Wild Boy and the Black Terror

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  Clarissa stood over Spencer. “How do we get out of here?” she said. “All this security, you gotta have an escape.”

  Spencer shot out an arm and grabbed her neck. A sound like a tiger’s snarl came from behind his mask as his fingers tightened around her throat.

  Wild Boy grabbed the guard’s pistol from the floor and aimed it at Spencer’s masked face. He had no idea how to fire it, but he had to help Clarissa. “Let her go,” he said.

  Spencer glowered at him, but his grip on Clarissa’s throat didn’t ease.

  “You can still save your boss,” Wild Boy said. “There’s a cure and we can get it. We need it for our friend too, so we’re on the same side. But no one’s gonna get it if we’re caught by them men out there, understand?”

  Spencer’s eyes narrowed. His hand relaxed and Clarissa fell from his grip. He looked at Oberstein with eyes full of anguish, then leaned close and whispered something into her ear. He rose and stomped towards the back of the showroom.

  Another crash on the door. It was heavier this time, rattling the pipes on the walls.

  “They’re using a battering ram,” Gideon said. “They’ll be through in seconds.”

  He snatched the pistol from Wild Boy, set the lock to half cock so it was ready to fire. He shoved the weapon into his coat. “Time to go.”

  21

  The bodyguard Spencer unhooked a lantern from the wall and led the way down a steep stone staircase.

  The air grew even hotter, drying Wild Boy’s mouth. The walls trembled; warm water dripped on his head. Whatever was in the basement was glowing. He heard groans and gasps and feared for a moment that Spencer was taking them to meet the demon Malphas in hell.

  The heat grew more intense as they reached an underground brick chamber. An iron furnace stood against the wall. Amber light leaked from its joints and a dozen pipes rose from the top. Each pipe split in two and split again, crawling like ivy over the basement wall and up through the ceiling. Steam hissed from their joints, and puddles bubbled on the stone floor.

  “Is that what powers all the traps around here?” Clarissa asked.

  Ignoring her, Spencer stomped to an iron door that was covered with a clockwork confusion of dials, cogs and springs. His hands glowed in the lamplight as he rotated one of the dials a precise number of clicks.

  The cogs began to turn. One caught the other, movement spreading across the surface. Wild Boy heard the clunk, thunk of sliding locks.

  From above, a thundering crash. One of the pipes dislodged from its bracket, spitting steam across the basement.

  “It’s the Gentlemen’s battering ram,” Gideon warned. “We gotta hurry.”

  Spencer pulled open the vault door and they followed him into the next room. For a moment, Wild Boy forgot all about the Gentlemen upstairs, or even the black diamond in his pocket. He stared at shelves crammed with treasure: crystal peacocks with sapphire-studded tails, silver daggers in jewel-encrusted sheaths, golden sceptres, diamond tiaras.

  Clarissa grabbed his arm. “Look.”

  Cut into the opposite wall was an entrance to a tunnel. Beams supported the walls; a rail track ran along the floor. An iron mine cart sat in the tunnel’s mouth.

  Spencer turned a valve on a gas pipe fixed to the tunnel wall. He lifted what was left of the lantern’s candle – a tiny black stump – and held it to the pipe, causing a streak of fire to rush through the tube. Flames spat from holes along its length, illuminating a long, sloping passage underground.

  Another crash from the showroom above.

  “That’s the front door breaking,” Gideon said. “The Gentlemen will be down here any minute.”

  Wild Boy heard Dr Carew call out for him, then cries of horror as the Gentlemen discovered Oberstein and her guards struck with the terror.

  “Get in the cart,” he said.

  He grabbed Clarissa and pulled her in with him. Spencer climbed in front, his thick frame squashing them back. Gideon clung to one of the sides.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Spencer pulled a lever on the side of the cart. They rolled down the track – slowly at first, then gaining speed. Warm air rushed through Wild Boy’s hair as the cart moved faster, past orange blurs of gaslight. One of the flares crackled the hair on Wild Boy’s cheek, and he sank deeper into the cart, clinging onto Clarissa.

  Looking back, he saw the tiny, top-hatted shapes of the Gentlemen in the tunnel entrance. He felt the black diamond in his pocket, and for the first time since the events at the palace, he smiled. Gideon had said that Marcus was still alive, so now they could use the black diamond to save him. Everything would be all right.

  He turned back to face the tunnel, and the smile fell from his face. Fifty yards ahead, part of the ceiling had collapsed.

  Spencer yanked the brake lever. Sparks sprayed up, but the cart didn’t slow down.

  “Hold on!” Wild Boy cried. “Everyone hold on!”

  The front wheels hit the rubble, and the cart flipped up. Its rear end crashed against the tunnel ceiling, and its front slammed onto the ground. It slid, vertical, down the track, speed and slope keeping it moving. The cart fell forwards, then to its side, all within seconds. Only Spencer remained silent. Wild Boy, Clarissa and Gideon kept screaming, even as the tunnel levelled and they finally scraped to a slow, creaking stop.

  Gideon pulled himself up against the tunnel wall. His coat was torn and his face was lacerated with cuts and grazes. “Everyone alive?” he grunted.

  Wild Boy helped Clarissa out. Behind them, Spencer rose to his knees. A jagged crack ran down the centre of his mask’s smooth jade. As Spencer tightened the mask’s straps, Wild Boy glimpsed the face underneath. Livid red scars and black welts covered his skin. They looked like burn marks.

  Clarissa leaned against the tunnel wall, cursing as she discovered new cuts around her limbs. “We’re still alive, Lucien!” she shouted back up the tunnel. “We’ve got the black diamond and we’re gonna save Marcus, then you’ll see what … what … what is that?”

  Something rushed after them down the tunnel. A wall of blackness came closer, extinguishing the flares as it approached.

  “It’s the demon,” Gideon said. “It’s coming for me!”

  As the darkness drew nearer, its surface swirled like a storm cloud tumbling through a dark sky.

  “Smoke?” Wild Boy said. “It’s smoke!”

  He remembered the black smoke at Lady Bentick’s house, and then again after Oberstein was struck with the terror. “It was smoke that poisoned them,” he said. “But what made the smoke?”

  “Worry about that later,” Clarissa said. She grabbed his arm, dragging him along the tunnel. “Everyone run!”

  They charged down the passage, tripping over, staggering up. Wild Boy glimpsed over his shoulder and saw gas flares snuff out as the smoke rolled closer. Now another, then another.

  “I see the end of the tunnel!” Gideon cried.

  They reached the last gas flare. The bottom of an iron ladder hung from a shaft in the tunnel roof. Spencer grasped the lowest rung and heaved himself up, squeezing into the tight shaft. He reached down and grasped Gideon’s hand.

  Clarissa hoisted Wild Boy up next. “Go!” she screamed.

  Gripping the iron rungs, Wild Boy climbed. Clarissa followed so close behind that her head bashed his feet. Below, the last light in the tunnel went out. The black smoke rose up the shaft.

  “Faster!” Clarissa yelled.

  Spencer curled his back against a metal grille that sealed the top of the shaft. It rose up, then crashed down so hard that Wild Boy almost slipped from the ladder.

  Wild Boy climbed into daylight, then rolled over to help Clarissa. The black cloud rose beneath her, tickling her feet, but the smoke was fainter now, dissipating into a thin haze.

  Clarissa stopped, half in and half out of the shaft. “My foot,” she grunted. It was stuck between the ladder and the wall. “Can’t get it out.”

  The smoke rose higher, engulfi
ng her head.

  “Hold your breath,” Wild Boy said. “Don’t breathe it in!”

  Wisps of smoke circled them, like swirling crows. Wild Boy swatted them away, but they parted and rejoined, swirled closer.

  “Wild Boy!” Clarissa gasped.

  He shook his head, warning her not to talk. Leaning into the shaft, he gripped the ladder and pulled, trying to force it from the wall.

  Come on. Please…

  His breath came out in a scream and her foot finally came free. They scrambled away from the shaft as the last wisps of smoke floated from underground and disappeared.

  “It’s gone,” Wild Boy said. “Are you all right?”

  “I … I think so.”

  Wild Boy rose, blearily taking in their surroundings. It looked like a building site, hidden from the street by wooden hoardings and corrugated sheets. But the only building works were shacks that vagrants had constructed of crates and planks. Around them the ground was strewn with snow-sheeted rubble.

  Wild Boy felt his coat again, making sure the black diamond was safe. He stumbled towards Spencer and Gideon at the hoardings. From the way Gideon tugged at his necktie, he could tell that the danger hadn’t yet passed.

  He peered through a gap in a hoarding. Several Black Hats marched along the street, led by Lucien. They were searching for the exit to Oberstein’s tunnel. They banged on doors and stormed into shops, roaring at anyone in their way.

  “We gotta get somewhere safe,” Gideon said. “Over there, see?”

  He pointed to a boarded-up building across the street. Scraps of paper fluttered on its walls where posters had been torn away. It looked like an exhibition room or a theatre.

  It was a good place to hide, but Wild Boy wasn’t sure he could make it that far. He leaned against the hoarding to steady his spinning mind. The wound in his head throbbed, but something else was wrong. It felt as if all the blood had been drained from his body.

  A crow swooped at him, attacking with its claws. Wild Boy staggered back, whirling his fists. He looked up, but the crow had gone. All he saw were swollen clouds covering the sun.

  “Hear what they say! Hear what they say about Wild Boy!”

  He turned, crying out. It was his freak show boss, Augustus Finch. Scars gleamed across the showman’s face as he came closer, grinning under the shadow of his crooked top hat. He floated over the rubble. “Hear what they say about Wild Boy, the most sickening sight at the fair!”

  Wild Boy scrabbled away, fell to his backside. How could Finch be here? It wasn’t possible.

  “Hey,” Finch said.

  Wild Boy brushed back the hair on his face. When he looked again, Finch was not there. Instead, Gideon stood over him, blocking the sun.

  “I asked you if you were all right,” Gideon said.

  Was he all right? Wild Boy wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just exhaustion and emotions. He just needed… Just needed…

  “Wild Boy?”

  Clarissa collapsed to her knees. “I don’t feel right.”

  Fear rushed through Wild Boy, a panic unlike any he’d known. He tried to crawl towards her, but his arms buckled and he fell to the rubble. The hair on his hands rustled in the wind. Black veins crawled up white skin.

  The terror.

  No! This can’t be happening!

  It was happening, and to Clarissa too. Darkness spread across her face. Her scream came as a dry rasp as she slipped to the ground.

  No! Not her!

  Then Clarissa was gone. All Wild Boy saw was a wooden wall, slatted and glistening with damp. It was the wall of his freak show caravan, the wall and that worm-eaten door. Above, the crows cawed like they always cawed, like they were laughing. “Welcome back,” they said. “Welcome back to where you belong.”

  Wild Boy curled up, cowering. Suddenly he was that boy again. Alone. Desperate. The whole world against him.

  “No,” he gasped. “Please…”

  He slumped forward into the snow but didn’t feel its cold burn. He didn’t feel anything except terror, pure and absolute, taking control of every part of his body.

  22

  The creak of the wooden door resonated across the caravan, sending shock waves of fear that Wild Boy felt in his bones.

  Don’t cry. Don’t scream. Act tough.

  He slid further into the corner, beyond the ceiling lamp’s searching glare. He covered his head with his arms, but he didn’t need to see to know that Augustus Finch had led another crowd into the van. He could smell the gin on their breath, the stench of sweat and unwashed clothes. His mouth dried and his arms wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Don’t scream. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

  If anyone touched him, he would fight back. He had to. He would fight back, no matter how bad the beatings got. It wasn’t the pain that he feared, anyway. It was afterwards, when he would curl up and wish he had someone – anyone – to hold on to. It was a loneliness so heavy that he felt it might crush him into the stage.

  No. There was someone. Someone he’d forgotten.

  Above, the crow laughed louder, a throaty, mocking laugh.

  The audience pressed closer. Leering, bestial faces.

  The showman grinned. The scars throbbed across his face. “Welcome home boy,” he snarled. “We missed you.”

  And then the showman was gone, and the crowd and their laughter. All Wild Boy saw were those walls, growing larger, spreading apart. Walls with no windows and no door. No way out. A freak for ever.

  He knew then that there once was more than this. Something had made him happy. He didn’t know what, only that it was gone.

  And that was what made him open his mouth and scream.

  Wild Boy bolted up, his cry coming as a parched gasp. He pushed back his coat sleeve and the thick hair underneath. His skin was pale, but it was not white. His veins were not black.

  He lay back, his heart beating as if he’d woken from a nightmare. Pain pounded in his head as if someone were trying to punch their way out of his skull. Worse was the memory of what he’d seen: those visions from his past. The showman, the freak show, the crows… It was as if someone had kicked open a door at the back of his mind and released his darkest memories.

  Then he remembered.

  “Clarissa!”

  He tried to rise, but firm hands held him down. At first he thought it was Gideon again, but now the pale, worried face of Dr Carew leaned closer. The doctor’s spectacles glinted in the light from a fire.

  “Stay still,” he said. “You must rest.”

  No way was Wild Boy resting, not until he knew she was safe. Grabbing the doctor, he yanked him closer. “Where is she?”

  Dr Carew’s spectacles slipped down his nose, and he gave a panicked yelp. “She has recovered,” he said. “Like yourself.”

  A wisp of dark smoke floated past Wild Boy’s face. He slid back, swatting in panic at the fumes. But it wasn’t the smoke that had chased him in the tunnel. Rather, it rose from a blackened cauldron over a fire at the side of a small, windowless room. Inside the cauldron, something thick and pink bubbled.

  “Wax?” he said.

  The room was crammed with disembodied parts of wax statues – leather torsos stuffed with straw, carved arms, tins filled with staring marble eyeballs. Wax heads on a shelf had begun to melt. Dark streaks slid down shiny faces.

  There were two doors. Through a glass pane in one, Wild Boy saw snow falling in an alley. Beyond the other, silhouetted wax figures stood on plinths, perfectly still.

  “Is this a wax works museum?” he said.

  “We are in its workshop,” Dr Carew replied. “The museum is closed for the season. You are safe here.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  Wild Boy sipped from a mug of tea that Dr Carew held to his mouth. It was hot and sweet and soothed his dry lips. His body felt stronger already, but his mind still whirled as he tried to make sense of his memories.

  “I saw my veins,” he said. “They turned b
lack, just like them others with the terror. How did I survive?”

  Dr Carew dipped his quill in his inkpot and made a note in his ledger. “That is what I have been trying to establish ever since Gideon found me. I took blood samples from you and Miss Everett. They confirmed that you had both been affected by some sort of toxin.”

  “The hallucinothing you and Lucien talked about?”

  “Hallucinogenic. Yes, but from what Gideon described, you and Miss Everett were only exposed to a very small amount of it.” He checked his notes. “This black smoke.”

  Wild Boy remembered how the smoke had faded by the time it caught them in the tunnel. That was why they’d survived. The other victims – Prendergast, Marcus, Lady Bentick and Oberstein – had all breathed in much more of it.

  “Do you know what caused the black smoke?” Dr Carew asked.

  Wild Boy shifted and looked around the workshop. Spencer stared into the fire, as still and silent as one of the wax statues. Firelight shimmered off his cracked jade mask. Beyond him, hunkered against the wall, sat Clarissa. Her head hung low and her hair covered her face like a veil.

  “Clarissa?” Wild Boy said.

  She didn’t look up.

  “She is well,” Dr Carew said. A hesitance in his voice suggested that he was unconvinced by his own diagnosis. “Whatever caused the black smoke,” he continued, “there is too little of it in your blood to kill you. Sadly, there is not enough to formulate a cure either. But I must warn you that it is still in your blood, just a little. You will continue to experience some of its effects for a short time, at least.”

  Dr Carew leaned closer. “Tell me, how would you describe those effects?”

  Wild Boy shifted back further, uncomfortable under his stare. “What about Marcus?” he asked. “You seen him?”

  Dr Carew returned to his notes. “His condition had deteriorated, but he remains alive.”

  For now, Wild Boy thought. He rose and crossed the workshop. The pale skin beneath his hairs was covered in bumps and dark bruises, like a rotten cauliflower. Every limb ached.