The Feral Peril

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Imprint Page

The Rollcall

The Lesson

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Unlucky Chapter 13

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Sneak Preview of ‘Horror High And The Interghouls Cricket Cup'

Sneak Preview of ‘Horror High And The 101 Damnations'

Sneak Preview of ‘Horror High And The Great Brain Robbery'

According to the note pinned to the door with a bloody dagger, the renovations in the rollcall room were complete and, for the first time in a fortnight, the class was allowed in. They entered cautiously, shuffling, peering over shoulders and panning slowly around the room. Confused mutterings drifted back from those in the front of the line: ‘There's nothing
different
at all.'

It was true. Nothing apparently had changed since they were last in there. Bloodstains still streaked the walls, as usual. Dried organs and freakish samples of human tissue were strung about like ghoulish Christmas decorations – no change there. The standard instruments of torture hung from the ceiling like rabbit traps in a furrier's workshop, and the rusty gibbet swung above Mr Grimsweather's desk.

The gibbet was empty
now
, but the class knew it was only a temporary reprieve. Sooner or later someone would irritate the Rollcall Master sufficiently to be routinely slaughtered, their remains to hang in the gibbet till end of term. Soon someone would infuriate Grimsweather, forget their best terrified behaviour and push the Rollcall Master over the edge … please.

On cue, Geoff Dandyline, grinning like the village idiot winning Nimrod of the Year, stepped forward through the knot of curious students. His buckteeth, which
last year received radio signals from the
Challenger
Space Shuttle, now shot out from his mouth like the cowcatcher on the front of an old-fashioned steam train.

‘Grimsweather's not here.' He beamed gleefully, dragging a tennis ball out of his pocket. ‘Let's have a game of handball.'

‘Are you mad?' snapped Jenny Deaths-head. ‘
Are you nuts
? Grimsweather warned you last time that last time
was
the last time. If he catches you…'

‘But he's not
here
to catch me, is he?' crowed Dandyline, flinging open his arms in an expansive gesture and pointing north, south, east and west like a demented, toothy compass. ‘Do you see a stinky, finky, hinky Rollcall Master with no brain and a big butt named Grimsweather anywhere here? Because
I
don't.'

A chill, polite cough echoed from directly above. In horrified slow motion, Dandyline peered in the one direction he'd failed to look before – up.

He screamed.

There was Grimsweather, coiled around the ceiling fan like a boa constrictor. Dandyline buckled to the floor in terror, moaning, shielding his head in his hands. Waiting. Then, when nothing happened after five long seconds, he cautiously opened his left eye.

He shut it fast. Grimsweather had detached himself from the overhead fan and now crept slowly across the ceiling and down the bloodstained wall like a huge, venomous spider. With a sigh of death breath, the Rollcall Master's feet found the floor.

‘As you can see, class,
this
is the renovation,' said Grimsweather, pointing up at the new overhead fan. Its blades were comprised of two arms and two legs, roughly hacked off at the joints. ‘Our new fan. Now we can be cool in the summer heat, thanks to Frank Hobgoblin's generous contribution of limbs. And now to another person about to make a generous contribution – Dandyline.'

Silence.

Dandyline, subscribing to the theory that if you couldn't see someone, they couldn't see you, lay on his stomach petrified, head buried in his crossed arms. The class milled closer in silent delight. Good ol' Dandyline.

Grimsweather looked like he'd shake apart at the seams with rage. It seemed certain he'd lose it and either cuff or kick Dandyline, but the Rollcall Master managed to control himself at the last instant. He had to. The Department of Education After Death had recently instigated a strict new code of conduct for teachers: they couldn't strike or boot a student, or they'd be in for it.

As an experienced teacher of many moons, Grimsweather knew when to cool it. He didn't want to risk his pension by falling foul of his bosses at D.E.A.D. and getting sacked for whomping a kid. Besides, he knew far more effective ways of disciplining an errant student.

Like the guillotine.

‘I'm going to chop your head off so
many times you'll think you're a wheat crop being harvested!' hissed Grimsweather. ‘Your mother'll have to donate your hat collection to the Salvos, because you'll have nothing to hang them on when I'm done with you.'

‘Please, sir,' came the muffled howl from Dandyline. ‘Mercy.'

‘Mercy!' shouted Grimsweather, ‘Mercy? Yes, I'll show you mercy, but you'll have to earn it. You like to play handball, eh?'

‘No, sir,' Dandyline winced, glancing up. ‘Yes, sir. Don't know, sir.'

‘I used to play handball, and I was first-rate too, until the Black Plague killed off all the decent opposition in my village.' Grimsweather drifted off momentarily, reminiscing about the good old days of disease and famine before snapping back to reality. ‘I tell you what, Dandyline. Since I'm in a good mood, we'll have a game. If you win, you live. If you lose … chop, chop.'

‘Really, sir?' said Dandyline, not sure if it was a trick. Despite being a total clyde in
everything else, he was a handy handball player, nearly as slick as Tony Bones-Jones, who looked set to tan this year's championship.

‘Yes, really,' replied Grimsweather, looking almost human again. ‘Where's your ball?'

Dandyline tossed the tennis ball to Grimsweather.

‘Death Castle rules,' stated Grimsweather.

‘Sure,' Dandyline agreed, grinning, his plate-size teeth refracting the sunlight like a disco ball. Death Castle rules meant the winner was the first to one – a
very
sudden-death play-off.

Grimsweather smiled coldly, drew a line down the middle of the room with a piece of chalk and pointed his finger. The ball leapt to his command and slammed across the room, shooting out towards the baseline. Instantly, Dandyline was lunging, grunting, contorting, diving, desperately returning the barrage of shots. He had the devil's own job as the ball flipped around the room like
a live swordfish, plunging high, low, left and right at near lightning speed, wherever Grimsweather pointed his finger.

Ten, twenty, thirty plus times the ball crossed and re-crossed the line. Dandyline rushed around, sweating like a crooked cop in court for corruption, but Grimsweather didn't have to move at all – he just wagged his finger and the ball bolted to wherever he pointed.

Outside, a cloud shifted and the sun's rays bounced off Dandyline's choppers, beaming like a halogen searchlight straight into the Rollcall Master's eyes and blinding Grimsweather as effectively as laser surgery without anaesthetic.

‘Aaah!' the teacher howled, collapsing in agony. ‘Aaaaaaaah!'

Dandyline took careful aim as the ball landed on his side and walloped it deep into the back of Grimsweather's side of the court, where it rolled slowly to the corner of the room and into a rat's nest.

‘I win, sir!' Dandyline yelled delightedly. ‘I win! You have to let me go.'

‘
What
?' screeched Grimsweather, eyes scrunched closed in agony. ‘What? You cheated! You blinded me! Do you really think I'll let you get away with that? What sort of lamebrain fool do you take me for, Dandyline?'

‘I don't know, sir,' replied Dandyline. ‘I can't read the label from here – and neither can you now.'

Grimsweather nearly smiled, despite the savage, searing blindness, and he was calm when he finally spoke. ‘Give my regards to the guillotine operator, Dandyline. Lunchtime.'