Sky Wolves (19 page)

‘Of course not,’ said Sam, and he sank miserably on to the nearest chair.

‘You’re soaked through. What on earth have you been doing?’ Then, for the first time, she noticed how miserable he looked. ‘Sam – what is it?’ she said, crouching down next to him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Jenny’s gone,’ said Sam, and he put his head on his arms and wept.

‘Gone?’ his mother said stupidly. ‘Gone where?’

But Sam was too distressed to point out that if he knew that, he could go and get her.

‘Oh, Sam,’ his mother said reproachfully. ‘You didn’t let her off the lead, did you?’

‘NO!’ shouted Sam. ‘She wasn’t in when I got here!’

‘All right, all right,’ said his mother, standing up. She gazed distractedly out of the window. ‘This storm’s getting worse,’ she said.

‘I know,’ sobbed Sam. ‘And Jenny’s out in it. Mum, you’ve got to help me look for her.’

‘Not in this, Sam,’ said his mother. ‘We’ll have to wait until the storm’s died down.’

Sam begged and pleaded, but his mother remained firm.

‘She’ll probably make her own way back,’ she said. ‘Dogs do.’

‘She won’t – I know she won’t!’ bawled Sam.

In the end, to console him, his mother said that they would write out some cards for shop windows and take them to the shops in the morning.

‘Now!’ said Sam. ‘I want to take them now!’

So they wrote out five cards with this message:

LOST

One Jack Russell terrier, white with brown markings.

Answers to the name of Jenny.

If found, please return to –

And his mother went with him to the shops, though by this time the storm was so bad that they could hardly see.

Then there was nothing to do except stay in, listening to the wind shriek and moan and hailstones batter themselves against the windows. The telly went fuzzy and wouldn’t work. Sam couldn’t concentrate on his homework and didn’t want any tea. He went to bed early and lay awake for a long time, worrying about Jenny, before he fell asleep.

Late in the night he woke, thinking immediately of Jenny, and his heart sank all over again when he realized she wasn’t there. He also realized he was very cold. The heating
must have gone off. But he wanted to get up, to check downstairs, just in case she had somehow found her way back. He reached out for his dressing gown and his hand fell on a mass of hairy wool. It was the jumper his aunts had knitted for him; it must have fallen out when he was looking for something else.

Normally, of course, Sam wouldn’t be caught dead in that jumper. But right now he didn’t care. He tugged it on, feeling a strange tingling sensation like an electric shock as he did so, and trotted downstairs in his slippers, calling Jenny’s name softly.

There was no response. The house still felt empty without her. Dejected, Sam was about to turn round again and climb the stairs, when he saw a coloured light gleaming through the glass of the back door. He opened the door and gasped.

There, in the darkness and fallen snow of the back yard, was a rainbow. Sam had never seen a rainbow up close before and certainly not in his back yard. All the colours gleamed and shone, from deepest violet to a bright, pure red, illuminating the yard and curving away from him.

Sam could suddenly see that the rainbow was a bridge and that it would take him to where he needed to go. A wild hope flared in him that it would take him to Jenny. He glanced back over his shoulder for a moment, but decided that he couldn’t possibly tell his mother. She would never let him set off alone in the middle of the night, crossing a strange rainbow. He closed the door softly behind him and stepped into the yard. All the rainbow colours glowed softly, invitingly, as he took his first step on to the mysterious bridge.

Boris landed first, and the impact seemed to drive all four paws into his skull. Although the earth was soft, like ashes, he lay where he was for a moment, completely winded. His stomach didn’t seem to have landed yet and there was a rushing noise inside his head. He had just about summoned the energy to suck in some air when Checkers landed on him, effectively pumping it out again.

‘Ppphhnngggh,’ said Boris.

‘Boris?’ said Checkers, then, ‘Boris! Boris – where are you?
Bor – is!
’

Boris knew he had to stop Checkers shouting. But there was no breath left in his body.

‘BORIS!’ yelled Checkers. ‘I’m OK. I’ve landed on something soft!’

‘I know,’ Boris managed to say at last. ‘Me.’

Checkers scrambled off him. ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

‘No,’ said Boris shortly, struggling to his feet.

‘That was some fall, wasn’t it? How far do you think we fell? Thousands of kilometres, I shouldn’t wonder. How do you suppose we get out again? Where is this place?’

Boris couldn’t answer any of these questions. Impulses
were reaching his brain but failing to connect. With a sickening lurch, he realized his stomach had landed after all. He opened his eyes and wondered why he still couldn’t see anything. A single message began the long trek along his optic nerve to his brain, then flailed around hopelessly before finally fizzling out.

‘I don’t know,’ he said finally.

‘Well – I hope we’re not stuck here,’ said Checkers. ‘What happens next? Where do we have to go? Do you think this is where the Guardian lives? And if so – how do we find him?’

Boris wasn’t good with questions at the best of times. He shook his ears and a shower of soot fell out. Then he spat what felt like soot and ashes out of his mouth.

‘I mean, if he’s a Guardian,’ Checkers said, ‘then he’ll be guarding something, won’t he? We’ll probably bump into him sooner or later. Do you think we’ll recognize him when we do? Maybe we should just set off and see what happens. But which way?’

‘Checkers,’ said Boris.

‘Yes, Boris?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Oh,’ said Checkers. ‘Right.’ And he managed to stay silent for almost a minute, while Boris tried to think. Then he said, ‘Can you hear a rushing noise in your ears?’

If Checkers could hear it too, Boris thought, then there were two possibilities. Either it was the effects of the fall, popping their eardrums until it sounded as though two very small brass bands had become lodged inside their skulls, or else it was…

‘A river!’ cried Checkers, and he bounded off.

Boris sighed the sigh of the unutterably depressed. He had no choice but to run after Checkers. He didn’t want to lose him in this place.

There was a dim and fitful light from an unseen source, as though they were travelling through a very dark wood on a windy night, with the only light coming from a tiny moon that had developed blood pressure and was emitting a reddish glow. But all around them was the stench of decay, as though no wind had blown in this place for thousands of years. Yet the noise did seem to be the sound of a river, moving slowly and inexorably, and mixed in with it were the sounds of voices yowling and gibbering.

Checkers stopped suddenly and Boris fell over him.

‘I don’t think much of this place,’ he said. ‘Where are all the ice-cream vans? And the rabbits?’

Patiently, Boris started to explain that there were no ice-cream vans in the underworld, that had just been the Harpies luring them in, but Checkers crouched suddenly to the floor.

‘What’s that?’ he whispered in a hushed and terrified voice.

‘What?’ said Boris, unnerved.

‘Can’t you see them?’ Checkers moaned. ‘Oh, they’re horrible – horrible. Don’t let them get me!’

‘What?’ said Boris again. ‘Where?’ Fearfully, he looked all around. He couldn’t see anything. But Checkers went on whining and cringing, and Boris could get no sense out of him.

‘There it is again!’ moaned Checkers, flattening himself further.

‘Checkers,’ Boris said, ‘what is it? I can’t see anything.’

They were on a kind of road with tall rocks on either side. Ahead, in the distance, the darkness seemed to be moving, and Boris thought that must be the river. A murky fog swirled round it.

‘Oh, stop them!’ Checkers whimpered. ‘They’ve seen us now. We’re lost – lost, I tell you! Doomed.’

‘Stop
what?
’ said Boris, losing patience.

‘Them,’
moaned Checkers. ‘Look!’

‘Checkers,’ said Boris, ‘you do know that your eyes are shut, don’t you?’

‘They can’t be,’ said Checkers.

‘They are,’ said Boris. ‘And anyway, there’s nothing there.’

‘Can’t you see them?’ said Checkers. ‘Monstrous beasts. Fluttering phantoms. Lots of legs and arms. Far too many heads. More than you’d want. It can’t be useful, having that many heads. All their tongues lolling out and their eyes dangling. You
must
be able to see that!’

‘No,’ said Boris.

Then he too shut his eyes and, surprisingly, he saw a small mass of something glowing and quivering. With a lurch of horror, he realized it was one of Mrs Finnegan’s experimental meals. It seemed to have come to life and was beckoning him. It was making slurping and sucking noises, though it had no lips, and was wriggling suggestively. His eyes shot open again in dismay.

‘Told you,’ said Checkers, whose eyes were still firmly shut.

Boris swallowed nervously. He shut his eyes again. There were more of them now – the turnip and mung bean
surprise slithering over the rocks towards him, the squid custard dribbling menacingly near his feet. Boris shuddered all over. They meant to eat him, he thought suddenly. There were hundreds of them – every foul meal he had ever digested, returning to take its revenge.

‘Don’t let them get me!’ whimpered Checkers.

Boris forced himself to open his eyes. Instantly the food disappeared. It occurred to him that he and Checkers were seeing different phantoms. With his eyes shut, Checkers was seeing hideous forms and grotesque monsters, while he, Boris, was seeing Mrs Finnegan’s experimental cookery. Boris had a rush of insight, which was such a new experience that he had to sit down.

‘Checkers,’ he said, ‘open your eyes.’

‘Oh, I can’t look!’ whined Checkers.

‘Open them!’ Boris said sternly.

Wincing and flinching, Checkers opened his eyes. ‘I can’t see anything!’ he said in a different tone of voice.

‘No,’ said Boris. ‘That’s because nothing’s there.’

‘But I saw –’

‘You saw your own fear,’ said Boris. ‘That’s what fear does – it makes you look away. When you look straight at it, it disappears.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Checkers.

‘Just keep your eyes open, whatever happens,’ said Boris. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of except your own fear.’

With a show of determination he did not feel, Boris set off, expecting at any moment to be attacked by a prawn and parsnip pie. Cautiously, still cowering, Checkers followed Boris as he picked his way over stones and clumps of what might have been dead things. The noise of the
river grew louder and the soft earth changed to the mud of the river bed.

A signpost read:
STYX, RIVER OF DOOM
. Someone had crossed out
DOOM
and written
DESPAIR
on it instead, and someone had crossed that out and written
DEATH
. On the other side of the sign, it read:
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
. Fortunately, neither dog could read. But as they looked at the river, they got the general idea.

It didn’t so much
flow
as
slurp,
and again Boris was reminded sharply of Mrs Finnegan’s experimental cookery. It was greenish brown, like her pudding, and from time to time menacing bubbles broke the surface, expelling noxious vapours into the reeking air. It looked as if some enormous giant had blown his nose, discharging a boiling river of snot into the oozing bed.

‘Right,’ said Checkers, peering worriedly over Boris’s shoulder. ‘Er – you first.’

Boris stared at him.

‘You can swim better than me,’ said Checkers, though he had the grace to look a little shamefaced, since this was a direct lie.

‘I don’t think we’re meant to
swim
it,’ said Boris, shuddering. ‘Don’t we have to wait for the ferryman?’

‘The ferryman?’ said Checkers. ‘You mean the grumpy old cove who’s been in a bad mood since before the dawn of time?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Boris. ‘I think we’re supposed to give him this.’ He jerked his head to dislodge the flowering branch, which, miraculously, was still tucked inside his collar. It straggled and drooped from his mouth, looking, if not dead, then at least deeply depressed.

‘What are we supposed to do with that?’ hissed Checkers. ‘Beat him with it?’

But before Boris could answer, there was a roar from far out on the river.

‘You there – whoever you are – take not another step! This place belongs to the shades!’

Checkers shot backwards, barking furiously. Boris quivered all over but stood his ground. He could dimly see, through the swirling mists, a black speck that was getting larger. Soon it was large enough for him to make out the figure of an ancient man, standing in a boat that seemed to have been sewn together from the skins of long-dead creatures and plying a pole through the turgid water. He was filthy and ragged, but his eyes burned like coals. The sound of wailing and lament accompanied him as he pressed his way through the foul slime, and, as Black Shuck had warned them, he did seem to be in a shockingly bad mood, though this was hardly surprising, Boris thought, if he had been stuck in this unpleasant working environment for all eternity.

‘Who dares to trespass in the groves of doom?’
he roared as he approached, and both dogs finally got a good look at him.

In fact, it was a much better look than either of them wanted. He was as skinny as Famine and a tattered beard hung down to his bony knees, which protruded through the rags he was wearing. His fingers resembled the yellowing claws of a bird of prey and, deep in their bony sockets, his eyes glowed red. But he had a good, strong voice, like the bellows of a furnace.

‘Speak!’
he roared.
‘I am Charon, ferryman to the dead!’

Boris had forgotten what he wanted to say. But Checkers, who felt ashamed of his impulse to run, managed to say, in an unnaturally squeaky voice, ‘Can we have a lift?’