Colm & the Ghost's Revenge (17 page)

‘W
here's the control room?' Lauryn asked, as they set off running again. They had to find it. The one with all the CCTV cameras and microphones and stuff like that. That's where the PA system would be, wouldn't it?

‘I haven't a clue,' The Brute replied.

They rushed past shop after shop – Jack McD's DVDs; Austin Flowers – Lauryn's boots click-clacking on the floor. In the distance, far behind them, they could hear the wailing of the undead as they continued their slow, steady pursuit of the teenagers.

‘Stop,' The Brute called out, as he skidded to a halt. ‘Look.'

There was a floor plan of the shopping centre stuck to the wall behind some perspex glass. A map detailing where all the shops, toilets and car parks were. It was colour-coded and easy to read. Lauryn looked up and down, left and right, letting her eyes drift over every part of the map.

‘I can't see the control room anywhere on this,' she said.

The Brute ran his finger over the listings: card shop, toy shop, clothes shops, toilets, newsagents. If he'd wanted to buy a book or a bar of chocolate or pay a visit to the bathroom he'd have no problem finding the right place, but there was nothing to let them know the location of any security or control centre.

‘Do you hear something?' Lauryn asked suddenly.

The Brute turned. She was right. There was a banging noise coming from somewhere, like someone pounding on glass. He took off. Three shops farther down he found the source of the noise.

‘Shine the light here,' he said, pointing at Murphy's Paw, a pet shop.

On the other side of the front door, amongst the squawking parrots and the more silent snakes and goldfish, were some familiar faces.

‘Mom!' Lauryn cried. She grabbed the large silver handle and tried to wrench the door open. It wouldn't budge.

Her mother beamed at her. She looked like a wreck, but she was alive and that was all Lauryn cared about. She wasn't alone – Professor Peter Drake was just behind her.

‘Lauryn, what are you doing here? Are you OK?' Lauryn's mother, Marie, shouted through the glass.

‘I'm fine, Mom,' Lauryn shouted back, still tugging at the door.

‘Thank goodness it's you. We saw the flashlight beam when you were farther down the hallway and we decided to take a calculated risk to attract your attention. Can you get us out of here?'

‘Sure! Why didn't you pick the lock, Prof?'

The professor held his hands up in front of him. They were swathed in bandages. ‘Our captor must have suspected I had such a talent.'

‘Broken?'

‘They'll heal, but they're pretty useless right now. Is it …'

Lauryn knew him so well she didn't have to wait for him to finish the question.

‘Yep, The Ghost. He's got us good this time, but we're not beaten yet.'

Two others who had been hiding in the back of the shop came forward when they heard the discussion going on – The Brute's mum and his stepfather, Seanie.

‘Ma,' he shouted in delight.

His mother ran to the door. She pressed her face up against the glass. ‘My lovely, lovely boy. Are you all right?'

‘I'm fine, Ma. You?'

Lauryn saw that The Brute bore a startling resemblance to his mother. If you put a brown curly wig and a dress on the boy, they could have been the same person. She was slightly less muscly and a good deal less orange, but otherwise …

‘I'm fine, Michael. What are you doing in Dublin and why are you out in the middle of the night in a t-shirt? You'll catch your death of cold.'

‘I'm fine the way I am,' The Brute replied. He nodded curtly to Seanie, who nodded back.

Lauryn pulled an elasticated headlamp from the schoolbag, put it on, and in seconds was on her knees picking at the lock.

‘Lauryn,' The Brute said.

‘Don't worry, I'll have your mom out of there in a second.'

‘No, it's not that, it's just that those zombies or undead or whatever you call them are getting far too close for my liking.' The Brute shone the torch down the hallway. The light scanned the empty faces of at least ten of the undead. They were no more than forty metres away, slowly closing in on them.

‘I'll be quick,' she said.

The Brute wasn't convinced. Even though the creatures were shuffling forward slowly, he didn't think Lauryn was going to be quick enough. The creatures' progress was like that of a tortoise heading towards a rock – interminably slow, but the tortoise was inevitably going to make it because the rock was going nowhere.

‘I'm going to check we're all clear in the other direction,' The Brute said.

‘Huh?'

‘This level we're on – inside the railing, it's like a running track. It runs in a loop. If the undead dudes get closer we'll run away and they'll follow us. We'll do a complete circuit until we end up back here again. I'm guessing they're too thick to realise they could turn around, so it'll take them ages to catch up with us.'

‘Good thinking,' Lauryn said, working away on the lock. ‘Rats. This one ain't easy. Who'd have thought a pet store needed such heavy security?'

‘Michael, where do you think you're going? It's dangerous out there. I've seen those zombie yokes,' The Brute's mother roared through the glass. ‘I'm telling you to stay here with me unless you want to be … grounded.'

‘Listen to your mother,' Seanie shouted.

‘Don't tell me what to do, you're not my father,' The Brute shouted back. ‘And Ma, grounded? You learned that off the telly. Anyway, they're not exactly zombies, they're …' he said. ‘Look, I'll be fine. Please just stay quiet so we can focus and let Lauryn and me sort it out.'

Deirdre loved her son with every last fibre of her being, but even she found it hard to believe he could sort this out. She'd seen his bedroom. He couldn't even sort out putting underpants and socks into a laundry basket.

‘OK, I'm just going to take a quick recce in this direction to make sure the coast is clear,' The Brute said, disappearing into the semi-darkness.

‘You do that,' Lauryn said.

‘Perhaps the boy could just try and escape from the mall and raise the alarm,' the professor shouted.

‘Nah,' Lauryn said, her eyes still on the lock. ‘He's trying to find his cousin. Remember that kid Colm? We've got to rescue him too.'

‘My nephew's out there?' Deirdre asked, but no one paid any attention to her.

‘Those creatures are getting very close, Lauryn,' her mother said nervously.

Lauryn looked up again. Twenty metres away.

‘I've still got a few seconds. Hey Prof, ever heard of something called Agg … Add … Abb–'

Professor Drake's face fell. ‘Abbatage?'

‘That's the one.'

‘It couldn't be. He'd have to have the three Lazarus Keys to perform …' he said muttering to himself. ‘Where did you hear that word?'

‘Abba-whatsit? We caught a snippet of a conversation between Colm and the guy we think is The Ghost. What does it mean?'

‘If The Ghost performs Abbatage he will become immortal. He'll be the most powerful man who has ever existed.'

‘Since he's pretty much pure evil, I guess that'd be a bad thing, huh?'

‘He'll make Vlad the Impaler and Attila the Hun look like errant schoolboys,' Drake said. ‘Oh, this is bad. Very, very bad. Worse than bad. It's apocalyptic.'

‘Lauryn! The zombies! They're getting closer.'

‘Relax, Mom, I got it. How do we stop this Abbatage thing?'

‘We have to stop the ceremony. From what I've read, if the ceremony is interrupted then the Abbatage cannot be completed. There's not a whole lot on it. As far as I can ascertain it's only been tried on a handful of occasions many, many centuries ago. I can't say if it worked, but I don't recall meeting any immortals recently.'

‘I'll get you guys out of here, then we'll find The Ghost and stop the ceremony,' Lauryn said.

‘I admire your optimism, but it's not that simple. The interrupter has to be extremely strong. Mentally, I mean. And there's more.' Professor Drake absent-mindedly stroked his chin, then let out a yelp of pain. When you have broken hands, chin stroking is not something you should indulge in.

‘What about my Michael? He's not going to try and stop this weirdness, is he?' The Brute's mother asked. Seanie wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly.

‘Prof, what's the “more” you mentioned?'

‘I can't be one hundred percent certain …'

‘Prof!'

‘The interrupter stops the transfer of immortality. When the keys don't work as one the power is too much for anyone to take. The person performing the ceremony dies.'

‘And the interrupter dies too?' Lauryn said.

‘No, worse than that. He or she will drift into a living death, slowly becoming a thing rather than a person. A monster of the night.'

A macaw squawked and began to throw itself against the bars of its cage. The other birds joined in.

‘Lauryn,' Marie shouted. She thumped her fists against the glass to warn her daughter.

‘I said it's OK, Mom. I got it,' Lauryn snapped.

She glanced in the direction of the creatures, the LED headlamp illuminating their open, slavering jaws. Fifteen, twenty of them. They were right on top of her.

Lauryn's face drained of colour. ‘Looks like I haven't got it after all.'

The Brute waved the torch left and right, moving as quietly and carefully as he could. The last thing he needed was to accidentally sneak up on one of the undead. He could outrun them certainly, but if one of them appeared out of the darkness and grabbed him … he shuddered at the thought.

Lauryn's voice had grown distant until it was mixed with the wailing of the undead creatures and it was impossible to tell the two sounds apart. Hurry up with that lock, girl, he muttered to himself.

He walked on, trying to make his footsteps as soft and quiet as he could, forgetting that although the undead might not be able to hear him, they'd definitely be able to see the light from his torch.

He reached the end of the row of shops. The walkway curved around, just like he'd said. An ellipse. If he continued walking in that direction, he'd end up back with Lauryn. There was a sign for the toilets just ahead. Then the light picked out a door with the words ‘STAFF ONLY'. That looked promising. It might lead to the control room.

He twisted the door knob. It wasn't locked. He pushed it open and stepped into the darkened hallway, gently closing the door behind him. He crept forward, keeping low, his torch focused on the floor giving him just enough light to take his next step without bumping into the wall.

The corridor was cold and smelled of a mixture of damp and disinfectant. He'd gone about fifteen metres when he heard the muffled voices. It sounded like a boy and a man. Colm and The Ghost? He was about to move closer when it struck him that this might be a very bad idea. What could he do? He needed numbers on his side if he was going to take on The Ghost. I may be Superdude, he thought, but this Ghost fella is some kind of Smartevildude. No, he'd better go back and make sure Lauryn had released the others – he couldn't believe his mother was actually here in a shopping centre in Dublin – and then they could storm the room. Between the lot of them they'd defeat The Ghost, right? Although Seanie'd probably be a rubbish fighter. And the Drake fella had two broken hands, so he was out. Lauryn's mother? His mother? It wasn't like having Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan on your side, now was it? Still, what other choice did he have? He sighed as silently as he could, turned around and snuck back down the corridor.