House of Bones (18 page)

John leaned back in his efforts to pull himself from the wall, but the instant that the back of his head touched the plaster, his hair was caught, and then his scalp was pulled in.

“
No! You cant let this happen! Tell them to stop it! No
!”

Mr Vane lifted his wrist and looked at his watch.

“Don't you worry, John. It doesn't take long.”

John screamed again and he was still screaming I when the front door opened. The hallway was lit by a dazzling crackle of lightning. In the doorway stood Courtney and Mr Cleat.

“
Help me! Get me out of here! Help me
!”

Courtney made a move towards him, but Mr Vane raised his arm and shouted, “Stay back! It's too late for him now!”

But Courtney said, “It's too late for you, man! We know all about your houses and we know all about you!”

“I said
stay back
!”

Courtney took another step forward. As he did so, however, the statue turned around to face him, as fast and fluid as a boxer. Courtney tried to dodge past him but the statue swung its arm and hit him
on the shoulder. Courtney was jolted back, and as he lifted his arms to defend himself, the statue hit him again and again. It caught him on the side of the head and he was knocked backward on to the floor.

Although his eyes were bulging with fright, Mr Cleat tried to circle round the statue on the right-hand side of the hall. The statue turned its head and started to move towards him, slowly lifting its right arm in the air.

Mr Cleat managed to duck to one side, and the statue's blow hit the bannisters with a sound like a cricket bat, breaking three of the uprights. It twisted around and hit out wildly, again and again, and one of its blows caught Mr Cleat right between the shoulder blades. He dropped on the floor on his hands and knees, and the statue strode up to him with both fists raised, ready to pummel him into the tiles.

At that moment, though, Courtney tried to run around the other side of the hallway. “No, you don't!” said Mr Vane, and snatched at his arm.

The statue turned its head to see what was happening. Courtney twisted himself free from Mr Vane, threw himself across the hall and collided with the statue with all his weight. The statue toppled over Mr Cleat and fell to the floor with a devastating crack. Its ivory face broke away from its head and skated across the tiles.

Blind now, the statue rose to its feet. It took two staggering steps to the right, and then three more steps to the left, swinging its arms dementedly from side to side.

“What have you done?” shouted Mr Vane. “It's Aedd Mawr, the greatest Druid of them all! What have you done!”

He went across to the statue, his hands held out to guide it. The statue collided with the wall and then blundered into the hallstand, smashing the mirror and breaking the shelves.

Mr Vane tried to take hold of its arm, but the statue swivelled around and hit him across the side of the head – a blow which almost lifted him off the ground and sent him hurtling across the hall and into the bannisters. He collapsed on to the floor with blood running down the side of his face, his arms and legs as crooked as a broken puppet.

“
Help me
!” John screamed. His arm had disappeared into the wall up to the elbow, and he could feel the terrible clawing, tugging sensation growing stronger and stronger.

Courtney took hold of his one free hand and pulled it as hard as he could. Mr Cleat seized hold of his legs.

“
Get me out
!” John panicked. “
I don't want to go into the wall like Liam! Get me out
!”

“Liam only had one person to help him,” said
Courtney, gritting his teeth. “Come on, Cleaty,
pull
!”

He locked hands with John, and then he heaved back until John could hear the muscles in his arm cracking. Courtney's feet slid and scrabbled on the tiles, but at last he managed to get a purchase.

“Now
pull
!” he panted. “And
pull
!”

Mr Cleat was much stronger than John would have guessed. He tugged so hard on John's coat that he nearly tore the lapels off, but the dragging force inside the wall was almost irresistible. John's arm disappeared and he couldn't feel his hand at all. The back of his head was buried in the wall up to his ears, and he felt as if his whole brain was beginning to freeze. He felt like giving up, and allowing the wall to pull him in to get it over with.

On the other side of the hallway, the faceless statue was still stumbling around, breaking windows, splintering door panels and tearing down curtains.

Courtney said, “Come on, one last pull! Come on, Cleaty, this is for all the people who've been lost in the walls! This is for Liam!”

He counted, “One – two – three—” and then they all pulled together. Mr Cleat pulled so hard that he let out a long, high-pitched squeal of effort.

There was a moment when John was sure that they had lost him for good, and he thought of his mother and his father and Ruth. He could feel
himself being relentlessly dragged into a dark, freezing-cold world where life meant nothing – a world of black superstitions and terrible rituals, a world of whispers and ghosts and dark, unspeakable memories.

He could feel himself right on the point of death.

“
Noooo
!” he screamed, although he couldn't hear himself screaming. And it was then that he made the supreme effort himself, flexing back his shoulders and forcing his head forward and wrenching his arm.

At that moment, Uncle Robin and Lucy appeared in the doorway. Lucy clamped her hand over her mouth in horror, but Uncle Robin came hurrying across the hall. As he did so, he dragged out of the pocket of his old green velvet jacket a long chain of crucifixes – some large, some small, some silver, some brass, some wooden, some plastic.

The statue heard him and swung around, but it walked straight into the stairs and fell to its knees, where it remained, motionless, as if it were praying.

Uncle Robin came over to John and looped the chain of crucifixes between him and the wall. At once, John felt the wall actually
recoil
, with a cold, plastery shudder.

“Now, let's all pull!” said Uncle Robin. “Let's all pull, and we'll get him out!”

Courtney pulled. Mr Cleat pulled. Uncle Robin
pulled. They gritted their teeth with effort. Then, with a sharp
chish
! sound like a yard-broom sweeping up concrete, John tumbled out of the wall and all four of them fell on to the floor in a tangle.

Courtney helped John on to his feet.

“Are you all right? I thought we'd lost you there, man, I really did.”

Lucy turned him around. He was shivering with cold and shock, and his back was thickly covered in plaster dust. His hands were mottled blue, as if he'd been frostbitten.

“I'm all right,” he told her. “Really. I'm all right.”

Courtney said, “Cleaty said that we shouldn't risk it – letting you meet Mr Vane alone – so we came straight over.”

“Are you
sure
you're all right?” Lucy asked John.

“Thanks to Uncle Robin,” said John.

Uncle Robin gathered up his chain of crosses. “The one thing that the Druids can never swallow is the symbol of Christian faith,” he said, grimly.

Mr Cleat went over to Mr Vane and lifted his chin. “Out cold,” he said. “Do you think we'd better call an ambulance?”

There was another flash of lightning, followed by a burst of thunder that shook the windows in their sashes. Uncle Robin looked up and said, “There's
one thing we ought to try first. We may not get the chance to do it again.”

“The lightning!” said John.

“What are you talking about?” asked Courtney. “We ought to get you and Mr Vane out of here, and get you seen to.”

“But the lightning!” said John, scrambling on to his feet.

“That's right,” said Uncle Robin. “It's the only way to destroy a Druid spirit!”

Lucy said, “You can't! It's much too dangerous!”

“But if we don't do it now—”

“Do what? Do what?” Courtney demanded.

Uncle Robin explained how the Romans had dug their metal spears into Druid ley lines and waited for them to be struck by lightning. “The lightning went into the ley lines – and zap!”

“
Zap
?” said Mr Cleat, dubiously.

“It's worth a try! I mean, look at this thunderstorm! It may not thunder like this again for months!”

“But we don't have any spears!” Mr Cleat pointed out.

“We don't need spears,” said John. “There's some scaffolding round at the side of the house. We can stick a bit in the middle of the garden, right where the ley line runs.”

They went outside, into the front garden. The wind was wild and the trees were roaring. Rain
lashed against their faces and soaked them through to the skin before they had even reached the side of the house.

It was completely dark, and they had to wait until there was another flash of lightning before they could see where half a dozen scaffolding poles were lying in the weeds. Courtney picked up the end of one, John took the other end, and Mr Cleat took the middle. The pole was at least six metres long and much heavier than John had expected. They carried it around to the back garden, rain running down their faces.

Lightning crackled down from the clouds. Thunder rumbled so close overhead that Lucy covered her ears and ducked her head down. Mr Cleat shouted, “Where's the ley line? I can't carry this thing very much further!”

“Exact centre of the garden, that's what Mr Vane said!” shouted John.

They carried the scaffolding pole a few metres further on, with Uncle Robin hurrying ahead of them. Suddenly he called out, “Here! Here! This is where it is! I can feel it!”

They laid the pole on the grass and gathered around him.

“Feel it!” he said. “Put your foot on the ground there and feel it!”

John took a step forward. As he did so, he immediately felt the same cold, pulling sensation
that he had felt in the wall. It was like a cold hand grasping his foot and trying to drag him into the earth.

Lucy let out a frightened yelp. “Something
touched
me! Something touched my shoe!”

“I think we'd better forget this scaffolding business and get out of here,” said Courtney.

“We can't!” said John. “Nobody is ever going to believe any of this, nobody except us! If we don't do something now, nobody ever will. And look, the storm is beginning to pass over!”

Mr Cleat suddenly stepped back and stamped at the ground as if he were trying to stamp on a beetle. “I can feel them, too. They're everywhere!”

“Then let's get this pole into the ground as quick as we can!”

They hefted up the pole and carried it over to the nearest flowerbed, where the earth was sodden and soft. With every step they could feel a snatching, grabbing sensation at their feet. They lifted the pole upright and together they forced it downward into the soil, pushing it and twisting it until it stayed up on its own.

As they did so, they kept shaking and kicking at the ground, to loosen the grip of the forces that wanted to drag them into the darkness.

Another flicker of lightning illuminated the garden. “Let's hope this pole doesn't get struck till we're finished,” gasped Courtney.

“I don't think there's any chance that it's going to get struck at all,” said Mr Cleat, wiping the rain from his face with his sleeve. “I think the best thing we can do is get out of here, fast.”

They stood back. The pole wasn't entirely straight, but it looked as if it would stay where it was. They turned and started to hurry back towards the house. But they hadn't gone more than seven or eight metres before Mr Cleat shouted out, “
Ahh
!” and disappeared up to his knees into the grass.

John started to go to help him, but Uncle Robin said “Be careful!” and Courtney grabbed his arm and held him back.

“That's going to be just as dangerous as that wall, man. The next thing we know, we're all going to get dragged down!”

John felt a chilly tugging sensation beneath his feet, and invisible fingers coiling themselves around his ankle. He kicked them away and took a sharp step sideways.

“Get me out of here!” called Mr Cleat. “It's pulling me down, just like a swamp! I can't move my legs at all!”

Uncle Robin said, “Here! I'll throw you these crosses! Wrap them around your waist and they won't be able to drag you in any further!”

He swung the chain of crucifixes around and around and then he threw them. They fell only a few millimetres away from Mr Cleat's outstretched fingers, but as they touched the grass they were flung wildly up and away from him as if they had been repelled by a powerful magnet.

Mr Cleat made a desperate attempt to snatch them, but they were just out of his reach.

“I'll get them!” said Lucy, but Uncle Robin held her arm.

“If you go anywhere across there, the same thing will happen to you.”

“I'll get another pole!” said Courtney. “Just hold on, Cleaty, we'll soon get you out of there!”

“It's pulling me down, Courtney, I'm telling you. I can't even feel my feet at all!”

John and Courtney ran back to the side of the house, picked up another scaffolding pole and carried it back to the lawn.

Lucy cried out, “Hurry! He's sinking even faster!”

Another flash of lightning lit up the bizarre sight of Mr Cleat in his business suit, standing up to his thighs in a weedy, wet, unkempt lawn. He looked as if he were wading in the sea – except that the waves were windblown billows of thistles and grass.

Mr Cleat was trying to stay calm but his self-control was gradually cracking. “John … Courtney … you have to get me out of here … they keep on
pulling me further down … they keep on …
get me out of here, for God's sake! It hurts! You cant even imagine how much it hurts
!”