by Robin Jarvis
“I really don’t think we should stick around here long,” his skull said before the rest of him reappeared once more. “No way this is healthy.”
“It’s nowhere near as violent or toxic as it was that night,” Estelle commented. “This is just the thingamabobs ticking over – with gaudy party tricks thrown in. When it gets really lively, that’s the time to dive for cover.”
“Even if it is harmful,” Gerald said grimly, “we only need to make it through another twenty-four hours. That’s when it’s all going to end, when whatever Austerly Fellows has got planned is due to happen. See if you can find anything that could help us reach Maggie and the others. There might be a file, notes – anything.”
Spencer didn’t need reminding. He turned his attention to the room and marvelled at it. He had never expected to find anything like this in a dingy old house.The room was octagonal and the only one in the building to be illuminated. Since the destructive night of dedication in 1936, it had been restored to its stylish glory. Within frosted sconces of Lalique glass, electric lights dipped and dimmed as the current fluctuated through the ancient wiring. More sleek veneer was in abundance over the walls and a radiating star motif, with lightning flashes, was set into the domed ceiling, reflecting the same design done in copper on the floor. Around that, twelve large Bakelite consoles were arranged in a wide circle and Gerald was studying their glowing dials. It had all been meticulously maintained.
“Martin would get a real kick out of this place,” the boy said. “It’s just his thing, isn’t it? Sort of old-fashioned sci-fi.”
“Flash Gordon meets the Ovaltineys,” Gerald agreed with a sad half-smile. “He’d be humming Freddie Mercury if he was here – and then Maggie would join in, off key as usual.”
“Only time I ever talked to him about anything other than DJ was about his love of genre stuff. We had a really good geek-out once. He promised that, if by some miracle everything got back to normal one day, he’d show me a Sean Connery movie set in space that was a retelling of High Noon. Er… some hope.”
“This is like some movie set,” Gerald observed.
“AF was a showman,” Estelle said. “He adored his theatrics, dressing it all up and making it even more imposing and intimidating – as if it needed any help there.”
Spencer couldn’t see anything that might help them. It was useless.
“Do you think they’re still alive?” he asked.
“They are, until we know different,” Gerald stated strongly.
Spencer ran a hand across one of the consoles.
“These are crazy, like radio tombstones.”
“One of them is missing!” Estelle declared abruptly, with some surprise. “There should be thirteen. One for each member of AF’s foul coven, and then his own bigger box of tricks. But that isn’t here. They’ve taken it away.”
Gerald knelt to examine the floor where the master console had been. There was an indented impression and evidence of scorching, showing the device’s large footprint, not much to indicate what had stood here for almost a hundred years.
“What did it look like?” he asked.
“I didn’t have time to draw a picture,” she answered. “I was rather preoccupied… it had more bells and whistles on it than the rest though.”
“So what are these?” Spencer asked. “They’re not just old-fashioned radios, are they? They’re more than that.”
“Receivers of some sort,” the old man answered. “But receiving what? Each of these dials is different.”
“We had something like them in the camp – smaller, but the same sort of thing. Jangler called them bridges.”
“Bridges?”
“Yes, I think… I think it’s how the Punchinellos came through – them and the other things: the Doggy-Long-Legs and the nightmare that got Marcus. I think these radios open the way.”
“Demon souls, come here in shoals,” Gerald muttered, reciting from The Sorcerer, another Gilbert and Sullivan opera. “Appear, appear, appear.”
Approaching the nearest console, Spencer looked at its glowing dial, where the needle was trembling over numbers and mysterious symbols. He reached to touch one of the switches, but thought better of it and left well alone. A spark leaped from the dial’s metal bezel and struck his palm. He leaped back in fright and the needle gave a twitch to the left. Another symbol lit up.
“What… what do you reckon it’s tuned to?” he asked, rubbing his hand. “Where’s the signal coming from?”
Estelle snorted. “Where do you think? It’s not Luxembourg, that’s for sure. These nasty toys of his pick up a much longer wavelength than that. AF opened up a direct line to the deepest region of Hell.”
Spencer turned to her. The girl’s face flickered through a rapid succession of coloured lights as the devices thrummed and the indicators blinked on and off.
“That night,” she continued, her voice faltering as she recalled being trapped on the oversized iron chair that had dominated the room back then, with the cruel eyes of the Abbot of the Angles leering up at her. “AF told me, taunted me… he said these sets worked on a very particular frequency. The more afraid I became, the louder those things grew; they were feeding on it and the signal got stronger.”
“Wait,” Gerald interrupted. “You’re saying they’re powered, or boosted, by fear?”
“Fear, despair, pain… yes. But what else would you expect from such a fiend as him?”
Gerald moved to one of the twelve lesser consoles. Its original headset was still plugged in and hanging by the cord. Picking it up, he listened at an earpiece.
At first all he could hear was a cacophony of crackles, shrill whines and whistles. Then, beneath that, he heard the intoning of a deep, echoing voice, chanting strange words in a harsh-sounding tongue. Gerald pulled back hastily. He yanked the headset from the socket and flung it across the room.
“Dear God!” he shouted in revulsion.
Spencer blinked in astonishment at his strong reaction. Estelle hardly seemed to notice. She was staring intently at the centre, where a brass grill covered an opening in the floor and jagged forks of naked electricity had started to flick in and out of the mesh. Tensing, she backed away and pressed against the wall.
“This room is where I died,” she announced starkly. “Right there. That’s where the vile devil electrocuted me – on an enormous iron chair.”
Spencer still couldn’t get his head round the fact that Eun-mi’s body had been hijacked and taken over by someone who had been killed so long ago – and in this very room. He couldn’t begin to understand what that must be like for either of them. But her words made his forehead wrinkle.
“Yet inside his White Castle, the throne stands empty,” he said, quoting Dancing Jax. “That’s described as a huge iron chair.”
“It wasn’t empty that night!” Estelle said sharply.
“It’s empty in the book because it’s waiting for the return of the Dawn Prince.”
“I don’t care about that stupid book! I’m talking about something real – something that was in this room.”
“I’ve seen that chair,” Gerald said quietly, recalling the day he’d left Felixstowe, driving a distraught Martin from the town to try and warn the world about Dancing Jax. “It was set up on an old war bunker, down by the golf course. They were burning an effigy on it.”
“Oh, I can vouch that it’s an extremely efficient brazier,” Estelle said bleakly.
Gerald stepped from the consoles. “Then that’s what he’s doing,” he murmured, hardly believing what he was saying. “That’s what all this has been about, the real purpose behind the book. Austerly Fellows planned all of this from the very start.”
“What?” Spencer asked. The old man was scaring him. On the dial another symbol was illuminated as the needle quivered a fraction further.
“That throne won’t be empty for much longer,” Gerald said. “Tomorrow night, on Christmas Eve – the global broadcast…”
“T
he flee the beast thing?”
The old man nodded, waiting for the boy to catch up.
“And the worldwide release of Fighting Pax. Whatever Austerly Fellows has got in mind, it’s going to provide enough power, enough fear and despair for one colossal bridging – one last enormous terror to cross over.”
Spencer finally understood, but he didn’t want to believe it.
“No,” he spluttered.
“What does it say in the book?” the old man asked. “Something about ‘drawing nigh’. That’s what all this has been for.”
In a stunned and fearful voice, Spencer recited the words from Dancing Jax, the very same lines that had turned Doctor Choe.
“The Lord of Rising Dawn is drawing nigh. He is returning to the land that was his. His light shall crown the hills with crimson flame and we shall bow before his unmatched majesty.”
They stared at each other in horror and Estelle gazed wretchedly at the central grill where the jags of energy spat and danced. The needles on every dial swung round and another diabolic symbol illuminated. And then, with a hiss and roar of static, a slow melody came pouring into the room and a mournful, crooning voice began to sing.
“In the shadows, let me come and sing to you.”
Estelle shrieked and kicked the wall behind her in anguish.
“Bowlly!” she screamed.
The song continued. It was as if the machines were mocking them.
“Let me dream a song that I can bring to you.
Take me in your arms and let me cling to you.”
“Make it stop!” she shouted. “Shut it off!”
“Let me linger long; let me live my song.”
Lunging forward, she wrenched at the switches and twisted the tuners violently. The indicators flashed, the dials on each of the twelve consoles grew brighter and the music grew louder.
“Stop it!” Gerald shouted. “Don’t touch them. You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“In the shadows, when I come and sing to you
In the shadows, when
I come and sing to you.”
Gerald and Spencer dragged her clear. The girl resisted and fought for several moments, then went limp and sobbed into Gerald’s shoulder.
A surge of sulphurous smoke came billowing up from the grill and a sudden squall rampaged round the room.
“In the shadows,
In the shadows,
In the shadows…”
The song continued to blare, distorting as the volume swelled.
“I can’t bear it,” Estelle wept as the unnatural gale whipped Eun-mi’s raven hair about her head. “You have no idea of the torment. Years and years and years of it – and him always there.”
Spencer wasn’t sure if she meant Austerly Fellows or Al Bowlly’s singing. The X-rays flared again and Gerald’s skeleton pulled away from her. There was nothing more to discover here and what they had learned made him feel sick.
Then, above the grille, where the electric sparks crackled more fiercely than ever, they saw a shape forming in the thick, twisting funnel of smoke. At first it was just a vague swirl of curdling vapour and shadow, shot with flames from below, but every passing instant refined and defined it. Something was coming through.
Aghast, they watched as the floating figure took on solid form and a pair of bowed legs and long, muscular arms stretched and flexed from the fumes. The deformed ridge of a humped back reared above a large, hideous head and the yellow smoke blew round a curved chin and hooked nose.
“A Punchinello!” Spencer cried.
“Time to go!” Gerald yelled.
Running on to the landing, Spencer made to slam the door shut behind them, but Gerald stopped him.
“Not yet,” he instructed. “You two, head back downstairs and get out of here.”
“What are you going to do? That thing in there will kill you on sight. You don’t know what they’re like!”
A loud, gargling squawk told them the Punchinello was almost fully corporeal and was now breathing the atmosphere of this world.
“Shoot it!” Spencer urged.
“I’ll do better than that,” Gerald answered, stooping to pick up the satchel of grenades. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”
“I’m not leaving you, even for a minute!” Spencer swore. “We get out of here together or not at all.”
Gerald wouldn’t listen this time. He pushed the loaded rifle into the boy’s hands and ordered him to go.
“Come on!” Estelle pleaded, pulling on Spencer’s arm. “Hurry!”
“Don’t you do anything stupid and be a hero,” Spencer warned him. “You come right after us, OK?”
“I’ll head you off at the pass!” Gerald promised. “Now hightail it out of here, Sundance!”
Spencer managed a feeble smile. Then he and Estelle raced along the landing.
Gerald Benning looked back into the octagonal room, where the consoles were flashing and the hum had ramped up to a piercing electronic squeal. The thermionic valves in each unit were glowing fiercely and the song was thundering too loudly to be recognisable as music any more. It was a screeching, deafening din and the Lalique sconces rattled in their fittings.
Snarling, and baring its mottled teeth, the grotesque and naked Punchinello stepped out from the smoke. The red-rimmed eyes swivelled in their sockets and glared over at the doorway where the old man stood. Licking its scabrous lips, it came swaggering between the consoles.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Gerald’s trembling fingers closed round one of the grenades. Like most North Korean weapons, they were out-of-date leftovers from a lost or abandoned war. These were originally American M26 fragmentation devices, called ‘lemons’ because of their shape. Gerald only hoped they still worked. Pulling out the pin, he called to the advancing Punchinello.
“Honk-honk, nosy! Catch!” And he lobbed the grenade inside.
The Punchinello caught it and gave the object a suspicious sniff.
Gerald bowled another in after. “And one for the pot!” he yelled as he turned and ran.
On the landing, Spencer and Estelle slithered to a halt. They couldn’t reach the stairs.
The boy’s face fell and he blurted a shout of dismay. The way was blocked. The thing that had smeared the walls and floor with slime had descended from the level above and its glistening bulk filled the landing.
He didn’t know what it was and couldn’t see how far back its bloated body stretched. It was all he could do to keep from fainting or puking violently. The stench of corruption that beat from it was beyond anything he had ever experienced.
It was like a gigantic grey leech, and its pallid, quivering flesh gave off its own putrescent light. There was no head, no eyes, just a blunt end to the translucent, sweating skin that framed a cavernous mouth filled with circles of hooked teeth that continued into the pulsating body. It was like staring down a tunnel of jagged knives.
With disgusting squelching sounds, the gaping mouth quested the air. Concentric circles of trembling papillae dripped with rancid juices – and Spencer knew it could sense them. A shuddering ripple travelled down its monstrous shape and it made a repulsive bubbling sound. Rearing up, it shivered and constricted, preparing to lunge forward and strike.
Spencer raised the rifle and wasted no time firing bullets into that stinking, gelatinous flesh.
“You can’t kill it like that!” Estelle shouted. “It’s useless!”
The boy ignored her, but, was he imagining it, or had the sound of her voice caused the reeking horror to convulse? The mouth squeezed together and it began to squirm and shrink back along the landing.
It was then the first grenade exploded. The Bakelite consoles split apart, dials smashed and the valves burst, releasing a violent pulse of kinetic force that punched through the entire building. A moment later, the second grenade blew up and a torrent of unnatural red flame engulfed the room and belched out of the doorway. The deafening music was stilled and the last indicator
light blinked and went out as the shattered Bakelite cases melted. The shockwave juddered through the house and the doors slammed wildly. Windows ruptured into glittering shrapnel and slates were catapulted from the roof. Spencer was almost thrown to the floor. Behind them, the blazing octagonal room went crashing to the level beneath.
A noise like a pistol shot tore through the quaking structure, as a wide fracture ripped up the length of the tower.
Spencer felt the landing buckle and the entire balustrade fell into the hall below. The air bristled with static and oily black smoke was already flooding the passage. In front of him, arcs of electricity surrounded the huge, stinking, leech-like creature. The great mouth contorted and a crack of blinding energy caused it to spasm. A horrendous, frothing bellow issued from the immense, barbed throat and then, in an instant, the beast was gone. The landing was empty. Only a sheen of slime was left behind.
“W–what?” the boy stammered.
“What are you doing?” Gerald cried urgently as he charged out of the smoke and propelled them to the staircase. “Don’t stop! Get out of here!”
Outside, the end tower was leaking blood-red flames and swaying ominously. The conical spire tipped and broke free, lurching through the air, bouncing and rolling over exposed attics, before plunging on to the great conservatory with a cataclysmic destruction of Victorian glass and iron girders. Then, in an avalanche of bricks and rubble, and an eruption of crimson fire, the tower came toppling down – demolishing the chimneys, snapping beams and rafters like matchwood. The roofs crumpled and collapsed. Gables caved, slamming on to the drive. Choking clouds of smoke and dust discharged into the surrounding woods. Fierce, cherry-coloured embers spat from the broken tower and illuminated the dark sky as they coiled upwards. Fellows End was in ruins.
Spencer staggered sideways across the gravel, spluttering through the blinding fumes. They had only just managed to outrun the pursuing debris and were caked in dirt.