Gustav Gloom and the People Taker (9781101620748) (8 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AN AWKWARD LIBERTY

“This way!”

Gustav darted to his left so abruptly that Fernie almost missed the turn. She skidded on the tile floor and almost went down, but recovered and followed him around a statue depicting a bunch of embarrassed Civil War soldiers removing a mama cat and her kittens from the mouth of a cannon. They were barely ten paces past that statue when they heard another statue shatter to pieces behind them.

“Again!” Gustav yelled and led Fernie around a rather impressive sculpture, this one the famous image of five marines and a sailor planting the American flag in Iwo Jima. In this version the marine in front was hollering bloody murder because the others had jabbed the tip of the flagpole into his foot.

Another huge crash followed as this sculpture also shattered into hundreds of pieces.

The Beast was powerful, the Beast was fast, and the Beast was dangerous, but the Beast wasn't the most patient creature in the world. It wasn't much for taking the time to go around obstacles. It seemed it could smash through anything and certainly enjoyed doing so . . . even though fighting its way clear of the wreckage slowed it down.

Unfortunately, running around the biggest and heaviest sculptures to keep placing them in the Beast's path slowed Fernie and Gustav down even more.

“This isn't working!” Fernie cried.

“I know! But I have a plan!”

This was more than Fernie had at the moment, so she just bit her lip and concentrated on running.

Fernie felt a whoosh of air right behind her tug at the back of her pajamas and heard the sound of ripping cloth as unseen shadow claws cut slashes in the loose fabric of her pajama top. She knew the Beast would get her before she ran even one more step. This was not the library, after all. She was not standing close to any walls with any sliding panels that might reveal a friend eager to pull her into any secret passages.

The most she could do was yell “Duck!” and throw herself to the ground.

Gustav obeyed, and the massive black shape of the Beast sailed by just over their heads, smashing face-first into the sculpture that they'd been about to use for cover. It became a cloud of dust and so did the sculpture ten feet behind it and the sculpture ten feet behind that. The Beast was apparently so slow to figure out that it had accidentally left Gustav and Fernie behind that it smashed another half dozen of the sculptures in a straight line before it doubled back.

“That,” Fernie managed, “just might be the very stupidest monster on the planet.”

Gustav was already back on his feet and pulling at Fernie's arm. “It'll be back on us in no time. Hurry!”

They ran again, this time in another direction. The sound of smashing marble grew faint in the distance behind them . . . and then grew louder again.

Fernie started to wonder if the answer was going to be continuing to throw herself to the floor every single time the Beast leaped. Sure, she thought, it had worked once, but it was far from the kind of thing somebody could just keep doing indefinitely, even if the Beast was dumb enough to keep falling for it.

And then she looked past the next twenty rows of statues at a great familiar shape she had been too busy to see as anything but a wall and knew where Gustav was leading her. It was an awkward shadow version of one of the biggest statues of all.

This was a Statue of Liberty that nobody had ever seen while sailing into New York Harbor.

This Liberty was scratching an unbearable itch on her right hip. Her robe was all bunched up around her waist as she gathered enough fabric with her left hand to give her right hand access to the affected spot. Nor was that the only itchy place: She was also using the heel of her left foot to rub what looked like a manhole cover–size mosquito bite on her right ankle.

To free her hands, she had tucked her engraved tablet and the handle of her burning torch under her right armpit; and, true to what would have happened to anybody itchy enough to do something so careless with a flame, she'd accidentally set the fabric around her shoulders on fire. Wrought-iron flames, glowing from internal lamps, rose from that part of her as well. Her expression suggested that she didn't realize that she was on fire, as she was too distracted with reaching her terrible itch. Her struggle with her robes was so intense that her crown sat crookedly on her head, sliding downward to her right side and revealing a host of loose, frizzy hairs made of what looked like iron pipes.

It looked like she needed a very big comb.

Fernie remembered learning in school that the real Statue of Liberty had been a gift from France to the United States. Even as she ran toward this never-imagined version, her life depending on whatever Gustav had in mind, part of her wondered just what America's reaction would have been had France offered this one instead. And if it had been built? Generations of poor immigrants, huddled together on ships from Europe, might have taken one look at the giant figure in the harbor . . . and decided to go back.

All of this went through Fernie's mind in less than a second. But then an enraged roar, not far enough behind her, reminded her that she and Gustav had far more terrible things to worry about. “It's coming!”

“I know! Just run!”

Expecting the terrible grasp of the Beast at any moment, Fernie pushed herself to run harder and concentrated on the feet of the silly Lady Liberty, which were right now the most important feet in the world.

Just ahead of her, Gustav ran past the one sandaled foot that was flat on the ground, and veered behind it. Seeing what he was up to, but not knowing if she would get there in time, she risked one last look over her shoulder and saw the Beast, closer than she ever would have feared, looming like a patch of darkness between her and the rest of the world.

Again it grabbed for her. Again she threw herself to the ground, and again she caught a glimpse of something dark and terrible, something that didn't seem to have any particular shape, sailing past her, right over her head. She turned to follow its path and saw it hit the shadow Liberty at just the spot where the giant lady used the heel of one foot to scratch an itch on the other.

There was a tremendous crash. She saw the Beast's legs sticking out of a crater at the spot where the two giant legs crossed. She heard it bellow as it realized it was stuck and watched as it tore another huge gouge in the plate metal to free itself.

Not far away, Gustav yelled, “Run!”

Fernie got up and ran with what felt like the last of her strength, but only for a little bit, because the terrible creaking sound had already started and she wasn't able to stop herself from turning around to see the collapse.

The statue's giant legs were no longer able to stay up after the damage the Beast had done to the crossed ankles. With a tremendous ripping and crashing and snapping of metal, it started to fall in on itself. The upper reaches of the statue fell and collapsed all the smaller ones. They sank as if a bottomless hole had opened up . . . except that there was no hole in the floor and the only thing the statue could fall into was itself.

The last thing to hit was the awkward Liberty's head, which retained its look of distracted concentration until it had nowhere else to fall. Then it fell apart, too, in a cloud of dust.

It would have been breathtaking if Fernie had had any breath to take. As it was, she just felt her own knees buckle and sank to the ground.

“Wow,” she managed.

Gustav waved at her as he came around the hill of twisted metal. His black suit was covered in dust, but otherwise he looked fine—like a boy who hadn't just been chased by a monster.

As he drew close, Fernie asked him, “Is it dead?”

“Unfortunately,” Gustav Gloom said, “you can't kill a shadow by flattening it.”

Fernie thought about that and said, “I guess you couldn't. They're flat already.”

“On the other hand, being buried by tons of shadow statue should put this one down for a little while.”

“How much of a while?”

Gustav performed some mental calculations. After a few seconds he held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “A
little
while.”

“That little, huh?”

He examined just how far apart his two fingertips were and after some more consideration, moved them a little bit closer together. “No. Maybe
this
little.”

Some of the smaller pieces on the surface of the wreckage shifted. Was it because they were still settling from the fall, or because something dark and dangerous underneath the pile was digging its way out? “You don't happen to have any other big statues around here in case we need to bury it again?”

“I know of one even larger. It's four heads carved into the side of a mountain, all of them with very serious expressions except for the bearded man, who's sneezing. I suppose that if we could get the whole mountain to collapse on the Beast all at once, we might be able to imprison it for a long time.”

“Then let's do that,” Fernie suggested.

“Unfortunately, the mountain's also a long way from here and not in the direction we're headed. Besides, I'm not sure I have any idea how we'd go about bringing down a whole mountain. It probably isn't even possible.”

Fernie realized that the last thing she wanted to do was make burying and reburying the Beast a lifelong job. “How about we just return to getting me out of the house? How far is this Too Much Sitting Room?”

“Not far. We got a little sidetracked just now, but we should be there in a few minutes if we walk quickly.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE TOO MUCH SITTING ROOM

Fernie didn't ask Gustav how the Too Much Sitting Room could possibly be anywhere nearby when the Gallery of Awkward Statues seemed to stretch for miles in every direction and there weren't any walls in sight, let alone doors. She just assumed by this point that Gustav knew where he was going.

This turned out to be true, and the border between one room and the next had nothing to do with walls or doors or hallways. If you stood in one place, the gallery seemed to go on forever. But if you walked in a certain direction following somebody who knew the way, the awkward sculptures started to fade out and a dark, dusty little room lined with books and wooden paneling and filled with overstuffed, high-backed comfy chairs started to fade in to replace it.

Many of the chairs were occupied by silent, unmoving people who had sank partway into the big plush cushions. They all looked like real people, not shadows, but though none of them looked dead, none of them looked like they were ever going to get out of their chairs anytime soon. A burning fire in a nearby hearth made it hard to blame them for staying put, as everything about the room made it look like a perfect place for a nice, long sit, even if
nice
and
long
were just different words for
forever and ever
.

Before the last of the awkward sculptures faded all the way out and the last of the comfy chairs faded all the way in, Gustav warned Fernie not to sit down, no matter how tired her legs were from all the running, or how inviting the chairs looked.

Fernie suddenly felt the need to say, “I think I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For saying that your house is stupid.”

Gustav shrugged. “Sometimes it is stupid. Sometimes your world is stupid.”

“I didn't mean to apologize for
thinking
that your house was stupid. I meant to apologize for
saying
it. That was rude. Friends don't treat each other that way.”

This left Gustav silent for a long time. “Is that what we are?”

Fernie said, “Aren't we?”

He thought about it. “I was hoping we could be. I've never really had a friend before.”

“Come on. That can't be true. What about your family? Mr. Notes? They all seemed pretty friendly.”

Gustav struggled with what seemed like a difficult explanation. “They try,” he said finally. “I was raised by one very good shadow who isn't around anymore, and I guess you would call her my friend if you can count the person who acts as your mother as a friend. There are some like Great-Aunt Mellifluous who also do what they can to love me and take care of me, and I love them back, but being with them, being friends with them, doesn't feel like being with people. It's more like being with the idea of a person, if you know what I mean. Which can sometimes be even more lonely.”

“But there are so many of them. Millions, maybe. How could you possibly be lonely when there are so many?”

Gustav hesitated again. It seemed that some things were hard to speak out loud, if only because that meant looking at them.

“Most of the others don't really talk to me. They don't mean me any harm, but they don't think I belong here and don't care all that much whether I live or die. They don't care whether anybody lives or dies. It's the same reason that somebody like the People Taker can just move in, coming and going whenever he wants, snatching people out in your world and bringing them here for Lord Obsidian's pleasure. Because they don't think it's any of their business.”

“That's pretty mean of them,” Fernie said.

“It's natural, I guess. It really doesn't have much to do with them, so they don't think about it much.”

After a moment, she said, “Do you always have to run from monsters?”

“The Beast's not the first one, if that's what you mean. He's not even the worst.”

“It must be scary living here.”

“Sometimes. But it's like I told you: I'm used to it. I guess that's another reason why I never really tried to do anything about the People Taker before he snatched all those people on your side of the fence. It just didn't seem all that unusual to me. Monsters, people takers, beasts, dangerous rooms . . . they're all just things I've grown up with.”

There wasn't much she could say about that, either. He gave the impression that he'd realized this would be a part of his life for as long as Fernie was around and that he knew he might as well learn how to deal with it properly.

“Either way,” Gustav said, “having a human friend is going to change things, I think.”

Fernie gave his arm a comforting squeeze. He didn't seem to do any better with that than he had with the hug. But he didn't pull away, either.

They walked farther. The last of the awkward statues faded. The Too Much Sitting Room grew sharper and more distinct until it was suddenly the only place visible around them. It was now possible to see that many of the motionless people in the chairs were covered with dust and cobwebs, even though in many cases their eyes were open and watching Fernie and Gustav hurry by. Most looked resentful. A few, a very few, mumbled to themselves, giving the impression that whatever conversation they thought they were having had been going around in circles for far longer than anybody on Sunnyside Terrace had been alive.

Fernie, who was not only hours past her usual bedtime but, after all, wearing pajamas, found herself yawning and thinking about how nice it would be to sink into one of these big chairs, if only for a moment. It was not a great thought to have, but there it was in her head as if the room had found a fine unoccupied shelf somewhere between her ears and
put
it there. She shivered. “Why doesn't the People Taker take
these
people? It's not like they'd run away.”

“He wouldn't be able to lift any of them,” Gustav said. “Once you sit in any of these chairs, you become part of it forever. These people are just . . . upholstery, who can think and see and remember being people and wish they could move.”

She gulped. “Can they speak?”

“Yes, but you don't want to talk to them. All they ever do is suggest that you pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable.”

This was somehow even worse. “Why would there even be a room like this in your house? I understand the library and the gallery, but what does something like this have to do with shadows?”

“The way Great-Aunt Mellifluous once explained it to me is that people who spend their entire lives sitting around never doing anything become shadows of what they could have been, so they deserve a room here as much as anybody.”

Fernie chewed on this for a bit. She didn‘t like it from any angle. “I kind of want to take back my apology for calling this house stupid.”

“I thought you might,” Gustav said, without taking any particular offense.

The pair hurried past the various circles of high-backed chairs where sleepy and motionless and despairing figures sat slumped with nothing to do but stare at one another. Some, driven by boredom or malice, called to the two children, noting that they looked tired and that they really ought to get off their feet.

“The stairs are over there,” Gustav said, pointing to a black door between one of the fireplaces and a sizable painting of a comfortable chair empty but for a single forlorn hand reaching for freedom from some hopeless prison beneath sofa cushions. “One flight up's the grand parlor, which you've already seen, and once we're there all we have to do is get you back to the entrance hall and out the front door.”

The grand parlor would be a relief. The talking shadows had scared her on the way in, but they wouldn't be so terrible now that she knew what they were and had spoken to a couple.

She knew she had Gustav to thank for getting this far, and was about to say so when he stopped so short that she almost collided with his back. What Fernie had mistaken for just another patch of darkness on the floor now turned out to be the People Taker, squatting with his back against the door as he waited for Fernie and Gustav to draw close.

Gustav had said that the People Taker was as human as she was, but when he drew himself to his feet, he was like a column of greasy black smoke rising from some unseen, burning place. An evil, happy grin spread across his pale skin, cracking his face in two. Fernie could imagine him grinning that same grin while doing all manner of cruel and malicious things to all of the people he'd
taken
.

“Fffffernie,” he exclaimed with what seemed genuine delight. “Gustavvvvv. I sssssent my pet into the gallery to fetch you. How tricky you mussssst have been to get this far!”

Gustav kept himself between Fernie and the People Taker. “We were tricky, all right. We buried him.”

“Did you now?” The People Taker chuckled. “Mussssst have been enjoyable fffffor you. I've buried lotsssss of people, and I've
never
gotten tired of it.”

He took a single, unhurried step. It was clearly the walk of a living, breathing, solid, flesh-and-blood man, but he was also clearly as much a creature of absolute darkness as anything Fernie had seen in this house. He seemed to swallow the surrounding light with every step, putting it out as simply as most people can put out a candle by snuffing the wick between thumb and forefinger.

For the first time, Fernie noticed that for such a dark presence, he didn't seem to have a shadow himself. That reminded Fernie that Gustav had hurried her away from her own back in the banquet room, and she turned to check whether it was with her again; and, yes, there it was on the ground, trembling with fear and candlelight.

Gustav Gloom stepped away from him, forcing Fernie to retreat the same distance. “You've never been able to
take
me. You've been trying for months but haven't ever gotten close. And you won't ever get to
take
Fernie, either. I'll stop you if you try.”

The People Taker wagged a finger. “Sssssilly boy. Whoever said I could be ssssstopped?”

He moved. In all her life, Fernie had never seen any man move faster. In an instant, his clutching, pale, white hands became missiles, dragging the impossibly long coal-black sleeves of his arms behind them.

Before Fernie even knew what had happened, his gloved hands had closed tight around Gustav's neck.

Or at least they would have if Gustav hadn't moved.

Instead, the cold fingers closed on empty air.

In the same insanely brief instant, Gustav had shoved Fernie aside and dodged the People Taker's grasp. Fernie cried an indignant protest as she fell but, even before she hit the floor, had time to appreciate the look of even greater surprise on the People Taker's face as his hands closed all the way into fists without ever encountering a neck.

The People Taker's dark eyes fixed themselves on Gustav and memorized exactly where he'd gone.

One more impossibly fast lunge later, the terrible fists once again closed on empty air, just short of Gustav's throat.

“You're fffffast,” the People Taker noted.

“I was raised by shadows,” Gustav replied. “Have you ever tried to catch one?”

An awful sound, like broken glass crunching into smaller pieces when a boot steps on it, started in the People Taker's throat. Only the grin on the People Taker's face made it possible to recognize it as the sound he used for deep, uproarious laughter. “Would you like to know why I'm ssssstill sssssmiling?”

“Not particularly,” Gustav said.

“I'm sssssmiling . . . because there's a diffffference between how fffffast I usually have to move . . . and how fffffast I
can
move.”

The People Taker lunged again . . . and this time, when the fingers of his left hand closed, they found an actual neck to grasp. He lifted Gustav high off the ground with nothing but the strength of his left arm and stood there laughing while Gustav dangled, clawing at his fingers.

As terrible as his laughter was, he really did sound like he was having a good time.

Then the laughter ended and was replaced by a cry of pain. He wasn't having anything like a good time anymore.

As much attention as the People Taker had needed to pay to the strange little boy who had refused to allow himself to be
taken
, he had completely forgotten to pay attention to the little girl who the little boy had been protecting. And that little girl had belly-crawled across the floor and sunk her teeth into the spot where the hem of his right trouser leg had risen up and revealed an inch or so of pale, white ankle.

His ankle tasted much worse than she ever would have expected. Beneath a thin layer of dirt and sweat lay another taste so disgusting that it left her wondering how much of his life he had spent wading through troughs of mangled, rotten fish guts. But Fernie was determined to keep biting. She grabbed his foot and his leg and held on, even as the People Taker hollered in pain.