The World House (20 page)

  "I'm acting as loathsomely as the rest of you," Alan replied, "in order to save Sophie's life. I'm also proving a point."

  "Which is?"

  "Worth is not just measured in strength, it's measured in intelligence."

  "Oh, so you're cleverer than us? Is that it?"

  "I must be," Alan replied, "because only a bunch of absolute idiots would suspend a network of flaming torches above their heads."

  His flaming club finally burned through the rope above him and the strands either side swung down, whipping the torches through the air. The fires found their mark, igniting people as well as the piles of rags and bed coverings that littered the floor. The cave erupted in panic, people running to put out the fires and save their friends. Alan ignored the lot of them, waving the lighted club around him as he ran for the exit.

  He hummed in Sophie's ear, relieved to hear her hum back, drooping on his shoulder as she vanished inside herself. He ran back in the direction they had travelled the day before, thankful that they had left a clear enough trail to follow. The sound of pursuit wasn't long in coming, the shouts of the savages and the snapping of branches. His breath drew painfully short in his chest. He wasn't fit enough for this sort of thing, he carried far too much flab. His shoulder throbbed with Sophie's weight, the muscles in his legs quivering with every step. He just hoped he had enough adrenalin to keep him going. Behind him the natives were calling to one another, no doubt trying to get ahead so they could cut him off. He was sure they weren't overly worried about losing him. As far as they were concerned he was running towards a dead end.

  He made it to the clearing where they had met Whitstable the day before, marked by the boar's blood still staining the ground. He sat Sophie down and walked up to the vast transparent barrier. "'There are monsters in the darkness…'" he quoted to himself as he raised his club towards the glass. Well, maybe that was so, but there were monsters here too. He brought the club down on the glass, a stabbing pain erupting in his shoulder as the wood reverberated against the glass. He brought it down again, as hard as he could, while the sounds of people beating their way towards them grew louder and louder. This time the glass cracked. Once more would do it, would have to do it.

  There was a terrible scream from behind him and he turned to see Whitstable, still smouldering, running towards them, his glasses bent around his shining, burned face. Behind him were a crowd of natives, the rage in their faces transforming them into the animals they truly were. No time… Alan hit the glass again and it shattered, the cracks shooting up through the large panes, a rain of crystal shards pouring down on him. Covering his face he grabbed Sophie and stepped through the hole he had made into the darkness.

 
 
 

Carruthers was woken by the sound of movement outside his tent. It was the tiniest noise, a slight rustling, but an explorer learns to keep his wits about him. Many years ago, Carrutthers had been trekking in India when he woke one morning to find a Bengal Tiger in his tent. Coming face to face with a maneater who has designs on your legs is no way to start a day. Since then his subconscious had learned to wake him at the slightest possibility of danger.

  He reached for his lantern and revolver before slowly creeping outside. Someone was walking through the stacks towards them; he could hear the soft slap of their feet, the shifting of their clothes. Carruthers' senses were ludicrously attuned – he was damned if he would get caught napping twice in his career. Turning his back on the noise he lit the lantern, fixing the metal coverings in place so that no light would escape until he wished. Treading silently, he positioned himself in the centre of the aisle between the stacks, waiting for the intruder to step a little closer. With one fluid movement he unhinged the flap on the lantern – bathing himself and the intruder in a beam of light – and trained his revolver on the centre of the illumination. Recognising Penelope he whipped the gun-barrel away.

  "My dear!" Carruthers cried, "I might have shot you!"

  "Well, I'm ever so glad you didn't," she replied.

  "What on earth possessed you to go wandering?" asked Carruthers. "I had hoped I'd made it clear how perilous this place is during the hours of darkness."

  "I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd find a book to read," said Penelope with a smile.

  "You jest, my lady, but I can assure you I don't exaggerate the danger. There is no book worth the risk."

  "No doubt you are right," Penelope said, "I just… " She shrugged with embarrassment. "There was someone's biography I wanted to read. I told you what happened to me before I came here, the things my fiancé threatened to do."

  "I would have thought that was the last thing you would want to re-experience."

  "Oh, I didn't want to re-experience it, I wanted to understand it. I thought I knew Chester, knew him really well. Turns out I didn't have the first idea."

  Carruthers nodded and put his arm around her shoulder to lead her back towards the camp. "I do empathise, of course. You saw, no doubt, the small stack of volumes I have collected? In some cases I simply wished to know how a few select friends had fared since my departure but the book I sought out first – in fact the very moment I came to realise what these volumes represented – was the life story of Lady Vanessa D'Lacey."

  "A sweetheart?"

  "Oh, very much so, since a young age. We were to be married, in fact."

  "What went wrong?" she asked.

  "Exactly what I wanted to know. This was before I started travelling and I was nothing if not an attentive beau. Still, a handful of days before the wedding she called it all off and vanished to Vienna. I was utterly at a loss to comprehend it. Had I done or said something to upset her? Had there been someone else to whom she pledged her affections? I was, I am ashamed to confess, in a terrible state."

  "Nothing to be ashamed of."

  "You are kind. I decided the only thing for it was to change my circumstances, I had always been interested in other cultures and there was nothing in England to bind me, so I became an obsessive traveller, hoping, I now appreciate, that if I walked far enough I might be able to escape the blue funk that had gripped me. Of course, time is a great medicine and the pain lessened over the years. Still, I would be lying were I not to admit the conundrum clung to me. Why had she done it? When faced with this room I had the opportunity to find out, to read her side of the story and finally understand what I had done to drive her away."

  "What was it?"

  They were back at the camp now and Carruthers hung the lamp from one of the ropes. "It was quite simple: she didn't love me. There was no more to it than that. Such an obvious answer really and I shouldn't have needed the book to tell me. Your situation's no different: this fellow did the most unutterable things to you for no more reason than that he was a terrible man. It is no great mystery."

  "You're right, I know, I just can't quite dismiss the notion that maybe…"

  "It was something to do with you." Carruthers nodded. "Of course. But we must let others take responsibility for their actions. You had the misfortune of crossing this monster's path and I wish it were not so. However, the fates are terrible ladies and they do not always act as one might wish."

  Penelope gave Carruthers a kiss on the cheek. "You're a good man," she said, "and I hope Miss D'Lacey realised what she had lost."

  "Bless you." Even in the low light, Penelope could tell that Carruthers' cheeks had reddened slightly. He lifted the lantern, meaning to extinguish it, but a pool of light fell on the shelves behind him and he gave a cry of disgust. The shelf was filled with fat worms, writhing over the books. The size of a man's forearm, they recoiled at the light, their circular mouths flaring to show glistening bristles that may have been needle-thin teeth.

 

"Cool your boots, kids," said Tom as the three of them stumbled around in the darkness, "I'm actu ally prepared for this." Elise and Pablo listened as Tom rummaged in his pockets. There was the click of his lighter and then they were bathed in orange light as he held up a lighted candle. "Who's your daddy?"

  "He would not have liked you, Tom," said Pablo, smiling in the candlelight, "he was an angry man."

  "Just what he world needs more of. Here," he handed the candle to Pablo, "I've enough for everyone, just mind the wax." He pulled out another, lit it and gave it to Elise, finally taking another for himself.

  "May I suggest we keep moving?" said Elise, "I don't like the idea of those toys following us in the dark."

  "I'll beat the stuffing out of them," said Tom, "have no fear." Nonetheless he started to move down the corridor. As he held up the candle to get a sense of their surroundings, the flame showed rows of oil portraits on both sides. "Handsome dudes," he muttered, grimacing at the dour jowls and effete ringlets of a particularly satanic-looking figure.

  "They built them beautiful in the old days," replied Elise.

  The corridor ended in a pair of panelled wooden doors.

  "Maybe keep us safe if hairy things follow?" asked Pablo.

  "You have a point, El Toro," Tom replied, "though, knowing our luck, there's probably a goddamned rollercoaster rigged up on the other side."

  He reached for one of the wrought-iron knockers, tapping it cautiously before grabbing it and pulling the door open. A musty smell crept out into the corridor.

  "Am I the only one who's already thinking, 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire'?" said Elise.

  "You think that bad you should visit my house," said Pablo, "fishermen make houses smelly."

  "Sounds lovely," Elise replied. "Come on then, it's not like we can go back the way we came, is it?"

  "The lady speaks the truth," said Tom, swinging the door wide open. They stepped inside, holding out their candles.

  "Well, bless me father!" said Tom, shining his candle against a stained-glass window, "looks like we've found religious sanctuary, kids."

  Pablo looked up at a large crucifix fixed on the far wall. The blood on the pasty forehead of the plaster Jesus was black in the low light. "I don't like churches," he said, "I spend too many hours in them."

  "Well, kid," Tom replied, swinging the door shut and bolting it, "looks like you're going to spend a few more in one. If you like we could sing some hymns, cheer you up some?"

  "Songs about dead people, I do not see where is fun."

  "I thought all Spanish were Catholic?" said Elise.

  "I thought all American wear cowboy hats, is very disappointing."

  Tom laughed. "The rest of us all look like Presley."

  "I do not know him, but he must be funny looking."

  "You don't know Presley? Jesus… what have you been doing with your ears?"

  They settled down on one of the pews, thankful for the opportunity to do nothing but sit.

  "My ears?" Pablo was confused. "I do not understand half of what you say."

  "Feeling's mutual, kid."

  "I speak good English!" Pablo insisted, his pride hurt.

  "You speak it better than Tom," Elise interjected. "Don't let him get to you, he's just spoiling for a Martini."

  Tom made to argue then realised she wouldn't believe him if he did. They'd been busy enough for the thirst to be all but quelled. Still, it bubbled away, a background constant like the hum of a power line. This was probably the longest he'd been sober for about fifteen years and he couldn't say he was enjoying the experience much.

  "What is Martini?" asked Pablo.

  "Liquid sunshine," Tom grumbled, "can we get off the subject?" He rooted in his jacket for cigarettes. He offered the pack to Pablo and Elise, both only too happy to take one. Using their candles they lit them and sat silently, as if the act of smoking took every ounce of concentration in the human body.

  "Feels strange smoking cigarette without having to watch for my father," said Pablo. "He think cigarettes kill you."

  "He might well be right," admitted Tom, "but I don't think it's the major concern to your health right now."

  "We will not die here I think," said Pablo.

  "I admire your confidence," said Elise.

  Pablo shrugged. "It is just a thing I think."

  "Well keep thinking it, El Toro, I like your style."

  "Shush!" hissed Elise, "I thought I heard something."

  All three stood up, moving their candles around to throw as much light into the darkness as they could. A thin shadow of Christ reached for the ceiling behind Pablo as he lifted his candle in front of him. "I cannot hear anything," he whispered.

  "Wish we had more light," said Elise, moving between the pews to stand in the middle of the chapel. "Wherever we stand you can never see all of it."

  "There is nothing here," said Pablo, "I am sure of it. Think of smell, there's no way anyone has been in here for years."

  "That's logical, kid," said Tom, "but I think, what with the giant snakes and killer teddies, we can safely say logic is not always on the setlist."

  There was a ruffling of feathers.

  "Trapped pigeon maybe?" said Elise, testing the safety of one of the pews with her hand before stepping on to it, holding her candle up towards the ceiling.

  The light fell on the chubby face of a toddler, wedged between the rafters. Two wide-spanning wings sprouted from his back, the feathers off-white like aging paper. "Not a pigeon," she whispered. The cherub looked at her with milk-white pupil-less eyes, its head moving with the jerkiness of a bird.

  "Careful," Tom whispered, creeping slowly towards her.

  "It's all right," Elise said, "I think it's just curious."