The Society of Dread

by Glenn Dakin

  Theo almost smiled, despite their peril. As if they weren’t in the midst of trouble already.

  Theo stopped. They had reached the circular hatchway he remembered. He raised his fist and struck it, tip-tap-tip. For a breathless moment nothing happened, but then there was a hiss of air and the circular doorway opened inwards.

  ‘Come on.’

  Bedlam broke out as they stepped through. Theo cried out as an enormous tiger bounded towards him. Shrieking filled his ears and birds circled his head in the darkness above.

  ‘A trap! A trap!’ shrieked Skun, diving back for the door, only to be snatched in mid-air by the beak of a giant condor.

  ‘Teratom!’ Skun whimpered. ‘Don’t eat me – I’m disgusting!’

  ‘Bring them here!’ rasped a thick voice.

  Theo’s legs were knocked out from under him as a powerful beast charged him from behind. Then he felt a pair of huge jaws lightly close around his middle, gripping him with surprising gentleness.

  Theo stared ahead and saw an immense human shape crouched in the centre of the dimly lit chamber. It was the man Theo had come to see – a hulking, twisted figure in a shabby, pinstriped suit, antiquated cravat and stained brown waistcoat. That familiar, grotesque head turned towards him, with its great hooked beak for a nose and cavernous eyes, ringed with scaly ripples of skin.

  ‘The Dodo!’ gasped Skun, dangling upside down from the beak of the great teratorn. ‘Still alive! Why are the worst rumours always the truest?’

  Next to the Dodo, Theo could make out the enormous, shadowy hulk of some stricken creature. It was a mass of fur, fully five metres long, sprawled across the floor.

  The Dodo suddenly arose, his nose scenting the air. ‘The stink of smoglodyte!’ he murmured. Then he turned and stared towards Theo as the tiger dropped the teenager to the floor. ‘And the smell of Wickland blood,’ he added.

  Theo climbed to his feet.

  ‘Sir Peregrine,’ Theo said brightly.

  The Dodo would have appeared a diabolical figure to most people, a hideous old man in his dark lair beneath the city, surrounded by creatures long thought to be extinct. But to Theo, this peculiar gentleman had been an ally – a friend in his battle against Dr Saint. And he was one of the few people alive who had known the original Candle Man. Theo felt strangely at ease in the Dodo’s presence, despite the foul stench that accompanied him.

  ‘We came for your help,’ Theo added.

  ‘Help indeed?’ the Dodo rumbled, turning his great head this way and that to scent the new arrivals. The grotesque figure resumed his seat on an upturned crate, next to the enormous creature lying on the filthy floor.

  The Dodo stroked its slow-breathing stomach with a stiff, disfigured hand, like the talon of a giant bird.

  ‘It is too late for help,’ the Dodo sighed, a self-pitying note in his voice.

  Theo looked around the underground chamber. He knew from his previous visit that they were about three hundred feet below Sir Peregrine’s medical practice, in a quiet square just off the famous Harley Street.

  The first time Theo had stumbled upon the Dodo’s underground zoo, it had been full of exotic creatures, stamping and shuffling in the dark. The enclosures had all been locked and the feed and water well maintained.

  Now the chamber was in disarray. Many cages were empty, their doors open or broken off their hinges. The Dodo, once so formidable, now appeared a broken man.

  ‘Excuse my rude welcome,’ the Dodo said, turning to Theo, one hand still laid upon the side of the immense, ailing creature. ‘We have been attacked – and I expected your arrival to mean more of the same,’ he said.

  ‘We have been attacked too,’ piped up Skun, wriggling free from the beak of the immense bird that had picked him up. ‘By you,’ he pointed out tartly, ‘and by the hideous crelp.’

  ‘Ah,’ reflected the Dodo, his eyes glazed over, as if he could hardly be bothered to see out of them. ‘So that’s what they are.’

  ‘Tell us what happened,’ said Theo, drawing closer to the old man.

  ‘Unknown to myself – at first,’ said the Dodo, ‘my relic rooms were being raided, by someone – by something – that was fond of taking bones.’

  ‘Yes, bones!’ Theo blurted out. ‘That’s how they start – taking dead things.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the Dodo remarked, frowning at Theo’s interruption. ‘I see you are quite the expert on them already. Well, at first it was merely a curious puzzle. Then last night, my beloved zoo was raided by these crelp – this species of malevolent vermin. I did not arrive in time to prevent this horror . . .’ he gestured all around at the empty cages, the stricken beast before him.

  ‘Giant Tree Sloth,’ Theo said softly. ‘Woolcombe’s Bestiary of Post-Diluvian Extinctions, page one hundred and sixty-two, figure four.’

  ‘Marmaduke,’ the Dodo sighed heavily. ‘I called him Marmaduke.’

  Theo noticed now that the immense furry stomach had stopped rising and falling.

  ‘You are too late to help, as ever,’ came a stern female voice from across the chamber.

  Theo was astonished to see a beautiful woman, tall, with long, dark hair, striding across the room in a long, swishing lab coat – the only bright, clean thing in this place of muck and misery.

  ‘You may have heard of me,’ the woman said haughtily. ‘I am Lady Ursula Blessing.’

  ‘Lady Blessing!’ gasped Theo. He had heard rumours and tales of this woman, and how she had disappeared during the great battle last November.

  ‘Everyone in the Society of Good Works thinks you are dead,’ Theo remarked.

  ‘I was taken prisoner by Sir Peregrine here,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘But I have since stayed on – out of choice – to look after him.’

  Theo frowned. Chloe had told him about Lady Blessing, and he didn’t trust her one bit. She swept over to the strange group and loomed over Theo with a superior air, as if she, not the Dodo, owned the place.

  ‘Sir Peregrine has told me that the original Candle Man was often in the habit of turning up too late to be much use to his friends. So if you and your vile little crony –’ here she grimaced at Skun – ‘cannot help, then perhaps you’d be good enough to clear off.’

  Theo did not clear off. He scowled at Skun, who had been poking the immense dead tree sloth.

  ‘Who says we can’t help?’ Theo said, an idea beginning to come together in his mind. ‘We can stop this from happening again. We know what’s going on. We know the enemy and how to stop them.’

  The Dodo turned his enormous head to study Theo, the slightest spark in his sickly eyes. Skun nodded his head excitedly and began springing from foot to foot. Theo remembered Skun’s proposal of a couple of days before and spoke with sudden conviction.

  ‘We’re here to suggest an alliance!’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Society of Dread

  ‘The smoglodyte delegation is ready to begin talks,’ announced Skun grandly. They had withdrawn to the Silurian Room: the Dodo’s secret meeting chamber. A table made from a section of fossilised redwood tree dominated the room and colourful geological maps decorated the walls.

  Skun was happy, because the Dodo had placed a foul-smelling pot of toxic smoke in front of him.

  ‘That’s better,’ Skun sighed. ‘The clean air up here in the human world was killing me.’

  ‘Anyone else with any special requirements?’ Lady Blessing asked sourly.

  Theo shook his head. He was anxious to proceed. ‘We mustn’t waste any time in helping Chloe – and all the others.’

  ‘No time is being wasted, I promise,’ the Dodo replied. ‘Since your arrival restored hope to my heart, I have sent out my spies – Hairless Transylvanian bats mostly – to scour the tunnels and glean information about crelp movements. In a sense, we are on the attack already.’

  The Dodo leant forward to study Theo’s face. He raised his eyebrows, affecting surprise. ‘Not much of an improvement,’ he sighed. ‘Yo
u are still the unhealthy specimen you were when I examined you last year in my other persona as Dr Peregrine Arbogast. Have you been getting regular exercise, fresh air, climbing trees and such like?’

  ‘No,’ said Theo. ‘After my battle with Dr Saint, the police doctors made me spend a month in bed. Pretty much the whole of December, in fact.’

  The Dodo nodded. ‘Never mind. You are the Candle Man. Life burns bright in you. One day,’ he added, ‘you will master your gifts fully and assume the entire power and mystery of the Candle Man. On that day, you must remember your promise to free me from the hideous immortality I suffer – and allow me to live out my remaining term of mortal life.’

  Theo nodded. He didn’t really understand the Dodo, but he knew that the peculiar man demanded and deserved great respect.

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

  ‘I have realised,’ the Dodo said, ‘that this world is not made for everybody. Some are allowed to enjoy it – nature’s golden creations, the lion and the cockroach. For others – the simple-minded sea-cow, the ponderous panda and yes, the dodo, we are just in the way. Clumsy obstructions to creation’s great procession, just waiting for somebody – or something – to clear us out of the way and improve the world with our absence.’

  Lady Blessing gave Theo a tight smile.

  ‘Cheerful old relic, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Can we get on, now? I’m dying here.’ She edged her seat as far away from Skun and his smoke as possible.

  ‘An alliance, then,’ the Dodo rumbled, looking from Theo to Skun. Skun did not know how to sit on a chair and was now perched awkwardly on its back.

  ‘This morning I was defeated, desolate,’ the Dodo said. ‘Attacked by marauding creatures from the earth’s depths. They vanished into the darkness as swiftly as they came, cruel, numberless, impossible to defeat – or so I imagined.’ He looked hard at Theo.

  ‘They are not numberless . . . yet,’ Theo said. He went on to tell them of his adventures, from arriving in the network to going down into the Crypt with Dr Pyre.

  At the mention of the faceless man, the Dodo frowned deeply, his talon-like hands twitching, as if out of control.

  ‘You know him?’ asked Theo.

  The Dodo leant heavily on the table, his breath shuddering. ‘Of course. We were born in the same age. So, the Incinerated Man has survived the march of time too. To what ill fate, one wonders.’

  ‘Dr Pyre is controlling the crelp,’ Theo summed up. ‘He’s the one who lets them out. If he can be stopped, then so can the crelp.’

  The Dodo folded his stiff hands together and peered over them, deep in thought. ‘You bring me hope,’ he said, his words muffled due to his ungainly, oversized tongue. ‘A dark, difficult hope, but a true hope nonetheless.’

  One of the white-coated workers placed an ornate water jug, decorated with a carving of a heron, in the centre of the table, along with four enormous crystal goblets.

  ‘Refreshment?’ Lady Blessing asked, waving a pale hand at a stray cloud of smoke from Skun’s corner. ‘If we cannot be sane, then at least we can be civilised.’

  ‘Is there any cake?’ Theo asked.

  ‘No,’ said Lady Blessing. ‘Well, only seed cake, maize cake and acorn cake for the animals.’

  ‘Send round to the shop for fairy cakes,’ the Dodo said. ‘Get about thirty.’

  ‘We need a name,’ said Skun, his face screwed up in fierce thought. ‘A name to resound throughout legend, for our great alliance.’

  ‘Before I ally with you, you smoglodyte scum,’ the Dodo said haughtily, ‘what can you bring to this table? Apart from the predictable bad manners and ghastly odours?’

  Skun rose proudly, standing on the chair. ‘My tribal leader was killed by Dr Saint,’ he said. ‘Now, as chief tracker, my people listen to me.’

  ‘I thought you said they were all slaughtered,’ said Theo.

  ‘I exaggerated,’ Skun replied. ‘Smoglodytes never tell the truth unless absolutely unavoidable. To defeat the evil crelp and the abominable fiend Dr Pyre I will assemble a tribe of survivors. They will be the best warriors and spies. And there are stray groups of smogs that may join us – tunnel travellers and cavern gypsies. I will sound the ancient battle cry – if I can remember it – and unite them against our foes.’

  ‘And I will speak for the Society of Unrelenting Vigilance,’ Theo said. ‘We will use all our strength to stop Dr Pyre. That includes all the power of the Candle Man, a power that until recently, I – I have been loath to use.’

  The Dodo nodded solemnly.

  ‘About time too,’ said Skun. Then he punched the air in delight. ‘Yes!’ he cheered.

  The Dodo ignored this outburst. ‘I shall also promise all my strength,’ he said, ‘to avenge the slaughter in my underground cages. To take back the –’ he choked on a sob – ‘the dear bones that were stolen!’

  ‘And we have to tell Lord Gold,’ said Theo. ‘He’s in charge of the police . . . a great man. He can help us too.’

  The Dodo turned to Theo, that enormous head with the gnarled, beak-like nose looming over the pale teenager.

  ‘No,’ the Dodo said quietly. ‘I will not ally with the law. It is – in my experience – never to be trusted.’

  ‘I agree,’ squeaked Skun. ‘Laws are always against the smoglodytes – no matter who makes them, from garghouls to mortals. So, no police, please!’

  Theo didn’t know what to say. He needed help, quickly, special help to fight a terrible foe and save his friends. What use had the police been so far? Even Lord Gold’s new Orpheus force had been helpless against the crelp.

  ‘Two–one,’ said Skun, smiling at Theo. ‘That means you lose.’

  Theo looked through the drifting smoke at the silent, formidable old Dodo, and the spindly, mischievous smoglodyte. In a strange way he felt more at home here, in this outlandish company, than he did in the world above.

  People like this can help me – in the dark, against unknown terrors, Theo thought. Crazy people like the Dodo and Skun. No one else can.

  This is why the world needs a Candle Man, I suppose, Theo pondered to himself. To do things that the law can’t do. To go where the police would fail. To make alliances with the strange and wonderful beings that most humans have no idea exist.

  ‘All right,’ said Theo. ‘If that’s what you want. I’m in.’

  The Dodo thrust a clawed hand out into the centre of the table. Skun slapped his grey palm down on top. Theo was about to do the same, but the Dodo and Skun pulled their own hands away sharply.

  ‘In your case, Theo,’ the Dodo rumbled, ‘I think we will forgo the symbolic joining of hands.’

  Theo gave the faintest of smiles. ‘I think I’ve got my power more under control now,’ he said. ‘I’ve learnt to hold it back – most of the time.’

  ‘Well, for my part,’ the Dodo said dubiously, ‘I will not be taking any chances.’

  ‘We need a name,’ cried Skun eagerly. ‘A title for this historic alliance.’

  ‘I know,’ said Theo. ‘We’ll be called: the Society to Stop Dr Pyre!’

  Skun frowned. ‘Doesn’t sound very good,’ he scoffed. The Dodo agreed.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue,’ he remarked. ‘Then, nothing ever does trip off mine.’

  ‘What a force to be reckoned with!’ Skun murmured, a gleam in his little dark eyes. ‘The cunning smoglodytes, the diabolical Dodo with his legions of beasts and, leading the way into battle, the deadly Candle Hand! Our name must sum up our fearsome power. Let us be called, “the Society of Dread”.’

  The Dodo assented. Theo nodded uncertainly. He wondered what Chloe would think of him joining the Society of Dread. But just thinking of her reminded him of why he had to do this.

  ‘Now let us make our plans,’ the Dodo said, suddenly sniffing the air with renewed energy. ‘And I believe the cakes have arrived.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Parasites

  ‘In the Cambrian period, around five h
undred million years ago, the Gondwanan Jellystar, according to the fossil record, was almost completely wiped out by a parasite, which we humans call the Siphonaptera Irritans.’

  The Dodo led Theo into the depths of his base, down a dank and narrow corridor. ‘What it called itself, we can but speculate,’ he added.

  ‘That is very interesting,’ said Theo, to whom the more remote and obscure the information, the more wonderful it seemed. ‘But don’t you think that now we really should be getting on with our plan?’

  ‘Open your mind!’ the Dodo roared suddenly, turning to give Theo a most alarming look. ‘Do you imagine for one moment that I am not thinking about our plan? Already Skun has departed to find his scattered tribe, and we have more important work. Come with me.’

  The Dodo led Theo into a side chamber, built crudely out of sheets of corrugated iron. The smell here was foul. It reminded Theo of the aroma of Mr Nicely’s old medicine cabinet, only a hundred times worse.

  The Dodo pulled a metal chain and a dim light came on. He attached a plastic bottle of stinking liquid to a large, antique-looking cylindrical spray gun, and then to Theo’s astonishment began to pump the handle, drenching Theo in a vile, sticky brown liquid.

  After losing patience with the spray gun, the Dodo unscrewed the bottle and tipped it over his own head, smearing it into his lumpy and wrinkled skin.

  ‘Rub plenty around your eyes,’ he grunted.

  Theo copied him.

  ‘Now we’re safe to go in,’ said the Dodo, striding towards a sealed iron door at the end of the passage. ‘They hate this stuff.’

  Drenched and reeking, Theo followed the Dodo into a kind of airlock door that separated his underground zoo from this more remote wing.

  The Dodo opened the next door and led Theo into a long dark room, lit by fungus globes. Theo had the strange impression that the whole room was alive with movement.

  ‘My insect house,’ the Dodo explained. ‘Some of the clever ones get out, which is why we are so delicately perfumed – the smell of my Barrier Nineteen drives them all away.’