Attica (12 page)

‘Next birthday – or maybe the one after …’

And this one was no ordinary traction engine. This was a
showman’s
engine. They were the best, the most expensive of all the steam engines.

‘A showman’s traction engine!’ He breathed the words. ‘If only I had some methylated spirit for fuel. I’ve got the matches. I can get the water from one of the tanks. A bit of rag or maybe even some cotton wool somewhere. I bet I could get it up to pressure in no time …’

‘There you are!
There
you are. Oh, thank goodness you’re safe!’

Alex quickly stuffed the engine into his backpack and stood up to greet his sister.

Chloe had found him. She came stumbling out of one of the dark corners of the attic and grabbed him for a hug. Her face was moist with tears. Alex struggled, uncomfortable with this show of affection.

‘Steady on, sis,’ he said quietly. ‘Someone will see you.’

‘I don’t care. I missed you.’

‘Well, I do. I’ve – I’ve got my reputation to think of.’

Chloe laughed, despite her tears. ‘Oh, what? Your reputation as a hard man? Now, where have you been?’ She looked at him and suspicion came into her eyes. ‘You didn’t hide on purpose, did you?’

‘I was captured by shop
dummies,’ he answered indignantly. ‘I was in danger of my life.’

‘Shop dummies?’ Chloe laughed. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No.’ And she could see he was deadly serious. ‘
Anything
can happen here. We have to watch our backs.’ He looked behind him, but all that was there was that old pile of clothes. ‘You never know who’s sneaking up on you – or rather,
what
.’

‘Stop it Alex, you’re frightening me.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you. I know this place now. You just have to keep alert.’

She looked exasperated. ‘I didn’t mean you’re frightening me with the place, I mean
you
. You’re going bonkers.’

Alex was hurt and defensive. ‘No I’m not.’

‘Well, stop talking funny then.’

Alex realised he had to keep his new self hidden a little while longer. All right, he had been a scientist and engineer in his last life. In this one he was an explorer and he was going to enjoy being one. Chloe hadn’t yet made the leap from her old world into this one. He damn well had and it felt good. In his last life he had been the quiet one, the thinker, the
slow
one. Jordy had been the quick, flash, sporty one. Chloe had been the clever one, the book reader – and the pretty one. They got more attention than him, there. But things can change.

‘Alex, are you dreaming again?’

‘Me? No, course not.’ He hefted his pack onto his back.

‘And what’s in there?’

‘Stuff I found. Compasses. Binoculars.’

‘You found that? Oh, well done, Alex,’ cried Chloe, her tone changing instantly. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Oh, over there.’ He waved vaguely. ‘You can get all sorts of stuff here, if you look out for it. Now, are we going to climb that old hill, or what? We need to find the map, don’t we?’

Chloe looked towards the Jagged
Mountain. ‘We need to find Jordy,’ she said quietly.

‘Oh yes,’ said Alex. ‘And him.’

They began to walk towards the mountain.

Chloe said, ‘So tell me what happened with the shop dummies.’

Alex explained how he had wandered out and been captured by the mannequins, recounting the humiliation he’d been put through, but how he kept his chin up and had escaped when the chance came.

‘You did that all by yourself?’

A tinge of guilt went through Alex.

‘Well, I thought …’ he looked back at a pile of old clothes, receding into the back of the attic now. ‘Yeah – yeah, all by myself. Oh my …’ Alex suddenly pointed to something. ‘Oh Lord, look at that.’

‘What, that toy?’

‘Toy? It’s a
model
,’ cried Alex. ‘A Mamod. Look.’ He picked up the model traction steam engine painted green and red, with shiny wheels and lots of parts. It was truly a marvellous piece of engineering. ‘A traction engine,’ he said reverently. ‘You’ve no idea what these cost back in the real world. And here’s another one.’

‘
Another
one,’ echoed Chloe a little impatiently.

‘It’s mine,’ said Alex, as if she were going to take it from him.

Chloe said quietly, ‘You sound about two years old, Alex. We can’t carry things like that. It’s too heavy.’

‘Oh yes we can,’ said the feverish Alex.

‘Alex?’

‘I’m keeping it,’ he said, putting it in his backpack. ‘It’s mine and I’m keeping it.’

Chloe did not have the energy to argue.

They reached the bottom of the Jagged Mountain at noon and began climbing, up
along rusty rifle ridge and skirting the chasm of bayonets. It was tough going, especially over the boulders of helmet slope, which had them slipping and sliding. They learned not to grasp on to things suddenly, for there were sharp swords and daggers everywhere. The snouts of howitzers and field guns were waiting to trap an unwary foot and the fins of rockets could slice open a knee just as effectively as a razor. They climbed well, keeping to hanging valleys and chimneys, which offered good handholds and gentler slopes, keeping clear of sheer drops down on to sharp shells. Deep dips full of bullets were waiting to suck under any climber who tried to cross them, for they were as unstable as quickmire.

The higher they climbed the colder it became, until they had to be careful that their hands did not stick to freezing metal. Colder, and more gloomy. Here the air was as still as death. There was the sense – they both felt it – of something watching and waiting. Something ugly and malicious, holding back for the right moment in which to attack.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Chloe, shivering with the cold and perhaps for some other reason too. ‘Can you give me your hand?’

Alex reached out and grasped his sister’s wrist, pulling her up on to the shelf of small black bomb cases.

‘Yep, I’m OK,’ he replied, his breath coming out as steam. ‘Flippin’ cold, sis. I’ll be glad when we start to go down.’

There were snow patches on some piles of weapons.

‘Nearly at the top, I think. Every time we go over a ridge, there seems to be another one waiting, but the peak can’t be far now.’

‘I hope you’re right …’

At that moment Katerfelto launched its attack. It came sweeping down from above as a dark flapping sheet with ragged edges. There were holes for its
mouth and eyes, and its claws were stretched out before it. It screamed as the wind screams, high and shrill. The suddenness of his coming, the speed at which he swept upon them, terrified the children. They turned to run as this giant shapeless fiend rushed down at them. Chloe fell and went skidding down a slope of bombs, her jeans snagging on the fins. Alex kept his feet but his eyes were wide with terror as he jumped from tank barrel to turret, from submarine conning tower to aircraft wing. Katerfelto chased him, herded him back to where his sister was nursing a bruised arm.

‘Look out, Alex,’ she screamed. ‘It’s just behind you.’

Katerfelto whirled around them. Now it was in its favourite form, that of a charlatan dressed in a long black gown with a black square cap. It swirled in ever-decreasing circles. The cap flew off and away somewhere and its hair became a spreading net. It flew wild about its head and they saw they would soon be caught in the folds of this flailing trap. Alex dropped down beside his sister, wanting to comfort her, but having to battle with a heart that raced in his chest. What was he to do? Where was all his ingenuity now that deadly danger stared them in the face?

Alex whipped off his pack and looked inside. A torch. Would that do? A penknife. Absolutely not. There were weapons all around them they could use if they wanted to. But Alex sensed that to pick up a sword or a gun would be giving in to the mountain. Perhaps that’s what it wanted, for them to acknowledge they could not do without weapons of war? And it would be futile – just as war was futile – because the creature was not substantial.

He continued to scrabble around in the bag. The compasses were absolutely useless of course.

‘It’s coming closer,’ said Chloe, her fingers gripping her palms so hard they were white
and bloodless. ‘Closer and closer.’

And indeed Katerfelto was tightening its circle. Soon the black hem of its cloak was flicking over the faces of the children. They could not feel it, but they could sense its coldness. It was like being whipped across the eyes by a freezing wind. Horror built in the minds and hearts of the two children. They wanted to jump up and run. They wanted to flee from this terrible force that moved upon them with such vicious certainty.

‘Close your eyes,’ ordered Chloe. ‘Maybe if we don’t look at it?’

Both of them closed their eyes tightly, and Alex tried to imagine that Katerfelto was not there. But even so the coldness of Katerfelto’s breath swept through Alex’s mind. There was no escaping this fiend simply by closing one’s eyes and imagining it gone. Its presence was far stronger than the mere thoughts and imaginings of a young boy. It had crushed powerful men in its time and reduced them to whimpering madness. It had driven women on to the spikes of bayonets, as they strove to escape it. None could withstand naked fear when it rushed in as an evil wind.

Alex opened his eyes and took one last look in the backpack.

What? These? Why yes, of course.

The matches.

As the darkness continued to thicken he took out the box of long-stemmed matches and struck one, lighting it.

Katerfelto recoiled with a moan.

‘Here, hold this, Clo,’ said Alex, handing her the burning match. ‘I’ll do another one.’

He struck a second match.

The dark tail of the monster god retracted sharply.

Fire. It hated fire.

Light. It hated
light.

‘We’ve got it on the run,’ yelled Alex excitedly. ‘See, it’s going.’

Katerfelto was withdrawing like a swift tide going out, pulling in its edges, retreating before the fire and light. It was making strange sounds as it left. It was a creature in pain. It seemed to separate now into small rivulets of darkness, which drained into holes in the piles of weapons. Down the barrels of rifles, through the tracks of tanks, under the tubes of mortars, it seeped into the side of the mountain. As it went, so did the terror, and the children felt the fright drain from their hearts and minds. This creature was fashioned of nothing; nothing at all, except fear.

‘I hope it doesn’t come back,’ said Chloe, blowing out the flame before it burned her fingers. ‘Have you got any more matches?’

‘A whole box full,’ confirmed Alex, putting them in his chinos pocket. ‘But we’d better be careful with them. After all, fire in an attic and all that …’

‘Yes, of course. The place is made of tinder.’

‘Exactly. But so long as we’re careful.’

Somewhere in the attic one of the Removal Firm stiffened and a sudden chill went through him. What was that? Had he smelled burning sulphur again? What dreadful irresponsibility! He took his hands from his khaki dustcoat pockets and formed a cup around his nose with them. Then he breathed in deeply, sniffing the air. Sulphur, definitely. Someone, somewhere had struck another match. This was the second or third time in as many days. Yes, there it was again, another match. Fire, the forbidden wonder of nature. Forbidden to all in the attic. Those who used fire were summarily ejected from the attic, sent out into Chaos, that nowhere place down below the boards. The creation of fire was the deepest, darkest sin, the
worst of crimes, in the attic. The Removal Firm might fuss over woodworm, death-watch beetles, dry rot, nibbling mice, canker and other dangers to the attic, but fire was dealt with very harshly. He and his colleagues would continue to seek out the criminals and when they found them, they would remove them.

CHAPTER 8

Scissor-birds that Blood Your Head

They descended from the mountain to the plains
below.

There were broad open spaces, bare wooden boards which stretched lengthways in the direction in which they were heading. They camped for a short while at a spot under one of those mighty timbers that supported the roof. It had some rusty nails protruding from it and Alex hung his backpack and other equipment on it. As he did so he became interested in the pillar itself, which soared upwards, thick as a mature oak, to split and spread itself high above, in order to support the roof.

He slapped the pillar with his hand, feeling strength in its solidity.

‘You know, sis,’ he said, looking round at other such pillars which stood four-square every hundred metres in each direction, ‘without these fellows, the roof would collapse on us.’

Chloe lay back, her head on a rolled-up coat, and stared into the dimness above.

‘I’ve been studying stresses and pressures on the arches of bridges and I’m sure these do a similar job. You don’t seem to realise how important they are. If I was to chop this one down there would be too much
pressure on the next one, and the one behind, and those to the sides. They’d give way too and that would mean more and more pillars cracking and splitting and collapsing – you know, the domino effect – and finally the whole roof would fall down on the heads of everyone in here. It would be an end to this place for good.’ He paused. ‘Just one of these pillars down, that’s all it would take, to crush this world.’

‘Cheerful Charlie, aren’t you?’

‘I’m just saying how fragile this place is. It looks sturdy enough, it’s true, but it ain’t.’

‘A delicate balance?’

‘Well, I don’t know about
delicate
, but a balance, sure. You interfere with that balance, and WHAM, the whole lot comes crashing down. Everything underneath would be flattened, squashed to pulp. A few cockroaches might live, but not much else.’

Chloe was happy when they moved on and he stopped talking. She preferred her thoughts to dwell on lighter things than the end of the world.

Mostly the apex of the roof was high, out of sight, but they reached an area where the roof was lower and a tangle of rafters above their heads formed a canopy similar to that in a rainforest or jungle. The children sensed movement occasionally in the rafters and believed there were bats up there. Neither Chloe nor Alex were scared of bats, or really any kind of wildlife. Chloe couldn’t stand girls who squealed at anything unusual. Alex didn’t like creepy-crawlies but he was all right with bigger creatures.