Colm & the Ghost's Revenge

Shortlisted for the Bisto Book of the Year Award 2010

Colm & the Lazarus Key
from Kieran Mark Crowley heralds a serious new player in the Irish fiction market for children … Moves effortlessly between laugh-out-loud comedy and hide behind the sofa scariness. Three concurrent plot-lines, each equally engaging.

Inis Magazine

A funny, laugh-out-loud book.

The Irish Examiner

A lively fantasy adventure.

Irish Independent

A cracking debut novel.

Books Ireland

A rip-roaring adventure story … a real page turner.

Verbal Magazine

MERCIER PRESS
3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd
Blackrock, Cork, Ireland

 

© Kieran Mark Crowley, 2012

ISBN: 978 1 85635 997 9
Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 094 6
Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 095 3

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

All characters, locations and events in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, which may occur inadvertently is completely unintentional.

For Adam

and for Jessica, Isobel, Cormac, Hugh, JJ and Luke
.

Special thanks to the Borrisoleigh Aunties, a terrifying force of nature
,

and to all my cousins spying in the bookshops
.

The Book of Dread

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty–One

Twenty–Two

Twenty–Three

Twenty–Four

Twenty–Five

Twenty–Six

Twenty–Seven

My name is Colm. I'm eleven years old and I live on the northside of Dublin. As I write this, it's two in the morning and the city is asleep. Except for those who love the night, burglars and me. I don't sleep much any more. When I do, the things I dream about are terrible. But I'm not writing this to tell you about my nightmares. These words are to warn someone who may one day be as unlucky as I was. For those of you who think your lives are normal and boring and that there's nothing exciting out there for you, you're wrong. There is. And if you're not careful it will kill you.

There are only ten people in the world who know what I know. Two of them are dead. Of the survivors, one refuses to talk to me, the location of some of the others is unknown and the remainder live at least three thousand miles away. If someone had told me six weeks ago that I would be writing about strange and disturbing events for an ancient journal I would have thought they were mad. Now I think that I might be the one who's mad. I can hardly believe what I've been through. When I first read ‘The Book of Dread' I was shocked by the tale the author told. I never imagined that I would be the one to write the next chapter of this horrible book. But I have no choice. It's my destiny.

All that happened seems unreal now that I'm here in my bedroom, surrounded by my books and games and clothes. Everything looks the same as it always did. I hear my mother snoring in the room next door, my father getting up to go to the toilet for the second time tonight. It's all so familiar and on the surface life goes on as it always has. Sleep. Eat. School. Homework. But in my head, the world has changed.

Eighty-three days ago The Incident occurred. The thing that changed my life. It began when my parents, myself and my cousin Michael (I call him The Brute) decided to stay in the Red House Hotel, an old country house in the middle of nowhere. And when I say nowhere, I mean nowhere. You couldn't even hear a car passing it was so far from the main road, and it was surrounded by this huge, dark forest, so thick that it hid the hotel from the rest of the world. We were the only guests staying there. I won't lie – it was creepy. The only other people around were the owner, a cranky old woman called Mrs McMahon, her daughter Marie, Marie's American daughter Lauryn (The Brute kind of went weird when he was around her) and their friend, the tall, thin Professor Drake.

I found ‘The Book of Dread' when I was nosing around the hotel library. When I saw it for the first time, I felt like the book was calling out to me, as if it wanted to be read. I couldn't help myself. I reached for it, but just as my fingers brushed its spine, Lauryn showed up and said that the book was cursed and anyone who touched it died within twenty-four hours. When I heard that, I pretended I hadn't gone near it and that everything was cool, but to be honest, it freaked me out. I really didn't want to die. Especially when there was still a week left of the summer holidays. Of course afterwards, when I thought about it, the whole idea of it seemed stupid. Why would anyone keep a book that killed people in the library of a hotel? Half the guests would be dead before the weekend was over. That would have to be bad for business.

I found out afterwards that Lauryn had made up the story about the book being cursed. She just wanted to get me and my family out of there as quickly as possible because the hotel contained a much darker secret than a cursed book. She didn't realise it would take more than the possible death of his only child to scare my dad away. He's not the most generous man – if you got my pocket money you'd understand – and since he'd already paid for the rooms, there was no way we weren't going to stay in that hotel for the night, even if we found out that all the staff were axe-wielding, child-hating maniacs.

The secret Lauryn was trying to protect us from was a mystical object called the Lazarus Key. There was a guy who had lived in the hotel about a million years ago. His name was Hugh DeLancey-O'Brien. Turns out he'd stolen this Lazarus Key (it wasn't literally a key, it was a diamond with a tiny skull inside) from a secret society in Boston back in the 1800s. The key was supposed to give the person who held it eternal life, but only if it was used correctly. Of course old Hugh didn't have the instruction manual, so instead of living happily ever after he ended up half-dead in a tomb buried deep in the forest. He must have been there for over a century, barely moving, his body decaying, his brain turning to mush, just waiting for a victim to come along and steal the key. That's what he wanted. You see, whoever took the key would give their life force to DeLancey-O'Brien. He'd steal their youth and they'd end up all withered and dead while he'd be young again. Everyone was safe as long as they stayed away from the tomb. Of course, then The Brute went barging into the forest, found the tomb and took the key. Nice one, Brute.

So now we had this zombie creature coming after us, which was scary enough, but then we found out that this really tough criminal – number one on the FBI's Most Wanted List – was after the key too. This guy was so devious, so fiendishly clever, that no one knew his real identity. Even the FBI called him The Ghost. To cut a long story short, after some kidnapping (my parents), followed by some more kidnapping (me and The Brute), I ended up with the key. It was awful. That little diamond made my blood run cold. It made me weak and sick and brought me closer to death than I want to be for at least another seventy years.

Later, after escaping, I managed to trick The Ghost into swallowing the Lazarus Key. The key was destroyed and the creature that was once Hugh DeLancey-O'Brien, who also almost killed me (it was that sort of night), wasn't able to survive in the sunlight. It died thanks to the help of an overweight man who mysteriously turned up in the middle of everything with his girlfriend. The man said their names were Bill and Jill and that they were tourists, but I didn't believe him. I think they must have had something to do with the key.

Now you know my story. Since then I have spent every spare moment researching the key, so that anyone who reads this book can protect themselves if a similar thing ever happens to them. This is what I have learned so far:

1. There were originally three keys. One key has been destroyed. By me. Two remain. A single key can resurrect the dead by drawing the life from any living person who holds it in his or her hand. The living person will end up in a coffin if too much of the life force is taken, but things can go badly wrong for the dead person too. They can end up in a half-life for hundreds of years. Especially when the key isn't used properly. And no one I've met seems to know how to use it properly.
   
2. If the three keys are used together by one who understands the ancient ceremony known as Abbatage, then they will make the user immortal and almost unbelievably powerful. This requires all the keys and a willing participant. Can't think why anyone would want to participate in that kind of madness. Abbatage, I think, would be a very bad thing for humanity, so I'm glad there are only two keys left.
   
3. The remaining keys are believed to be in Eastern Europe and Asia, buried with some ancient warriors who tried to become immortal, but messed things up and ended up being buried with their keys.
   
4. A key can be destroyed by hydrochloric acid (yeah, the stuff in your stomach). Some say that running water and ice can also have an impact on it, although when I tried that with the key I found it had no effect. Another tale explains that the power of the keys can be wrecked by someone who disrupts the Abbatage ceremony, but the interrupter will almost certainly die, which is why this solution doesn't seem to have been that popular.
   
5. There was once a vicious gang in Boston known as the Sign of Lazarus. I don't know if they still exist, but they worshipped the key and used the one they had to control the city. They were among the most ruthless people ever to walk the earth. You can recognise them by their tattoos. Each one should have a skull inside a diamond shape inked either on the tip of a finger or the inside of an arm.
   
6. The dead can be commanded by the holder of the key, but if the holder uses it improperly he can become one of the drifting dead – alive only in the darkness. Light is his enemy, powerful UV light can destroy him.
   
7. If you ever hear anyone mention the Lazarus Key, then you should turn around and run away immediately. It is a horrible thing and will only ruin your life.
   
8. I'm serious. Run.
   

That's all I have to say. I hope no one will ever have to use this information. I hope that whoever reads this will think that I was just a boy with an overactive imagination. If they do then it means that the remaining keys have not surfaced and that the world is still safe. With luck, the man they called The Ghost will have been the last one ever to search for the key. Since he is dead hopefully no one smarter will come after it.

It has been over a year since I wrote those words and everything has been quiet and boring. Until today. I found this in a newspaper my father was reading across the breakfast table:

The robbery of the priceless Destiny Diamond bore all the hallmarks of the man whose true identity is unknown to those in law enforcement. Some call him the ‘Napoleon of Crime', but most, including the FBI, know him simply as The Ghost. It was believed that The Ghost had perished in a freak accident in Ireland eighteen months ago, but a spokesman for the FBI today revealed that there have been developments recently which suggested that the dead man may, in fact, have only been an accomplice of the master criminal. The spokesman also admitted that they are no closer to apprehending him than they have been at any time in the last twenty years. The Ghost is believed to be responsible for over two hundred high-profile robberies and the deaths of forty-seven people, in addition to the disappearance of seventy-nine others, who are presumed to be dead.

If the real Ghost is still alive, then the rat-faced criminal who died in the woods probably just worked for him. I'm sure The Ghost won't come here though. Why would he? The Lazarus Key was destroyed. But if he does come, I hope he doesn't cross my path. Or yours. By the time you know it's him it will be too late for you to save yourself, so there is no point worrying about what he might do.

But I'm still scared.