Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

by Chris Ward

  ‘How long do you think the school has?’ Miranda said at last. ‘I mean, before that war host arrives?’

  ‘A week at most,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Do you think they’ll have to evacuate?’

  ‘And go where?’ Miranda snapped. ‘Over the edge of the world?’

  ‘Well, what then?’

  ‘He’ll crush you all,’ Godfrey said, piping up for the first time. ‘He’ll smash the school to pieces and blow up all of those horrid monsters that hide in the walls. He’ll build a new school in its place, one where we can learn real skills rather than stupid stuff like how to tie ropes together.’

  Miranda turned to glare at him. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Oh, look at you, all weepy-weepy because your idiot friend didn’t come back. You fools. The Dark Man is the rightful lord of Endinfinium. He’s the only one who cares about its people.’

  Miranda stood up and started back toward Godfrey, fists clenched.

  ‘No!’

  She stopped. Benjamin shook his head. ‘Let him speak. What people?’

  ‘The ones who can’t stay dead.’

  ‘The ghouls?’

  ‘Call them what you want, runt.’

  ‘What do you know about ghouls?’

  ‘Only that they were once people, just like you and me. People who came here and died here. People whose souls were forgotten by the teachers and those idiots who built everything, who ended up twisted around by the taint of this place and fused with the rubbish millions of people tossed away.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ Wilhelm said.

  ‘Don’t I? The teachers won’t tell you anything, and do you know why? Because they want to control you. They want to use your powers for their own benefit. They know the truth. The cleaners are the bodies of the dead, but the dark people—the ones you call ghouls—they’re the souls.’

  ‘They’ve been reanimated!’ Miranda shouted. ‘They should have stayed dead.’

  ‘Like you should have?’

  Miranda jumped out of her seat, ran up to Godfrey, and started hitting him round the head. She had landed a couple of solid blows before Wilhelm and Benjamin managed to pull her off.

  With Miranda smoldering, the others decided it might be better to move Godfrey a bit farther back down the train. After asking Lawrence to slow for a couple of minutes, they took Godfrey a couple of carriages closer to the rear, and as Benjamin secured his bonds, Godfrey scowled at him with unbridled hatred.

  ‘Go ask your girlfriend what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘Go on. You should have left her back there with those wraith-hounds. She’d have fitted in really well.’

  When they returned, Miranda was moping in a side seat, her head leaning against a window that was part glass, part scales. She looked up with a resentful glare, then looked away again.

  Wilhelm and Benjamin exchanged a glance before the smaller boy pulled Benjamin close. ‘Look, I’ll just go and, you know, have a quick look outside,’ he said. ‘See if Lawrence needs anything. You talk to her.’

  Benjamin shifted from foot to foot, unsure of what to say while Miranda glowered in a seat near the front, arms crossed.

  ‘Look,’ he said, finally plucking up the courage to sit down beside her. ‘What happened to Edgar—’

  ‘Don’t talk about Edgar,’ she snapped, not looking up. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’

  Putting a hand on her arm was akin to putting his head into a pond filled with hungry sharks, so he didn’t. ‘I’m your friend, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘I trust you to get into trouble, and that I’ll have to get you out of it.’

  Benjamin rolled his eyes, assuming the answer was a yes. ‘Then tell me what’s wrong.’

  She lifted her head and turned toward him. ‘I’m not sure you can understand,’ she said. ‘The world I know is not the world you know. Edgar … he was like a father to me. I never had a father before. I never knew what it was like.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tell me about your family,’ she said.

  Benjamin frowned. ‘Like what?’

  She punched him on the arm, then looked bashful and muttered an apology. ‘Like anything.’

  Benjamin took a deep breath. ‘Well, my dad is a train driver. My mum works in a bank. And David, he’s just six.’

  ‘More.’

  Benjamin smiled. ‘All right … my mum does this thing if she’s cooking and she gets angry—she pulls off her apron, rolls it up into a ball, then unrolls it and does it again. When the anger’s gone, she puts it back on and gets on with things as if nothing has happened. And my dad, he’s a complete bookworm. He never watches TV, just reads all the time. He likes really thick fantasy books, stuff like The Wheel of Time or The Kingkiller Chronicles. He has them all in hardback, and they must weigh a ton. Mum likes to watch reality TV shows, but Dad will just sit there in a chair and read.’

  ‘Are they kind to you?’

  ‘Of course. They’re just normal. If I’m dicking about, they’ll tell me off, but they always come in to say goodnight and I can tell Mum makes a real effort with my packed lunch because even though the plastic tub is really small, she always arranges it so the apple doesn’t crush the edge of the sandwiches like my mates’ apples always do.’

  Miranda lifted a hand to stifle a cough, but it came out watery, like a sob. She glared at him, daring him to mention the sheen in her eyes.

  ‘They sound wonderful.’

  Benjamin, too, felt like crying. ‘Yeah, they’re not bad, as parents go.’

  Miranda nodded and pulled up her sleeve. ‘Touch my skin,’ she said.

  ‘Um, okay.’

  He laid a hand onto her arm, and ran two fingertips up and down. Just like his own skin, but even softer. It was covered in fine, almost invisible hairs, and the colour was a completely even off-white, blemish free.

  ‘Feels normal, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Like anyone else’s?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I don’t have any parents,’ she said. ‘Not in the way you do. I was born in a laboratory. I grew up in a home with forty-nine other girls who looked exactly like me. We ate the same, and did the same things. My name was Red-37.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘When I woke up here in Endinfinium and was asked my name, I picked the name of a girl in a storybook I liked to read at night back in the Growth Centre where I grew up. It sounded so much nicer.’

  ‘You’re an um, a…’

  ‘I’m a clone.’ She shrugged. ‘It might sound strange for you to hear it, but in five hundred years … not so much.’

  ‘But, what, I mean—’

  The door opened, and Wilhelm came running in. ‘We have to hurry,’ he said. ‘I think we have less time than we thought.’

  ‘Lawrence, can you open your eyes?’

  The front screen blinked on. Lawrence had come to rest on a hilltop, looking back over the top of a vast forest toward the yellow sun hanging low in the sky.

  ‘Face west, please, Lawrence,’ Wilhelm said. The train-snake turned around. A line of black covered the horizon, a mass of churning greys and blacks, completely obscuring the red sun.

  ‘What’s that?’ Benjamin asked.

  ‘That’s the storm,’ Wilhelm answered. ‘The storm that’s bringing the war.’

  35

  THE WAVE

  They sat across three seats with Benjamin in the middle and Wilhelm and Miranda on either side, hanging on for dear life as Lawrence raced at top speed through the Haunted Forest. The looming thunderclouds were almost on top of them, and while the Baggers and the other machines might take a couple of days to arrive, already ghouls were rising up out of the ground like toadstools blooming after a heavy spell of rain.

  The snake-train broke through the last trees of the Haunted Forest, and the river appeared below, high with flood water.

  ‘Lawrence!’ Benjamin shouted. ‘Can you make i
t across?’

  ‘Swim,’ rumbled the foghorn-like voice.

  ‘I think it might be best to close our eyes,’ Wilhelm said, as the snake-train leapt out toward the river. They hung over the churning water for a few seconds, before an explosion from somewhere behind sent Lawrence flipping sideways, and the snake-train roared as he hit the water, side-on. They dipped under, the view turning dark, then they reemerged, bobbing in the languid shallows near the riverbank. Slowly, they twisted around as the current took hold, pulling them out into the faster-moving channel.

  Benjamin unbuckled his seatbelt and fell heavily to the new floor. The others struggled with theirs, but he didn’t have time to wait. He jumped up and ran for the door leading into the next carriage, wrestling it open and climbing through.

  Godfrey had been one carriage farther back, but as Benjamin ran across the windows that now made the floor, the carriage dipped into the water as the current caught it. He reached the end, pushed up the door, and climbed through … and stared at only half a carriage. Across a churning black mass of water, Lawrence’s back half lay against the riverbank, and Godfrey, a vicious scar now cutting across his face, stood unsteadily at the end of his half of destroyed carriage, holding on to a luggage rack now at shoulder height.

  ‘Godfrey! What have you done?’

  Godfrey scowled, eyes glowing orange. ‘You’re not the only summoner, Forrest. But you are the weakest.’

  Benjamin gritted his teeth. The way the snake-train’s walls shivered revealed Lawrence’s pain, and attacking Godfrey might harm him, but Benjamin didn’t care. The scratch on the back of his hand began to itch.

  Godfrey’s hands came up at the same time as Benjamin’s, and there was a flash of light. Then he was falling back, the remaining half of the carriage tipping over, brackish water sloshing over him. He grabbed hold of the nearest seatback for support while the river rushed past as they gained speed. Behind him, the door slid open and Miranda peered through, Wilhelm behind her.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the train?’

  ‘Godfrey blew it up.’

  They stared at him. ‘How?’ Miranda said.

  ‘He’s a summoner, too.’

  Miranda scowled, and Benjamin sensed her holding back a tirade of colourful insults. In the end, though, all she said was, ‘That pig. What do we do now?’

  Benjamin put a hand on the floor. ‘Lawrence, can you hear me? Are you all right?’

  ‘No tail … no swim,’ boomed the foghorn voice.

  Lawrence’s heavy locomotive front kept them low in the water, but as the current strengthened, it pulled them faster and faster.

  ‘Lawrence has no more control,’ Benjamin said. ‘We’re going to slowly drift out into the sea. We have to use magic; it’s our only choice.’

  Miranda nodded. ‘Not you, it’s too dangerous. I’ll do it. Me and Wilhelm.’ She turned to the smaller boy. ‘How does that weaver stuff work?’

  ‘I just had to hold Edgar’s shoulder. That was all. He said he could draw the power out of me.’

  The river was rushing now, wide enough to barely see the banks on either side. In the distance to the left stood a promontory poking up into the sky. The school. They were so close, but it was now falling away behind them. If they didn’t turn around soon they’d be out in the open sea and then….

  The edge of the world. Benjamin squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to think about it. When he opened them again, something huge and white was approaching from the horizon, pushing up a bore of black water in its wake.

  ‘Look!’ he shouted, pointing. ‘There’s some kind of ship. It’s massive. Perhaps we can flag it down and they can throw us a rope or something.’

  Miranda and Wilhelm exchanged a glance. ‘Um, it might have once been a ship,’ Miranda said, ‘but I don’t think it’s a ship any more than those wraith-hounds were pots and pans.’

  ‘Cruise-shark,’ Lawrence hooted.

  ‘It must be hungry,’ Wilhelm added. ‘It’s coming right at us.’

  As the cruise-shark approached, its huge front end opened like the bow of a whaling ship, revealing an open maw and serrated metallic teeth. The current took them toward it, and they were as helpless as a scrap of plankton in the sights of a hungry whale.

  ‘Shore,’ moaned Lawrence.

  ‘Look!’ Miranda shouted. ‘We’re coming out of the river mouth. The current will be weakest here where it’s got the most resistance. We need something to push us in to the coast where the water’s shallower.’

  The massive reanimated cruise ship now blotted out the yellow sun hanging low in the sky.

  ‘We need a wave,’ Wilhelm said. ‘Can you make that wave in its wake a little bigger? Perhaps make it push us into the shore?’

  Miranda frowned. ‘Grab hold of me,’ she said. ‘I’ll try.’

  She threw open a side window, blasting them with chilly, salty sea air. Wilhelm ran up behind her and gripped her shoulders with both hands. Miranda began to growl under her breath, and as Benjamin watched, the black wave grew larger, rising up in front of the reanimated cruise ship like a giant foreshadow.

  ‘Come on,’ Miranda muttered under her breath. ‘Bigger, bigger….’

  A long, blaring sound came from Lawrence as they rose up toward the ship’s black maw, so huge it blotted out the sky.

  ‘A little more, Miranda!’

  Something slammed into them from the side, and Lawrence groaned again, rolling sideways. Miranda lost her grip on the window ledge, and the three of them tumbled across the floor, colliding with the far windows, then rolling back again as Lawrence righted himself. Through a window, Benjamin saw a massive, swinging anchor headed right for them. They sat on the crest of the wave; this time, it would knock them straight into the huge ship’s mouth.

  ‘Dive, Lawrence!’ he screamed. ‘Now!’

  The snake-train dipped into the water. Miranda and Wilhelm screamed. Benjamin hooked his feet over a chair’s armrest and grabbed one of them with each hand. Through Lawrence’s eyes, he saw a colossal drop open up in front of them, a steep hillside of silvery, shining water.

  Lawrence let out a groan, then they flew down the front of the wave as it barreled over them. For a few seconds, Lawrence seemed in command, angling right, away from the roar of the crushing whitewater, when the wave broke over their heads and everything became a black, tumbling apocalypse. Benjamin, thrown across the floor, floundered in the darkness for anything to hold on to. His fingers closed over a table edge before it was twisted out from under him and he landed hard on his back.

  Just when he began to feel like a soccer ball caught in a rolling metal drum, they bobbed down into the water, crunched over sand and rocks, then came to a slow halt.

  Benjamin rubbed twenty different bruises as he climbed to his feet. Miranda had a nasty welt around her right eye, and Wilhelm’s shirt had been ripped clean off by a metal armrest.

  Only sand and rocks were visible through Lawrence’s huge eyes. Benjamin opened a side door and, one by one, they climbed out.

  All around, the beach was strewn with fresh debris.

  ‘Benjamin … oh, look what’s happened to him.’

  Miranda took Benjamin’s hand and turned him around. On her other side, Wilhelm was rubbing his eyes.

  ‘He saved us,’ he said.

  Lawrence opened his mouth to let out a low, dying groan. With only two and a half carriages left, both battered and crunched, he was just a wreck lying among other wrecks.

  ‘Thank you, Lawrence.’ Benjamin placed a hand on the snake-train’s side. ‘We can’t thank you enough.’

  Lawrence’s mouth opened and closed. A foghorn blared. ‘Save … school,’ it sounded like. ‘Edgar … love … school.’

  ‘Lawrence—’

  The snake-train’s eyes closed like curtains being drawn on a theatre production, and with a great moan like an expulsion of breath, Lawrence lay still.

  Far out to sea, the huge cruise-shark had vanished back beneath the wat
er. The yellow sun was visible once more, hanging low over the horizon, but above the looming cliffs, the sky was filling with dark clouds.

  ‘Come on,’ Benjamin said. ‘Let’s go.’

  He took their hands in his, and together they headed for a path leading up the cliff. Just as they climbed out of sight, Benjamin took one last look at Lawrence’s still form lying on the beach, and drew in a deep breath.

  Too many had fallen already. The Dark Man had to be stopped.

  36

  FALLENWOOD

  When they reached the top of the cliff, they were exhausted, and collapsed to the springy turf, sitting back to back, none of them really wanting to speak. Miranda faced outward to the sea, Benjamin back inland, and Wilhelm up-coast in the direction of the school.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Miranda said at last.

  Benjamin turned to look out to the sea, which was calmer now and lit up by the brilliance of the yellow sun that hung above a truncated horizon, the edge of the world a thick, golden line of crayon. No more than an hour remained before the yellow sun sank beyond the edge. The red sun, making its way around the world to the west, would soon disappear into the mass of approaching cloud. The darkest night Benjamin had yet known in Endinfinium was nearly upon them.

  ‘I can’t see the school,’ Wilhelm said. ‘We must be ten or fifteen miles south of it. We’ll never get there in the dark.’

  ‘What about a cave?’ Miranda said.

  Wilhelm groaned. ‘Ah, come on. Scatlocks roost in caves.’

  Miranda shoved him in the back so he rolled away into the springy grass. ‘Well, come up with a better option, then!’

  ‘Stop it!’

  Wilhelm sat up and flung a clump of sod at Miranda, who ducked, and it hit Benjamin in the chest with a soft splat. He looked at the brown stain on his shirt, then couldn’t help grinning. After a moment, the other two started smiling too.

  ‘We’re kind of screwed, aren’t we?’

  Miranda shrugged. ‘We still have each other.’