Graveyard Shift (17 page)

“You'll see. Lu used to be a contortionist. This vehicle was part of her act.”

We scrambled inside under the canopy and squeezed shoulder to shoulder, Mr. October to my right and Becky to my left.

“Wait a minute,” Becky said. “How's this possible? It's a single-seater, isn't it? And what am I doing sitting in a rickshaw, anyway?”

“Watch,” I said. “You wanted to know everything, so here's your chance. Just wait till she gets going — it's a sight to see.”

“Ready?” Mr. October called.

“Ready,” Lu answered.

“Then take it away!”

And, gathering speed as she went, Lu ran straight for the wall, steering us toward the invisible gap.

W
ell . . . if moving from daylight into nighttime in just a few steps seemed incredible, what happened next boggled my mind. It always did.

“Oh my God,” Becky gasped, squashed tightly against me.

It wasn't the first time Lu had taken us from HQ. Mr. October called on her whenever the workload grew heavy, so I knew what to expect. But each time was as thrilling as the first, and when she hit the gap at full speed, I couldn't help punching my knee and stifling a cry:
Geronimo!

From the alley, viewed from a certain angle, the space between the walls appeared nothing more than a paper-thin slit. From other angles you couldn't see it at all. For the next few seconds it was like passing through the cool brickwork itself. There was only a
drip-drip-drip
and its echo and a narrow slice of brightness waiting straight ahead.

The pressure dropped, making my ears pop the way they might on a train speeding through a tunnel, and then the light flooded over us. We were back in the midafternoon, serpentining between trinket and book stalls and street musicians.

“What did I just see?” Becky said incredulously. “Did we really shoot through that tiny space at twenty-odd miles an hour?”

Mr. October nudged my elbow, speaking quietly, for my ears only.

“What do you think, Ben? Can you vouch for your friend? If not, I can wipe her memory. She'll forget everything she's seen and we can drop her off right here.”

“She's fine,” I said. “Just think: She found her own way to HQ, and not everyone can do that. And she remembered you from the funeral even though you had a different appearance then. She's gifted that way. She's OK, really she is.”

That seemed to satisfy him and he settled back for the journey. Lu slowed as she turned onto Upper Street, awaiting instructions.

“It's a 19127, Lu,” he called. “Camden, and sharpish.”

“OK!”

 

A 19127, as Mr. October often said, wasn't good. None of the numbers were good, exactly, but this wasn't the easiest way to introduce Becky to the team, if she was going to be a part of the team from now on.

At Chalk Farm underground station, Paul Butler, 34, had
been hit by an approaching train after dropping his phone on the tracks and jumping down to retrieve it.

Mr. October made us stay back from the platform edge — “A bit messy down there, don't look” — while he entered the tunnel in search of Butler. Butler had actually died of shock, but no one besides us would ever know. When he'd seen the lights racing toward him, his heart gave out on the spot. His ghost had leapt clean out of his body and set off running before the train hit his still-standing corpse.

Two minutes after Mr. October went looking for him, a bright light bloomed in the tunnel, and it wasn't the light of another incoming train.

“That means he found him,” I told Becky. “It means he's OK. You'll figure it out as you go.”

The next stop was a nursing home, the first of two natural causes on our shift. Lottie Fraser, 86, had passed away peacefully in her sleep, but you never would've guessed by the way her angry soul was carrying on when we got there. She refused to believe it, refused to leave, and had taken to the TV lounge in protest.

The lounge was as large as a tennis court. All around it, elderly guests slumbered in armchairs with their mouths wide open or nodded in front of game shows while Lottie besieged the place.

Charging from chair to chair, she scattered magazines and newspapers to the floor, swatted teacups from saucers, tugged at the curtains and switched TV channels, which brought
moans of protest from anyone still awake enough to notice. Nurses chased the trail of disorder back and forth, unable to fathom what was happening or where the poltergeist would strike next.

“I ain't going,” Lottie said fiercely to Mr. October. “I ain't ready. My family's visiting Sunday and I ain't seen my granddaughter yet. Can I have one more week?”

“You could if it were up to me,” Mr. October said. “Unfortunately, it's not up to me. Let's have a little chat about this, shall we?”

While he escorted Lottie back to her room, I took Becky to wait outside where we wouldn't attract attention.

“He's changed,” she said. “Now he looks like the old guy I remember with Gran. He's got the same shabby suit and everything. What is he, a master of disguise?”

“You'll get used to that too. He changes all the time. Different personas for different occasions.”

“So this is what you've been doing all this time?” She looked back at the home. “Can't say I saw the old woman too clearly. I could see what she was doing in the lounge and I heard her well enough, but she looked a bit fuzzy round the edges.”

“Things make more sense over time,” I said. “I didn't see much myself until I met Mr. October. This probably seems a bit freaky to you.”

“Not freaky exactly. It's sad when people don't know how to let go. Makes you want to help, and I can see why you do.
You could've told me, though. I would've understood. You could've trusted me.”

I knew that now even if I hadn't before. “About this news you wanted to tell me . . .”

“Oh yeah, hang on to your hat. You'll never believe it, but —”

She was interrupted by Mr. October bursting out through the doors, rubbing his hands together.

“No dillydallying, you two. Took me so long to make the old girl see sense that we're even further behind schedule now. All aboard the rickshaw!”

“Later,” Becky said as we ran for our seats.

Our next stop was Hyde Park.

The homeless man had been dead a few minutes when we found him. Even when you had a name and reference number, tracking people of no fixed abode was never easy. They didn't often show up in hospitals — most often we found them under bridges and inside shop doorways.

His scraggy hair was plastered across his face and there were holes in the knees and elbows of his clothes. He wore one black shoe, one brown, and no socks. A yellow dog ran around the body, yapping at his ghost, which sat on the back-rest of a bench, looking down.

“8364, hypothermia,” Mr. October read from his card. “Are you Judd Gardner, sir?”

The man didn't look up when he answered. “I used to be, mate, but that was a long time ago.”

In Hampstead we visited the home of a former TV personality, a stocky man with a chubby joker's face and a badly fitting toupee. You got the impression he meant everything he said to be funny. He'd spent the afternoon drinking alone, and after one martini too many he'd decided to take a dip in his swimming pool, climbing the high diving board fully clothed, forgetting the pool had been drained for cleaning.

He was in a quandary when we turned up, unable to believe what he'd done. He'd had a comeback planned for next year, a stand-up tour and a new game show. He insisted on showing us highlights from the TV programs that had made him famous. He had them all on DVD, but his disembodied hands couldn't pick up the remote.

It took all of Mr. October's powers of persuasion to convince the man his career was over. There'd be no show and no tour dates next year after all. While they talked things over in the space-age kitchen of his luxury house, Lu and Becky and I flopped on the sofa in his living room and watched his old programs. They were pretty good all in all, but some of his jokes weren't as funny as he seemed to think, and Lu didn't get them at all.

After ten minutes, a wave of phosphorescence flashed down the hall, startling Becky out of her seat and prompting Lu to run out to ready the transport.

“I suppose he'll be in all the papers tomorrow,” Becky said as we settled into the rickshaw again. “Maybe even on the news tonight.”

“He lived alone and didn't have many visitors,” Mr. October said. “He won't be found for another three days when they come to clean the pool.”

Becky was horrified. “Shouldn't we call and report it?”

“I'm afraid we can't. We're not allowed to interfere with what's written.”

“But that's terrible. . . .”

She stared straight ahead as Lu steered us up the driveway and out into traffic. Not everything about the job sat easily with her, then. She didn't speak for a long while after that.

When we answered a 3626 on Edgware Road, she remained seated while we ran inside an Indian restaurant off the main street. Darren Hayes, 23, had staggered inside clutching his chest after an incident with a knife two blocks away. We led him quietly through the kitchen and out to the alley while the team of paramedics who'd arrived just after us went to work on his body on the restaurant floor.

After that, a natural causes in Stepney, another at Homerton Hospital (technically speaking, a disconnected life support machine), and an incident in Walthamstow involving a burglar, a rottweiler, a rolling pin, a frying pan, and a marble chopping board.

We were nearing the end of the shift now. Darkness had settled over the city. After our last call, a 7325 in Hoxton, Lu pulled to the curb alongside a brightly lit grocery store on Essex Road. They were dropping us off before returning to HQ, and I was climbing out when Becky pulled me back.

“Hang on a minute,” she said. “Can I have my say now?
I've been trying to tell you since before we set off. Will you listen this time?”

She took a newspaper clipping from her bag and smoothed it out on her knee.

“I don't know how I missed this,” Becky said. “It's been under our noses all this time.” Her urgent look traveled back and forth between Mr. October and me. “Ben, it's about Mitch and Molly, the fire children. I think I know where they are.”

T
he clipping came from the paper she'd shown me at the crypt the previous week. Molly and Mitch stared out from the photograph, and beneath the headline, the story ran:

“So what do you think?” Becky asked as I finished reading and passed the clipping to Mr. October. “I've looked at it a dozen times. The kids were too young to call the new house a home. All they ever knew in their short little lives was the other place.”

“Lu,” Mr. October said suddenly. “Turn this crate around, please, and take us to Dartmouth Park.”

Lu nodded. She waited for a break in the traffic, then moved out.

“Sukie,” I murmured. “That's the address she mentioned to me.”

“Who?” Becky said.

“Someone I met at the Ministry today. She's clairvoyant. You must've been outside at the time, and she tapped into your mind. That's where she got the address.”

 

My lips were dry by the time Lu led us up the slope onto Spencer Rise. The street was drenched in darkness, silent and still. You could easily forget you were just a few beats away from the city's thudding heart.

“Which number?” I asked.

We were slowing, moving uphill at close to walking pace.

“Somewhere near here . . . no, farther up on the left . . . in the twenties,” Becky said.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Even if she couldn't yet see the dead, she could feel them nearby. When she gasped and opened her eyes again, Lu immediately came to a standstill.

“They're here,” Becky said. “I'm sure of it.”

It wasn't the only house on the street with a
FOR SALE
sign outside, but she didn't pay any attention to the others. She'd hopped clear of the rickshaw and hurried through the creaky
iron gate before I could read the number on the door. I was about to follow her when Mr. October caught my arm.

“Wait.”

“What's wrong?”

“They may not be alone,” he said. “If the enemy found the children first and are keeping them here, they won't give them up easily. Best be prepared.” He leaned to one side, into shadow, emerging in a different guise, that of the swarthy pirate. “In case of trouble. That old body isn't up to the task.”

Becky was at the front door now, jiggling the handle as if she thought brute force would unlock it. I ran up the path to her.

“It might be better if you wait out here,” I said.

“Why should I?”

“There are things I haven't had time to tell you yet. It could be dangerous.”

“You're full of surprises. What next — monsters and bogeymen?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at me in disbelief.

“At least wait till we've checked it out,” I said. “If it's all clear, I'll call you.”

“But I followed you all that way just to tell you. I brought you to their door. You wouldn't be here without me.”

“That's teamwork,” Mr. October said. “It doesn't matter who plays what part, as long as the job gets done.” He edged toward us on the path, the Y standing out on his forehead. “Are we agreed?”

“Agreed,” Becky said reluctantly. “I suppose.”

“Good. Then I'll proceed.”

He lifted a hand to the door and pressed his palm against it, bowing his head as if in deep thought.

“Now,” he said.

Thud.
The tumbler lock clicked open.

Clink-clank.
Then the two dead bolts below it.

He gave the handle a sharp turn and push. The door swung open a fraction, then jarred and held fast.

“Security chain on the inside,” he said. “Then they're not alone. They have watchers. Lu?”

I pulled Becky aside as Lu advanced up the path, swiveled back on one heel, and aimed a high kick at the door. The door flew open with a crunch of splintering wood.

“Remember what I said,” I told Becky.

She nodded, clearly unhappy, and stood back as I followed the others inside.

Apart from the cold — and it was freezing in there — the first thing I noticed was a weird indoor mist. It covered the floor like fog from dry ice, swirling around us up to our shins. There were several points of glowing light inside it, beams skipping to and fro like searchlights.

We waded through the mist along a darkened hall, passing a set of stairs on the right. At the far end, an arched doorway framed a view of the moonlit kitchen.

Everything in the kitchen had a silvery sheen. To the left, the back door's glass panels hinted at the shadowy garden outside. The door had a cat flap set into its base, barely visi
ble through the mist. Off to the right, outside the main window, a black skeletal tree swayed in the night air, the tip of its longest limb scraping the glass.

“Nothing down here,” I said, testing a light switch. The electricity must have been cut off.

“Don't be so certain,” Mr. October said.

He stood inside the archway, listening.

Silence — no, not quite silence. Apart from the familiar noises of a house settling by night — ticking beams and joists and floorboards — there was a deep, slow-building rumble, more a vibration than a sound, like that of an underground train passing directly under us.

“Shifters,” Lu whispered.

“Shifters,” Mr. October agreed.

Past him I could see Becky at the front door, half inside and half out, straining to hold herself back. Some of the mist was escaping the house, flowing around her ankles.

“Upstairs,” she called, skipping away from it. “I think they're up there. Check there first . . . but wait.”

“What for?” I asked.

“Careful. There's something inside the mist.”

She'd only just spoken when a slick, dark shape fluttered past my feet, crossing between two points of light. It looked more like a tadpole than anything, and was followed by another, larger dark form roughly the size of an eel. I stepped aside from it, remembering the creature sliding into the canal near the bridge.

The tree scraped the kitchen window, sounding like claws
feeling for a way in. The cat flap opened and closed with a dull thump. What I saw coming through it made the breath seize up in my chest. First one, then another, then a whole torrent, more than sixty of them before I lost count. To anyone else they might've looked like ordinary cats, but to me they were more like the thing that turned itself into a cat seconds before Mr. October threw the fireball. They moved silently and gracefully, as if their bodies were boneless. One by one they shot indoors, landed without a sound, and slid headlong into the mist, out of sight.

“Shifters,” Lu repeated. “Watchers. Demons.”

“Go to Becky,” Mr. October ordered me. “You're not ready for this yet.”

He pushed me away from the kitchen into the hall. The mist swept around our legs, alive with darting eel-shaped shadows under its frosty pale surface. The Shifters had entered the kitchen in feline form but now they'd become something else.

“Lu, mind the door,” Mr. October said. “Any others you see coming in, zap them. Ben, what did I tell you? Go to the front.”

He sounded calm, fully in control, and I was glad to think that someone was. My nerves were squirming like rats in a sack.

As I started back along the hall, the first of the Shifters leapt from its cover of mist and straight at Mr. October. He caught it one-handed in midflight. It twisted, shiny and glistening in his grasp, its black stubby head snapping at him.
Then it suddenly stopped moving, stiffening as if turning to stone. Bracing his shoulder, Mr. October brought it back in a wide arc and hurled it at the wall above the sink where it hit the tiles, shattering into a thousand pieces.

Another one surfaced nearer the back door where Lu had positioned herself. It reared up above her and tilted back its head, glaring down at her with six dead, black eyes, forked tongue flicking. Lu made a very slight but intricate movement with her hand, just an upward flick of the wrist. As she did, the creature's head parted company with its stalk-like neck, sliced away with one clean sweep of Lu's invisible weapon. The head flopped back into the mist; the body sank lifelessly after it.

“Ben, watch out!” Becky called from the front door.

A third creature had broken cover, rearing up right behind me. I bolted away down the hall, sidestepping the growing number of shapes flitting around my ankles. The rumbling sound was louder now; the house was shaking around us. I heard Becky's voice reach toward me through the dark, a small surprised gasp followed by the slam of the front door blowing shut.

She'd tumbled inside just in time.

“I'm OK,” she said. “The children . . . Let's go for them now. It's our best chance, while those things are being kept busy in there.”

She nodded toward the kitchen, where Mr. October was aiming a forefinger at a creature snaking up one wall, readying himself to launch another fireball.

“Well, are you coming?” she said indignantly, already on her way upstairs.

The mist followed us all the way up, brushing our heels. At the top, moonlight flooded the landing from the open bathroom door. Two other doors faced each other from opposite ends of the landing, both closed. The children had to be behind one of them.

“The one on the left?” I guessed.

“No, the one on the right,” Becky said, starting toward it.

She arrived ahead of me but waited until I caught up. She gave me a nod that seemed to say yes, she was sure. I threw the door open and we peered inside.

On a single bed in the corner, Molly and Mitch huddled together among a mound of quilted pillows and throws. There was nothing else in the room. The air had a hazy look and smelled faintly of soot. The children looked up, trembling, their faces and nightclothes darkly smudged. Mitch still held his teddy bear, and for the first time I noticed one of its ears was missing. As he sat up, the bear fell upside down at his side, giving out a gentle rattling growl.

“Do you know where you are?” I asked them.

“It's not our house anymore,” Molly said. “They're making us stay but we don't want to be here.”

A confusion of shouts and crashes traveled up from downstairs. Something exploded against a wall.

“Can you see them?” I asked Becky.

She nodded. “Sort of. Not too well. I see traces of light and I hear them, though.”

“Would you like to come with us?” I asked the kids. “We'll take you away from here if you like.”

Mitch rolled off the bed and came forward first, rubbing his eyes. “I'll go.”

After a brief hesitation, Molly followed. They stood before us, grubby and forlorn, flinching at a sudden caterwaul from the kitchen.

“We won't see Mummy and Daddy again, will we?” Molly said. “It's all right, though; we know what happened.”

“You'll see them, you just won't be able to stay with them like before,” Becky said. “Do you know who's been keeping you here?”

Molly studied the bare wooden boards under her feet. “They're not nice to us. We don't know their names, and their faces keep changing.”

“Don't let them come back,” Mitch pleaded.

The mayhem downstairs — a series of crashes, a piercing scream — threw an urgent note into Becky's voice. “You're safe with us, but we have to go now.”

“Follow her,” I said, ushering them past me. “Just stay with her. I'll be behind you all the way.”

They hesitated at the doorway, looking out. Becky moved to the stairs, waving them to her.

“It's all right,” she said. “It'll be fine now. Just come this way.”

The children exchanged a glance, nodded in silent agreement, then started along the landing together, Mitch dragging the bear behind him by its one ear.

“That's good,” I said, but I didn't like the look of the mist. There were rapid movements close to its surface, and something cold and jellylike slid past my shin. “Don't even look, kids. Only a few steps down and you're out of here.”

By the time I reached the stairs, Becky was three-quarters of the way down with the Willow children close behind. A smell of burning and something else, something rotten and poisonous, drifted toward me. It took me a few seconds to realize the house had fallen silent.

“Mr. October?” I called. “Everything OK down there?”

His reply was a long time coming. “It's all clear, but keep your eyes open. There may be others. And if you're coming down, I suggest you avert your eyes. It's a wee bit messy in here. What about the children?”

“We've got them,” Becky called from the front door, the children at her heels. “They're fine. I'm taking them out.”