Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

by Chris Ward

  He enjoyed the physical lessons most, though—sculpting, tree and rock climbing, rope making, survival techniques. They were easy to lose oneself in, something he found himself doing more and more as the days passed. Alone in his bunk at night, with Wilhelm snoring beneath him, it was all too easy to roll over and tug back a corner of the curtain to reveal a sky never truly dark and an ocean that ended halfway to a natural horizon. Wilhelm and Miranda both claimed that, in time, he would forget his past—or at least learn not to pine for it—but with every minute and hour that drifted by, his mother’s voice on the other end of the phone line became louder and louder until his ears seemed to ache.

  Miranda and Wilhelm were both in the advanced math group, one above his own. The three of them walked to the classrooms together, but then Benjamin excused himself to go to the toilet. He ducked through the toilet door, then listened for their classroom door closing. As soon as he was sure they had gone inside, he slipped back out and bolted down the corridor in the direction of the stairs to level four.

  Benjamin, on his trips around the school, had so far located nine gyms in various stages of disorder. Three were still actively used, replacing three now filled with old furniture and smelling of the chamomile sprayed from the ceiling’s sprinkler system to keep all of those disgruntled tables and chairs quiet. Of the oldest triumvirate, two were in the bowels of the school, carved out of the rock, and had partially collapsed. Warning signs stood outside of their locked doors.

  The final one was on level four and looked pretty much like a regular gym except, apart from a natural skylight, it was almost devoid of light. When Benjamin arrived, Godfrey was standing just back from the small, orange circle cast by the skylight, his back to the entrance, arms folded as if he had been waiting for hours.

  Benjamin slipped in through the door that hung ajar to wait in the shadows, watching Godfrey and peering around for anyone else who might be ready to jump him. The gym, though, was silent, apart from Godfrey’s shallow breathing, and, aside from the dust motes dancing in the single beam of light, empty.

  Taking a deep breath, Benjamin stepped forward.

  ‘I’m here.’

  Godfrey shuddered as if awakened from a daydream and turned in a slow circle. Benjamin stared at the sight of Godfrey’s glazed eyes and dazed smile.

  ‘Where’s this message?’ Benjamin lifted his fists. He had cracked Godfrey once and he would do it again if he had to. Alone with no one to break them up, he didn’t stand much of a chance against a boy who was older, taller, and stronger, but he would give it his best shot. ‘If you’re joking with me about my brother, I’ll—’

  ‘Bennie? Bennie, where are you?’

  He froze. The voice coming from Godfrey’s mouth was his brother’s. Godfrey continued to stare as if looking through a portal into the future.

  ‘I’m coming, Bennie. I’m so sorry, Bennie. I just wanted to look after you. I didn’t know what else to do. Do you forgive me, Bennie?’

  ‘David—I mean, Godfrey—I mean, David—what are you talking about?’

  ‘Those things in the woods … I don’t know … they wanted you and knew I could stop them … the truck … it was so big … it hurt so much … I’m sorry, Bennie, but I’m coming … I’m coming to find you and bring you home. Mum and Dad … they’re so worried, and I’m so sorry … I just didn’t want it to—’

  ‘David? Is that really you? What are you talking about?’

  Godfrey didn’t answer. Eyes still glazed, he cocked his head slightly, gave another vacant smile.

  ‘It’s so dark, Bennie. I’m so scared. There are orange lights in the trees. I see them every day. I see them all around. They’re watching me.’

  Orange lights?

  ‘No!’ Benjamin grabbed Godfrey and began to shake him. ‘No! Leave him alone! Leave my brother alone!’

  He let go, and the older boy slumped to the ground. The floor gave a sharp lurch, the force knocking him to his knees, while from above came the crash of breaking glass followed by a flurry of gigantic beating wings, black and shiny, that filled every available space. Benjamin curled up into a ball, covering his face with his hands, screaming at the top of his lungs. Only once did he open his eyes, and through the pulsing, beating mass of living darkness, he saw the mocking glow of twin orange lights.

  22

  TIME SLIPS

  The zombified horse’s head flinched back at the same time Benjamin did. ‘Oh, you’re awake,’ Gubbledon Longface said. His huge head swung around, and his hooves clacked together to attract attention.

  Miranda ran in through a door that led out into a dark corridor, while Benjamin pushed himself up onto his elbows and took stock of his surroundings. He wasn’t in the dorms, but in a small hospital ward with five foldout beds, of which his was the only one occupied. Curtains hung, ready to seal him off from the world. Across the room were desks and a variety of medical equipment, all old-fashioned and a little musty.

  ‘Well, if you’re awake, I’ll trot along and help with the clean-up,’ Gubbledon said, standing up. ‘Good to have you back in the land of the living.’

  ‘Is it?’ Benjamin said as the reanimated horse went out, ducking through the door, then closing it behind him.

  ‘What are you wittering about?’ Miranda asked, taking the seat Gubbledon had just vacated. ‘You fool. I told you to stay away, and you promised me. You could have been killed. There was an earth tremor and the east wing of the school woke up. That old gym was a roost for haulocks. A couple of kids who were late for their braiding class heard you screaming, otherwise those things would have ripped you apart.’

  ‘Godfrey spoke to me in David’s voice. I think my little brother is in danger from the ghouls.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Godfrey didn’t go down there, he went to his math class. He got Snout to tell you to go there as a trick. He wanted to make you late for math so you’d get sent to the Locker Room again. He’s really sorry.’

  Benjamin tried to sit up, but his body ached as if he’d just run a marathon. ‘What? He was there. He knew my brother’s name, and I saw him, right there, in the centre. In the shaft of light.’

  ‘What shaft of light? That gym is in complete darkness. You could have died, Benjamin. I know you think this place isn’t real, but you can still die.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘And if you ever come back, who knows what you’ll become.’

  As if to illustrate the point, a cleaner ambled past the door, pushing a mop along the corridor floor. The man’s head swung slowly from side to side, eyes glazed.

  ‘I have no idea what’s going on,’ he whispered.

  Miranda looked set to answer, when the door swung open and in strode Professor Loane, immaculately dressed as always in a black blazer, pinstripe slacks, and a tweed jacket. His hair was neatly brushed over to the side, gelled so tight as to be immovable.

  ‘Well, there he is, our little adventurer. Feeling better?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Professor Loane looked perturbed at Benjamin’s stilted response. He gave a wide grimace, then asked Miranda for some time alone with Benjamin. The girl’s expression said she wanted to refuse, but a teacher was a teacher. Standing up, she gave a curt nod.

  When the door had closed, Professor Loane sat next to Benjamin’s bed.

  ‘We’ve been talking about you,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Those of us in the teachers’ inner circle. Myself, Professor Eaves, Captain Roche, and Ms. Ito. We’re worried about you. Things are happening to you that have never happened before. Not in anyone’s memory, at any rate. For the time being, we’d like you to move into a special suite within the teachers’ apartments so that we can keep a better eye on you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Other ghouls have been spotted in the school grounds. If one can get in, others can. We need to protect you until we figure out what they want and what we can do about it.’

  ‘What about the other pupils
? What about my friends?’

  ‘We’re quite sure the ghoul was hunting you. Ms. Ito said it showed no interest in your friends. If you’re with them, they’re in danger, but if you’re apart—’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Loane shook his head. ‘No. Your things have already been moved.’

  ‘But that’s not fair! I didn’t ask for the ghoul to chase me. I want to go home!’

  The professor looked pained. ‘Unfortunately, for the time being at least, that’s where you already are.’

  Benjamin refused to humour Professor Loane’s attempts at small talk, so after a few more fruitless minutes, the professor said his goodbyes and left. No sooner had the door closed, when Miranda reappeared.

  ‘Were you listening?’

  The girl nodded. ‘As best I could, although the walls are pretty thick. It sucks, but don’t worry. I’m sure Wilhelm can find a way in so we can visit you.’

  Benjamin had been in Endinfinium for less than a week, and if there was anything he didn’t totally resent, it was the evenings in the dormitories after classes and dinner were over, when his friends would get together to play trumps, tell ghost stories, or battle over one of the many board games that filled a couple of the common room’s cupboards. He couldn’t imagine Dusty Eaves and Ms. Ito haggling over poker hands, although he had Captain Roche, with his large sleeve size, down as a surefire cheater.

  ‘Thanks.’ Benjamin sighed. ‘Even though Wilhelm is probably the messiest person I’ve ever known, and he snores like something undead, he already feels like my second brother. I’ll miss him. I know that we’ve only known each other for a few days, but you and Wilhelm … you’ve become a second family to me.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Do you ever think about going back?’

  ‘Never.’ Miranda shook her head. ‘It wasn’t for me like it was for you. It’s difficult to explain. I didn’t enjoy being a child. I just dreamed of the day I could grow up and go off-world, find a better place to live without all the smoke and the junk everywhere—’

  ‘Huh?’ Benjamin frowned. ‘What do you mean by “off-world”? Overseas, right?’

  ‘No, to the colonies. The orbiters and the moon base.’

  ‘What colonies? What moon base?’

  ‘Benjamin, surely you know—’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. When I woke up here, it was April fourteenth, twenty-fifteen.’

  Miranda laughed. ‘Ah, I forgot about that. We don’t tend to talk about our past lives all that often. Not much point, really.’

  ‘You’re not from twenty-fifteen?’

  Miranda shook her head again. ‘I was born on August the sixth, twenty-eight eighty-seven.’

  Benjamin stared. ‘That’s crazy. I’m more than six hundred years older than you.’

  Miranda smirked. ‘You look it, too.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  He wasn’t sure whether Miranda believed him. The girl shrugged. ‘What does it matter? We can’t go back, can we? It doesn’t matter if we’re from a million years in the future, we’re all stuck in the same place.’

  Benjamin’s mind whirred almost too fast to keep up with these new revelations. Endinfinium was like something out of a storybook. What if it wasn’t a real place, like Basingstoke was, but a place between places, a world that existed alongside the real world and that could pluck people out of any date in history?

  He tried to explain this theory to Miranda, but he was so excited, he stumbled over his words.

  ‘So what?’ she said. ‘It just means we have a different view on the world. It doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else. It might matter if one of us came to the other’s time, but here, we’re all the same. And as far as I can gather, everyone comes here as a kid, so it’s not like any of us are super-scientists or anything, is it?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘If people can exist from multiple points in history, then surely machines can, too? I’ve not seen anything more dangerous than a few animated cars, but what if there’s real danger out there? The kind of danger that can destroy us all and smash the school to pieces?’

  Miranda watched him, her eyes guarding a thousand possibilities that Benjamin didn’t even want to guess at. ‘If there was, what could we do about it?’

  He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I have no idea.’

  23

  RISING ARMY

  Professor Loane’s use of the word “suite” was a gross exaggeration. The box room at the end of the corridor was barely big enough for the single bed and a small washbasin. The room itself sat next to a dusty cleaning closet and had surely once belonged to a janitor, one whom, from the floor’s grimy look, had never once removed his shoes before entering.

  The biggest difference, however, between Benjamin’s new room and the old one which he shared with Wilhelm was that it was situated in a tower room rather than on the clifftop, and now faced inland. If he got up early enough, he could watch the yellow sun rise over the hills behind the school and the red sun slide across the horizon in a slow, lazy arc that never took it higher than a mid-morning forty-five degree angle. In those early mornings, before the haze of day took over, the faint outline of distant mountains became visible beyond a vast expanse of forest. The forest itself was separated from the undulating hills by the dark line of a wide river flowing languidly from north to south. Surrounding the school, the hills were a series of outcrops, gullies, and patches of farmland where lethargic figures worked from dawn until dusk, and perhaps even long into the chilly, red-tinged night. Occasionally, Benjamin spotted vehicles: low, wide things with oversized wheels, ferrying produce and tools back and forth.

  Within a couple of days it became apparent that he was under guard. During regular class hours inside the school he could relax, but whenever the lesson took the pupils outside the main building—for climbing, maintenance, or brush walking—he sensed a presence tailing him, staying just out of sight. Often, he would pretend to tie a shoelace in order to steal a glance at the path behind, but whoever or whatever was back there was practiced at the art of stealth and stayed well-hidden.

  If indeed, it was a real person. He began to suspect he might be under the surveillance of one of Captain Roche’s mysterious eyes, and before changing for bed thoroughly checked his clothing every night for something beady and spidery. Yet, he found nothing. His mysterious tail remained just that—a mystery.

  Without even realising it, he grew distant from his friends, and his mood wasn’t helped by the endless nightmares, or that every morning he had to sit at the teachers’ table for breakfast, eating in reluctant silence while a few seats away, Wilhelm and Miranda made small talk about their day’s lessons, and Godfrey and his friends made jokes and jibes about his misfortune.

  He wouldn’t have minded so much if the teachers got better food, but it was the same bowls of vegetables with the sweet, custardy sauce, day after day after day.

  ‘Look, this is getting ridiculous.’

  Miranda had one foot propped onto Benjamin’s belly as he lay flat on the course grass beside the path. The roundhouse chop had come out of nowhere—one moment, they were hunting through the gorse and heather for a variety of wild mushroom they had eaten once or twice for lunch; the next, Benjamin was sighing just a little too loud and his feet were swept out from beneath him.

  Benjamin picked a broken sprig of bush out of his armpit. Luckily he had bounced off a bank of heather, rather than a far spinier one of gorse.

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘It’s what you didn’t do. You’re moping so much, you’ve driven Wilhelm to start sucking up to Dusty Eaves. Look at him over there, being all leech-like. He’s asking questions and showing interest. I feel utterly disgusted.’

  Farther along the path, Wilhelm was squatting in the dirt beside Professor Eaves, nodding attentively as the professor scrabbled for some hidden gem just below the rocky surface.

  ‘I think it
’s nice that he’s started to go to classes. He couldn’t stay holed up in the dorms forever. I admit he’s sucking up a bit too much, but—’

  ‘You have to snap out of it, Benjamin.’

  He sighed. ‘I’m trying. But you don’t understand. I hate being stuck in there.’

  ‘Look on the bright side. You’re safe. You’ve got the teachers to protect you if anything bad happens. All we’ve got is old Gubbledon. You know, he almost fell in the washing tank yesterday morning because he got a hoof caught in his shoelaces. I mean, it’s not like he even needs them, being a zombie horse and all that. A bit of dirt isn’t going to hurt him, is it?’

  Benjamin shrugged. ‘But it’s the same old deal up there. No one will answer my questions. All they’ll tell me is that they think I’m here by mistake, even though no one seems to know the rules as to why anyone is here at all. And if that’s true, why can’t I go back? And I keep dreaming of David. Last night I dreamt that he was wandering about in a dark forest, being chased by ghouls, and that it’s somehow all my fault.’

  Miranda looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps they’re waiting to see what happens,’ she suggested. ‘If they say something too soon and it’s wrong, they’ll look like idiots.’

  Benjamin shrugged again and sat down on the ground beside Miranda, who suddenly gave a long frown. She reached out for the nearest patch of heather and, after tensing her fingers, a popping sound came from inside the bush, followed by a large, bulbous mushroom that appeared in her hand.

  ‘Wow! I didn’t know it was there, until … just before,’ she said, holding it up. ‘Look, it’s huge. It’s the biggest one we’ve found so far.’

  ‘Edgar seems to be helping you,’ Benjamin said. ‘It’s a shame I’m being followed, or we could get away to see him. Say, can you do something about that? If you concentrate, can you feel if someone’s tailing me?’