Wrath of the Grinning Ghost (14 page)

As Fergie joined them, Brewster soared high over the pass and landed on the path in front of him. He gestured, and the three friends began to climb down the steep path. Behind them, Johnny heard one of the creatures say, "LOT OF NUNS AROUND LATELY. SUPPOSE THERE'S A CONVENTION OR SOMETHING?"

He did not hear the response.

They rounded a sharp curve, and Johnny took a deep breath. Not far ahead, the pathway leveled out. It led across a dismal flat expanse of bare black rock. And in the distance lay a castle straight out of a fever dream. It seemed close, but that was only because of its immensity. Spires rose and sent out shoots that became turrets, towers, and parapets. Walls ascended at crazy angles and lost themselves in a wilderness of obelisks, caryatids, and columns. It looked like the kind of structure that, on earth, a million groaning slaves would have to work on for six hundred years. Its walls were a deep, dusky brown, but not a window looked out of that terrible structure.

"My dad is in there?" asked Johnny, feeling like bawling. "How will we ever find him?"

"You will find him," Brewster assured him in a somber voice. "That won't be the problem. You have to be prepared to—" Suddenly his head snapped around. "Fly!" he screeched, sounding terrified. "Fly!
The minions of Nyarlat-Hotep are upon you!"

And rising from unseen hiding places all across the plain, dozens of nightmares sprang up howling.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

To Roderick Childermass, the oncoming army was a body of German soldiers from World War I, gripping their rifles and lowering their heads with their spiked helmets gleaming as they ran. He retreated, trying to find some cover. The sharp cough of a machine gun rattled away to one side. The screams of incoming artillery shells wailed overhead. He scrambled to find shelter.

Then he heard a woman's voice call, "Roderick! Help me, please!"

He gasped and turned, his eyes wide in disbelief. The German soldiers had formed a line. They had raised their rifles. They were pointing them at a slim, beautiful woman who stood in front of a pitted, bullet-riddled wall. "Yvette?" asked the professor. "You're dead!"

"You let them kill me," the woman said in French. "You are a coward! You were always a coward!"

The professor covered his face with trembling hands. He began to sob. "You betrayed me!" he said, his voice muffled. "I thought you were working for our side, and I fell in love with you. You tried to turn me over to the Germans!"

"You ran away!" the woman screamed. "You left me to die in your place! You coward! You despicable coward!"

Professor Childermass gave one wrenching, deep sob. Then he dropped his hands, his eyes streaming tears. "You are not real! You were a German spy, and you died nearly forty years ago!" He drew his Knights of Columbus sword. "Coward, am I? Charge!"

And swinging the sword in a wild arc, he ran right for the astonished line of German soldiers. They jerked their rifles toward him, but too late! He was among them, the sword whistling and screeching as if it had a life of its own! Left and right, he slashed and hacked—

But the sword touched no flesh. The soldiers melted away, becoming mist. Mocking, booming laughter filled the air. Panting, the professor turned to face the woman. She stood straight and tall before the bullet-pocked wall. "Old fool!" she screamed. "Welcome to the Palace of Dreadful Night! You are the captive of Nyarlat-Hotep, the Goat with a Thousand Young!"

"I'll settle your hash, you—you infernal illusion," growled Professor Childermass, rushing toward the figure in white.

Before he got to her, she changed, her features flowing and reforming. Now she was a skeleton, with bones barely concealed by a horrible tight covering of yellow, parchmentlike dried skin. It grinned at him, a taunting red light in the depths of its eye sockets. "Idiot!" it said. "Weakling! You are nothing against me!"

Professor Childermass swung the sword. It passed through the space where the creature had stood not a second before. Now it was just empty air. The sword struck sparks from the wall—

And the professor found himself all alone in the dark. Or had he been struck blind? The darkness was so complete, he could not tell.

* * *

Fergie saw them coming for him—a legion of boys bigger and stronger than he was, sneering at him. They wore leather jackets and were pounding their fists into the palms of their hands. "Hey, sissy!" one of them yelled. "Yeah, you! We're gonna pound you good! We're gonna smash you right into th' ground! An' then we're gonna go to your house an' beat up your old man and your mama. How ya like that, baby?"

"You leave them alone!" screamed Fergie in fear and outrage. "You think you're strong enough to fight me? Just come on, you cheap hoods! But leave my folks alone!"

"His dad's a failure," another one said with an evil snicker. "He worked for th' same comp'ny twenny years an' only got one promotion! An' his mom's a real slob. She—"

"Shut up!" Fergie yelled. "Shut up, you!"

They all laughed at him. The laughter hit him like a million tiny daggers, plunging into him, piercing his defenses, and letting all his courage pour out. He sank to his knees, sobbing.

"Crybaby!" the hoods began to chant as they encircled him. "Crybaby, crybaby!"

Fergie groaned. They were right. He had always tried to act tough, but he was soft inside. And he had been ashamed of his family. When he was little, they had been so poor. And his father was such a meek man, and his mother was so thin and worried all the time—

"It was just a front, huh, tough guy?" asked a snarling voice. Fergie looked up. A skeleton stood in front of him, a skeleton wearing a studded leather jacket. Its face was like that of a mummy, bone beneath a drum-tight layer of withered yellow skin. Its grin was sardonic and evil, and red hatred smoldered in the depths of its hollow eye sockets. "All that athletic ability and all that tough talk. You're nothin' but a sissy, Ferguson! In fact, you're nothin' at all!"

Fergie felt like sinking into the ground. But then, deep inside himself, he found a hot red spark of anger. He concentrated on it, and it burst into flames.

With a wordless roar, Fergie sprang to his feet. "Come on!" he bellowed. "Yah, you talk big, but come on! Let's see whatcha got, you bag o' bones! You think you can take me? Give it a try, baby! Just give it a try!"

With a shout, the hoods leaped at him. Fergie fought back with fists and feet, punching and kicking wildly. None of his blows connected. They went right through his enemies, and they popped like soap bubbles until only the skeleton was left standing. Fergie stood exhausted and panting.

"You are mine," said the skeleton, its mesmerizing, evil smile becoming wider. "I think I shall take away your mind and leave you a thrashing, babbling hulk! Come in, fool! Come into the Palace of Dreadful Night!"

And immediately, Fergie found himself in utter darkness. "Johnny?" he shouted, absolutely terrified. "Professor?"

The endless night swallowed up his words. It swallowed him.

* * *

Johnny fled from everything he had ever been afraid of. Enormous insects pursued him, hopping, flopping, moaning, buzzing, their terrible scratchy legs scrabbling the ground. People with their jaws locked open ran bawling after him, trying to infect him with tetanus. Formless things screeched and gibbered, their blobby bodies blossoming with eyes, with gaping mouths, with clutching claws that dissolved immediately.

He was among the endless pillars, towers, and turrets of the castle. He screamed as he ran, feeling ashamed of his own cowardice. But he could not, he could not stand and face those frightful things. Somehow he saw a doorway right in front of him, a high, sharply arched opening. He barreled through it, into the dark.

And there was light.

It was dim, it was pale, and it came from far ahead, but it was blessed, welcome light. Johnny staggered toward it on legs that almost refused to carry him. He could not stop gulping and panting.

He blundered into his father's hospital room.

"Dad!" yelled Johnny.

His father opened his eyes. They were horrible. They were black pools, just like the vision he had seen.

"You let me die," his father said.

Johnny sank to the floor, unable to stand up. "No," he said weakly.

"Yes!" said Major Dixon. "And because you are such a sniveling coward, your grandmother and grandfather will die! And Father Higgins! And Sarah, your friend! And it's all your fault! All yours!"

Johnny could not stand it. He screamed in agony. And then he heard the monstrous, evil laughter.

The figure in the bed stood, and it became the grinning ghost of Damon Boudron. "Fool!" it shouted in triumph. "Pitiful fool! Don't you even realize what has happened? I have your father's soul captive here, in my palace. But he would not surrender to me! So I lured you here—you and those meddling friends of yours! Now they will die, and you will watch as they do. And then I will give your wretched father a simple choice: Bow to me, or watch me torture you to madness, death, and even worse. Which choice will he take, do you think? Will the brave Major Dixon sacrifice himself for his only son? Of course he will! You have given the universe to me, John Dixon! I have won!"

The frightful fiend strode closer and closer. It reached out a bony hand to grasp Johnny's arm. He could stand it no longer. Johnny fainted dead away.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Johnny?"

Johnny opened his eyes. It was his father's voice. But he could see only darkness. "D-Dad?"

The major's voice was unbearably weary: "He told me you were here."

"I c-came to help you, Dad. I'm so s-sorry."

For a long time Johnny was afraid that his father was gone. Then, his tired, tortured voice once more broke the silence: "That's all right, Old Scout."

Johnny lay on a cold stone floor. He pushed himself up and groped with his hands. He had a terror now of tumbling into a deep hole, like the one in Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum." And there were rats in that story too, and red-hot walls. Johnny groaned. Was there nothing that he wasn't afraid of?

"Johnny?"

Another voice, from far away. "P-Professor?"

"Hang on," said the professor's voice. "I've given up cigarettes, but I still have my faithful Nimrod lighter."

A glimmer of light! "I see you!" Johnny yelled. "Dad? Where are you?"

"I don't know," said his father. "I can't move, anyway. You go, Johnny. Get away from this terrible place."

"Not without you," replied Johnny. He struck out for the little spark of light. "I'm coming, Professor," he shouted.

From a long way off, Fergie yelled, "Me too, Prof!"

"Hurry!" called Professor Childermass. "This thing burns fuel like crazy!"

Fergie and Johnny reached the professor at almost the same instant. The old man let his lighter go out, but in the dark he threw an arm around each boy's shoulders. "I thought we were all goners," he said. "Now where are we? And what's the next step?"

"Prof, where's Brewster?" asked Fergie. "Seems to me we need light right now, an' one of his tricks is to shed light on any situation."

"Brewster!" called Professor Childermass. "Did you hear that?"

A moment later a pink glow surrounded them. Brewster himself was invisible, but his raspy voice said sullenly, "I'm in the soup with you now. Here's your light. Not that I think it will help much!"

Johnny looked around. They seemed to be in a vast

cavern, so big that neither walls nor ceiling was visible. The floor they stood on was a dead flat black. Really, all they could see was each other.

"Any suggestions, Brewster?" asked the professor.

"Just one," returned Brewster's voice. "Remember, Nyarlat-Hotep has taken on material form from your world. What is material can be destroyed. But watch out! He will try to terrify you by throwing your worst fears right back at you!"

"Tell me about that," groused Fergie. "So what do we do about it?"

Slowly, Johnny said, "I think we have to get rid of all our fear. We have to concentrate on things that will keep that out of our mind. Things like, well, our friendship. And our families."

"Right you are," said the professor. "Well, kiddies, it's time to find our playmate. Let's go!"

They walked carefully through the darkness, surrounded by a moving pool of pink light provided by Brewster. Before long they came to a double row of pillars, each one about fifteen feet high. They were thin, with Corinthian crowns, and atop each one perched a human skull. The professor counted them. "Twelve," he declared fiercely. "It's plain that this is Boudron's trophy room. These are the remains of his first twelve sacrifices. Let's see what we can do about this." He shoved at one of the pillars. "Give me—umph!—a little help here, please!"

Johnny and Fergie put their shoulders to the pillar. It was made of what felt like corroded iron. After two hard shoves it fell over, crashing into the next pillar. That one hit the next in line, like a row of dominoes, until six had collapsed with an unholy clatter. Then they overthrew the columns on the right. "Okay," panted Fergie. "What did that do?"

"It made me feel better!" roared the professor. "Now, let's see what is at the top of that stairway!"

"What stairway?" asked Johnny, but then he saw it. Just past the place where the last pillars had toppled, a huge staircase began. The stairs had to be a hundred feet broad, and they climbed up into empty darkness. The three began to ascend.

It seemed to take forever. Johnny's legs felt dead. Finally he stumbled against the professor and realized they were no longer climbing. "Oh, saints of mercy!" muttered the professor. "Don't look, Johnny!"

But it was too late. With a cry of horror, Johnny saw what lay ahead. In a lurid wash of red light, he could see a wall. A wall made up of black stone, with the bones and skulls of human beings embedded in it. And in the center of the red light, like a performer on some gruesome stage, was Johnny's father.