Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

by Chris Ward

  David’s voice, calling out to him, something about needing to run—

  Benjamin sits up. Pain races up his leg from his ankle, caught on a protruding root by the side of the potholed forest road. He can’t run any farther, he knows it. Whatever was behind him will catch up now. The race is over.

  He has come out of the forest not far from a tight corner. A rumbling comes from through the trees, and lights flicker against the undergrowth.

  A truck.

  A truck is coming.

  ‘Bennie!’

  His brother’s voice is right behind him. Benjamin turns but instead is confronted by something grey-and-orange that glows as it appears through the trees. It has hold of his brother and is dragging him toward the road. From farther back among the trees, other orange lights flicker like candles.

  Like eyes.

  The creature is an abomination of metal and flesh, crouched like a wildcat waiting to spring, but with human arms protruding from a metallic body. A black hood doesn’t quite cover a bare human skull.

  ‘No! Leave Bennie alone!’

  It is now that he realises it is his brother who has hold of the creature, his podgy, under-exercised arms wrapped around its waist as he tries to pull it back.

  ‘Run, Bennie!’

  And then something happens. A light flashes, and the creature wails and falls away, hands like metal straws clutching at its face. David crawls toward him as others burst from the trees.

  ‘They want you, Bennie. I can’t let them have you.’

  ‘David…?’

  There is a tearing like nothing Benjamin has ever heard, as though the fabric of the world is parting.

  ‘Bennie! I’m sorry!’

  Lights illuminate them as a horn blasts. Benjamin is tumbling into the dark, and he looks up to see his brother’s face looking down on him, as though he has fallen into a deep, dark well. Then there is a thump, the squeal of tires, and a scream that can only have come from his brother—

  ‘Benjamin?’

  Miranda stared at him. ‘Are you all right? You were moaning in your sleep.’

  He shook off the dream like an unwanted coat and nodded. ‘I think so. I just had a … strange dream. About my brother, and about how I came here.’

  ‘Everyone’s journey is different,’ Edgar said. ‘Some remember well. Others never do.’

  ‘He protected me from ghouls. They were after me for some reason, but he knew about them. Then there was a truck and … I think … part of him … came with me.’

  Edgar nodded. ‘The spirit disassociated from the body is a powerful thing,’ he said. ‘It’s almost like atomic energy. That could be why the Dark Man is using him.’

  ‘And Grand Lord Bastien?’

  Edgar looked from one to the other. ‘Has no one ever told you?’

  ‘Told us what?’

  Edgar rolled his eyes, sighed, then nodded. ‘Of course. The Grand Lord left for the High Mountains before you arrived. No one ever liked to talk about it. The elephant in the room and all that.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The Grand Lord isn’t … human.’

  45

  PARTING

  ‘The official name we had for him, back in my days at the school, was “disassociated soul,”’ Edgar said. ‘You might prefer to simply call him a ghost.’

  ‘Like, you can see through him?’

  Edgar gave them a pained look. ‘Not … exactly. It’s more complicated than that.’

  Benjamin wanted to ask another of the many questions queuing up in his mind when Lawrence suddenly dipped under the water, headed straight for the bottom of the river. Huge headlights blinked on to illuminate a drifting mess of junk, from TVs to bicycles and the tatty, water-ruined remains of old books and magazines, jerking and tossing in the current like dying fish.

  ‘Hang on,’ Edgar said. ‘Lawrence? Are you all right?’

  ‘Seek deep place,’ Lawrence boomed.

  Edgar frowned, then nodded. ‘Most of the river is too shallow for the cruise-shark to follow,’ he said. ‘Lawrence is looking for the deepest part of the channel.’

  The snake-train’s headlights revealed an otherworldly landscape. In places, whole buildings poked out of the riverbed; in others, jumbles of half-crushed cars had become ecosystems for thousands of darting fish. Occasionally, the riverbed even resembled the kind of regular river Benjamin had seen on television nature programs—great sweeps of seaweed covering silt beds, with fish of all shapes and sizes darting among the swaying blue-green arms.

  Satisfied, Lawrence began to head for the surface. He twisted as he broke, the cruise-shark lumbering along close behind, the river churning around it as it scooped up hundreds of tons of water up into its maw.

  As Lawrence splashed back down into the water, Benjamin let out a cry and pointed out through the side window.

  ‘There!’ he shouted. ‘Right there! That’s where the tunnels are!’

  Lawrence executed a sharp dive that left them all gasping against their straining seatbelts. He made a tight underwater loop, then resurfaced so close to the cruise-shark’s maw that they were covered by its shadow.

  ‘He’s a lot braver than I remember,’ Benjamin gasped.

  Edgar, pale-faced and seemingly on the verge of throwing up, gave a weak shrug. ‘They don’t always reanimate quite the same way,’ he said. ‘I think he’s enjoying taunting it. A week ago, he wouldn’t have gotten into the same river.’

  Lawrence cut to the right, headed straight toward the riverbank. Though they couldn’t see the cruise-shark behind them, great waves crashed up the slope down to the riverside, leaving a tide line of rubbish stretching back from the bank.

  Miranda’s hand closed over Benjamin’s, squeezing hard enough to make him wince. ‘Here we go,’ she said. ‘Let’s hope this works.’

  Lawrence raced up through the shallows, then burst out of the water and onto the riverbank before cutting back and spinning around, letting out another high-pitched whistle. Through the front windows they saw the cruise-shark rushing at the shore, maw snapping. It was almost on them when it abruptly veered left, its prow embedding in the silt clinging to the riverbank. A sudden rush of water sloshed over them, lumps of rusty junk bouncing off of Lawrence’s side.

  With a satisfied hoot, the snake-train moved farther up the hillside, then turned to reveal the results through the windows. The cruise-shark listed in the shallows, its maw snapping over nothing as water surged around it, looking for a way through. Already the water was carving a channel out of the hillside’s soft topsoil, and a river of junk went pouring into the nearest cave entrance.

  ‘That’s some plan you had there,’ Edgar said. ‘Now what?’

  ‘We free my brother and the Grand Lord,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ Edgar asked.

  Benjamin shrugged and grinned. ‘I haven’t figured that out yet, but I will. Something has finally gone the way I wanted it to.’ He pointed out the window at the increasing flood of diverted water. ‘That’s got to be a good sign, right?’

  Lawrence took them up to the highest of the nearby hills so they could see the school. It appeared nothing had changed. The school perched like an old bird on the edge of the clifftop, the grass on the hills around it glistening with fresh rainfall. When Lawrence cut his engines, a faint sound was audible over the rushing water: the hum of machinery.

  ‘It’s getting louder,’ Benjamin said as they climbed out of the snake-train.

  ‘It’s them,’ Miranda said. ‘The Dark Man’s army. They’re coming up to the surface.’

  Benjamin opened his mouth to reply, though there was nothing he could say. A half-mile ahead, the ground subsided in a sudden rush, then a chainsaw blade as wide as a house appeared out of the ground to fill the air with a buzzing noise so loud Benjamin felt his skull reverberating.

  From all around it came a rushing, howling army of ghouls and wraith-hounds.

  ‘My word,’ Edgar gasped, steadying hi
mself against Lawrence’s metallic hide. ‘We have no chance.’

  The monstrous Bagger, flexing and twisting like nothing metal should, squeezed out of the hole and crunched down onto the ground. Around it, earth began to crumble, collapsing the caves under its immense weight. The chainsaw blade lifted up to the sky, and the Bagger’s engines roared in challenge, then it moved off toward the school’s outer wall, the massive caterpillar treads leaving muddy rents in the ground big enough to bury a car.

  At the vast machine’s rear, a silvery bubble gleamed in the sunlight.

  ‘David—’

  Benjamin began to move forward, but Edgar put a hand out to stop him. ‘No. That’s the Grand Lord.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Edgar gave a grim smile. ‘Something else you’ll learn when you can control it. You can feel others, and in time, you learn how their respective personalities are reflected in their power. How do you think I knew where to find you?’

  Benjamin stuck out a hand. ‘I owe you big time, Edgar. I won’t forget. Good luck.’ When Lawrence gave a low growl, Benjamin smiled and patted the side of the snake-train. ‘And you, too, Lawrence.’

  ‘You’re not coming with us?’ Miranda said, turning to glare at Edgar.

  Benjamin smiled. ‘You don’t need magic to know that,’ he said.

  ‘He’s right,’ Edgar said. ‘I need to go to defend the walls. The more of us there are, the more of a chance we have. I hope to see you again.’

  Miranda turned to stare at Benjamin. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘I have to find my brother.’

  Miranda marched past him. ‘Let’s get moving, then,’ she said. ‘David isn’t going to rescue himself.’

  ‘You can’t come with me! It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Yeah, and look how well you’ve done at dealing with danger. You’d be in pieces if it wasn’t for me bailing you out all the time.’

  Benjamin opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He looked at Edgar for support, but the wizard just shrugged. Even Lawrence gave a low grunt that could have been laughter.

  ‘I guess you’re coming with me, then,’ Benjamin said, though Miranda had already started off down the hill. Edgar gave him a thumbs-up, then climbed back into Lawrence.

  ‘Good luck!’ he shouted from the doorway as the snake-train rushed off in the direction of the distant school, and the army slowly gathering outside its walls.

  46

  ESCAPE

  The river was a rushing, roaring torrent as it gushed down into the tunnels. Benjamin watched a couple of TVs and a battered photocopier float past, bumping against each other, then dropping over the edge. Miranda pointed.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘See that wardrobe? That’s our ride.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Benjamin said. ‘This isn’t Disneyland.’

  ‘Got a better idea?’

  Benjamin shook his head. ‘Hold my hand. On the count of three.’

  A surge of churning water rushed the old wardrobe toward them—

  ‘Three!’

  —and they leapt inside as it dropped over the edge. Benjamin screamed as the ground fell out from under them and they went into freefall through a blurring, scattered darkness. Miranda still clutched his hand, and with the other he found an old tie rack rail on the wardrobe’s side. As they tumbled, he couldn’t think of what to say or do, other than to wait it out and hope they landed in one piece.

  Just when Benjamin thought they were going fast enough to explode on impact, the waterfall flattened out, and they raced through tunnels and caves on a torrent of water, spinning around sharp corners and bumping over rocky protrusions. The wardrobe cracked and splintered, and when they finally came to a rest in a frothing pool, it broke apart, pieces floating away like the tired customers of an over-ambitious fairground ride.

  Benjamin kicked to the poolside and pulled Miranda out onto a ledge. Water gushed all around them, bringing with it heaps of junk quickly piling up at the bottom of the pool, pushing deeper the level of the water.

  ‘Where’s the light coming from?’

  It took Benjamin a moment to understand the absurdity of being able to see clearly so far underground, when he heard engines roaring over the rushing water.

  ‘It’s them. They’re nearby.’

  They followed a section of tunnel that had a glowing light at its far end. When the tunnel opened out onto a ledge overlooking a vast cavern, they stopped and stared.

  The tunnel was enormous, big enough for an entire city centre to nestle quietly without even touching the walls, and in the middle of it sat the Bagger, the water level already above its treads, while an army of ghouls and other monstrosities floundered in its depths. There were so many of them, the glow from their eyes turn the cavern an eerie, upside-down orange-grey star field, with the glowing white egg at the Bagger’s rear the moon.

  ‘David!’ Benjamin hissed. He turned to Miranda. ‘He’s there. I have to help him.’

  Miranda pointed at the rear wall of the cavern. ‘It looks unstable. If I knock part of it down, it might create a diversion.’

  ‘No, it’s too dangerous. Stay here and keep watch for me. I’ll go alone.’

  Miranda turned to look at him, and her eyes glazed over as she lifted a hand to touch the side of his face in a tender gesture Benjamin had never seen from her.

  ‘I wish I had a brother like you.’

  Before he could reply, Miranda leapt off the ledge, diving like a falling arrow into the churning black water.

  ‘No…!’

  She broke the surface, water parting around her as she spread her arms, then the ghouls rushed forward into the gap, stumbling after her as she raced for the darkness at the cavern’s rear. In an instant, that side of the Bagger was cleared, then the water gushed back in, catching many of the ghouls in the ensuing maelstrom.

  Benjamin caught a brief glimpse of Miranda diving into one of the dark caves leading out of the cavern, and then the roof partially collapsed, crushing the ghouls underneath.

  No way could he get to Miranda, but her sacrifice had cleared the way for him to reach the Bagger. Water was already filling the floor, but the nearest ghouls were at the front of the massive machine. He gritted his teeth, holding back tears. He couldn’t let her sacrifice be for nothing. He closed his eyes and jumped.

  The freezing water was strangely comforting on his burns, and already it was deep enough for his feet to barely caress the cavern floor before he bobbed up to the surface right beside the caterpillar treads of the machine. Gasping, he pulled himself up onto a mudguard the size of a table, then began the climb through the metal struts and components in the direction of the glowing orb overhead.

  The climb sapped the last of his strength, but determination and sheer willpower forced him on. The orb was almost within his reach, when a ghoul stepped out from among the girders and swung a metal arm in his direction. Benjamin shrank back, ducking out of its way and slipping past, then kicking it in the back as it tried to turn in the cramped space. With a howl, it tumbled down into the water.

  Nearly breathless, he hauled himself up one more girder and stopped.

  The orb lay before him, its upper side clear, offering a view of the person lying inside.

  ‘David….’

  His brother looked so peaceful, yet so lost. His eyes were closed, hands against his sides, and even his hair looked neat. His body was wrapped in a colourless white swirl that seemed a part of the silver ball.

  ‘You’re using him for power, aren’t you?’ Benjamin muttered, clenching his fists over the metal, wishing he could rip the machine apart with his bare hands. ‘When there’s nothing left, you’ll just throw him away.’

  Almost as if reading his thoughts, something dark and heavy seemed to press over Benjamin’s eyes. He shook his head to clear his vision, but it was right there, all around him, trying to gain purchase.

  He looked at the scratch on his hand glow
ing a deep, threatening orange.

  He feels me. He knows I’m here, and he’s coming for me.

  The glowing orb fit neatly into a space designed for it like an ornamental plate on a stand, but when Benjamin touched it, its surface felt rubbery and soft.

  When he put his right hand on it, nothing happened, but when he touched it with his left, it began to tingle and vibrate. David’s eyes popped open with a look of horror.

  Bennie?

  ‘David!’

  The silver oval exploded in a blast of blinding light, and Benjamin covered his eyes, shrinking back. A deafening cacophony of squeals and shrieks rose up over everything, and he wanted to curl up into nothing and disappear, to leave it all behind.

  Then something tugged on his trousers.

  ‘Bennie?’

  He opened his eyes. David—or at least something that should have been David—crouched before him, pale and ephemeral, his outline shifting like a cloud moving in and out of shape. He wasn’t a human, though neither was he a ghost. He was something in between.

  ‘David? Is that you?’

  ‘Bennie….’ It sounded like his brother, right down to that soft, kiddy whine that always made David sound younger than he really was. His eyes pleaded for Benjamin to understand.

  ‘Bennie … he’s coming.’

  Looking up wasn’t necessary; Benjamin could feel him. Whether the Dark Man had a physical form like his little brother or was something else entirely, it didn’t matter. He was coming for the both of them.

  ‘We have to run,’ Benjamin said. ‘Can you run, David?’

  His little brother gave a slow, dopey nod.

  ‘Then run,’ he said.

  47

  SHOWDOWN

  Even though David’s hand kept slipping through Benjamin’s fingers, David’s ephemeral glow lit the way as they raced through the tunnels leading away from the great cavern. As they neared the school, the passages became smoother, with signs of primitive human handiwork, and then bare rock became stonework and bricks, and without warning, Benjamin found himself back in the school’s lower tunnels.