The Nightmare Game (7 page)

“Lorn?”
he said desperately. Emma made a quick, impatient sound and he flapped his other hand at her, straining to hear. “Be quiet, Em.”

But he knew he was being stupid. This time he could hear the flutter of the tape and it was obvious that the sounds were simply being repeated, exactly the same as before. After a few seconds, he put the phone slowly back into its cradle. Emma was right. It was Mr. Armstrong at the other end of the phone.

They were being watched. He might be outside the house at that very moment, waiting for them to come out. Wherever they went, they'd never be sure that they were alone.

“What are we going to do?” Emma said.

Robert sighed gloomily. “We can't do anything, can we?”

“But we must,” Emma said. “We've
got
to get our bikes back. Suppose he sees us doing that.”

They'd ditched their bikes in the dark, when they were running away with Hope. They'd climbed over fences, to get from one back garden to another, and it was impossible to carry Hope and cope with the bikes as well. All three bikes—theirs and Tom's—were still hidden in one of the gardens.

At the time, it hadn't seemed important—not compared with Hope's safety. But Tom's mother was already asking awkward questions. They needed their bikes back.

“We'll just have to be careful,” Emma said at last. “Mr. Armstrong's got to take a break sometime. And he won't expect us to be out so late, will he?”

Robert pulled a face. “I hope not. I really don't fancy meeting him in the dark.”

 

THEY LAY IN BED, FULLY DRESSED, WAITING TO HEAR THE SOFT snoring sounds that meant their parents were asleep. As soon as it was safe, Robert ducked under the covers and phoned Tom.

“Hi, Tosh,” he whispered. “Ready to go?”

“Thought you'd never call,” Tom whispered back. “My mom's been asleep for hours. See you down by the park in ten minutes?”

“No problem. But be careful. We think Mr. Armstrong's watching our house.”

Robert heard Tom's quick gasp, but he didn't stop to explain. They had a long way to walk, and it was time they got started. Hanging up, he dropped his phone into his pocket and slid out of bed, pulling on his sneakers.

Emma was already out on the landing, waiting for him. She didn't risk speaking, just beckoned impatiently and led the way downstairs. As they crept out of the house, Robert looked up and down the road, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

Was Mr. Armstrong hiding somewhere close? There was no sign of him, but that didn't mean anything. Every bush and every shadowy corner was a possible hiding place. His eyes darted left and right as they crossed the road.

As they went around the corner, Robert looked down the side of the park and saw Tom away at the far end, by the wood. But he wasn't watching for them. He was facing the other way.

“He's
talking
to someone,” Emma hissed. “Who on earth—?”

Robert's heart thudded. The figure beyond Tom was half hidden in the trees, but he could see that it was a man. And surely there was only one man who would stop and talk to Tom so late at night. Only one, terrifying person . . .

“Mr. Armstrong's got him!” he gasped. “Come on.”

He and Emma broke into a run, racing down the side of the park toward Tom. But as they drew closer, the dark figure in the trees began to look shorter than Robert was expecting. Less threatening. Maybe it wasn't Mr. Armstrong. But if it wasn't—who could it possibly be at that time of night?

They were only a dozen steps away when the dark figure walked out of the trees, stepped around Tom, and came down the pavement toward them. As he reached them, he lifted his head and looked Robert straight in the face.

For a split second, Robert found himself staring into a shadowy face that he knew—and didn't know. Even in the orange light from the streetlamps, he was aware that the man's sharp eyes were impossibly blue and bright. They made everything else seem far off and insignificant. Somewhere, off to his left, he could hear Emma muttering something, but that was in another world, another life. There was no room in his brain just then for anything except the face in front of him.

What do you want? Why are you here?
It was the man he'd seen on the plane, at the start of all this strangeness. Their eyes had met as they walked past each other.
And after that—I was small and alone. Down on the dark ground.

He wanted to say it, but he couldn't get the words out. Couldn't move at all. He could only stare.

Then the man turned his head, breaking contact. He stepped off the pavement and went past the two of them. By the time Robert had gathered his wits enough to look around, he'd already disappeared.

Now—when it was too late—the questions came flooding into Robert's head. He wanted to run after the man and make him answer them. But he couldn't. Emma was tugging frantically at his sleeve.

“Rob. Rob—look at Tom! What's the matter with him?”

Reluctantly, Robert turned back. Tom was standing very still, gazing at the empty pavement where the man had been standing.

“He's not all right,” Emma said. “Come on!”

She and Robert covered the last few steps at a run and Emma caught hold of Tom's shoulder and pulled him around to face her.

“Tom! Wake up. You can't go on standing there like a zombie.”

The word hit Robert like a blow in the chest.
Zombie
was the word Emma and Tom had used to describe him—when he wasn't really there. The Robert they could see had just been an empty shell, because the
real
Robert had been down in the cavern, with Lorn and the others.

That couldn't have happened to Tom. It
couldn't
. Robert took hold of his arm and shook him fiercely.

“Don't do that,” Emma said.

But Robert couldn't help it. He had to get some reaction. “Tosh! Snap out of it!”

Very slowly, Tom blinked and began to move, knocking Robert's hands away.

“Cut it out!” he muttered shakily. “What's your problem, Robbo?”

“I thought there was something wrong,” Robert said. “I thought—”

“There's no time to hang around thinking,” Tom said. His voice was strange, as if he was struggling to speak clearly. “If we don't get going, it'll be morning before we've fetched the bikes. Come on.”

Without waiting for the others to answer, he turned away and began to walk briskly up the road, toward the city center.

“What was all that about?” Emma said.

“Did you see—that man?” Robert said tentatively. He was already beginning to wonder if the whole thing had happened inside his own head. “He was—did you
see
him?”

“Of course I saw him.” Emma scowled. “Couldn't miss him, could I? Not with you standing there, goggling at him like a codfish and blocking his way.”

“I've . . . seen him before.” Robert was still trying to make sense of it all. “I saw him on the plane. Remember?”

“On the
plane
?” Emma looked baffled.

“I told you. When I went off to the washroom, I passed a man coming the other way. It was
him
. As I went past, he looked straight into my eyes, the way he was looking at Tom just now. And a couple of seconds later—pow! Everything exploded and disappeared. When I woke up, I was small and lost and alone.”

Emma gave him a long, cautious stare. “So?”

Robert was sure she knew what he meant. But she was obviously going to make him spell it out. “Well—now he's looked at Tom,” he muttered. “So is Tom—?”

“Tom's nothing like you were,” Emma said firmly. “When you came back from that washroom, you were polite and laid back and—
empty.
Tom's not like that at all.
Look
at him.” She pointed down the road. Tom was striding away energetically. “We need to stop worrying about him and concentrate on catching him. Come on.”

She broke into a run and Robert jogged to keep up with her. But he was still worrying. Was Tom
really
all right? Or was the Tom they could see now just an empty zombie? Was the real Tom somewhere in the wood with Lorn and the others, down on the dangerous dark ground?

THEY'D LEFT THE BIKES RIGHT OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE city, in the development where the Armstrongs lived. It took them over an hour to walk there, ducking into the shadows from time to time to avoid anyone who might cause them trouble.

All the time they were walking, Robert was trying to work out a way of asking Tom about the man from the plane. But every question he invented sounded sillier than the one before.
Hey, Tosh, are you just a zombie? Is the real Thomas Hastings down in the cavern with Lorn?
They were all pointless. If the Tom they could see really was a zombie, he wouldn't know anything about it.

Robert did once get as far as saying, “You know that man—?” But Tom changed the subject immediately, with a sharpness that discouraged any more questions. There was something he didn't want to talk about. Robert could tell that. But there was no real chance to discover any more. What they were doing was hard enough on its own.

And Emma kept hassling them. The nearer they came to the development, the more she worried about how they were going to find the right place.

“I just don't
remember
,” she muttered. “We were going so fast, and there were so many gardens. We could spend all night looking.”

“It's OK,” Tom said. “I'm pretty sure I know where we need to be.”

Emma didn't look convinced but, when they finally reached the estate, Tom turned confidently off the main road. He began to work his way through the network of little streets as though he knew exactly where he was going.

“We go right here,” he murmured, “and then right again—and the road curves around to the left. The house we want is about halfway along. With a red door.”

Robert didn't remember, but he recognized it as soon as he saw it. An immaculate semi-detached house with identical net curtains at every window and a neat, paved path leading up to the front door. There was no light showing at any of the windows, and no one around in the road. With luck, they could sneak in and out of the side gate without being noticed at all.

Even so, it was hard to take the first steps. They hovered on the pavement for a moment, looking nervously at one another.

Last time, it had been simple. Once they'd rescued Hope, they'd been so desperate to escape that they were ready to do anything. It had been easy to open any gates that blocked their way, easy to slip into strange gardens and clamber over rickety fences. But it was different now. As they looked at the house, all the dangers they'd ignored before jumped into their minds.
What if someone calls the police? What if there's a dog in the garden—or an angry man with a gun?

Emma bit her lip. “We should have come in the daytime. Just knocked on the door and explained what we wanted.”

“We've discussed all that,” Robert said patiently. He didn't want to go through the arguments again. “It's too late now, anyway. We're here. And we'd better get on with it before anyone spots us. Come on.”

Stepping onto the grass, he walked quickly to the side gate and tried the latch. It lifted easily. He opened the gate without a sound, beckoning to the other two as he crept through.

Beyond the gateway, the garden was very dark, but he could just make out the shape of the shed at the far end. That was where the bikes were, hidden between the shed and the back fence.

Emma came up behind him, not realizing that he was still standing there. When she bumped into him, she gave a small, startled squeak.

“Sssh!” Robert muttered under his breath.

“It was your fault,” Emma said indignantly. “You were in the way. If you'd just kept going—”

“
Sssh!
” That was Tom, following behind her. “Get into the garden quickly, before someone comes. And be
quiet
.”

Robert couldn't believe they were being so loud. He'd learned about being quiet in the cavern, when he was small. If he'd gone outside and made the kind of noise they were making, some greedy predator would have come along and eaten him. Tom and Emma wouldn't have survived for five minutes the way they were behaving now.

He pulled them into the garden and shut the door, lowering the latch carefully. Then he turned and began to pad down the garden, keeping to the grass and feeling the way with his feet. The others followed, as silently as they could.

They were halfway to the shed when a window opened behind them.

“What are you doing?” said a child's shrill voice. “Go away, or I'll call the police.”

A light came on suddenly, catching all three of them out in the open. There was a girl at one of the upstairs windows and she was pointing a powerful flashlight straight at them. They stopped dead, turning to face her.

“It's all right,” Robert said gently. “We're not doing anything wrong. We've just come to fetch something that belongs to us.”

That didn't make any impression on the girl. “I'll call the police
now
,” she said, “if you don't get out of here. I've got the phone in my hand. Look.” She turned the flashlight toward herself and they saw her for the first time. She was only about eight. A thin, lanky girl with hanging hair and nervous eyes. Her left hand was gripping a phone and they could see it shaking as the hand trembled.