Tales From The Wyrd Museum 3: The Fatal Strand

by Robin Jarvis

  Holding on to Josh with one hand and lifting the torch with the other, Neil tentatively led the way. For the life of him, he could not understand what the capricious girl was thinking of, for there was no escape down here.

  When they had descended barely a fifth of the distance, suddenly, without warning, Neil heard a sound that made his heart beat frantically against his ribs. Far below them, dragging footsteps began to echo up the stairs.

  'It's him!' Neil murmured. 'The Frost Giant—it's coming up the steps.'

  Glaring past him to where a mouldering pipe projected above their heads, Edie nodded. "Course it is,' she declared. 'The Loom ain't down there. That thing knows it now.'

  To the boys' alarm, the rumour of those pounding footfalls grew rapidly louder as their possessed father ascended with frightening speed. 'We've got to turn back!' Neil blurted. 'The rate that monster's climbing, it'll be up here any minute.'

  Lurching about-face in that winding tunnel, Neil tried to take Josh back to the chaos of the entrance hall, but Edie Dorkins would not let them past.

  'This is crazy!' Neil snapped. 'You'll get us all killed, Edie!'

  In that deep shaft the air had grown much colder, and they could hear the hiss of the ice lord's glacial breathing gusting up from the unlit regions.

  'Edie!' he begged. 'Please?

  Ignoring him, the girl looked up at the encrusted pipe, then swept her hands over the curving rocky wall which reared upon their left, and pressed her ear against it. 'This is it!' she exclaimed. 'Just 'ere should do.'

  Grabbing the torch from Neil, Edie brought the leaping flames close to that blank stretch of stone, and the alabaster figure planted its feet firmly apart upon the steps.

  'Now!' the girl commanded.

  At that, the ivory arm was raised, but before its delicate-looking fist could be brought smashing down upon the rock, from the entrance high above them they heard an all too familiar, fearful sound.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  'Tick-Tock Jack!' Neil breathed in despair. 'He's come round.'

  Edie's eyes opened wide. The repulsive warder was much closer to them than the fiend which stormed up from below, and she wondered if there was enough time.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  'Does you hear me down there?' that gargling voice came threatening. 'Old Tick-Tock's hot on your track. He's got bruises to repay and he'll do it all right. You can't have got far down this stinkin' rat hole. Ain't no use hidin' from old Jack, he'll be on you soon—Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.'

  Glancing nervously up the twisting stairs, Edie gave the statue a desperate pat and the ivory fist came flashing through the torchlight. Into the wall that graceful hand crashed, and a tremendous crack went booming throughout the deep shaft as the solid stone splintered under the ferocious impact.

  A disgusting guffaw burst from above. 'Sounded nasty, that did!' the warder laughed. 'I does hope no one's gone and got themselves damaged. You don't want to spoil Tick-Tock's jamboree now, does you?'

  Into the cracked rock the sculpture's ivory fingers went gouging, tearing aside the fragmented chunks of wall.

  'Quicker!' Edie urged as the steady knock of the warder's Tormentor bore down towards them.

  'Many's the jolly old Jack's had in coal cellars like this,' that detestable voice boasted. 'Ain't no better throttlin' or batterin' ground.'

  With a sharp snap, one of the statue's slender fingers broke off, but the ivory hand had already scraped and excavated a prodigious hole in the wall. Down the stairs the quarried rock went rattling, and Neil wondered if it would continue to bounce and roll all the way to where the Frost Giant was clambering.

  The echoes of that nightmare were howling in the ether, ricocheting around the coiling walls and instilling a horrendous dread into them, whilst, above, Tick-Tock Jack's cumbersome steps trudged ever closer.

  'We're trapped,' Neil mumbled fitfully. 'Stuck between a killer up there and a devil underneath.'

  He thought his spirits could sink no lower until the ivory fist suddenly struck a curving expanse of metal concealed behind the rock. A thunderous clang, like the tolling of a vast, discordant bell, vibrated through the darkness.

  'That's it, then,' Neil uttered, abandoning all hope when the flickering torchlight revealed rusting, riveted plates. 'We can't get through that.'

  Craning round, Edie saw the cudgel-end of a cruel-looking cane come thumping from the turning above, followed by a pair of black-booted feet. 'We ain't got no choice,' she said, flatly.

  Squaring itself up to the corroded iron, the alabaster figure drew back its four-fingered fist and sent it hurtling forward, crunching and hammering against the flaking metal. With a shrill, piercing squeak, a great dent formed in the barrier. Then blow after blow the sculpture drove into its yielding surface, the exquisitely-modelled knuckles chipping and shattering as the punches became more violent and fierce. Soon there came a loud, rending snap when one of the rivets was shorn from its anchor, and part of the wide, ribbed plate juddered loose.

  A grinding squawk signalled a second rivet torn free, then a third and a fourth. Into that mass of buckled metal the scratched and splintered arm reached. The remaining fingers closed tightly over the iron seams, to pull and rip with monumental force, until a large hole with twisting, girdered edges had been prised open.

  'That's fer the skull-cracker!' Jack Timms' bawling voice burst in on them.

  Down the remaining steps Tick-Tock Jack came rushing, ramming the Tormentor into the alabaster sculpture's side with his powerful arms.

  There was a horrible thud, and the statue wheeled around, pitched off balance. For a desperate moment, the elegant feet teetered upon the worn steps and the milk-white arm flailed through the flames, knocking the torch out of Edie's hand as the scrambling fingers clutched at the wall.

  Neil pulled Josh against the rock as the tumbling fire went sizzling past their heads to gutter and flare down the steps, until its light was doused around the turning below. Then, with an almost ballet-like grace, the statue tipped and toppled from its footing.

  A bleak cry rang from Edie's mouth as the great, glimmering figure lurched into the shadows and, with a tremendous crash, the sculpture fell. On to the stone stairs the ivory shoulders pounded, instantly losing the arm with a shattering smash. Over and over it somersaulted, the feet swinging up to crack against the wall, and the Ionic shift with its translucent folds shivering in two.

  Following the extinguished, smoking torch, the largest fragments were lost from sight as it careered uncontrollably down the stairs. All the while, Jack Timms brayed his disgusting laughter. Then he turned his murderous attention upon the children and slapped his palm with his cane.

  A dim radiance filtered from the great opening the statue had made, and its pale light poured over the warder's repugnant, bruised face as he came prowling towards them. The resounding crashes of the sculpture's destroying descent still thumped and shattered down the shaft below.

  'Not so brave now, is we?' he slurred, those bloodshot rodent's eyes twinkling with menace in that dingy glow. 'Tick-Tock's got to work up a real soakin' sweat to take his mind off the smarting grief where that statter whacked him.'

  But Edie was already clambering through the hole and, springing between that and the overweight warder, Neil urged Josh to hurry after her. 'Your master's dead!' he shouted. 'Go back to when you belong!'

  Jack Timms leered at him. 'Oh, I knows that a'ready,' he answered, with a gurgling chuckle. 'I felt the guv'nor get what for, but the way I sees matters—that leaves me in charge now, don't it?'

  Shoving the boy aside, Tick-Tock lunged at the opening through which Edie had already disappeared, and where Josh was now dithering mournfully.

  'Get you back 'ere!' the evil man snarled, seizing the toddler in his dirty mitts and shaking him brutally. 'You'll not put die spoil on old Jack's fun. The little witch can scarper if she wants; I ain't got the jabber no more, but there's plenty of learnin' I can give to the likes of you!'

  Sq
uealing in Jack Timms' grasp, Josh saw the Tormentor rise purposefully above his head. But, before it could strike him, a streak of milky stone went crunching against the foul man's temple, and the infant was dropped from those fat fingers as Tick-Tock staggered into the wall.

  Breathing hard, Neil Chapman lifted the chunk of alabaster he had plucked from the stairs over his head once more, and prepared to hit the warder a second time. But Jack Timms would not be caught that way again. Whisking through the air, the Tormentor smacked the stone from the boy's fingers and Neil howled at the stinging pain.

  'You got to whack harder than that to split old Jack's head!' Tick-Tock spat. He lumbered forward to catch hold of Neil's hair and wrench him to the ground.

  'Josh—get out of here!' the boy screeched, before the killer's fingers wrapped around his throat and strong, flat thumbs pressed against his windpipe.

  'Bigger pups'n you have tried bestin' me!' the warder rumbled. 'Ain't none ever so much as bit, but I did fer 'em, anyways. You've a right jollification due—feed you to the sparrers, that's what Jack'll do when he's minced yer!'

  Neil choked and balked as those strangling hands squeezed tighter, but Jack Timms was far too strong. All he could do was kick feebly with his legs, and thrash the steps with his arms. Crouched halfway in the opening, Josh stared in terror as Tick-Tock's obese bulk stooped over his brother, pinching the life out of him.

  Down the steep stairway the shattered statue continued to thunder. Now an avalanche of broken alabaster, it trounced an unstoppable, winding course all the way to the bottom.

  Suddenly, a ferocious din blasted up from the depths, as the crashing, thudding tide plunged about the possessed Brian Chapman, and the fearsome force within him shrieked out in fury. Up the spiralling way that horrendous voice trumpeted, and the steps shuddered under the might of the Frost Giant's wrath.

  His hands still clenched about the boy's neck, Jack Timms faltered as the atrocious power of that echoing scream blasted around them. 'What were that?' he muttered, turning his florid face to glower down the dark passage.

  Again the ghastly voice blared out, and the warder's fingers slipped from his victim's throat. 'Jack don't like it,' he hissed, spitting into the gloom. 'Not another o' them hateful stags?'

  Sprawled beneath him, Neil coughed and retched as the man drew himself up to listen. The ice lord was very close to them now. They could both hear the leaping footsteps come chiming over that stretch of stair which wound almost directly below them. Through the twisting tunnel, a wintry gale went ravaging, freezing the dripping water that trickled down the rock. Flurries of ice crystals blew into the bitter air before the Frost Giant's frightening approach.

  'That's something even you can't fight against,' Neil cried hoarsely. 'I hope it kills you!' With that, he wriggled clear of Jack Timms' bloated size and flung himself towards the opening, pushing a startled Josh through the jagged hole before him, not caring what was on the other side.

  Alone in that Arctic murk, Tick-Tock Jack listened a moment longer to the unseen fiend's threatening calls before reeling around, just as Neil dropped out of sight.

  'Don't you leave me 'ere!' he bawled. 'Don't leave old Jack in this perishin' chill with that!'

  But Neil was gone and the Frost Giant came bounding ever higher.

  Neil Chapman fell into a dimly lit space, then his shoes crunched on to concrete and his collapsing knees struck him in the chest. At his side, Josh was already picking himself off the floor, helped by Edie Dorkins.

  'Took yer time!' the girl chided them.

  Neil eyed her ruefully, but his attention was instantly caught by the place he now found himself in. A wide tunnel arched high over them and, turning his head from left to right, he saw that it stretched far in either direction. At regular intervals, along the thick, grime-covered cables, electric lamps shone in the sooty shadows. Their monotonous glare was reflected in the parallel metals, which coursed through the length of that immense, subterranean thoroughfare.

  'We're in the Underground!' Neil breathed, the shock of breaking back into the modern world stupefying his senses. 'Somewhere between the tube stations. I don't—'

  A harsh, cursing voice suddenly broke into his amazement as, above them, Jack Timms came squeezing through the opening. Fearfully, the children stared upwards to where the curving wall seemed to be delivering a grotesque, breached monster into their unhappy world. From the ruptured girders the odious man's boots came dangling, swiftly followed by his struggling legs.

  'Didn't Jack say there was no escapin' him?' his wheezing voice called, straining with a squirming effort as that broad, barrel-shaped body became temporarily wedged in the gap.

  On the ground below, Neil leaped to his feet and scooped his brother up in his arms. 'This way!' Edie cried, plunging alongside the tunnel wall, kicking up a trail of black dirt with her heels.

  With a string of sickening oaths, Tick-Tock Jack finally fought his way through the hole and his great, blubbery weight plunged down on to the track behind them. Above him, a blast of glacial breath erupted from the opening as, beyond those few metres of wall and rock, the possessed caretaker stampeded up the stairway and on into The Wyrd Museum.

  A white, squalling vapour tore into the tunnel, eddying in fitful gusts beneath the curved ceiling. It settled as a light sprinkling of snow upon the bull-sized shoulders of Jack's greatcoat, and he hammered a gleeful tattoo upon the wall with his cane.

  'Got the charmed life of the devil 'imself,' he cackled smugly, until his eyes flicked along the gleaming tracks to where the children ran into the distance. 'Some folks just won't never be learned,' he said viciously. 'Well, they been spared the rod fer way too long.'

  In between the rails the warder leapt, his powerful legs carrying him with unexpected speed. As he ran, he stretched his thick lips as far back over his brown gums as it was possible without them splitting, letting loose a caterwauling, vengeful shriek that ignited a despairing terror in the children's hearts.

  Through the endless tunnel Neil and Edie ran, with Josh a dead weight in his brother's arms. Glancing over her shoulder, Edie saw that Neil was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up. The pock-faced killer was gaining steadily on the boys, the folds of the warder's black coat flapping like the wings of Woden's Valkyries.

  Laughing foully, Tick-Tock began using the Tormentor to smash each light bulb he passed. The dark pounced in behind him, seeming to gather about his charging figure, making him appear even larger and more menacing than ever. Cloaked in this swathe of shadow, Jack Timms bore down upon the hapless Neil, who was puffing along like an old steam engine.

  Another lamp exploded as the cudgel-end of the cane drove into it, and Neil felt a shard of glass graze his neck. The murderous warder was almost upon them and, in a last, desperate attempt to elude him, the boy jumped across the rails, taking consummate care not to touch them.

  If there was any justice, or if the Fates had indeed woven a terrible end for Tick-Tock Jack, then Neil prayed it would find him now. If that hateful assassin could only make contact with the lethal current which flowed through that track, then all his swaggering savagery would be purged from the world by an arc of blinding blue light. It was a spectacle that Neil longed to witness, but no blissful crackle of deadly voltage illuminated the tunnel behind, and he felt his legs weakening under him.

  This time there was no escape. There was nowhere left to run and no one to save them.

  Haring across to the opposite side of the tunnel, the boy flung himself back, to give his one hope another chance, but even as he turned, the Tormentor came lashing against the backs of his legs. With a howl, Neil went tumbling headlong over the rails and Josh flew from his arms.

  On to the hard concrete that lay in the centre of the track the boys fell, cracking their knees and elbows, while Jack Timms came striding over them, snickering vilely.

  'You won't be running nowhere!' he gloated. 'Tick-Tock's gonna do fer you 'ere an' now.'

  'No!' Edie
yelled, rushing at Woden's heinous servant to stay his hand. 'It's me you were told to get.'

  Snarling so that the crescent-shaped scar puckered in his face, the warder shrugged her off, just as he had done on their first meeting when he had assumed the role of the workhouse overseer.

  'You know there's nowt I can do to 'urt you without that flamin' spear,' he snapped. 'But it'll do me no end of good to see your face as I knock an' dash the daylights outta these two.'

  Pushing her roughly against the wall, the braggart strode over the rails and raised a booted foot to stamp upon Neil's legs, honking hideously. Staring up at him, the boy scrambled backwards as the crushing blow descended. On to the concrete Jack's foot went pounding, but the sadistic man merely laughed the louder, and swung his Tormentor behind his back to bring it thrashing down upon Neil's head. Feverishly, the boy tried to dodge aside but blundered into Josh, and Edie screamed when she saw that the blow could not miss.

  Suddenly, her voice seemed to fill the whole tunnel and Tick-Tock hesitated, staring suspiciously at that treacherous little witch. The girl had already closed her mouth—yet still the noise blared in the gloom.

  Too late, Jack Timms whirled about to see the bright lights of a Central Line train come hurtling along the track. A riot of expressions flashed across his repulsive face as he realised the danger and leaped clear of the rails.

  With only an instant to spare, he sprang to safety. But it was his own cherished Tormentor that was to be the instrument of his destruction. Gripped tightly in his hand, the barbaric, bullying cane which had been the terror of untold inmates of the Wyrd Infirmary, still projected back into the path of that speeding engine. With undeniable force, the train cannoned into it.

  Before he knew it was happening, Jack Timms' burly figure was levered back against the travelling carriages, and sent smacking and crashing into them, his ugly, breaking face bouncing against the racketing windows.

  Then out across the tunnel the warder was hurled, his now splintered cane waggling in his fist. With a grisly crunch of shattering bone, Tick-Tock Jack hit the opposite track and the yowl that gargled from his raw mouth was a sound that Neil would never forget.