HarperCollins Children’s Books

Copyright

First published in paperback in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

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Text copyright © Barry Hutchison 2009

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Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007358274

Version 2018-06-27

Dedication

To Fiona. My best friend (real, not imagined).

Will you marry me?

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Thirty-Four Days Earlier…

Chapter One — Jingle Hell

Chapter Two — A Forgotten Friend

Chapter Three — Ghosts of The Past

Chapter Four — The Return

Chapter Five — A New Friend

Chapter Six — Trapped Like Rats

Chapter Seven — The Best Form of Defence

Chapter Eight — Moving The Donkey

Chapter Nine — The Darkest Corners

Chapter Ten — The First Meeting

Chapter Eleven — The Boy in Blue

Chapter Twelve — The Get Away

Chapter Thirteen — A Note from The Past

Chapter Fourteen — Revelations

Chapter Fifteen — The Truth

Chapter Sixteen — Where It All Began

Chapter Seventeen — Water Water Everywhere

Chapter Eighteen — Faith

Chapter Nineteen — A Fight to The Death

Chapter Twenty — Not The End

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

What had I expected to see? I wasn’t sure. An empty street. One or two late-night wanderers, maybe.

But not this. Never this.

There were hundreds of them. Thousands. They scuttled and scurried through the darkness, swarming over the village like an infection; relentless and unstoppable.

I leaned closer to the window and looked down at the front of the hospital. One of the larger creatures was tearing through the fence, its claws slicing through the wrought-iron bars as if they were cardboard. My breath fogged the glass and the monster vanished behind a cloud of condensation. By the time the pane cleared the thing would be inside the hospital. It would be up the stairs in moments. Everyone in here was as good as dead.

The distant thunder of gunfire ricocheted from somewhere near the village centre. A scream followed – short and sharp, then suddenly silenced. There were no more gunshots after that, just the triumphant roar of something sickening and grotesque.

I heard Ameena take a step closer behind me. I didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know how terrified she was. The crack in her voice said it all.

‘It’s the same everywhere,’ she whispered.

I nodded, slowly. ‘The town as well?’

She hesitated long enough for me to realise what she meant. I turned away from the devastation outside. ‘Wait…You really mean everywhere, don’t you?’

Her only reply was a single nod of her head.

‘Liar!’ I snapped. It couldn’t be true. This couldn’t be happening.

She stooped and picked up the TV remote from the day-room coffee table. It shook in her hand as she held it out to me.

‘See for yourself.’

Hesitantly, I took the remote. ‘What channel?’

She glanced at the ceiling, steadying her voice. ‘Any of them.’

The old television set gave a faint clunk as I switched it on. In a few seconds, an all-too-familiar scene appeared.

Hundreds of the creatures. Cars and buildings ablaze. People screaming. People running. People dying.

Hell on Earth.

‘That’s New York,’ she said.

Click. Another channel, but the footage was almost identical.

‘London.’

Click.

‘I’m…I’m not sure. Somewhere in Japan. Tokyo, maybe?’

It could have been Tokyo, but then again it could have been anywhere. I clicked through half a dozen more channels, but the images were always the same.

‘It happened,’ I gasped. ‘It actually happened.’

I turned back to the window and gazed out. The clouds above the next town were tinged with orange and red. It was already burning. They were destroying everything, just like he’d told me they would.

This was it.

The world was ending.

Armageddon.

And it was all my fault.

THIRTY-FOUR DAYS EARLIER…

Chapter One JINGLE HELL

If Nan had made the joke about the frosted glass once, she’d made it a hundred times. It wasn’t even very funny the first time round.

‘Look, Kyle,’ she’d say between tracks of the cheesy Christmas hits CD she was inflicting on me, ‘the glass in the windows is more frosted up than the frosted glass in the door!’

The first few times I laughed. The next few I smiled and nodded. By the seventh time I’d taken to ignoring her completely. It was the only way she was going to learn.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t like my nan. She’s actually pretty cool most of the time. For a seventy-four-year-old with two plastic hips, anyway. It’s just that her mind plays tricks on her sometimes.

Up until I was about six or seven, Nan used to stay here in the house with us. It was Nan, Mum and me, all living together and getting along fine.

Then one day Nan forgot her name. It just popped right out of her head one morning, and she had to ask Mum what it was. The whole thing seemed hilarious to me at the time, though Nan and Mum didn’t see the funny side.

Everything was OK again for a while, then Nan started to get more and more confused. She’d wake up in the night and not know where she was. Some days she’d believe she was a little girl again, dodging the bombs in the Second World War.

One time she thought I’d vanished. For three whole days she couldn’t see or hear me, even when I was standing right in front of her, waving my arms and shouting. It freaked Mum out. After that, the doctor said it was best if she didn’t live with us any more.

The home Mum found for her seemed quite nice. Everyone there was friendly, and Nan seemed happy enough. She still spends every Christmas Day with us, but I don’t get to see her much apart from that. The doctor says she’s getting more and more confused with every day that passes, so she’s pretty much confined to the home all year round. She doesn’t seem to mind.

Her ‘confusion’ was why she kept repeating the joke about the frosted glass over and over. Well, that and the fact she’d had four sherries in forty minutes.

When Nan wasn’t making wisecracks about the temperature she was grinning like a maniac, and watching me play with the action figures she’d given me. Every year I try to explain that I haven’t played with action figures since I was five. Every year she buys me more.

Last year it was Power Rangers. The year before that it was Spider-Man. The years before that? I can’t remember. I had no idea who this year’s merry band of misfits were, either. One looked like a cat dressed as a cowboy. If I kind of closed one eye and tilted my head to the side another one looked like a monkey in a dress. A bit.

I did my best to look excited for Nan’s sake, and smacked them against each other a few times as if they were fighting. Even now, with all the crazy stuff I’ve seen in the past few hours, I can’t think of many reasons why a cowboy cat would be fighting a monkey in a dress. It seemed to make Nan happy, though, so I kept it up until she started snoring her head off in front of the fire.

With Nan asleep I was free to go and check out the smell that had been wafting in from the kitchen for the last twenty minutes. Mum was making Christmas lunch for the three of us, and I could hardly wait.

Usually Mum’s cooking was something to be avoided. Feared, even. For a woman who could burn a boiled egg, though, she somehow always managed to make a mean turkey with all the trimmings come December 25th. It was her own kind of Christmas magic. Not as spectacular as flying around the world in one night, but impressive all the same. Such a gift, of course, didn’t come without a price…

‘Kyle Alexander, touch those sausages and I’ll break your fingers!’ Mum snapped. I hadn’t even noticed the plate of half-sized bangers cooling on a wire rack next to the cooker until then, but suddenly I wanted them more than anything else in the world. ‘I mean it,’ she scolded, stepping back to avoid the heat as she yanked open the oven door and slung in a tray of potatoes. ‘I need them. If you’re hungry have a mince pie.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ I shrugged, and I wasn’t. I just wanted a little sausage. The look on Mum’s face told me if I took one I’d be signing my death warrant, so I slowly stepped away, keeping my hands in clear view at all times. For 364 days of the year Mum is pretty easy-going, but mess with her when she’s making Christmas dinner and you’re opening the door to a world of pain.

She swept past me and tore open a drawer. I could hear her muttering to herself as she rummaged around, getting more and more annoyed as she realised that whatever she was looking for wasn’t where she thought it was.

‘Need a hand?’ I asked. I didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but thought I’d offer anyway.

‘Have you seen the – Aha!’ Like a tiger pouncing on its prey, Mum bounded across the kitchen and snatched up two complicated-looking kitchen utensils. At least I guessed that was what they were. They might have been instruments of torture for all I knew. In the mood she was in she’d probably use them too.

I knew it wasn’t the right time to ask the question. Sometimes it seems like it’s never the right time to ask the question. I always ask it anyway. I can’t help it. It just slips out.

‘Any word from Dad?’

Mum sighed and slammed the utensils down on the kitchen counter. She hung her head, her back towards me, saying nothing. The only sounds were the howling of the wind outside and the steady rattling of Nan snoring in the living room.

‘Not this again,’ breathed Mum. Her voice wasn’t angry like I’d expected it to be. It just sounded tired. She turned to face me and I could see that the lines of her face were drawn with sadness. ‘No, Kyle,’ she said, ‘there’s been no word from Dad. Just like there was no word from him last year, or any year before that.’

I don’t know why I think about my dad so much, what with me never having met him. I can’t help that either. I wonder every day what he’s like. Do I look like him? Do we sound the same? I don’t even know his name.

‘Maybe he’ll phone,’ I said, thinking it out loud more than anything else. I jumped as a plate smashed on the kitchen floor.

‘No, he won’t phone!’ Mum cried. That had done it, she was properly angry now. ‘He’ll never phone! He doesn’t care about us! When are you going to accept that?’

I felt tears spring to my eyes, as much for Mum as for myself. Why did I always push her like this? I should have let it go then, but I couldn’t.

‘He does care,’ I shouted, my voice sounding much bolder than I was feeling. ‘He’ll come back one day, you’ll see.’

‘Oh, and what then?’ Mum demanded, throwing her hands up into the air. ‘You’ll go off with him and live happily ever after, will you?’

From the way she said it I knew Mum was only looking for reassurance. She just wanted to know that I loved her and that I wouldn’t choose someone over her who’d walked out before I was even born. I knew that was what she needed to hear, so I don’t know why I said what I did.

‘Maybe I will.’

She stared at me for a few long moments, her face a melting pot of betrayal and shock. I bit my lip, wishing I could take the words back. She took a steadying breath and patted down a crease on the front of her World’s Best Mum apron.

‘I think you should go to your room, Kyle,’ she said. Her voice was flat and controlled. Suddenly the kitchen felt as frosty as the glass in the window frame.

‘But what about dinner?’ I protested. ‘It’s Christmas dinner!’

‘Your room,’ she repeated. ‘Now.’

Usually I like lying on top of my bed. It’s a comfy place to come and read, or just to think. I hoped I might get a games console for Christmas, so I could play it up in my room, but no such luck. I have a TV, but it’s old and falling apart. On the rare times it actually picks up a channel, the picture is usually too snowy to watch. Still, I have my books and comics, and can normally pass a few hours with those.

Apart from the dodgy TV and the lack of games consoles, the only real downside to my room is the view from my window. Mum has a great view from hers. Our terrace is right up on top of a hill, so from Mum’s room you can look out over the whole village. OK, so the village itself doesn’t look all that impressive, but on clear nights you can make out all the lights of the next town, twinkling away happily in the distance.

It’s a four- or five-mile trek to town, but it’s worth it. If you’re looking for decent shops, or a cinema, or anything at all, you’ll find it in town. Even my school is there, which means a twenty-minute bus journey there and back every day during term time.

Our village has nothing very exciting in it. We’ve got houses, a couple of churches and a tiny supermarket whose shelves are always half empty.

Oh, and there’s a police station. A lot of the time it’s unmanned, but sometimes – maybe when they need a rest, or something – one of the officers from the town comes over there for the day. They usually spend the whole time sitting with their feet up because – to be honest – there’s not a lot happens in our village.

Beyond the town lie the mountains. They look brilliant at this time of year – the snow is almost right down to the bottom – and if I get my binoculars out I can sometimes see some of the kids from school sledging on the lower slopes. It looks like fun. Maybe one day I’ll ask them if I can come. Then again, they’ll probably only say ‘no’, so maybe I won’t bother.

So, yeah, anyway, it’s a good view from Mum’s room. Mine isn’t so great. In fact it’s fair to say that my view gives me the willies. You see, unluckily for me, my bedroom faces straight on to the creepy abandoned house next door. The Keller House.

When I was eight or nine I kept asking Mum why we couldn’t just move into the house. It’s much bigger than ours, with a massive garden. It also has a room built on to the side with a private pool, but I hate water, so I wasn’t too bothered about that. I just liked the idea of having a gigantic bedroom.

But that was before I heard the stories. Before I found out all about the Keller House. After that, I didn’t want to go near the place. No one did.

So, as I was saying, I usually liked lazing on my bed, but lying there playing the conversation with Mum over and over in my head, it was the most uncomfortable place in the world.

I shouldn’t have said the stuff I did, I knew that. The fact was, though, I did want to know about my dad. Mum never told me anything other than that he disappeared the day she told him she was pregnant with me.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he really didn’t want anything to do with me. He’d made no effort to get in touch my whole life, after all. Still, something kept telling me I should keep asking, and it seemed as if I was powerless to fight the urge.

Up above me a shiny plastic Santa swung gently backwards and forwards on an invisible breeze. My eyes tick-tocked left and right, following his jolly pendulum sway. On each upward swing the glow from my light glinted off his oval eyes, making them appear glistening and alive.

Then, without warning, the overhead light went dim. For a moment it flicked and flickered, sending distorted Santa shadows scurrying up the wall. The wind shook the window, rattling it in its wooden frame. The bedroom door creaked loudly as a draft slowly pushed it closed.

With a distant fzzzt the room was plunged into almost total blackness. The faint, grey December daylight that seeped into the room barely made a dent in the dark.

Suddenly, over the howling of the gales outside, I heard a sharp scraping sound. It was slow at first, almost methodical. Quickly, though, it picked up pace, until a frantic, desperate scratching ripped through the gloom.

There was a crazed urgency to the sound which froze me to my core. I lay still, unable to do anything but listen to the racket. It bounced off every wall, as if it were coming at me from every direction at once, making it almost impossible for me to pinpoint the source.

It took me several seconds, but eventually I realised where the horrible scratching was coming from: the ceiling above my bed. The blood in my veins ran as cold as ice.

There was something in the attic.

And it was trying to claw its way through.

Chapter Two A FORGOTTEN FRIEND

Idon’t remember jumping off my bed but I must’ve done, because the next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of the room, listening to the scraping above me. Whatever was up there was ripping furiously at the attic floor, scratching and clawing its way through the wood.

Outside, the wind screeched and howled and hurled itself against the glass, as if it too was trying to force its way into my bedroom. The darkness seemed to close in. It wrapped around me like an icy shroud, squeezing the air from my lungs and making my heart thud faster and faster and faster.

My head went light and I felt the carpet turn to quicksand below me, sucking me down. I dropped to my knees, choking and struggling to breathe, as the world began to spin.

The sound of that scratching grew louder and louder until it was the only thing I could hear. I covered my ears, desperately trying to block it out, but still it grew louder until I was sure my head was going to explode with it.

With a faint clunk the room was filled with light, and the scratching came to an abrupt stop.

‘Nothing to worry about, just a fuse,’ I heard Mum shout. ‘You OK?’

I opened my mouth to answer, but barely a whimper came out. The carpet was rough against my cheek, and I realised I was lying curled up on the floor, my knees almost to my chest. My arms shook as I tried to push myself into a sitting position.

‘Kyle, what’s wrong?’ Mum asked, her voice urgent and panicked as she pushed open my door. My head splitting with a ferocious ache, I turned and looked up at her. She knelt by my side and stroked my face with the back of her hand, wiping away tears I hadn’t even felt fall. ‘What happened?’ she asked, softly.

‘The attic,’ I managed to hiss. ‘I heard something in the attic. Scratching.’

Mum leaned back on her heels, her eyes and mouth – just for a moment – three little circles of surprise. She gave an almost invisible shake of her head and smiled.

‘It was just your mind playing tricks on you,’ she assured me.

‘What? No it wasn’t!’ I insisted, annoyed that she’d think I’d let my imagination run away with me like that. ‘I heard something scratching up there!’

‘You know what I think?’ she smiled. ‘I think you got a scare when the lights went out and maybe had a little panic attack.’

‘I did not!’

‘Hard to breathe,’ said Mum, listing off the symptoms, ‘wobbly legs, feel like the room’s closing in on you…’

Reluctant as I was to admit it, it would help explain why I’d reacted the way I had. I’d never felt that scared before, and all because of what? A scraping noise? Idiot.

‘OK,’ I reluctantly confessed, ‘maybe it was.’ Mum flashed me a sympathetic smile and rustled my hair. ‘You seem to know a lot about them,’ I said. ‘Do you get them?’

‘Me? No,’ said Mum, shaking her head. ‘But your da—’

She stopped, biting her lip just as I had done in the kitchen. She’d almost let something slip about my dad.

‘But my dad did,’ I guessed. ‘That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? You were going to tell me my dad used to have panic attacks.’

‘No, I wasn’t,’ Mum replied. She had her defences back up and was getting to her feet. ‘I was going to say you’re darn lucky you don’t get them more often.’

She was lying, I could tell, but she was making for the door now, and more than anything I didn’t want to be left alone in this room.

‘Mum!’ I spluttered. She stopped in the doorway, hesitated, then turned back to me. I should have told her I was sorry for our argument in the kitchen, but when I opened my mouth all that came out was: ‘I really did hear something in the attic.’

Mum looked at me for a long time, her eyes scanning my face. Eventually, she shrugged and smiled a thin-lipped smile.

‘Well, then. Let’s check it out.’

*

A chill breeze rolled down through the hole in the ceiling as Mum slid back the lock and let the wooden hatch swing open. Stale, years-old air filled my nostrils, forcing me to take a step back. The smell reminded me of the day room in the home Nan stays in. Somewhere in the shadows, the hot water boiler hissed quietly, making it sound as if the loft itself was breathing.

The beam of Mum’s torch cut through the darkness of the attic, projecting a misshapen circle of light on to the bare wooden planks of the roof. Shoulder to shoulder we stood on our tiptoes, peering into the gloom.

‘See anything?’ I asked, trying to disguise the shake in my voice.

‘Nothing from here,’ Mum replied. Her voice sounded confident – a little amused, even. I felt a hot flush of embarrassment sweep up from my neck. I was acting like a scared kid, and she knew it. ‘I’ll pull the ladder down and we can have a proper look,’ she said, passing me the torch.

She reached carefully up through the hatch and felt around for the edge of the wooden steps. My breath caught at the back of my throat, as Mum suddenly let out a sharp cry of fright. As one, we staggered backwards away from the hole, until our backs were flat against the wall. Hands shaking, I directed the torch’s beam up into the attic once again, and almost screamed. Just inside the hatch a pair of piercing eyes glowed brightly in the trembling torchlight.

‘M-Mum,’ I began, not knowing where the rest of the sentence was going. I was gripping her arm tightly, too terrified to move.

Then, with a faint squeak, the eyes turned and darted off into the darkness of the roof space. For a moment we heard the mouse’s claws scrape against the wooden floor as it fled in panic.

I blushed for the second time in as many minutes, as Mum looked down at me. Quickly, I let go of her arm, trying to pretend I hadn’t been afraid. She saw right through it, though, and I heard her let out a giggle. Before I knew it I was giggling along with her. We stood there together for a while, laughing out of sheer relief, until our sides ached and tears ran down our cheeks.

‘You hungry?’ she asked, when we’d both calmed down a bit.

‘Depends. Are we allowed to eat the little sausages yet?’

‘Come on,’ she grinned, ‘let’s go have dinner.’ Arm in arm we walked down the stairs, and every time our eyes met laughter filled the air.

Nan watched me impatiently as I cut her turkey into bite-sized chunks. She was proud of the fact she still had her own teeth, and mentioned it to anyone who’d listen. What she failed to go on to say was that they were now so blunt they could barely get through custard. Her arthritis was playing up with the cold, so I’d ended up on slice-and-dice duties.

She’d chuckled when me and Mum had told her the mouse story, but it didn’t amuse her as much as it had us. I suppose you really had to be there.

‘At least it wasn’t that other fella,’ she said, as I cut and peeled the skin off her little sausages. She didn’t eat the skin, it gave her wind. Nan didn’t actually mind too much, but Mum and me had insisted we remove them.

‘What other fella?’ I asked, only half listening. I was thinking about my own dinner, which would be getting cold.

‘Oh, you remember,’ she clucked, knocking back another glug of sherry, ‘that friend of yours. Wassisname? Used to live in the loft, you said.’

I heard Mum’s fork screech against her plate. She gave a cough which clearly meant ‘shut up’, but either Nan didn’t notice, or she was too tipsy to care.

‘Mr Mumbles,’ she announced, triumphantly. ‘That was him! Your invisible friend.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Bless.’

Something tingled deep within my brain, and then was gone. I glanced over at Mum, but she had her head down, her eyes focused on her plate.

‘I didn’t have an invisible friend,’ I frowned. ‘Did I, Mum?’

‘For a little while,’ Mum said, not looking up from her dinner. ‘It was a long time ago. You stopped talking about him years back.’

I finished cutting up Nan’s meat and gave her back her knife and fork. She was already shovelling turkey into her mouth by the time I made it round to my side of the table.

Me and Mum had taken the table through to the living room so we could eat in front of the fire. Normally we just ate on our laps, but Christmas dinner was special.

Still wracking my brains, I lowered myself back on to my chair and popped a chunk of carrot in my mouth. It tasted better than carrot had any right to taste. How did Mum do it?

‘I don’t remember,’ I shrugged, at last.

‘You were only four or five,’ Mum explained. ‘A long time ago. It’s no surprise you’ve forgotten.’

‘Used to talk about him all the time,’ said Nan, her mouth half full of mashed potato. ‘Mr Mumbles this, it was. Mr Mumbles that.’

‘Leave it, Mum,’ my mum said. ‘He doesn’t remember, let’s leave it at that.’

‘He used to live in the loft, you said,’ Nan continued, completely ignoring her. ‘You used to say he’d knock on your bedroom window when he wanted to play. Remember, Fiona?’

Mum glared at her. ‘Leave it, I said.’

‘Knock, knock!’

‘Mum! Enough!’

Nan pulled a face, and silence fell over the table. I mopped up some gravy with a slice of turkey and slipped it in my mouth. Something stirred at the back of my mind.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Was there…did he have a hat?’

‘Let’s just forget it, Kyle,’ Mum urged.

‘There’s something…I think I remember something about a hat.’

‘I said forget it!’ Mum snapped. She slammed her hand down on the table, making the salt and pepper cellars leap into the air.

‘O-OK,’ I muttered, too shocked to argue. Mum’s knife and fork were trembling in her hands as she got stuck back into her turkey. Something about me having an imaginary friend had clearly upset her.

But why?

‘Bye, Nan,’ I smiled, kissing her on her wrinkled cheek. We were exactly the same size these days. She was shrinking as fast as I was growing, and we were now passing each other as our heights headed in opposite directions.

‘What?’ She looked at me, her eyes narrowed, her voice a suspicious hiss.

‘Urn…I just said ‘bye’.’

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, fiercely. ‘I don’t know you. Where’s Albert? What have you done with my Albert?’

Nan spoke about Albert lots when she was confused. Not even Mum knew who he was. The best she could figure out was that Albert must have been some childhood friend of Nan’s, but there was no way of knowing for sure. When Nan was her normal self she had no idea who Albert was, either.

‘Come on,’ said Mum, gently, as she guided Nan out of the house and into the chill darkness of the December night. ‘Time we were getting you back.’

‘Back where? What are you doing?’ Nan spat, struggling against Mum’s grip. ‘Albert! Albert!’

No matter how many times I’d seen Nan have one of her episodes, it still shook me up. Mum’s face was grey, her lips pursed together, as she tried to guide her mother towards the car.

‘Come on, Mum,’ she urged, forcing a smile.

‘Right you are, love,’ Nan replied. The smile was back on her face. Her eyes had their old twinkle again. As quickly as it had come on, the confusion had passed. She turned to me and gave a little wave. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetheart,’ she beamed.

‘Merry Christmas, Nan.’

‘Oh, and Kyle, be careful,’ she said. ‘There’s a storm coming.’

‘I think it’s passed,’ I said, gently. The winds had been howling and the rain battering down for days in the lead up to Christmas, but now it was calm – cold and frosty, but calm.

‘Oh, but they come back,’ warned Nan. Her face had taken on a strange, sombre expression. ‘They always come back.’

‘OK,’ I said, humouring her. ‘Bye.’

She gave me a nod and turned to Mum. ‘Can I bring the sherry?’

‘I think you’ve had quite enough for now,’ Mum said, releasing her grip on Nan’s arm. ‘The nurses are going to kill me when they see the state of you!’

Nan cackled and gave me a theatrical wink. Without a word she turned and wandered off, swaying slightly in the chill evening gloom.

‘Least it didn’t last long this time. She’s been pretty good, considering,’ Mum whispered to me. ‘You sure you’ll be OK on your own? You can always come with us.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘OK, well, I shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll just get her in and let the nurses put her to bed.’

‘Can’t she just stay here?’ I asked.

‘The doctors don’t like it if she’s gone overnight,’ Mum said. I could tell from her face she felt bad about it. ‘We’ll play a board game or something when I get back, OK?’

‘OK, but really, there’s no rush,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll be fine here on my own.’

She leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. She was halfway to the gate when a thought struck her.

‘Do me a favour while I’m out, will you?’

‘Sure,’ I nodded.

‘There’s a mousetrap in the cupboard under the sink. Stick it in the attic for me?’

Despite the tingling terror which crept over me, I nodded. I stood there, long after the door was closed, telling myself there was nothing to worry about. Telling myself not to be so stupid. After all, the scratching I’d heard was just a harmless little mouse.

Wasn’t it?

Chapter Three GHOSTS OF THE PAST

My breath formed faint clouds in the musty air as I pulled myself up into the confines of the attic. My fingers left ten little ovals in the thin covering of dust on the ladder, and I studied them for a few moments, pretending to myself they were the most interesting things in the world. Truth be told, I was just delaying the moment I’d have to step further into the loft.

The torch I carried was near powerless against the sheer depth of the darkness, like trying to slay a dragon with a teaspoon. The beam wobbled and shook in my hand, sending twisted shadows stretching across the planks and beams.

‘There’s nothing here,’ I whispered, trying to reassure myself. ‘There’s nothing here except me and a mouse.’

I let the torch’s beam fall on to the floor as I looked around for somewhere to put the mousetrap. It was tempting to just drop the thing and run, but the instructions had said to set it near a wall, and the last thing I wanted was to have to come back up and do all this over again.

The floorboards creaked in protest as I shuffled forwards, fixing my eyes on the point the roof met the floor. I would set the trap and then get out of there as quickly as I could. I’d be back downstairs in less than a minute. I just had to keep my nerve until then. Sixty seconds of bravery, that was all.

I set the torch on top of a dusty cardboard box and fumbled with the trap. Stupidly I’d left the instructions in the kitchen, thinking it would just be a case of pulling back a spring and sticking a bit of cheese on to a spike. That’s how they always work in cartoons, anyway.

Around three minutes later, with my heart still thudding against the inside of my chest, I finally figured out how the trap operated. Hurriedly, I sat it down on the floorboards and gently pushed it against the wall, being careful not to bring it snapping down on my fingers. Since it didn’t seem to be required, I decided just to eat the little cube of cheese I’d brought up with me.

Mission accomplished, I leapt to my feet. My head thumped against a thick roof beam and I cried out in pain. I rubbed the back of my skull and looked at my hands. They were clean, so I wasn’t bleeding. That didn’t stop it hurting, though.

I reached down to pick up the torch, then stopped. A piece of paper lay next to it on top of the box. I hadn’t noticed it there when I’d walked over, but there it was, large as life. As I picked it up, the sheet felt oddly warm against my fingertips.

Angling the paper into the torchlight, I studied the crudely drawn crayon picture. Thick bands of black and brown covered most of the page, stretching down from the top of the paper to the bottom. Here and there the lines were broken by clumsy sketches of spiders skulking in their webs.

Two figures stood at opposite ends of the page. On the right-hand side a stick figure of a boy had been drawn, a tiny bow clutched in his pudgy round hands. Leading up and to the left were a dozen or so arrows, each with a bright red rubber suction cup stuck on to the end. They were all arching through the air in the direction of the other figure – a darkly dressed man.

My eyes followed the arrow trail and fell on the only other patch of red on the page. A demented fountain of blood sprayed out from the man’s chest, where an arrow had embedded itself. His mouth – not surprisingly given the circumstances – was pulled into an upside down letter U. Clearly he was not happy with this turn of events.

I stared closely at this larger figure. There was something about him which intrigued me. He seemed to be drawn in a different style. He was darker, bolder, as if the crayons had been pressed harder against the page. He was also dressed strangely, with a long grey overcoat pulled up to his ears, and a black hat pulled down almost to meet it.

The image stirred some long dormant memories. That hat. That coat. It was all familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like the memory of a dream I couldn’t hold on to. Was this my imaginary friend?

Absent-mindedly, my gaze shifted across the page. There was something familiar about those vertical stripes, too. Were they bars? No, they were too thick for that. They looked solid, though. Solid; brown; evenly spaced. I’d seen them somewhere recently, but where?

The realisation hit me like an electric shock. I spun to face the attic wall. The lines in the picture weren’t bars. They were beams. Wooden roof beams, like the kind I was standing next to. The picture was of right here in the attic!

A movement off to my left broke my concentration and I gasped with fright. Dropping the page I staggered back, knocking the box with my leg. My stomach lurched as the beam of the torch swung down. I grabbed for it too late. As the torch bulb smashed the attic was plunged into absolute darkness.

‘Wh-who’s there?’ I stammered. With the light gone I couldn’t even see the clouds of breath in front of my face any more. I held my breath and listened, but the only reply was the hissing and bubbling of the hot water boiler.

I tried to tell myself I’d imagined it, but if truth be told I don’t have that good an imagination. Something had moved. Something was there in the attic with me, and unless mice were growing up to be a lot bigger these days, it was definitely no rodent.

A stack of boxes toppled over as I stumbled blindly through the dark, my hands flailing wildly in front of me. Unsure of which direction I should be heading, I blundered towards where I guessed the hatch should be. My foot caught on some scattered junk and I felt the floor rise up to meet me.

Moving on their own and fuelled by panic, my legs kicked wildly against the debris from the boxes, struggling to find a foothold. My hands thrust forwards, fingers scrabbling on the floorboards as I desperately tried to pull myself towards the dim glow of the hatch.

A splinter stabbed into my palm and I cried out in shock. My eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark now, and I saw something on the floor by my hand which chilled me to the bone. A series of claw marks had scored deep grooves in the wood.

An elastic band of fear tightened around my stomach. I wasn’t sure what could make marks like that in solid timber, but one thing was for sure, no mousetrap on Earth would hold it.

Hot tears streaked my face as I scrambled to the hatch. Kicking, crawling, dragging myself on, I finally made it to the ladder. Without hesitating, I hauled myself over the edge, tumbled head first through the hole, and landed hard on the floor.

Ignoring the sharp pain in my shoulder I leapt back to my feet and shoved the ladder up into the loft. With the steps down there was no way of closing the hatch, and with the hatch open there was nothing to stop whatever was up there following me out.

The ceiling shook when I slammed the hatch closed. My fingers refused to behave as I struggled to fasten the latch, and it took me a full thirty seconds to secure it. I stood there for what felt like forever, my hands pressed against the gloss-painted wood, listening for…something. Anything.

Slowly, my heart rate took its foot off the accelerator and began to return to normal. My breathing – though still heavy was becoming less and less panicked, too. I plucked up the courage to take my hands off the hatch. Nothing happened. No wild animals came crashing through. No monsters smashed the wood and yanked me back up. Nothing.

To be on the safe side I went into my bedroom and rummaged under the bed until I found what I was looking for. The baseball bat wasn’t full-sized, but it would still be big and heavy enough to do serious damage if swung right. Even as I clutched it to me, though, I was beginning to feel like an idiot.

I flopped down on to my bed and ran back over the last few minutes. What had I actually seen? A vague movement out of the corner of my eye, that was all. A shadow, maybe; probably even my own, projected by the beam of the torch. I had been standing right in front of the light, after all.

The more I thought about it the more stupid I felt. Those scratches could have been there for decades. A heavy wooden box or piece of furniture being dragged across the floor could have made them. I closed my eyes and sighed. What a fool.

I forced out a chuckle, trying to laugh the last traces of my fear away. It had seemed easy when Mum was there, but lying on my bed on my own it was a lot harder to do. Instead I kept my eyes closed, rested my hands behind my head, and focused my attention on the breathing of the wind outside.

I don’t know how long I slept for, but I know what woke me. I froze, too scared to sit up, as the ripping and rending of wood scratched at me through the ceiling.

The sound was far more frenzied and frantic than before, and each scrape seemed to bring whatever was up there that bit closer to breaking through. I tried not to picture the hands which could tear solid wood with such ease. I tried, but failed, and a detailed image of my own gory death leapt uninvited into my head.

I swung my legs down off the bed. As my feet hit the floor the sound stopped. I sat there, unmoving, wishing I’d gone with Mum. Wishing I was anywhere but in that room.

Seconds flowed into minutes as I perched there on the bed, barely daring to breathe until I was sure the scratching was over. Part of me wanted to run, but another part decided that would only draw the attention of the thing in the attic, which would be a very bad idea.

In the end I settled for a compromise, and slowly inched my way up off the bed, being careful not to let the mattress creak. When I was back on my feet I stood and listened. There was not a sound in the house. Carefully, I crept my way over to the bedroom door, the baseball bat held firmly in both hands.

Suddenly a noise from behind sent me spiralling into whole new depths of terror. I let out a shrill scream and lunged for the door, not daring to look back.

Someone was knocking on my bedroom window.

Chapter Four THE RETURN

The stairs flew by beneath me in groups of three. By the time I was halfway to the bottom, whoever – or whatever – was outside had stopped hammering on my window. As I leapt the last few steps an eerie silence fell over the house.

For a moment I hesitated, both hands tightly gripping the baseball bat. I stood there, balanced on the balls of my feet, listening for any unexpected sound. A strong wind wailed against the stone-clad walls and whistled anxiously through invisible gaps. The front gate clack-clacked as it swung on its hinges, the steady beat of a solemn death march. Probably mine.

Nan had been right. The storm was building again. Maybe going outside would be the wrong thing to do, I figured. The sensible thing would be to stay where I was and pray to anyone who’d listen for the ordeal to be over. I could barricade myself in and wait for help to arrive. It’d be —

A fork of lightning split the night sky, filling the room with its electric glow. As the flash faded the house was once more cast into near total darkness, with only the street lights outside to ease the gloom. The electricity had gone off again. All of a sudden sticking around didn’t seem like a very tempting option.

I ran for the front door, not sure where I was going, but certain I had to get out. Outside I could make it to the safety of a neighbour’s house. Inside I was a sitting duck in the dark. Not even stopping to snatch up my coat, I reached for the door handle.

Just as my fingers wrapped round the cool metal a shape stepped up to the door, as if it had been standing out there just waiting to make a move. Its shadow passed across the frosted glass, blurred and impossible to make out clearly.

My shoulder slammed hard against the wood, sending a jolt of pain along my spine and making me drop the baseball bat. Gripped by panic, I pushed my weight against the door, holding it closed. The lock, which I’d used thousands of times before, was awkward and stiff in my trembling fingers, and it took all my effort to work the catch. With a concentrated effort, I finally got it to click into position as – just a few centimetres from my face – sharp knuckles rapped slowly on the door’s small window pane.

‘Go away!’ I cried, my voice shaking as badly as my hands. I backed away from the door, not daring to take my eyes off the outline of the figure lurking outside. ‘My mum’s going to be home in two minutes, so you’d better get out of here!’ I lied. Mum would probably still be at the home, still trying to get Nan to go with the nurses, still trying to get away. I was on my own, with someone or something standing right outside the front door!

Which left the back door clear, I realised. Whoever was outside was at the front of the house. And unless you go in through the living room and out through the kitchen, the only way to get to the back garden from the front is by going round the whole house. It’s a twenty-second sprint in good conditions, so in the dark, and with the wind and rain, it’d take at least double that.

That meant I’d have a forty-second head start to get out the back and across to the next row of houses over the road. Forty seconds to get away. I almost cried with relief. I’d get out of this yet.

The rhythmic rapping stopped as I sped through to the kitchen, catching the side of the door frame and swinging myself through for extra speed. My feet found a puddle of cooking oil and I skidded and slipped my way to the back door, arms outstretched and flailing wildly to keep me from falling on my face.

Rat-a-tat-tat.

My stomach almost ejected my entire Christmas dinner as I realised I was too late.

They were already at the back door.

But nothing could have made it round that fast. It was impossible. There had to be two of them out there, that was it. Nothing supernatural about it. Just two people messing around. That’s what I told myself, but whether I believed it or not is a different matter.

The key wasn’t in the lock. There wasn’t time to look for it, so I scrambled unsteadily over to the table and snatched up a chair. Thank God we’d taken them back through from the living room after dinner.

Struggling to stay upright on the slippery floor surface, I wedged the back of the wooden chair tight against the door handle, jamming the door tightly closed. It probably wouldn’t hold them off for long, but at least it’d buy me some time to…

To what? I had no idea what I was going to do next. I’d been working on sheer adrenaline for the past five minutes, and hadn’t really expected to make it this far. There’d been no time to think ahead, and now my escape routes were blocked. There was no way out of the house. I was trapped!

The steady knocking on the back door was driving me crazy. It might have had something to do with the shape of the kitchen, or the number of wooden cabinets mounted on the walls, but the knocking seemed to echo more in here, making the sound even louder.

I couldn’t stand listening to it for another second. Stopping only to shove the table up against the chair for extra support, I left the kitchen and pulled the door closed behind me. Maybe the door blocked out the sound, or perhaps the knocking stopped right at that second. Either way I couldn’t hear it any more.

Back in the living room, I risked a glance at the front door. The silhouette no longer filled the little window. From here the way looked clear, but for all I knew whoever was doing this was standing just outside, waiting to grab me as soon as I stepped out into the night. That was a chance I wasn’t about to take.

In the gloom, my hands searched the sideboard for the phone. This was too big to handle on my own now. I’d call Mum. Or the police. The army, maybe. Anyone who could help me. Please, I thought. Someone help me!

The handset wasn’t in its cradle. Stupid portable phone, I cursed, looking around for any sign of the slim silver telephone. My eyes proved almost useless in the dim light, and I was forced to carry out a fingertip search of the couch, the coffee table, and every other likely hiding place.

Before I could even properly begin searching, a sharp rap of knuckles sounded on the living-room window. Frantically I hunted for the handset, too terrified to look towards the source of the sound. I was babbling incoherently, tears staining my cheeks, barely able to think. I found myself searching the same places over and over again; moving the same cushions, lifting the same pieces of scrunched and torn wrapping paper. Where was it?!

Another bolt of lightning tore the sky, briefly freeze-framing everything in the room. Through the window, the electric-blue light cast a long, looming shadow on the wall across from the window.

The shadow of a man in a wide-brimmed hat.

In the flash I spotted the phone sitting on top of the TV. I’d seen it in the dark, but assumed it was the remote control. A vague memory of Nan trying to switch on the telly with it earlier popped into my head, before being pushed back down again by sheer, choking terror.

Mum always forgot to put the handset back on charge and the little battery symbol was blinking at me in a way that seemed far too cheerful, given the circumstances. ‘Please,’ I begged it. ‘Enough for one call!’

It was nearly ten miles to the care home. The police station would be much closer. If I was lucky there’d be someone at the local one, otherwise they’d have to send someone from town. Why did I have to live in such a backwater?

Fingers shaking, eyes blurred with tears, I stabbed three nines on the keypad and held the receiver to my ear.

Nothing happened. I pulled the phone away and peered at the little LED display. The battery was still flashing, but it was hanging in there. The number was right, but it wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working?

Trying to ignore the sound of the knocking on the window, I pressed the cancel button and redialled the number.

‘Come on,’ I hissed, as I waited for something to happen. ‘Come on, come on, come on!’

After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the ringing tone I’d been waiting for. Yes! In just a few seconds the line gave a faint click as someone answered.

‘Help me,’ I begged, not even waiting for the emergency operator to speak. ‘I need the police, there’s someone here. They’re trying to get into my house! Please, come quick!’

An empty hiss down the line was the only reply.

‘Hello?’ I said into the soft static. For a moment I could hear my own voice drift off into the chasm of silence on the other end of the phone. Another failed connection? I’d have to hang up and dial again.

Before I could end the call, a low moan reached my ear, breaking up and distorting as it travelled down the telephone line.

‘H-hello?’ I said again. My voice echoed back to me, and I could hear my own fear.

Further moans and groans crackled from the earpiece, low and menacing, but with some urgency in their tinny tones. As I listened, I realised the sounds weren’t just random groaning at all. If I concentrated I could almost make out what sounded like words. Broken words.

Mumbled words.

I concentrated harder still on the distorted, indistinct voice. And then, suddenly, the sounds made sense. I understood them. Every word.

Time to die.

I let the handset slip from my fingers. The plastic back flew off as it bounced on the carpet, letting the tired battery ping free. A low mumbling repeated over and over in my head – time to die, time to die, time to die…

I jumped as the CD player suddenly sprung into life. The electricity was off, yet somehow the orange LED display on front of the machine had blinked on. Hypnotised, I watched the track number display count slowly upwards. One. Two. Three. It made it all the way to track eight, then stopped.

For a moment there was nothing but the faint whirr of the disk spinning, then the music began, loud enough to shake the walls. I threw my hands over my ears to protect my eardrums as Nan’s Christmas hits CD kicked in.

You’d better watch out,

You’d better not cry,

You’d better not pout,

I’m telling you why,

Santa Claus is comin’ to town.

My finger flew to the power button. I pressed it once, but the music played on, drowning out all other noise. Again and again I stabbed my finger against the controls, but the machine didn’t respond to any of them.

Reaching down behind the player, I gave a short, sharp yank on the power cable. It would have to shut up after that.

But it didn’t.

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

He knows when you’re awake…

My whole body shook with shock. This couldn’t be happening. This was impossible.

Frantic with fear, I brought the baseball bat down hard on the CD player. The plastic casing gave a crack, the disk let out a deafening screech, and then silence returned to the living room.

I waited, bat raised, eyes fixed on the stereo. The storm howled outside, but inside all was quiet. Cautiously, I lowered the bat, turned away, and got back to trying to think of a way out of this mess.

Click. Over my shoulder, I heard the display on the CD player blink into life once again. Track eight kicked back in straight away. This time, though, it seemed stuck in an endless repetitive loop.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

You’d better watch out, tsssk.

I lifted my leg to stamp on the machine. Suddenly, the window to my right exploded inwards, showering the room with deadly shards of glass. The couch shielded me as I threw myself to the floor behind it, my hands held protectively over my head.

As soon as the last pieces had fallen, I leapt back to my feet. A tall dark figure drew itself up to its full height on the other side of the sofa.

Another lightning bolt cast a blue aura around the figure, revealing his long dark overcoat pulled up to his ears, and his black hat pulled down almost to meet it. My mouth flapped open and closed, acting out the motions of screaming, but too choked with terror to actually manage the noise.

The figure fixed me with a beady glare and a million memories came rushing back, as if a dam had been thrown wide open in my subconscious. They were overpowering. Overwhelming. The sheer force of them nearly knocked me off my feet. They couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be happening!

Deep down, though, I knew it was. Deep down I finally understood exactly what was going on.

Mr Mumbles was back.

Chapter Five A NEW FRIEND

I remembered.

Every line, every detail of the figure before me was…no, not the same. Familiar, but different. The Mr Mumbles of my childhood hadn’t been quite like this. He had been short and skinny with friendly, shining eyes and a gift for slapstick.

His speech had always been impossible to understand, but he’d made up for it with his wide range of comedy pratfalls and skilful miming. He had been my funny little friend. My very own Charlie Chaplin.

The thing standing before me now didn’t look funny at all.

The clothes were the same – the overcoat with its high collar, the curve of the hat. Parts of his face looked vaguely like I remembered – the bushy eyebrows, the big ears – but others couldn’t have been more different.

His once playful eyes were dark and sunken. He’d had jolly, rosy cheeks, but now they were pale and wrinkled, like old paper. Even in the dark I could make out the spidery, dark blue lines of veins creeping below the skin.

Every detail was so lifelike. He was so real. Solid. And standing in the middle of my living room.

I’m not sure, but I think even when I was young I kind of knew Mr Mumbles wasn’t real. Not really real, anyway. That’s not to say I couldn’t see him back then, but I suppose the way I saw him wasn’t the same. He was more like a ghost I could conjure up. A supernatural spirit dressed for stormy weather, invisible to everyone but me. My best friend.

Not any more.

Sparks of hatred flashed in the dark centres of those eyes. Above them, his bushy, caterpillar eyebrows pushed down, contorting what I could see of his forehead into a twisted frown. The scowl seemed to continue down to the tip of his hooked nose, flaring his nostrils out wide.

And his lips…Oh, God, the lips! Mr Mumbles had always had problems with talking, but it had been a speech impediment, that was all. Now his whole mouth was disfigured.

The lips were grotesque: thick, bloated, and sewn tightly together with grimy lengths of thread. Each stitch crossed over its neighbour, forming a series of little Xs from one side of his mouth to the other, sealing it shut. The holes the threads passed through were black and infected, the flesh rotting away from within.

My God. What had happened to him?

I should have been off and running, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his. When I was younger, he’d been a little taller than me, but not much. Now he towered above me, easily six and a half feet in height. Up till now, the solid weight of the baseball bat had been giving me comfort, but now it felt flimsy and light, like a child’s toy.

Fighting this monster was not an option.

Where before Mr Mumbles had been thin and spindly, he was now built like a bear. His densely packed frame strained the seams of his trailing overcoat. Hands the size of dinner plates clenched and unclenched into powerful fists.

His breathing was unsteady and erratic. It whistled slightly as it came down through his nose. The wind howling in through the window made his coat swish against his knees as he held me in his gaze.

The puckered skin around his lips stretched and shifted slightly as he spoke. The low, rumbling mumble was hard to make out, but I was sure I knew what he was saying. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words tonight.

Time to die.

I feigned a move towards the back door, then shot off in the opposite direction. The sofa’s wheels squeaked as I shoved it into Mr Mumbles’ path and sprinted for the front door. The lock turned easily this time and I hadn’t even heard Mr Mumbles make a move by the time I’d got the door open.

Suddenly, an ice-cold grip grabbed my ankle, sending me sprawling on to the front doorstep. I yelped with pain as my forearms hit the edge of the raised stone, bruising them with twin bands of purple. The baseball bat went clattering away down the garden path. But that was the least of my worries.With his hand still tightly wrapped around my right leg, Mr Mumbles was dragging me back into the house.

I lashed out in panic, my left leg kicking violently against the chill night air. Once or twice my foot found its target and thudded against some part of my attacker. He shrugged the blows off without a word. I’m not convinced he even noticed them.

Before I knew it he was on me, his hands tight on my throat, his face almost touching mine. I could feel his weight trapping me, pinning me against the hard frosty path, smothering me. As a kid I’d been able to see him and hear him, but I’d never been able to smell him until now. His stench filled my nostrils; rancid and decaying, like months-old meat left rotting in the sun. I’d have choked on it if I hadn’t been choking already.

My hands clawed the ground around me, searching for the baseball bat. They came back empty. Wherever the bat was, it was out of reach. I tried punching him, but he didn’t flinch. I heard a rattle at the back of his throat, and realised he was laughing. His demon gaze burned into me, eyes wide, blazing with a hatred like none I’d ever seen.

His hands tightened around my windpipe. The world shimmered before my eyes, forcing me to close them. His hands tightened further still. His hands. So tight. No breath. Hands. Laughing. Choking. Choking. Choking.

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