The Skull (13 page)

Mr Grantham stepped forward and tried pushing the huge stone door inwards. It didn't budge. He wriggled his fingers into the crack between the doorway and the stone and pulled hard. The stone rocked a little, yet remained unmoved.

‘Come on!' Mr Grantham said, looking back at Mr Hampton. ‘If we both pull…'

The other man didn't need any encouragement. He found enough of a gap along the top of the door for his chubby fingers, and pushed them in. Mr Grantham did the same on the other side of the stone and they pulled together. The stone rocked again.

Encouraged, they yanked even harder this time, and the stone slowly started to tip. As it overbalanced, they both stepped back out of its way, but it only dropped a few feet before it was blocked by a tree-trunk.

‘Can you get through?' Mr Hampton asked. Mr Grantham climbed on to the rock and tried to lower himself in to the tomb. He managed to get one leg through the door, but no matter how he positioned himself, he couldn't fit his body through the narrow gap. Frustrated, he finally gave up. ‘We'll have to smash our way in,' he huffed, brushing the dirt from his trousers. ‘Come on, let's get the picks.'

The men headed back to the lorry, leaving Stanley alone.

Although the gap in the doorway was too small for a grown man, it was just big enough for Stanley. He
knew he was taking a huge risk, as Mr Hampton and Mr Grantham could be back at any moment. But he had to go in. The skull from his father's drawing had been watching him for his entire life. There was no way he could leave now without looking it in the eye.

He hauled himself up to the top of the rock door and slid down into the darkness.

At first they were just shapes in the rock. Nothing made sense in the darkness. Just rough patches and smooth patches on the surface of the wall. Slowly, though, Stanley's eyes adjusted and the tomb began to reveal its host.

Ridges of light reflecting from the doorway traced strange angles. Here, a long, curved tooth. There, an oval loop flowing from the rock. Underneath, a long, straight line with tiny pockmarks all the way along, sloping diagonally back and down towards the floor.

Suddenly, he realised he was tracing the line of the inside of the creature's jaw. Teeth jutted out above it. Towards the throat, they were small, the size of Stanley's fingers. As he followed them up the wall, they
became larger, thicker, and began to curve inwards, down towards the throat. He brushed heavy, dusty cobwebs from the wall, and began to see details on the teeth, serrations for cutting and tearing at meat.

When this creature lived,
Stanley thought,
nothing that saw those teeth close up would have had a chance.
The thought made him step back, and suddenly he could see it all. The whole shape of the skull, embedded in the rock in front of him.

It was just as he had imagined it from his father's painting. There was the huge eye, the solid jaw. It gave off the same feeling as the painting, a mixture of fear and a magnetic attraction that made you feel as if you could never look away. Part of him wanted to turn, run up the steps and climb out over the stone door. But he did not. Instead, he felt his hand rising towards the wall. Gently, he pushed through layers of cobwebs weighed down with grit and dead spiders, to touch the fossilised snout. The stone felt smooth and cold.

In Stanley's mind, he could feel the creature breathing.

Suddenly, a sharp, hard chiming snapped Stanley's attention away from the wall. He looked around, confused. The sound came again, a loud, ringing impact, disappearing into the darkness.

He realised with horror that it was the sound of a pickaxe striking stone.

It rang out again, and then again almost immediately. Mr Hampton and Mr Grantham were back. Now Stanley could hear them shouting to each other as they hacked away at the stone.

Panicking, Stanley looked around. The tomb was a single, tiny room. It had just one exit, and aside from the gaping head of its fossilised resident, it was completely empty. The moment the two men broke through the doorway, he would be seen and caught. There was no way out this time.

His mind racing, he searched the floor. No hidden trapdoors. He looked up at the ceiling. Nothing. He felt his way to the back of the tomb. The wall dipped in a little at the corner, but there was no crevice big enough to hide in. Outside, he could hear the rock beginning to splinter and crack. Encouraged, the two men were swinging their pickaxes at it harder and faster.

Stanley only had one chance, and he would have to get it exactly right. He crept up the stone stairs towards the doorway. The rock was vibrating as it was struck again and again, and small pieces of dirt and dust were raining down from the top of it. Through
the gap in the doorway, Stanley could see the effort in the men's faces as they hacked away. The inside of the tomb was dark, and the men could not see him as he squinted out, but the moment the slab broke, he would be standing right in front of them.

If he timed this wrong, he could easily be injured by a pickaxe, or worse.

The sound of picks against stone was painful to his ears now, and underneath it he could hear the stone cracking more and more with each blow.

He hooked his fingers around the doorframe, leaned back into the tomb and waited, holding his breath.

Suddenly, a sound like a gunshot burst through the air. The stone slab split across the middle from one side to the other, the two halves folding outwards. The bottom half crashed down onto the top step, the upper half toppling onto it.

As the two men stepped back to avoid being hit by the slab, Stanley took his chance. He leapt up on top of the stone as it fell, hauling himself forward, and bounded out of the door.

His way may have been blocked, but the one thing the two men were not expecting was for a living body to come flying out of the tomb in a cloud of dust.

Mr Grantham was the smaller of the two men, so Stanley ran straight at him. He hit him low and hard, barging the startled teacher out of the way and sprinting off into the forest.

A second later, Stanley heard Mr Hampton shout after him as the two men gave chase. Then there was a loud bang. This one really was a gunshot. They were shooting at him! He dodged between the trees and threw himself downhill, sweeping branches out of his face as he struggled to keep upright.

Stanley was a fast runner, but the sounds of the men behind him didn't seem to get any quieter as he ploughed onwards. He glanced back and could see them pelting after him. Mr Grantham was clutching the gun and running hard, but luckily he couldn't get a clear shot through the trees. Mr Hampton was much slower. Even so, Stanley could see him circling around to try and cut off his escape route further downhill.

Panicking, Stanley looped around and started struggling uphill, away from Mr Hampton. At the same time, Mr Grantham began to catch up with him, his long strides making short work of the rough terrain. At the brow of the hill the trees thinned out, which Stanley knew would make him an easy target. Keeping as low as possible, he zigzagged back and
forth between bramble thickets, hoping and praying that he could avoid giving his teacher a clear aim. A shot cracked through the air. Stanley tensed, but felt nothing. Mr Grantham had missed. Diving over the brow of the hill, Stanley hurtled downwards, grabbing the trunks of trees as he fell past them, desperately trying to stay on his feet. Another shot echoed past him, but this time it was a wild attempt and splintered off a tree some way ahead.

A couple of seconds later, Stanley's feet found a level, flat path. He turned onto it and sprinted as fast as he could. The track wound back and forth down the side of the hill. Although he could run faster here, the clear, open way would give Mr Grantham more of a chance to shoot.

Stanley glanced back. His teacher was nowhere to be seen as the path doubled back on itself, working its way down the hill.

Stanley thought fast.
Mr Grantham has obviously seen me take the path,
he reasoned,
and has headed straight down the hill to cut me off. I need to watch out.

Up ahead, the road snaked down and around again, but Stanley couldn't see what was around the corner because the trees were too thick.
That's an ideal spot for an ambush
, he decided. Instead of turning the
corner, he ploughed off the path and into the trees. Turning sharply downhill, he ran on.

Behind him, he heard Mr Grantham curse and crash into the forest after him.

Stanley's lungs were burning. He wouldn't be able to keep up this pace for long. Luckily, the ground was beginning to level out, and up ahead he could see the edge of the woods. Beyond the tree line he could even see houses. He clenched his fists for one final burst of speed and forced his legs to keep moving.

Minutes later, he crashed out of the wood and into an open field. If he could just reach the house on the other side… Another gunshot rang out from close behind him as he dodged and swerved erratically, trying to present the most difficult target possible to his attacker. The gun fired again as Stanley, miraculously uninjured, leapt over the back gate of the house and pounded on its door.

The old man who opened the door looked kindly enough. ‘Can I help you?' he enquired.

Stanley realised he must look quite a state. ‘I wonder if you'd mind letting me in?' he said as politely as he could manage. ‘My geography teacher is trying to kill me.'

Mr Grantham and Mr Hampton realised the game was up as soon as Stanley made it to the house. They hovered around outside for a couple of minutes, then disappeared back into the trees. Meanwhile, the old gentleman called the police. The pair were still standing over the lorry arguing about how to fix it when they were arrested.

After a cup of sweet tea Stanley telephoned his father, who listened in worried silence while he recounted everything that had happened. When he finished, he expected anger. Instead, his father simply sighed in relief.

‘Stay there,' he said. ‘I'll come immediately.'

Stanley thought about how his father had spoken of the village he grew up in, and how he'd reacted when anyone suggested returning there. ‘You don't have to come,' he said. ‘Really, I'm quite all right, and I'm sure the police can take me back to school.'

‘I'll come,' said his father with determination. ‘Can I speak with the gentleman who rescued you?'

Stanley handed the phone to the old gentleman. He heard his father thank the man.

‘Not at all, not at all,' the old man said. ‘You have a well-brought-up young lad there. And an uncommonly brave one.'

Stanley's father asked for directions to the house. The old man replied, ‘No need. If you can find your way into the village just ask anyone. Everyone here knows me. You see, I'm the vicar here.'

There was a long pause, and the line went dead.

Two hours later, there was a knock at the door. The old man opened it, with Stanley at his side. Stanley's father stood in the doorway. He said nothing, but there was an odd look in his eyes. Stanley almost thought he might have been about to cry. He stared at the old man for a long time.

At last he spoke. ‘Stanley,' he said, without looking at his son, ‘I'd like you to meet your grandfather.'

Excavated, cleaned and mounted on wires, the skull was an impressive sight. Each bone had been painstakingly prepared. The rock around it had been chipped and polished away one tiny piece at a time with chisels and needles designed for dentists and tapestry makers. Once complete, the skull had been reassembled with every tooth replaced in its socket and every crack invisibly sealed.

Stanley had watched as it was brought out from the ground by a team led by his father, and he had visited
the workshop often during the preparation work. Now, Stanley and Henry sat together on stage as the lecture theatre filled with scientists and academics. The skull sat at the centre of the stage looking out into the audience. Dramatic lights were arranged around it, although it needed no such theatre. The creature had such presence that everyone who looked at it froze for a second, as though turned to stone, before settling into their seats.

He fingered his typewritten speech and looked at his father who smiled reassuringly. The audience was intimidating, but they were both clear on what they were going to say. Stanley would tell the story of the skull's discovery, and his father would follow it up with a detailed description of the megalosaurus itself, outlining how it fitted into an evolutionary tree that connected it to the American tyrannosaurus and allosaurus, and more distantly to mammals, apes and humans. The audience quietened, a short introduction was made, and father and son stood up to present their find to the scientific community.

As they started to speak, nobody noticed the old vicar slip in to the back of the auditorium, quietly take a seat, and begin to listen.

Azombie. That was it. Carl Marchant had been trying to work out what living at home was like these days, and he'd finally got it. It was like living with a zombie. As Mum leant against the breakfast table, her head flopped from side to side as though her neck wasn't strong enough to hold it upright. Her eyes were red and sunk back in her skull. Her skin looked grey, and her hair stuck out on one side and fell limply across her face on the other.

Tiredness was half of it. She had to do everything herself now, and after two months the strain of pretending things were just fine had begun to tell.

Things were not fine. In fact, they were far from it. And it was time for Carl to deal with the other half of
the problem. It was time to take on the dinosaur and bring Dad back.

He swiped the screen of his phone and tapped it to bring up the bus route. It was an easy enough journey, although he'd never made it alone before. He looked up. Mum was staring into the distance with a living-dead blankness in her eyes.

‘I'm going to the park with Gerry after school,' he said, as casually as he could. He watched for her response, hoping she didn't ask too many questions.