Eden Chronicles Box Set Books 1-3

by James Erith

  She’d tried hard, desperately hard not to cry. But her legs hurt and it was so unfair! When the tears rolled, the boys made it worse, calling her names – one even spat on her. And, even worse was the way they enjoyed her discomfort.

  On their way home, Daisy hardly spoke. When she did, she’d told Archie that she’d never cry again. No one had a right to make her so upset and, from that day forward, she vowed she would never shed a tear again.

  Instantly, Archie turned to her and offered her a bet, partially as a bit of fun, and partially because he argued that crying wasn’t a bad thing to do. Three weeks’ worth of school sweet-tuck if he made her cry within a week.

  She’d laughed at him.

  Three days went by and Daisy had all but forgotten the incident of Archie’s bet. But then, after school one day, they passed a young man walking down the lane from the ruin with a large black Labrador. He was a rambling type often seen walking from village to village across the moors.

  As they played in the ruin, Archie spotted it. That evening just before supper, Archie ran up with a garden trowel, found the juicy dog mess, cut it in two, and carefully placed a dollop in each of her woolly boot slippers, before leaving them out by the back door.

  They played football until the sun down went down and as an evening chill came over the moors they’d warmed up by the fire. Daisy asked if anyone knew where her woolly boot slippers were. When Archie told her they were by the back door, she marched off and found them.

  Without thinking, she pushed her feet in.

  Seconds later, the entire family rushed out to find Daisy shrieking hysterically then screaming. Then vomiting and retching. The tears flowed.

  She remembered that turgid smell and the way it stuck like glue between her toes, got under her toenails and then, amazingly, transported itself all over her during her tragic attempt to remove it.

  She lay in bed for a whole day, and for several weeks spent hours cleaning her feet, scrubbing them almost obsessively.

  Now that she thought of it, she’d never paid out the bet. He’d been in way too much trouble.

  Daisy took a deep breath.

  Sitting proudly on Daisy’s plate lay a well-formed steaming, brown dog-turd, gleaming with a sheen as though freshly laid. Daisy prodded it in stunned amazement and for a second wondered if it could be fake, or a type of joke chocolate. But when she caught a whiff of its distinctive odour, she instinctively retched.

  Then, holding her mouth and stomach, she vomited behind her.

  Daisy returned to stare at the smelly, sweating, stinking turd. ‘Dog shit!’ she whispered. ‘And I’ve got to eat it.’

  Her guts contorted involuntarily and looked up at Isabella, who had climbed on her stool, petrified. Things were clearly not going well for her either.

  They all screamed again and, as they did, the turd grew a little larger.

  ‘NO!’ she yelled, but on that, it expanded a fraction more. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down.

  Why? Every time she’d seen a dog poo from that moment on, she’d given it a wide berth and if anyone trod in one and her nose caught that certain whiff, her stomach twisted and her face turned white, then green, and she had to lie down or throw-up.

  And now, somehow, like it or not she was going to have to tuck into it with a knife and fork. She wanted to retch but, instead, she stretched her arms out wide to allow for more oxygen. She clenched her eyes tight.

  Old Man Wood had to be right. He’d done it – right in front of their eyes and if he could, so could she.

  Daisy thought hard. If the turd was an illusion she had to replace the grotesque with something totally amazing. But what? Thank God she’d missed out on breakfast.

  OK, she thought, which meal stood out head and shoulders above any other she’d ever had? Nothing sprang to mind until the aroma of the Chinese meal they’d had for her last birthday treat in Southallerton tickled the sensors in her brain. Yes! That Peking crispy duck all flaked and rolled up in pancakes with cucumber, spring onions and a dab of plum sauce. Nothing had ever tasted quite so wonderful.

  But ever present, in a corner of her mind, she could sense it; stinking, vile, slimy. She opened her eyes and stared and, as if the turd understood, it grew. Daisy’s stomach leapt again.

  She shut her eyes again. Crispy, shredded, aromatic duck, she thought, with extra plum sauce, wrapped up in a pancake.

  Come on, Daisy, she urged, it is utterly delicious – and it has to work.

  ARCHIE STARED at Old Man Wood.

  Why did the creature creeping around the plate make him feel so uneasy? Why was it so familiar? Archie racked his brain. Then suddenly it hit him: this was the same creature that had sat above Daisy while she slept – the night he’d woken, the night of their final nightmare – before it started, before everything went mad and the rain came down and before the destruction and the plague and the riddles. Before they had any inkling that they were linked to these strange goings on.

  His pulse quickened. This spidery-creature looked like a smaller version of that one and, now that the memories returned, he remembered how, at first, he thought the creature might be taking something from Daisy but soon came to the conclusion that it was actually giving her something. Yes, that was it. Giving her a powder from the ends of its long legs. And he’d wondered then if this strange creature had been supplying them with their weird dreams.

  He scratched his hard front hair spike. The objects on their plates represented their worst fears – he could see that: Daisy with her terror of dog poo, Isabella with her revulsion to dead rats.

  On his plate, four round, human eyeballs like marbles twitched, their muscles and tendons attached to each side like the ectoplasm of a bloody jellyfish.

  As he inspected them, he noticed how much larger were the ones which bore pale-blue irises in comparison to the other two that had dark, nutty-brown colouring.

  Each eye dripped with blood and stared back at him as if they were watching him – staring madly at him – following him, Archie thought.

  A strand of a nerve twitched, rolling one of the eyeballs over. Then another did the same.

  Isabella screamed again, so too, Daisy.

  He joined in.

  Who could do such a totally horrendous thing? This wasn’t a trial, it was torture.

  He shuddered. Were these the eyes of the Ancient Woman, sucked out and now for his consumption? They had to be. That horrific dream-image never went far away: the extreme violence of his actions, the peculiar sensation of murdering someone and how it had felt so natural, so right.

  Every time he’d woken up, he’d been consumed by guilt until he found this feeling replaced by an anger that he found hard to control.

  He examined his plate. Two sets of eyes? Why? The ancient woman ... who else?

  A terrible chill swept through him, as the realization hit him. The other set must belong to Cain. Cain the ghost, who’d told him his eyes had been removed when he’d sat in his room, scaring him witless.

  On his plate lay the missing body parts of the two people he feared the most; a spook and an imaginary figure from his dream?

  Jeez, his head must be screwed.

  But if Old Man Wood’s strange spider was real, then maybe the Ancient Woman was also real? And maybe, if he was going to kill her – perhaps his dreams stood as a warning?

  Archie liked this thought. It made some sort of sense.

  He remembered what Cain had said about protecting this Ancient Woman – Cain’s mother –against those that might harm her.

  So, perhaps his job was to shield her.

  Thinking about Cain’s concern for his mother, he thought of his own. Why wasn’t she here, helping them? Did they have any idea what had happened to them, what they were going through? There hadn’t been a word, nothing.

  Maybe, he thought, they had been abandoned. Left to get on with it.

  Archie’s gloom was punctured by the scraping of a fork on the stone platter in front of O
ld Man Wood. He looked up to see a portion of electricity-filled jellyfish with thin, almost translucent bones heading towards the old man’s mouth.

  Archie watched, dumbfounded, as Old Man Wood devoured the curious ghost-like spider.

  So why, Archie thought, do spidery-alien creatures give Old Man Wood such fear? If the creature had been dishing out dreams, as he suspected, then what did it say about Old Man Wood?

  Maybe, it showed an uncertain future, or was Old Man Wood in denial about something ... something about this Ancient Woman and Cain?

  Watching the old man tackling his plateful with relish, his eyes shut in bliss, loaded Archie with courage.

  If Old Man Wood can do it, he thought, then so can I.

  Without knowing why, Archie shut his eyes as he imagined the eyes to be everlasting gob-stoppers. He felt for his plate, picked one of the eyeballs up in his fingers and popped it straight into his mouth. A moment of bliss swept over his face.

  ‘Wow, this is the bes’ gosoppa I’ve eva ha,’ he said, as he swirled it round his mouth.

  ‘Keep going, Arch,’ Daisy said, clapping wildly.

  ‘Those eyes will soon disappear from your plate...’ Old Man Wood said, egging him on.

  Only, this comment made Archie open his eyes and look down at his plate to see the vile assortment of eyes and their tendrils. He lost his concentration and went very pale.

  Uh oh, he thought, as he felt a movement from the eyeball tickling the roof of his mouth and the trail of nerves flickered the back of his throat. Worst of all he was sure he could feel the eye growing. It felt the size of a ping-pong ball.

  He wretched violently and the eyeball popped out bouncing rather dramatically a couple of times on the table.

  Archie shook his head. ‘Idiot,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sorry about that, Arch,’ Old Man Wood said, wincing. ‘For a moment, I thought you had it.’

  Archie head-butted the table. ‘I’m the idiot, not you! I thought of an everlasting gob-stopper. By its very nature, it’s an incredibly dumb thing to do.’

  Archie wracked his brain. There had to be an easier way of doing this. He stared at the eyeballs on his plate, which stared straight back, as though testing him. Then they grew a fraction. Oh please, Archie thought. They were about the size of normal eyes now. Any larger and this was going to get messy.

  Not eating their platefuls was going to be a horrible way to die.

  ONE HUNDRED TEN

  GUS IN THE ATTIC

  Sue found it strange being de-briefed by Dickinson in the de Lowes’ house with Gus, the headmaster and not a de Lowe in sight.

  She sighed. A week ago, who could have possibly imagined that they were on the cusp of Armageddon? And a week ago, she would never have believed she could be so madly in love with anyone, let alone odd, hilarious, brilliant, gorgeous Gus.

  The dense fog that lay over the fields and forests in the great Vale of York made for a quiet, empty, alien, atmosphere. And an expectation lingered that something unpleasant might be about to interrupt it.

  Dickinson had stopped the group to rest three times and Sue had been grateful for the breaks. On the first, Dickinson instructed the party to thread rope between them so that no one might wander off in the wrong direction.

  When the stone walls came into view, they had collectively breathed a sigh a relief. Inside the building, where she’d spent so much time playing, it felt cold and uninviting. Even the normally toasty sitting room with its warming flames and low beams struck them as being mysteriously empty and unwelcoming. Sue feared the worst.

  Solomon set to work laying a fire as Dickinson began. ‘Sue, in a moment I’m going to take you over to the woman we found—’

  ‘Mrs. Pye?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know her, don’t you?’

  ‘She’s lovely.’

  ‘Good,’ Dickinson said. ‘She’s suffering from shock. You’re to look after her, make sure she’s fed and watered and if she lets on about anything, names, where the children might have gone, that sort of thing, let us know immediately. Write it down so you don’t forget.’ He winked at her.

  His radio crackled. ‘I’m going to leave you both one of these,’ he said, putting a handset on the arm of the sofa. ‘Call in if and when you get a sniff of progress. I’m guessing Stone briefed you.’ He looked knowingly at the headmaster who nodded and turned away.

  Dickinson addressed the noise. ‘I’ve just got to introduce the woman to Sue, and then we’ll be off.’

  ‘Still no signs?’ Stone’s voice crackled back.

  ‘Dead as a dodo, sir.’

  ‘I’ve sent units in to the local town centres – anywhere where electrical tablets and the devices are sold. Though I’ll be surprised if there are any left. Looting like you’d never believe.’

  ‘OK, Roger that. Anything else you need from here, sir?’

  ‘Just a quick word with Solomon, if he’s about.’

  Dickinson handed over the radio.

  The headmaster pressed the button. ‘Solomon here.’

  ‘Good. You know what the score is. Don’t sleep until you’ve combed through everything, understand? We don’t have time. And remember what I said.’

  Solomon handed back the radio.

  ‘Right, Sue,’ Dickinson said. ‘Let’s find Mrs. Pye, then I’ll leave her in your hands.’ Dickinson looked around. ‘Anyone seen that understudy of yours?’

  Solomon picked a matchbox up from the top of the wooden mantelpiece, opened it, and struck a match. ‘I’ve sent him upstairs to begin logging everything up there. As the Commissioner said, there’s no time to waste, is there.’

  Dickinson smiled back. ‘Yes. Quite.’ He turned for the door. ‘Good luck – keep us posted.’ And with that their boots scuffed on the floor as they headed out of the front door, across the paving slabs and into the fog.

  WHILE SUE NURSED MRS. PYE, the headmaster and Gus listened from the edge of the building to the sludging and slurping sounds of boots and the chatter of the men as they departed down the slope. When the noise petered out, they made their way back to the living room.

  ‘Gus, I really do think you ought to remove that helmet and the rest of that gear,’ Solomon said. ‘I must say, I very nearly laughed out loud when you said you were Kemp.’

  Gus smiled toothily back at him. ‘Anything to liven things up a little. Strange how his name popped into my head.’ Gus began looking at the clutter, made up predominantly of pictures dotted around the room. ‘What have they been up to?’

  ‘That’s what we need to work out, my boy.’

  ‘It’s as though they were looking for something in the pictures and then left in a bit of a hurry—’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Solomon said, picking up one of the old portraits. ‘I’ll inspect the kitchen. If they left in the middle of the night there may be traces of a meal. After that we need to try and figure out what on earth they’ve been looking for with all of these.’

  ‘It’s quite a mess,’ Gus said. ‘I’ll go and check their room, see if there’s anything that might give us some idea of timing.’

  Solomon smiled. ‘Well, at least I know where Archie gets it from. All of this could very well be his doing.’

  Gus headed up the stairs. When he reached Old Man Wood’s room he called for Solomon and together they inspected the remnants of the room in silence.

  Gus whistled. ‘It’s like a nail bomb’s been detonated in here—’

  ‘Yes, but without the nails,’ Solomon said as he inspected the strange, irregularly-sized holes dotted around the wooden panelled walls. ‘And no shell cases or cartridges – that’s what the soldiers were saying. There’s no metal here at all.’

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ Gus said, ‘that something organic made this mess?’

  Solomon stroked his chin. ‘I don’t know. But it is most unusual.’

  Gus took off up to the attic room where he searched each of the children’s areas. He tried to see if there was a tel
l-tale article of clothing that might give away their whereabouts or a book or a slip of paper or a note. He searched Archie’s mess first, then Daisy’s area and finally, Isabella’s immaculate section: bed made, books put away, everything in its place. He turned to go when he noted a drawer below her bedside table. Gus stared at it and tried to pull it open, but found it jammed tight. There wasn’t a keyhole, so how could it be locked? He traced his fingers around the bedside table, feeling only solid sides. Then he placed his hand underneath and rocked the base one way, then another. Gus smiled. The drawer slid open the other way. A hidden drawer, neat. He peered inside. Her diary lay there with a pen clamped underneath an elastic strap.

  Gus picked it out and opened the thick, pink, bound book. He noted the dates and flicked through, catching snippets of familiar names as he went until he reached more recent entries. He skimmed the extract of her trying to work out who and what the people in her dreams meant. He turned the page over and read about their adventures, their odd magical gifts, about Old Man Wood being the oldest man ever and how much she missed Sue.

  A terrible thought hit him. Sue and Isabella were close, like twins. How would Sue react if Isabella had been killed? Nervously he turned another page. Now the entry was smaller, and here he saw a five-verse poem. Nothing more, no explanation, but it appeared to be about finding three tablets and another world called Eden. Was this what it was all about?

  He heard the groan of a floorboard. Instinctively he froze and crammed the diary into his pocket.

  The noise deepened. Footsteps. He noted that while the tread was silent the creak of the floorboards gave whoever it was away.

  It had to be Sue coming to sneak up on him. He smiled. He could pretend he hadn’t heard her and surprise her with a kiss. OK, she might get really cross or pretend to be annoyed – but only for a moment, then she’d melt and laugh, and then kiss him.

  Why not give her a happy surprise?

  Gus grinned as he waited by the drawn curtain, until he could almost hear her breath through the other side of the velvet. Then, in one sharp movement, Gus whipped the curtain to the side.