Troubletwisters

by Garth Nix

++That’s it,++ Grandma X communicated. ++That’s good. I can feel him now. We’re getting close. Hold on!++

  JACK PAUSED, PANTING, AT A Y intersection. The pipe he was following split into two, and he couldn’t tell which looked lighter to his eyes. Left or right? Behind him the whispering of the ants grew louder. He had to choose quickly.

  ++Come back, troubletwister!++

  The voice was faint, but not as faint as it should have been, given the distance he’d come. Jack had a horrible vision of the ants moving together, the bloated, speaking rat riding on their backs like a boat on a wave . . . following him wherever he went.

  He went right. The decision was random. He had been running for ages and had seen no increase or decrease in light, whichever way he went. Just the same grey view everywhere and still no visible light source. He had begun to think he wasn’t seeing by light at all – but how was that possible? How could anyone see, except by light?

  The pipe he had chosen was starting to get damp and cold, and he could smell the salty odour of the sea, combined with the far less pleasant stench of rotting seaweed. That was encouraging, for if the pipe ended at the beach, it would be a short walk from there to the police station. He had already decided that that was where he should go. The school was infested with rats, and Grandma X’s house wasn’t safe. He hoped Jaide would come to the same conclusion and meet him there. Even though the police wouldn’t believe him about the rats and the ants and everything, they would at least call his mother.

  Jaide would be freaking out, Jack thought, if she hadn’t been caught, too. He really, really hoped she hadn’t been captured . . . because if she was free, there was a chance she could get help. Though he wasn’t really sure what kind of help you could get for the trouble he was in . . .

  Jack bit his lip in frustration as the pipe ended in a mossy iron grille that wouldn’t budge no matter how he pushed and tugged at it. He could hear water dripping further down the pipe, but he had no choice but to turn back.

  ++Why are you running, troubletwister?++

  Jack stopped in sudden fright. That voice wasn’t from the rat. It was closer, and different. He looked wildly around, but all he could see were the crumbling walls of the pipe.

  Then he realised that he wasn’t actually hearing it. The voice was inside his head.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ++We have many names, troubletwister,++ came the answering whisper. ++Just as you have, Jackaran Kresimir Shield.++

  ‘How do you know —’ Jack started to say, but he stopped. Maybe if he didn’t talk to it, the voice would go away.

  I have to get out of these tunnels, thought Jack. I have to get away!

  ++We have been waiting for you, Jackaran Kresimir Shield. Soon we will meet, oh, yessss. . .++

  Jack shuddered and ran faster. If the ants hadn’t reached the Y intersection, he might be able to take the other tunnel. It had to lead to safety!

  ++Come to us, Jackaran Kresimir Shield. Be with us. Be one of us!++

  Jack stopped. While the voice was inside his head, he’d heard something else with his ears. A nasty shuffling sound from the tunnel ahead of him, a sound that was rapidly getting louder.

  Then he saw what was making the noise. A long, low, lumpy shape, kind of like a really big, undulating worm. It rose and fell as it moved along the tunnel – and then it split into two at the Y intersection and continued to slither up the two different tunnels.

  Jack had passed a tiny alcove in the sewer wall several paces back. Now, almost without thought, he raced there and folded himself into it. He felt every ragged line of the old bricks as he tried to press himself further back. Then he tried to keep absolutely still, not even breathing, as the thing came closer and closer.

  It was like a giant worm, only it was made up of rats and cockroaches and red ants and other nameless insects, all with white eyes and all stuck together, crawling and writhing like a single creature. The sound it made as it moved was a ghastly mixture of every rat and insect noise ever made, combined with the slithering of its strange flesh upon the tunnel.

  As its head passed him, something heavy and dark pressed against Jack’s mind. He felt it in his thoughts, a presence even worse than the physical presence of the creature. It threatened to overwhelm him, to suck his mind away and combine him with what it had already gathered. But at the same time it offered peace, a certainty that if he did give in, it would take away his fear, just as it would take away every other emotion, along with all his memories, everything that was him. If he let it in, he would disappear forever.

  ++We see you, Jackaran Kresimir Shield!++ said the voice in his head. ++We see you!++

  The worm’s head turned to Jack and reared above him, all its component rats and insects swirling and wriggling to create a vast but toothless maw.

  ‘No!’ Jack screamed. He ducked and dived forward as the clumsy worm-mouth struck into the alcove where he’d been. Before it could pull back, he jumped onto it, kicking and flailing, smashing his way through rats, ants, and cockroaches, which flew in all directions.

  The worm temporarily collapsed as Jack rampaged along it, desperate to reach the intersection. But even as he smashed his way through its component parts, he felt its tendrils clutching at his mind, sapping his will, making him slower and more stupid, so that every step he took got more difficult, and the worm was beginning to re-form around him. It was like fighting through quicksand and—

  I’m not going to make it, Jack thought, sharp panic fighting back against the relentless pull of the creature’s mind.

  ++You can’t escape us, Jackaran Kresimir Shield! You can’t escape!++

  But Jack was suddenly through, running as fast as he had ever run, and the worm shrieked in fury and broke apart, sending thousands of rats, ants, spiders and crawling horrors after Jack. No longer constrained by moving together, they were at his heels within seconds.

  Far off in the distance, Jack caught a glimpse of light, real light, and he ran toward it, hoping against hope. It led him to a wider tunnel, one lined with brick rather than concrete. Rusted iron grilles blocked off several tunnels leading elsewhere.

  Jack ran to the tunnel’s end, where he found a vertical shaft leading up into darkness. There had once been a ladder, but it had pulled away from the wall and only a twisted length of rusted metal remained to show where it had been. There was no way for him to climb up.

  But the light didn’t come from above. It was emanating from a luminous, cylindrical cloud that was swirling slowly around underneath the vertical shaft, blocking the way up.

  Jack wondered if it was marsh gas. He’d read about it in an old book once, how it could choke you to death, or explode. Jack looked at it, then back at his pursuers. They had slowed and were grouping together again. They were rebuilding the worm-creature, and he could feel its mental pressure growing, trying to break into his head.

  Jack lifted the bottom of his T-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, and walked into the shining cloud.

  Instantly, the mental pressure ceased. Behind him the worm-creature screamed with all its rat mouths and rose up, drawing in more and more rats, ants and insects as it surged forward to overwhelm him.

  The cloud of light moved forward to meet it, leaving Jack behind and growing brighter as it went. Jack backed up to the tunnel wall and watched in amazement as the cloud coalesced and took on a human form, a human form that he instantly recognised.

  Hanging brightly in the darkness of the tunnels, as cool and beautiful as the full moon, was the ghostly form of the young Grandma X.

  Jack pressed harder against the tunnel wall, thinking that he had been caught by the witch and her minions, and that he had come to the end at last.

  The radiant image of Grandma X raised her right hand, and there was a flash of intense light. The worm-creature charged, sending shadows writhing across the walls of the tunnel.

  Grandma X and the worm-thing met in a blaze of light and darkn
ess, sending Jack flying under a shower of rats, ants and bugs.

  In the darkness of the rat’s deepest thoughts, Jaide suddenly saw a light bloom, a light that also brought Jack into view. He looked frightened and dirty, and he was backed up against a brick wall that curved over his head. He seemed to be staring right at her.

  ‘Jack, it’s me! We’re coming to get you!’

  Jaide’s voice echoed back at her from the walls of Grandma X’s house. She didn’t know how to speak with her mind as Grandma X did, so she was just speaking aloud – but something did hear her nonetheless, something heavy and dark and terrible that crashed over them and said in a voice that tried to drag her down into the darkest halls of memory—

  ++We see you, Jaidith Fennena Shield. We see you!++

  The light flared. The darkness struggled against it, briefly but intensely, then abruptly snuffed out the light, taking Jack with it.

  ‘No!’ Jaide recoiled, tripped and landed on her backside in the drawing room. Spots of black danced in her eyes. Above her, Grandma X quickly snatched her hand off the rat. Kleo jumped up onto the desk and butted her head against the woman’s side.

  All traces of the darkness vanished with the breaking of that contact.

  ‘It is already so strong!’ exclaimed Grandma X, wiping her hand across her brow. ‘But at least we know where Jackaran is now, that he has managed to evade it so far, and my . . . our . . . intervention will have given him some more time. Where the shadows are darkest, light burns most brightly. If only he can keep away from it . . .’

  Jaide got to her feet and clutched at Grandma X’s arm urgently, adding emphasis to her question.

  ‘What is it? And what does it want with Jack? With us?’

  ‘It wants you for the same purpose it wants every living thing in this world: to absorb you and make you part of itself. As to what it is, well, no one knows exactly where it comes from, and it has no name in any human language. It just is.’

  ‘You must call it something.’

  ‘We do,’ said Grandma X gravely.

  She looked older and wearier than Jaide had ever seen her before.

  ‘We call it The Evil.’

  THE EVIL.

  The name filled Jaide with images of vampires and werewolves and horrors she couldn’t find words for. The Evil had to be more evil than any of them, or perhaps all of them combined. And it was down in those tunnels with Jack!

  ‘We have to rescue him; we can’t leave him alone!’

  ‘Of course we will rescue him,’ said Grandma X. She tapped the last two fingers of her right hand on the desk, her forehead deeply creased in thought. ‘But it is more easily said than done. Even if it does catch him, it will . . . it will take some time to subdue his will, before it can . . . absorb him.’

  Jaide recoiled, shocked at the thought of Jack being absorbed by something. She couldn’t get that glimpse of Jack’s terrified face out of her mind, and she didn’t want him to be in danger for a second longer than he had to be.

  ‘Can’t we just go down there and get him?’

  ‘I am not strong enough in daylight to confront this manifestation of The Evil directly, and your Gift is neither fully revealed nor even partially under your control. We’ll have to find a less direct way to get him out.’

  Kleo meowed. Grandma X looked down at the cat and sighed heavily. ‘Yes, The Evil has caught us napping. Caught me napping, I should say. It should not be here, not so strong. The wards should have stopped it, but somehow it’s getting through . . .’ She rested her head in her hands for a moment. ‘I’ve been so weary and distracted . . . I’ve not been thinking clearly for days, ever since the cats sensed your awakening Gifts.’

  ‘If we can’t directly rescue Jack,’ Jaide said, ‘can we help him escape? We can’t just sit here and do nothing. You have to tell me what we can do.’

  Grandma X looked up and surprised Jaide by slapping herself on the cheek and shaking her head wildly from side to side and up and down, like a horse getting ready to run.

  ‘You’re a very smart girl, Jaidith Shield. Jackaran has managed to get away from The Evil so far . . . Perhaps if we helped him find a way out . . . Let me see . . . Moonrise is at ten minutes past eleven . . .’

  Jaide remembered what Grandma X had said about her Gift being tied to the moon.

  ‘Will the moon make you stronger?’

  ‘Yes, even if it is not visible. The tide will be coming in, too,’ said Grandma X. ‘But I’ll need your help. Let me gather a few things and we’ll get started.’

  Jack shielded his face with his arms. He had fallen onto his back, and prickly legs ran all over him as the insects and rats scurried about the tunnel. Not in a panic, but desperate to regroup and attack the glowing figure swaying with arms outstretched among them. Wriggling, dark shapes spun in midair around the image of Grandma X, as though floating in freefall. Jack could feel the black mass of thought swirling around him, struggling to bring its ghastly composite creature back together. He could hear its wordless call and struggled to resist it himself.

  When that call took on words, he found a strength he had never known he had.

  ++We see you, Jaidith Fennena Shield. We see you!++

  Suddenly he was on his feet, brushing off debris and throwing himself bodily into the mess of creatures, squashing those that were squashable and tossing aside those that weren’t.

  ‘You!’ he shouted. ‘Leave! My! Sister! Alone!’

  The creatures were taken by surprise, but only momentarily. For every one he dispatched, two more took its place. He felt himself grow heavy with accumulated bugs and rats. They clung to his clothes, to his hair, to his ears and fingers. He flailed and whipped his head from side to side, fighting once more for his own life.

  The light flared again, and in that split instant of the brightest possible light, he glimpsed how his shadow looked against the wall of the tunnel. His arms and legs were rippling with the creatures trying to bring him down . . . but even worse than that, the shadow looked deep, and dark, and enticingly safe.

  A rat crawled up over his head and its snout thrust against his left eye.

  He shut his eyes, and in the darkness found a new strength.

  This is it, Jack thought. They’ve got me now. But I’m not giving up.

  He stopped thrashing about and stood absolutely still, though it took every ounce of self-control that he possessed, as the rats and bugs squirmed all over him, noses and paws and feelers and legs thrusting at his ears and eyes and the corners of his mouth.

  ‘You’ll have to kill me,’ he said quietly and with great certainty, spitting out a cockroach that swarmed across his lips. ‘Because I am not joining you, not now, not ever!’

  No more bugs crawled into his mouth or nose. A rat squeaked and stopped probing at his eyes with its nose. Then all at once, the mass of creatures fell away. He heard the sodden, rolling thuds as thousands of soft bodies hit the floor of the tunnel. He heard their squeaks and chitters of complaint, individual again, not a massed noise.

  He felt, more than heard, a roar of frustration off in the dark, and he braced himself, ready to defend himself against a renewed attack.

  But no attack came. Slowly Jack opened his eyes.

  The worm-thing was gone. The rats and insects that had made it up were scurrying away, back up the tunnel, or into cracks and holes.

  The shining figure had also disappeared. Several last wisps remained, gleaming off the damp bricks and mortar of the tunnel. Like the last of the insects, they soon faded.

  Then the underground world was dark, and Jack was alone.

  He looked down at his feet, able to see well enough – somehow – to know that he wasn’t standing where he had been before. He was under the broken ladder now, whereas before, he was sure, he had been further along the tunnel, where he had been thrown when light and darkness had first met. Something had moved him away from the creatures that had attacked him – or he had moved himself . . .

  ‘J
aide,’ Jack said in a hesitant whisper. ‘Are you here?’

  If the worm-thing had seen his sister, he was thinking, perhaps she was in the tunnels with him.

  But there was no answer, only the scurrying sound of retreating rats.

  At least he was being ignored for the moment. Whatever had happened, it had deflected everyone from looking for him. The bugs were gone, presumably searching elsewhere, and the ghostly Grandma X was gone, too.

  He didn’t know how to feel about her now: he was supposed to think that she was an evil witch, as Jaide did, but instead he took a kind of comfort that someone was looking for him. He hadn’t been forgotten.

  ‘Jaide? Come back! Please!’

  Silence.

  He knew he couldn’t stand there all day, calling helplessly into the shadows. While the rats and bugs were busy getting themselves together, he had to take the chance to make another run for it, even though that meant backtracking the way he had come.

  There had to be a way out of these tunnels.

  He ran back, following what he hoped was a faint smell of the sea. A slight downward slope was also cause for optimism. As he ran, the tunnel widened and others joined it. The smell of salt and seaweed grew stronger while the sound of the rats and insects behind him grew fainter. If only he had followed this tunnel originally, he thought, he could have been out ages ago!

  A new noise reached his ears – the booming of waves, surging and thundering against the shore. He began to run faster along a lazy bend to the left, certain now that he had found a way to freedom.

  The pipe straightened, and he saw what truly lay ahead.

  Water. Seawater, rippling and foamy. The pipe was submerged in the ocean, and he had no way of telling whether it came back up into the air or not. He could either swim for it and hope for the best, or turn back and try to find another way.

  But the . . . the . . . whatever it was that controlled all the rats and insects and everything in the tunnel . . . was behind him. Turning back wasn’t an option.

  Jack splashed into the salty water. It rose steadily up his legs as the pipe angled downward under him. When it reached his waist, he held his breath and ducked under.