Tales From The Wyrd Museum 3: The Fatal Strand

by Robin Jarvis

  Not daring to take their eyes from him, the children backed away cautiously and Quoth fluffed out his feathers as he hid in his wings.

  'If it ain't the little witch,' Jack Timms announced, touching the brim of his hat in scornful salutation. 'And she done brought some playmates with her this time. That's all to the good—wouldn't want anyone to miss this dazzly delight.'

  'You don't scare me!' Edie cried. 'Couldn't hurt me last time and you can't now, neither!'

  Tick-Tock's red lips parted and a repulsive snicker hissed through his blackened teeth. 'Old Jack didn't get time to finish before in the workhouse,' he told her. 'But he will now. The guv'nor done gave him a new Tormentor—one that'll jab the last squeak out of you.'

  Flourishing his cane in the air, he made a clumsy bow then spread his fat arms wide.

  'For your despairin' delectation!' he called. 'From all the way out the darkest Congo, wrested from the hands of the heathen and making the second of its four performances...'

  Reaching to the wall, he unhooked one of the African spears and brandished it tauntingly.

  'That can't help yer!' Edie told him.

  'Wait!' Neil gasped. 'Don't you see what it is?'

  The girl looked at the weapon again and her hand squeezed Neil's tightly as she recognised the rusted blade now fixed to the shaft. 'The spear!' she whispered, suddenly daunted as she realised her peril. 'The one what killed Veronica.'

  Tick-Tock chuckled wickedly. 'Fancy leavin' this ruddy thing lyin' about fer anyone to pick up,' he mocked, revelling in the fear graven upon the children's faces. 'Thought you was so safe locked in 'ere, dintcha? Well, not now Jack's let loose. There's nowhere and no time to hide in. Gut you all, he will, and the guv'nor'll be well pleased with him.'

  'Run!' Neil urged. 'As fast as you can!' But the girl was paralysed with fear. The ancient blade in the evil warder's hands froze Edie's thoughts and her spirit quailed within her. Miss Veronica's face as she lay dying upon Glastonbury Tor, impaled upon that lethal blade, reared in her mind, and she shook her head helplessly.

  Clutching his blubbery sides, Jack Timms honked with laughter. 'You can't get away this time! You won't reach the perishin' door—there's other things Tick-Tock can use against you. He belongs to this place just as much as you and it listens to his voice as well as the old harpy's.'

  'What meaneth the suet-swollen rogue?' Quoth cheeped.

  Neil didn't know, but started to pull Edie down the corridor.

  'The spear'll get me,' the girl mumbled. ‘I know it will.'

  Letting go of her hand, Neil whisked her round. 'Only if you let him catch you,' he said angrily.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  The staccato rhythm commenced once more, but this time it was the tip of the rusted spear which beat upon the wall and Jack Timms chuckled to himself.

  Hopping from one of Neil's shoulder's to the other, Quoth eyed the brutal man and spoke in a quacking, alarm-filled prattle. 'Yon scoundrelous cur is not in pursuit. Why doth he not come after?'

  A dull thud sounded by Neil's left ear and the boy glanced sideways. Next to him was only a great glass dome filled with a display of stuffed humming birds.

  'What made that noise?' he asked.

  Quoth craned forward to look. "Tis the brazen-vested sparrows!' he croaked with a degree of relief. 'One of their number didst drop from its—'

  The raven abruptly broke off for, as he stared, the fallen humming bird righted itself and beat its tiny wings until they seemed invisible. Up into the large dome it darted, zigzagging through the branches, its long beak drilling against the curving glass.

  'Squire Neil!' Quoth began to wail.

  Neil and Edie looked at each other. Then, behind them, a web-enshrouded peacock filled the corridor with its ugly, bugling cry. As if that was a signal, the dome was suddenly filled with a frenzy of brilliant, scintillating colour as the other humming birds flew from their perches to crash against the imprisoning crystal.

  'Time's up for you,' Jack Timms declaimed. 'Jamrach's menagerie and my new Tormentor will see to that.'

  Edie whirled around. The case opposite was now alive with a flock of flame-feathered parrots, who squawked and spread their garish wings. Their screeching cries were immediately taken up by the birds in the adjacent cabinets and the narrow passageway was drowned in a shrieking, raucous din.

  Stumbling backwards, with living specimens screaming upon each side, Neil's fear intensified. Beyond the parrots and birds of paradise he saw a new, larger movement and the boy turned to run.

  In the primate case, a howler monkey began swinging from its branch. With its lips peeled back over vicious teeth, it added its shrill voice to the riotous cacophony. Abruptly, the long-faced baboons who shared the display jerked into life as, further down the corridor, the two spotted hyenas whooped and shrieked, feverishly clawing the sides of their confinement.

  Within every cabinet, Woden's power, directed by Jack Timms, animated the stuffed specimens, and the cases rocked and juddered as the creatures struggled to break free. Tick-Tock guffawed to see the frightening spectacle. The girl would never escape him.

  A tremendous explosion suddenly flooded the passage with shivering fragments of glass as, from the primate case, two large adult baboons came charging. Lowering their maned heads, they yelled at the top of their bestial voices.

  Hearing the crash, Edie glanced back to see the apes dragging heavy branches from their cabinet and lifting them over their heads, to smash the glass of their neighbours' confines. After the fleeing children the howler monkey came flying, bounding up on to the cases and hurtling across the tops, inciting the occupants to a wild madness with its ghastly shrieking.

  Losing his footing in shock, Quoth fell from Neil's shoulder. 'The ape!' he cawed. 'It chaseth us most hotly'

  Along the cabinets the howler pelted after them. Its glass eyes were fixed upon the sprinting children, but its lithe legs were the faster and in an instant it had overtaken them. Down the passage it sped, leaping from the cabinets and on to the floor in Neil and Edie's path, barring the way to the landing door.

  'Jump over it!' Neil told Edie.

  Yet even as they surged forward, the monkey snatched up a vase of dried flowers and hurled it at the nearest case. Another shower of shattered glass erupted into the corridor and, with high, nickering barks, the hyenas vaulted from captivity.

  Their fearsome, dog-like faces were contorted into murderous snarls and, confronted by this new terror, the children staggered to a halt. With their humpbacks bristling, the dust-coated hyenas prowled towards them, yipping and snapping. The glossy brown paint which covered their quivering lips was cracked and peeling, and one of the ravening creatures had chipped its snout, revealing the yellowing plaster beneath. Yet to them had been given the semblance of life and they were more horrific and deadly than any animal of flesh and bone.

  Neil didn't know what to do. Behind him a third case shattered and a troop of spider monkeys flooded out, their long, curling tails erect. They swarmed over the displays and smacked the cabinets with their brown, wrinkled hands.

  Groaning inside its snowy diorama, the overstuffed walrus gave a pathetic wave of its flippers and attempted to heave itself free, but the movement caused a great rip to crackle along its side and a torrent of sawdust gushed out. Throwing back its head, the creature bellowed and another tear split across its neck.

  Shepherded back up the corridor by the growling hyenas, Neil and Edie had nowhere to run. Jiggling in the air above and flapping his wings dementedly, Quoth looked around to see one more cabinet destroyed. He whined pitifully at the emergence of this new danger.

  Screaming in hysterical shrieks, the golden spider monkeys hurdled over the broken cases. They leaped to and fro across the narrow gulf between the flanking displays and the baboons came lumbering after. On the ground, Neil and Edie were driven back still further. Past the dome of buzzing humming birds they were compelled, while over their heads the primates went caterwauling.


  Then, as yet unseen by the terrified children, an immense form slinked from the largest of the cabinets. As it left its artificial jungle, a tawny glass eye popped out of its head to go rolling across the floor.

  Surrounded suddenly by the host of spider monkeys, Quoth was afflicted by a hail of missiles; sticks, pieces of glass, small stones—anything the creatures could get their hands on was flung at him, and the raven cried out in pain. 'Master Neil!' he yelped. 'Beware the terror behind thee!'

  Tearing his eyes from the advancing hyenas, Neil turned. Stalking towards him and Edie, its powerful shape rippling as it padded through the shadows, was the massive bulk of the Bengal tiger.

  A deep, hostile purr issued from its dry throat and the hapless children huddled close to each other.

  Even more terrifying in its advanced decay, the tiger's banded fur seethed with its crawling infestation of moths and the stitches which held the skin together unravelled with each menacing step. A trail of trickling sawdust leaked from the rupturing wounds, but the strength and might of the animated creature was undeniable.

  Then the whiskery jaws gaped open and a rattling roar blared out, to the exulting appreciation of the apes, who screamed and slapped the cabinets in response, to goad on their horrific champion. With its remaining eye trained upon the children, the tiger swayed from side to side, judging the distance between them, preparing to pounce.

  Still standing at the far end of the passage, Jack

  Timms grinned malevolently. 'Just the lad, pusscat,' he called. 'The little witch is mine.'

  Snarling, the tiger sprang.

  Through the narrow way its honey-coloured, rotting body flew. A cloud of moths discharged into the air in its wake and Edie screamed as Neil was wrenched away from her. Huge claws seized the boy's torso as the full weight of the enormous cat battered him to the ground.

  There was no time to think. Winded and choking for air, as a fine rain of dust poured down on to his face, Neil stared up into the monster's jaws.

  Squealing, Edie rushed to his aid, tugging at the tiger's filthy fur, but tufts of hair and hide ripped away in her hand, exposing the bleached bone of the tiger's skull underneath. Then the nightmare lowered its head to snap its teeth about the boy's exposed throat.

  'Fie, foul feline!' Quoth crowed, plunging down, his talons outstretched. 'Have at thee!'

  Swooping low, the raven's claws ripped through the poorly-preserved flesh and sliced deep gashes into the mangy skin across the massive snout. Then he soared upwards with the second glass eye in his grasp. But no further help could he give, for a monkey's hand flashed out and snatched at the bird's wing. With a dismal yowl, Quoth was yanked from the air and the shrieking apes fell upon him.

  Two blind holes now gaped in the tiger's head and streams of sawdust poured from the empty spaces like a macabre parody of tears. Yet Quoth's attack had only enraged it further, and it was not deterred. Pinned beneath its colossal weight, his nostrils filled with the fetor of mouldering skin, Neil saw the awful mouth come lunging down again.

  Deep within the horrendous throat, he saw the line where the painted plaster ended and the straw and stuffing began. The tiger's fur might have disintegrated, and it was only an animated mass of aged wadding wrapped about a metal armature, but the teeth and claws were just as sharp and powerful as they had always been, and the boy howled helplessly.

  Suddenly, instead of the expected death blow, a heap of pulp and sawdust dropped on to the boy's upturned face, filling his open mouth and burying his eyes and nose.

  Shouting triumphantly, Edie Dorkins waved her hand and her pixie hood glittered with green and silver fire in her grasp. In desperation, she had torn the garment, which had been knitted with the strands of Destiny, from her head. Binding it tightly about her fist, the girl had began a furious attack on the monstrous beast.

  A ghastly hole now yawned in the tiger's head. The savaging jaw hung limply from one side and, one by one, the cruel teeth dropped from its crumbling gums.

  Laughing grimly, Edie plunged in for another assault. On to the tiger's skull she pounded her fist and, where the pixie hood touched, the sparking threads ate into the flesh, dissolving the bone and stuffing beneath. Blow after blow the child hammered upon the enormous head whilst, above her, the monkeys screeched and smacked themselves in dismay.

  Into straw and sawdust the tiger's head collapsed, leaving only a metal prong protruding from the mighty neck, at the end of which a ball of wire mesh twisted furiously upon the steel spine.

  Below it, Neil Chapman coughed and retched, spitting out the pulverised mulch. But even without its head, the tiger still held him firm and the terrible claws pierced through his clothes to maul and rend.

  Yelling fiercely, Edie began a fresh onslaught, this time driving her small fist deep into the creature's side. But the girl could not keep it up for long. Even as she smashed her sizzling hood against one of the powerful striped legs, there came a defiant growl and, before she could whirl around to defend herself, the hyenas launched themselves on top of her.

  Squealing, Edie Dorkins was thrown to the ground at the tiger's side. But, as she fell, the pixie hood was flung from her grasp. Burning a blistering path through the air, the gift of the Fates shot out of her reach and lay fizzing with emerald flames upon the floor.

  Laughing in high, whinnying voices, the hyenas sniffed and pawed at the girl, but they leaped away when, from above, two hairy arms came grasping.

  On either side of the corridor, each sprawled upon the top of a cabinet, two baboons stretched their long arms to her, hooting and grunting at one another. Edie felt the apes' strong fingers close about her arms, and she was hoisted into the air, to dangle between the cases.

  Chattering and gabbling across the divide, the baboons rose to their feet, lifting the struggling girl still higher. Then they began lumbering up the passageway, swinging Edie between their outstretched limbs, to where Jack Timms was waiting.

  In his circus barker's costume, Tick-Tock Jack chuckled vilely and Edie Dorkins wailed in despair.

  Moistening his fat lips and relishing his victory, Jack Timms watched the helpless girl being brought to her death. Delighting in the murderous urge which tickled and thrilled him, he lifted the Spear of Longinus and sucked a delicious breath through his crooked teeth. With steady, practised hands, the agent of Woden brought the rusted blade in line to where he gauged Edie would be thrust upon it and snorted with pleasure.

  Her arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets as the baboons raced and bounced along, and the girl wept when she saw the deadly spear pointing straight at her heart. This was the end. Her thread would leave the web, just as Veronica's had done, and Ursula would have to find another to take her place. All around her the wild beasts' rioting clamour inspired and fed her terror as the lethal blade swept ever closer.

  'No!' she cried. 'No-o-o!'

  Suddenly, the tumultuous uproar escalated as a tremendous crash blasted into the passage and the apes screamed in fury. Unable to drag her eyes from her imminent doom, Edie did not see a milk-white tempest come raging from the landing, hurling down the door and thundering into the corridor behind her.

  Through the entrance, trumpeting and baying, its eyes blazing with unquenchable fires, the white stag of Nirinel came charging. Up the narrow way it stampeded, its magnificent head lowered, and, sitting in the midst of the glorious branching antlers, yammering at the top of its piggy voice—was Gogus.

  Snorting furious challenges, the wondrous beast blasted between the cabinets, and the spider monkeys threw up their hands at the harrowing sight. The stag fiercely tossed its head, which set Gogus jolting wildly as the silver antlers smashed and scraped along the walls above the great glass cases. The monkeys screeched in panic.

  Trapped beneath the headless tiger's shredding claws, a bloody rent torn in his side, Neil Chapman felt the ground judder and quake. Rolling his eyes, he saw the gigantic stag's pulverising hooves come galloping on top of him.
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  Bouncing up and down in his lofty perch, Gogus seized hold of his mount's right ear and jabbered quickly into it. At the last skull-crushing second, the God of the forests leaped. Over the length of Neil's pinioned body the creature jumped and, with a ferocious backward kick of its hooves, destroyed the tiger utterly. The headless nightmare was dashed into its sawdust and Neil was interred in a suffocating pile of pulp and crawling moths.

  Overhead the spider monkeys fled, but the stag was too swift and its antlers came sweeping after them. Shrieking and howling, they were mown down, and their internal wires buckled and bent about the silver horns as their hairy hides flew apart.

  The avenging commotion was too much for the baboons that held Edie in their grasp. Screeching, they threw their captive down—to the fury of Jack Timms—and still the momentous stag came rampaging.

  His face distorted with fear and anger, Tick-Tock Jack darted forward, lifting the spear above his head. 'You'll not cheat me this time!' he filmed.

  Wiping the muck from his eyes, Neil sat up, wincing from the pain in his side, to see Jack Timms lurch forward with a murderous thrust. Lying on the ground where the apes had thrown her, all Edie Dorkins saw was the rusted blade come slicing down in the fat warder's hands.

  Then the harrowing darkness was dispelled by a glimmering light as the largest of the four ancient stags reared above her and, from the perch within the bright antlers, Gogus launched itself at Jack Timms' face.

  The horrendous man stumbled backwards, with the wooden imp clawing and biting him. From his cruel fingers fell the Spear of Longinus, and the worshipful stag stepped over Edie, planting its hooves protectively around her. Shaking its head, the Lord of the Wild Wood bellowed until the walls shuddered and the remaining crystal display domes fractured into a thousand diamond splinters.

  Peering out through its sturdy legs, the girl watched breathlessly as Tick-Tock Jack recoiled into the shadows, cursing and bawling.

  'It's not over!' he yelled. 'Next time the reckoning will come!'