Dial a Ghost

Chapter Eighteen

‘At last!’ cried Sabrina de Bone. ‘At last a place that’s fit for us!’

The Shriekers stood in the hall at Helton, looking about them with their greedy, hate-filled eyes. It had become very cold; a fall of soot came roaring down the chimney, and a dead jackdaw tumbled out on to the hearth.

In the dining room, the pictures of the Snodde-Brittles fell to the ground and lay in a mess of twisted string and broken glass. A suit of armour crashed on to its side.

‘Nice,’ said Sabrina. She floated into the drawing room and drew her fingernails along the sofa — and the cloth ripped apart, letting the stuffing ooze out like clotted blood.

The hands of the clock began a mad whirring and an icy mist crept along the floor.

‘Something’s going on,’ said Mr Tusker, down in the basement. ‘Don’t like the sound of it.’

‘Better go and see if the boy’s all right,’ said Miss Match.

But Mr Tusker didn’t think that was a good idea at all. ‘Not me,’ he said and bolted the kitchen door.

The Shriekers floated on through the grand rooms, dragging the ghoul behind them. Blue flames sprang up in the fireplace and terrified mice scuttled deep into the wainscot.

Then suddenly Sir Pelham stopped.

‘Do you smell anything, snotbag?’ he asked.

Sabrina’s nose stump began to twitch. She turned her face this way and that.

‘Oh yes, I smell something,’ she drawled. ‘I smell something… lovely.’

Sir Pelham yanked the rope and the ghoul gurgled and choked.

‘Where is it, you slime gobbet?’ he asked. ‘Where is the child?’

With his eyes still shut, the ghoul began to run wildly about. ‘Child,’ he muttered. ‘Burn. Fry. Sizzle. Child.’ He set off across the drawing room, through the billiard room, towards the staircase…

‘The smell’s getting stronger,’ said Sabrina happily. ‘And it’s a clean child. A washed child. I do love hurting clean children.’

‘Clean children are the best,’ agreed Sir Pelham.

Dribbling with blood lust, they followed the ghoul as he panted up the staircase… across the Long Gallery… down the corridor with the grinning masks…

It was the crash of falling Snodde-Brittles which woke Aunt Maud.

‘Is that you, Eric?’ she called, for the farmer and Eric had decided to go camping in the woods.

But the noises which came from downstairs were not the kind made by her shy son. Squealings… rappings… and now the sound of a clock striking twelve… and thirteen… and on and on.

‘Henry, I’m bit worried,’ she began.

But her husband was already sitting up, and now Grandma popped her head out of the coffin chest.

‘There’s some hanky-panky going on somewhere,’ she said. ‘I can tell by my whiskers. They’re as stiff as boards.’

‘I’m going downstairs to see,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘You stay here.’

But of course there was no way the women would let him go alone.

They did not have far to go before they saw the intruders. A pair of crazed, blood-spattered spectres and, pulling them along, a quivering blob of jelly with foaming jaws.

‘Stop!’ Uncle Henry spoke like the brave soldier he had been in the war. ‘This part of the house is private.’

The female spook tittered. ‘You funny man,’ she said. She unwound the python from her neck, and it hissed and swayed and shot out its flickering tongue.

But the Wilkinsons stood their ground.

‘You can’t come any further,’ said Aunt Maud. ‘You’ll wake the children.’

Poor Maud — she realized almost at once that she had made a terrible mistake.

‘Ah, children,’ gloated Sir Pelham. ‘Not just one child! One each, then. We won’t have to share! I’m going to strangle mine.’

‘I’m going to cut mine to ribbons with my nails.’

‘No you aren’t!’ Grandma stepped forward and lunged out with her umbrella. Uncle Henry plucked a sword from the wall. They were ready to fight to the last drop of their ectoplasm, but then something so horrible happened that they stopped just for a moment — and that moment was fatal.

The budgie, trusting and stupid, had followed them. Now he landed, fluttering and squawking, on Aunt Maud’s shoulder.

‘Open wide,’ said the bird in his friendly way. ‘Open—’

But it was the python who opened wide. And as the Wilkinsons stared in horror, watching their beloved pet disappear into the jaws of the evil snake, the Shriekers passed through them as if they were morning mist and entered the room where the children lay fast asleep.

They lay head to feet as usual. Addie had become invisible. She always vanished when she slept.

The moon was full and the quiet room was bathed in a silver light.

‘Child,’ gabbled the ghoul, and collapsed in a heap on to the rug.

The Shriekers stepped over him and moved towards the bed.

‘Ah, how sweet, a little boy in his pyjamas,’ sighed Sabrina and stretched out her fingers, with their dreadful nails, to touch his cheek.

And in that instant, Oliver woke.

‘Are you all right, Addie?’ he asked sleepily. Then he fell back on the pillow and a scream died in his throat. Bending over him was a spectre so hideous that he couldn’t have imagined it in his wildest dreams. She had no nose, her hollow eyes glittered with hatred, gobbets of raw meat clung to her hair.

It’s impossible, he thought. I can’t be seeing this.

Then he wondered if maybe it was a sort of joke. ‘Are you in fancy dress, Aunt Maud?’ he managed to say.

But he knew it wasn’t so. From the appalling spook there came such a sense of loathing and danger that no one could have pretended it. And now, looming up behind her, was a second spectre even more gruesome: a man with a broken skull who raised the whip he held in his hand — and laughed.

‘Well well, you look a nice healthy fellow, all safe and sound in your bed. What a pity your last hour has come!’

But as the female phantom’s fingers began to move towards his throat, something happened to Oliver that was far worse than anything the spooks could do. His chest tightened… his breath came in choking gasps… the air he had drawn into his lungs stayed trapped. Desperately he stretched out his hand for his inhaler… he had almost reached it — and then the thong of the man’s whip curled round it and dashed it to the ground. Even as the vile spectres prepared to throttle him, Oliver was turning blue in the worst asthma attack of his life.

He tried to cry out and warn Addie, but there was no hope of making a single sound. This is it, then, thought Oliver. This is the end.

But Addie was awake. Without bothering to become visible she went into the attack.

‘How dare you?’ she screamed. ‘How dare you harm Oliver, you disgusting old spooks.’ Kicking out at Pelham with one foot, she swooped down and picked up the inhaler. ‘Breathe!’ she ordered Oliver, putting it into his hand. ‘Go on. Do it.’

‘Who are you? What’s going on here?’ spluttered Pelham, who could see nothing.

‘What’s going on here is that I’m going to do you in,’ yelled Adopta. ‘I don’t know where you come from, but I’m not scared of you, you silly old banshees.’ She aimed a kick at the ghoul, lying on the floor, then swooped up to bite Sabrina in the neck. ‘If you’ve hurt Oliver, I’ll kill you. I’ll turn your ectoplasm into semolina; I’ll grow maggots in your earhole.’

As she walloped and thumped and kicked, Addie was slowly becoming visible. Her night-dress was beginning to show up now, and her long hair.

‘Well, go on,’ roared Pelham to his wife. ‘Do her in. Finish the little spitfire off. The boy’s done for anyway.’

But Lady de Bone was standing quite still. Her loathsome mouth hung open and she was staring and staring.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ yelled Pelham to his wife. ‘What are you gawping at?’

‘I feel… strange,’ said Sabrina.

Addie was moving in for the kill. She rose into the air, ready to punch the female phantom’s nose stump into a pulp — and as she did so, she rolled up the sleeve of her nightdress.

And Lady de Bone screamed once… screamed twice… and fell in a dead faint on to the floor.