest crack for nostrils and a twisted gash for a mouth.

  Sam glanced towards Magnus and saw that his grandad was staring, transfixed.

  ‘Dr Pyre!’ Magnus breathed at last. ‘It – it cannot be!’

  ‘We saved these intruders into your kingdom, to be used as slaves,’ Hollister said to the faceless man. ‘But some of ’em won’t learn to shut up!’

  ‘The people who never learn are usually the clever ones,’ said the faceless man in his ravaged, deep voice. From their dark hollows, two glistening eyes looked upon the new captives.

  ‘Can we have them for the ash tunnel?’ asked Hollister. ‘The slaves there are dropping like flies.’

  The faceless man considered for a moment.

  ‘The ash tunnel, then,’ he said.

  As the slaves were led away, the rasping voice spoke again. ‘Not this one!’

  Dr Pyre walked slowly towards Magnus, who had stayed rooted to the spot, staring, thunderstruck.

  The faceless man turned on his heel and gestured towards some crelp guards.

  ‘Bring him. The old man will come with me!’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Larder

  ‘Wow – what is this?’

  Following the crelp, Theo had emerged from a narrow tunnel on to a high gallery of rock.

  Stretching out below, he could see a series of long mounds curving away into the depths of the cavern. At first, he thought it was a spectacular rock formation, but it slowly dawned on him that the whole thing was man-made. The long, low hills were in fact giant underground pipes. Covered with a fine layer of dust, they blended into the natural beauty of the cavern.

  ‘It’s like I’m seeing the earth’s plumbing,’ said Theo. ‘What are these pipes for?’

  The crelp hissed among themselves.

  ‘The crelp don’t knowing that,’ one of the creatures said. ‘And the crelp don’t – what is the word for it – we don’t care.’

  Theo was fascinated by this evidence of some gigantic scheme of building work that went far below the city.

  ‘But you live down here, you must know something.’

  ‘The crelp do – are not living down here. Not usually. Our kind – many, many – are living in the darkness of the Chasm. A horror place – horrid.’

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ Theo asked. ‘Creeping around, attacking people. You won’t make many friends that way.’

  There was something almost childish about the crelp that made Theo want to scold them.

  ‘The crelp don’t wanting to make friends,’ one of the
creatures hissed. ‘We are only being here because we were released from the darkness.’

  ‘Released?’ Theo echoed. ‘How? By who?’

  The crelp bubbled and hissed for a while among themselves.

  ‘It is not worthy – worth while crelp telling you. We will probably tricking you soon and make you die. It is better.’

  Theo frowned.

  The crelp are wicked and innocent at the same time, he thought. Perhaps I can get through to them.

  ‘The crelp should be more friendly,’ Theo said firmly. ‘You should answer questions and tell people things.’ He continued to follow the creatures as they slithered along the rock gallery towards a stone arch ahead. ‘That’s more polite. Don’t you have any manners down here? You are doing terrible things now, things that we, on the surface, don’t do at all.’

  Several of the crelp surrounded Theo for a moment, gliding on their feelers in an almost dance-like fashion.

  ‘The crelp liking doing terrible things,’ one said. ‘We were a long time in the darkness with only each other to feed on. Now we have – having – new ones to kill and eat – it is very nice.’

  Theo frowned. A thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘And why are you taking bones out of graveyards? That’s something else we don’t do.’

  The crelp gave a long crackling hiss that was almost a nasty laugh. ‘We have other plans, Human Theo. More horrible. Too horrible to tell, but very nice for us.’

  Theo sighed. The crelp really were hopeless. As he reached the end of the rock gallery, Theo began to lose sight of the enormous pipes.

  ‘I wonder if those pipes connect up somehow to the alchemical city in the Well Chamber?’ he mused. The crelp simmered with discontent as he pulled out the crumpled network map and pondered it.

  ‘The rocket capsule sent me down to Level Five, here,’ he murmured. ‘The Well Chamber is Level Three, so these pipes aren’t actually shown on the map. Unless . . .’

  Theo gasped. There were faint, pink marks that appeared all around the map, occasional details appearing to link them to a mysterious section in the unexplored Level Four.

  ‘Unless the pipes are indicated by the pink outline – in which case they are utterly, stupendously enormous . . .’

  ‘This way, this way,’ urged the crelp. ‘It doesn’t matter. Theo dead soon, won’t care about it.’

  Theo hurried after the crelp. He felt ashamed. It’s a very great fault of mine that I find maps and diagrams so interesting, he chided himself, when I’m supposed to be rescuing my friends.

  ‘Now you will be our friend,’ the crelp said. ‘Here is the larder.’

  At first, Theo saw nothing. Then as his gaze followed the path of the crelp, he began to make out a curious stone dwelling, a refuge with a single narrow door and no windows, cunningly built into a natural cleft in the cavern wall. It looked like some ancient secret hideaway – or prison.

  Theo approached cautiously, but there seemed to be no sign of life.

  ‘You will open it,’ one of the crelp said. Several feelers probed helplessly at the door, but it was too tightly sealed to allow even those insidious creatures any way in.

  Why do they call it the larder? Theo wondered. A nasty suspicion dawned in his mind.

  ‘Look,’ said Theo. Several eyes sprouted up around him on jelly-like stalks, as if the crelp were only too keen to do so. ‘You’re supposed to be helping me. I want to know if you’ve seen any other humans down here –’

  Theo stopped. He thought he had heard a movement beyond the closed door. He bent his head closer to listen.

  ‘Is – is there someone there?’ called a voice.

  Theo stood back, astonished. His heart almost exploded with joy and relief.

  ‘Chloe!’ he cried out.

  ‘Theo? Is that you?’

  The crelp were seething excitedly around Theo’s feet and he had to kick one of them away.

  ‘Are you a prisoner?’ Theo asked. ‘Can you get out?’

  Before a reply could come, the crelp interrupted. ‘Human Theo, you – you will open the larder for us?’

  Theo ignored this.

  ‘Where are the creatures?’ Chloe shouted.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Theo. ‘There’s been a mistake.’ He looked down at the crelp. ‘A mistake, right?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the crelp agreed eagerly. ‘Mistake, Theo, mistake!’

  ‘If the creatures have gone – get me out!’ Chloe said, unable to tell what was going on outside.

  Theo studied the door. There was a strange stone carving, a half-moon shape, in a recess by the door.

  ‘I’m locked in here,’ Chloe shouted. Theo pondered. Then he raised his hand and placed it on the half-moon shape that appeared to be a kind of lock.

  The rare energy inside me: the tripudon power. It can melt things, but it can also cause changes, Theo thought. Perhaps a tiny spark . . .

  Theo had never tried to use his power on something like this before. He concentrated, pressed the half-moon symbol and tried to summon up the mysterious tripudon fire.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Come on, Theo, I’ve been stuck here all night!’

  The anxiety in Chloe’s voice seemed to kindle something inside Theo. Suddenly his fingers sparked. The half-moon symbol glowed and sank inwards. There was the harsh clack of a hidden lock. The door was open.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the crelp.

  Suddenly a pack of seething jelly-forms rushed at the door and started to squeeze into the crack, forcing it wider.

  ‘No!’ screamed Theo.

  The crelp paid no attention. ‘Now we feed,’ they cried. ‘Later, we harvest the bones!’

  ‘It was a mistake,’ another crelp screeched. ‘Mistake to let her get inside and escape us.’

  Theo whirled around, facing the bubbling horde. ‘No!’ he screamed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Refuge

  Theo touched the leading crelp just before it could force its way through the door.

  Thwoom! It disappeared in a streak of blue smoke. Thorny creepers tugged at Theo’s legs and hauled him over. He smashed his forehead against a rock, and started to bleed.

  ‘Theo!’

  He could hear Chloe crying out. The crelp were getting in.

  Fwoom! Blam! Boom! Theo lashed out wildly at every crelp he could get his hands on. He struggled back to the door through smoking, wailing, exploding pools of jelly.

  He hurled himself through the half-open door, turned around and slammed it shut. He leant against the door, breathing heavily. Outside, everything had gone quiet.

  ‘I – think it’s all right,’ Theo panted.

  Chloe was there, her hair dirty and ruffled, her big navy blue coat torn, with a pocket hanging off, her face drawn and pale.

  ‘Nice use of the word “all right”,’ Chloe said, with a smile. ‘We’re trapped beneath the ground, surrounded by flesh-eating monsters, and –’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And I’ve never been so pleased to see you in my life! But wait – you’re hurt.’

  Only now did Theo realise that warm blood was trickling down his face. Chloe studied the wound, her head cocked to one side.

  ‘Gory looking, but not serious,’ she said brightly. ‘Kind of suits you.’

  Theo smiled. ‘Does it?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Chloe. ‘I’m just trying to make you feel better, you twit. We’d better bandage it up.’

  Theo smiled again. It was great to have Chloe back.

  Chloe tore a sleeve off the pale blue shirt she was wearing and tied it around Theo’s head. She admired the finished effect.

  ‘A real wounded hero,’ she grinned.

  ‘But what happened to you?’ Theo asked. ‘How did you end up in here?’

  Chloe sat down on a stone ledge. Theo peered around. They seemed to be in some ancient workroom or lab.

  ‘An old alchemist’s refuge by the looks of it,’ Chloe said. ‘It may even have belo
nged to the original Philanthropist. Make yourself at home.’

  Theo looked at the rows of clay pots along the shelves. Many of the walls had ancient symbols scratched into them. There was even a pump of some kind, and a water basin.

  ‘The crelp snatched me from that graveyard,’ Chloe said, ‘dragged me down to these caves, and then they started to argue among themselves. They were torn between taking me to be a slave or eating me. They were very upfront about it though. Refreshingly frank.’

  ‘They are!’ said Theo with a sudden smile. ‘Mostly. Except they’ve got some horrible secret, they said – some plan too nasty to tell.’

  ‘Great,’ groaned Chloe, rolling her eyes. ‘It gets better! Anyway, they had just decided to eat me when your friend the garghoul dropped by. Seems he had been tracking them. Tristus swooped down and carried me to this refuge, where they couldn’t get at me. Then he said he needed to fly to the source of the problem straight away, and couldn’t take me with him.’

  ‘So did he talk to you?’ Theo asked.

  ‘Not exactly. Apparently garghouls are very picky about who they communicate with. He kind of muttered things mysteriously and flew off. Well, I’m used to being treated like that – being in a secret society with Magnus. Anyway, Mr Tristus said he’d come back for me.’ Chloe looked tired now, and anxious. ‘But he never did.’

  ‘He said the same to me too,’ Theo said. ‘I hope he’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘They’re made of stone, aren’t they? What I really want to know is how the incredible Candle Man came and saved me!’

  Theo suddenly felt ten feet tall. He related his tale, patiently answering Chloe’s barrage of questions. She frowned deeply when she learnt how Sam and Magnus had disappeared.

  ‘Basically, nobody is safe with these crelp things running around,’ Chloe remarked. ‘As I said – they either eat you, or drag you off to be a slave.’

  ‘A slave for who? For what?’

  ‘Find out that and I’m guessing we’ll find Sam and Magnus,’ Chloe said. ‘Did you get all of them?’ she asked suddenly.