Gustav Gloom and the Castle of Fear

by Adam-Troy Castro

  But Gnulbotz had to ruin that just as they stopped before a grate in the floor. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re gathering up all your courage. Giving yourself a rousing speech, in the hope that it will be enough. Am I right?”

  She wanted to retort that it was none of his business. But all of a sudden she was too scared to come up with a defiant line. She could only watch as he lifted up the grate and revealed a bottomless black hole, from which the sound of distant wailing could be heard. She gulped, and answered, “Y-yes.”

  Gnulbotz removed the collar from around her neck and gave her a little affectionate pat on the shoulder. “Poor girl. It won’t be even close to enough. You won’t even last a minute, chained among their lot. Here, now, let me get what you’ll be wearing from now on.”

  One of the other guards in Gnulbotz’s squad handed him the chains that he would use to bind her—terrible barbed things, designed to hurt as well as confine, with rings for her neck, wrists, and ankles. Fernie knew she could never hope to escape, not even if she wore them for a hundred years.

  The sounds from the opening in the floor were awful—so awful that she could feel her sanity already wavering—even from up where she was. She hated the idea of entering that terrible place. But with Gnulbotz keeping a close eye on her to make sure she didn’t run, the guards surrounding her on all sides, and her only other choice being tossed into that hole with the added handicap of chains, she did the only thing that offered her even the slightest taste of hope.

  “No, thank you,” she said, “I’ll do without,” and jumped in before he could stop her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  What Gustav Finds in the Throne Room of Lord Obsidian

  Leading his own squadron of silent guards, the evil shadow named Ravager emitted loud rippling noises, and a number of unpleasant odors, all the way through what seemed like many confusing miles of corridors and stairways, to the highest regions of Lord Obsidian’s castle.

  It was almost a relief by the time they arrived at a set of black double doors carved with thorns and guarded on either side by shadow soldiers with swirling darkness instead of faces. Without a word, the soldiers opened the doors, revealing a room so shrouded in mist that even Gustav, whose eyes had been able to make out the details of the Dark Country even as he looked down at that cloud-covered landscape from a height, was unable to discern what terrors waited within.

  Ravager removed Gustav’s collar and leash and said, “In you go.”

  “Really?” Gustav asked. “I expected you to escort me in under guard.”

  The soldier to the right of the door rumbled his reply in a voice like the crash of angry thunder. “ALL PRISONERS BROUGHT HERE MUST ENTER LORD OBSIDIAN’S PRESENCE UNDER THEIR OWN POWER. THEY MUST BE ALONE WHEN FIRST THEY FACE HIM.”

  “I see.” Gustav nodded. “He must be too much of a coward to deal with larger groups.”

  “DO NOT SPEAK ILL OF OUR MASTER OR YOU WILL BE PUNISHED.”

  Gustav almost laughed at that, but instead nodded again and did what the soldiers required of him.

  Judging from the sound of his footsteps on the ebony stone echoing against the distant walls and ceiling, the chamber must have been the size of a stadium.

  Gustav knew from his experiences in the house where he’d spent all his life that certain places can take on the flavors of the events that have happened there, becoming happy or sad or otherwise haunted by the experiences of those who knew those places well. For instance, the Hall of Shadow Criminals, back at his own house, was a place that felt like the despair of the beings imprisoned within. By contrast, he had always imagined that the Fluorescent Salmon home belonging to the Whats must have possessed the special kind of life that only energizes the homes of happy and loving families. This all made sense to him . . . but this place felt cold, malignant, evil, as if all warmth had fled to get away from an occupant who could only have done what he’d done if he hated everything that lived.

  A voice like breaking glass said, “That is far enough.”

  Gustav obeyed. “Am I talking to Howard Philip October?”

  “That was once my human name. It was what I called myself before I transformed into something all-powerful, pitiless, grotesque, and terrifying, something that could only be called Lord Obsidian.”

  “Something,” Gustav noted, “that likes to talk about itself, and also has terrible taste in names.”

  “If you value your life, you will show me enough respect to address me by the title I have assumed now, the title of a creature beyond the paltry imagination of a child.”

  “A bully, a murderer, and a liar . . . Howie.”

  “Very well. We have been so vital to each other that there should be no pretenses between us. You may advance, and admire the sculpture gallery of my life.”

  The mists retreated, revealing one small bit at a time.

  The first furnishing to be revealed was the statue of a little boy with golden curls, dressed in a sailor outfit and clutching an ice-cream sandwich.

  “Myself,” said Lord Obsidian. “Pampered child of a family well known for the fortune it made peddling children’s treats. I was so innocent that my aunt Louise called me ‘Little Sunshine.’ At no moment during my formative years was I ever allowed to doubt that I was destined for greatness.”

  “So this is all about you being a spoiled brat?”

  The mists retreated again, revealing a larger statue of Howard Philip October as a young adult, dressed in a tweedy old jacket and peering at the world with a bland long face dominated by an oversize forehead and chin.

  “Myself as a student of metaphysics, at the time of life when I quickly learned that my teachers were fools who only saw the surface of things, and never what lay beneath. I was so brilliant, even then, that my fellow students grew to fear me, and learned to cross the street whenever they saw me approaching.”

  “I can think of another explanation for that, Howie.”

  The mists retreated again to reveal another statue of an older Howard Philip October seated at an antique rolltop desk.

  “Myself as an accomplished, if underappreciated, scholar attempting to educate the world about the shadowy forces that lay beneath the world they knew. Here, I am shown writing a letter to your accursed grandfather Lemuel, who had made some small discoveries of his own. I offered the fruits of my own genius to guide his poor, overrated research into more profitable directions. He should not have said no to me, young Gustav. I have made many suffer for his disrespect.”

  “You grew up a brat, Howie,” Gustav translated, “and you remained a brat.”

  The mists drew back again and this time revealed a statue from a part of Lord Obsidian’s life that Gustav had only learned about recently: the moment after years in the Dark Country when Howard Philip October had shed his human skin like an old garment and emerged as the shadow who would become known as Lord Obsidian. The statue depicted an indistinct, blurred, but somehow still terrible figure emerging from what looked like a wrinkled sack piled up at his ankles.

  “The glorious moment when I became what I am.”

  “And lost everything you should have worked harder to keep,” Gustav replied.

  The mists retreated one last time and finally revealed Lord Obsidian on his throne.

  The throne had the texture of polished glass but seemed to be an aquarium of sorts, only filled with inky shadow-stuff instead of water. Pale and distraught faces drifted in and out of the mists, becoming visible only long enough to open their mouths in terrified screams before clutching hands pulled them back. The wall behind the throne was made of the same kind of glass, and other shadow prisoners drifted to and fro behind it, as well, some of them reaching for Gustav as if they thought he could save them.

  Lord Obsidian was the size of a small house. He was shaped more or less like the man he’d once been, but the already-long face
had grown longer, curving at top and bottom to form a crescent moon with sharp points at the chin and forehead. He was made of something so dark, even by the standard of this country where all shadows came from, that it was difficult to make out all his details, but his limbs were as long as trees and had a couple of extra knees or elbows apiece. The clawed fingers curling over the edges of the throne’s massive armrests were long enough to extend all the way to the stone floor.

  One of his impossibly long hands drifted to the side of the throne and stroked a cloud of churning darkness that waited there like an obedient pet.

  Gustav’s heart sank at the sight of that pet. He’d fled it and fought it back when it served another enemy of his, the killer known only as the People Taker. It was every shapeless shadow that had ever been mistaken for a horrible monster, in every darkened bedroom of every child.

  Gustav had hoped to never see it again, but here it was, at the side of its true master.

  It had no real name. It was only called the Beast.

  Lord Obsidian shifted position on his throne, his lanky arms and legs folding and unfolding in ways that no human skeleton would have managed without serious injury. “Now you see me, boy. This is how I have been remade by this shadowed world into which you have blundered. Do you still think that I should be insulted by your foolish reminders that I once wore the name of a mere man?”

  “You should be insulted in some way, Howie, but I haven’t figured out all the best words yet.”

  The figure on the throne snarled, and scraped his sharp fingernails against the stone at his feet, striking sparks. “Who do you believe you are, to speak to me in such a disrespectful fashion?”

  “Who am I?” Gustav repeated, in the manner of a boy who had never in his life heard such a stupid question. “You know who I am. I’m Gustav Gloom. Grandson of Lemuel Gloom. Son of—”

  A finger-joint as long as a yardstick, ending with one dagger of a claw, slashed through the air and pressed painfully into the tip of Gustav’s nose.

  “You honestly don’t need to go through the whole list,” Lord Obsidian chided. “Your hated father, Hans, also had a habit of making windy speeches like that, back when he was chasing me across the dark lands. Spare us that and the boring recitation of your grievances against me, and we can move on to more profitable subjects.”

  The claw withdrew.

  Beside him, the Beast stirred, yawned, then stiffened, its eyeless face registering the presence of the boy it had fought before.

  Gustav repeated, “More profitable subjects.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think I came all this way to make a deal with you?”

  “No. But now that you are here, you must know that you stand no chance against me. You must realize that you’ll be better off choosing this moment to negotiate the terms of your surrender.”

  “You mean, like giving myself up in exchange for the lives of my friends?”

  “No. That might have worked if we had made this deal while you were still within the confines of your house. But that was before you and the What girls defeated my People Taker, before you humiliated my Beast, before you prevented my agent from bringing me that wonderful treasure, the Nightmare Vault. That was before you declared war on me and foolishly allowed yourself to be captured. Now, if only to preserve my own dignity, you need to be punished, and so your friends and your father will all be forever lost to you. You may well see them again, briefly, if only so I may show you what unimaginable torments they face because of you, but their freedom will remain the price you’ll have to pay for your past acts of defiance.”

  Gustav felt something burning in his heart, something that had never ever burned in him with enough heat to scald him, and found himself thinking, as if from a great distance: This must be how real hatred feels. “Go on.”

  “Still, there are ways you may yet make your own personal situation better. You are, after all, a halfsie, part boy and part shadow. That makes you an unusual thing, and I can always use the services of unusual things. If you agree to serve me, and start by leading me to the Nightmare Vault, I can soon make you a prince of the new universe we’ll build on the wreckage of the old.”

  This was very, very bad. Up until this moment, Gustav had hoped that Lord Obsidian had given up on obtaining the Nightmare Vault, which imprisoned the sleeping shadows of dangerous creatures from before time. They were shadows who, if ever awakened, would burst forth to devour everyone and everything, clearing ground so Lord Obsidian could replace the universe that got eaten with a universe closer to his own liking. It was hidden, but in too convenient a place, and if Lord Obsidian ever figured out where, nobody in the world of light would live to see another sunrise.

  Gustav gulped. “That’s some deal, Howie. You’re asking me to betray my friends, family, and everybody I care about.”

  Lord Obsidian chuckled, with what sounded like genuine affection. “Oh, Gustav. You would not lose anything you haven’t already lost and were not going to lose anyway.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  Lord Obsidian began to tick off a list on ebony fingers as long and as cutting as swords.

  “Think: Your human mother, Penny, died before you were born.

  “Her shadow abandoned you without explanation when you were five.

  “Your father, Hans Gloom, fell into the Dark Country years ago, and has never been a part of your life. He does not even know that you exist.

  “Most of the shadows of the Gloom house barely tolerated you and could not care less whether you lived or died.

  “Your guardian, Mellifluous, cared about you so little that she left you alone when she joined the resistance battle against me.

  “The two insipid What girls claimed to be your friends, but we both know that their cowardly father feared for their safety around you and was planning to take them away to some other home where you would never see them again. In the world of light, it would not have taken long for them to forget all about you. I assure you that as my prisoners, it will not take them long to learn to curse your name.

  “Who else do you have? The cat Harrington? Do not make me laugh. As a man, I had cats. I know what they’re like.

  “Even the very world I am asking you to help me destroy is a place that has no claim on your affections, because it exists outside the gates of your estate, apart from the shadow magic that keeps you alive in the world of light. You have never known it. So you should not waste your energy missing it.

  “These are all things that you should be prepared to give up, because they are all things that you never truly had.

  “I, on the other hand, am offering you power and a place at my side. Think about it, and you will see that it is a much better deal.”

  Gustav’s heart felt like a hammer beating against his ribs. “You’re wrong about everything, Howie. Even cats.”

  “I once had friends and family in my life. I’ve since discovered that power is better.”

  “You had people who cared about you,” Gustav replied, “not people you bothered to care about. As friends, you had my father and the woman who would have been my mother. I’ve seen the pictures, Howie. Until you betrayed them, they liked you. They considered you family. They loved you. But then you killed her and broke his heart. Was all the power that you earned worth everything you had to give up?”

  Lord Obsidian tilted his giant crescent-shaped head, as if considering the question. Enough of his face came into focus to give Gustav his first glimpse of the monster’s terrible eyes, narrowing in contempt. They were like coals. No soul, no warmth, and no human feeling hid behind them.

  Lord Obsidian said, “We are not finished with this discussion, you and I. But for now, perhaps you need a reminder of who wields the power in this room.”

  He lifted his terrible hand off the churning ball of darkness at his side—a shape that immediately rose
and shook itself like a junkyard dog awakening from its nap to attack the trespassers it has heard skulking on the wrong side of its fence.

  “Beast?” Lord Obsidian said. “Cause this insolent boy some pain.”

  This was precisely the invitation the Beast had been waiting for.

  It lowered its head and charged.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  What Fernie Finds in the Screaming Room

  The five seconds following Fernie’s plunge into the Screaming Room were the very worst of her life.

  She didn’t actually land anywhere, but during those five seconds she felt herself surrounded by weeping shadowy faces, all moaning how all hope was gone, and how lost and alone she would now be forever.

  After three seconds she knew that Gnulbotz had been right. Chained or unchained, she would lose her mind here in no time at all.

  This was why it was so surprising, two seconds later, when those bereft moans went away and she found herself lying on her back, blinking at a sun that didn’t hurt her eyes at all.

  It had the dull look the sun has when it’s hidden behind fat clouds and is no longer painful to look at, just a slightly brighter spot in the sky, no harder to look at than a light fixture behind frosted glass.

  It wasn’t even as bright as it had been when she had seen this particular sun before.

  It had hung from the ceiling in one of the strangest rooms she’d ever visited, the room inside Gustav Gloom’s house that contained another, smaller house. The room had a ceiling painted to resemble blue sky, and walls painted to resemble farmland with cows and distant hills. At the center of it sat a rustic farmhouse, with a front porch and a screen door and a slanted roof and all the comforts a family could ever want.

  Gustav’s grandfather Lemuel had raised his son, Hans, in that house inside the house. Until the day Howard Philip October committed his terrible crimes against the Gloom family, Hans and Penelope Gloom had been planning to raise their own family in the same place.