Raggy Maggie (10 page)

I
was bent at the waist as I half ran, half tripped back into the house. My left hand was still clutching the wound in my belly. With the right I caught the edge of the door and closed it with a
slam.

And not a second too soon. Every doll in the garden had started to move as I’d pulled myself to my feet. I could already hear them sniggering and giggling as they hurled themselves against the door. I could already see them on the window ledge, their faces stretched into wicked smiles. They were battering their heads against the glass; kicking at the panes with their tiny plastic shoes. It would’ve
seemed funny if it wasn’t so damned terrifying.

‘Kyle!’ Ameena flew at me and caught me under the arm. I leaned into her, relieved no longer to have to stand on my own. She pulled gently at my hand, then quickly pressed it back against me as the blood began to seep out. ‘Jesus,’ she fretted, and I noticed for the first time that her face was criss-crossed with deep scratches. ‘You need a hospital.’

‘So…so do you.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she shrugged. ‘But you…you’re in bad shape.’

The door began to shake in its frame and we lumbered further away from it. The letterbox opened with a faint creak, and a spindly stuffed arm reached in. It grasped at the air for a few seconds, before slowly retracting.

‘You know,’ Ameena muttered, ‘that was
almost
cute.’

‘Your face,’ I wheezed. ‘Caddie?’

‘She tried to follow you out to the garden, but I caught
her,’ Ameena explained. ‘Little witch went crazy. Lashed out.’ She traced the contours of one of the deeper slashes. ‘Her fingernails are sharper than they look.’

‘Where is she?’ I asked, looking towards the stairs. ‘Did she get away?’

‘Come on,’ smiled Ameena. She nodded over to the corner of the room, where a Caddie-sized bundle lay slumped on the floor. ‘Psychotic demon-child or not, one good knee to the head and she drops like anyone else.’

‘Way to go,’ I congratulated. ‘You beat up a five-year-old.’

Ameena chewed her lip. ‘Wow. Actually it does sound pretty bad when you put it like that…’

The room was growing darker as more and more dolls piled up by the windows. They were clambering over one another, trying to reach the glass. Trying to break through.

‘You know there’re a thousand evil-looking dolls
hammering on your windows, right?’

‘I’d noticed,’ I breathed. ‘Think it’s only about six hundred.’

‘Oh.’ Ameena considered this. ‘That’s not so bad then.’ She followed my gaze as I glanced across to the telephone. For once it had been put back on the charger. ‘Line’s dead,’ she told me. ‘I already checked.’

I turned in the direction of the stairs. The movement hurt. A lot.

‘Let me take a look at that,’ Ameena frowned, her eyes falling to where blood was seeping through my fingers.

‘It’s fine,’ I lied. ‘It wasn’t a big knife. It was just—’

Pit-pat-pit-pat.
Something small and fast-moving zipped across the living-room floor. I barely spotted it in the corner of my eye before it vanished beneath the coffee table.

‘Did you see that?’ I whispered.

Ameena nodded. ‘I saw something.’

We watched the table for a few long moments. Nothing
moved. Whatever had gone under there was staying where it was.

‘Go upstairs,’ I whispered. ‘Make sure my mum and Lilly are there.’

‘What? Are you crazy? You don’t know what’s under there, and look at you, you’re—’

‘Ameena, please,’ I implored, turning to her. ‘I need to know my mum’s OK. I need you to keep her safe. Her and Lilly. You’re the only one I can trust to do it.’ I forced my face into something close to a smile. ‘You’re the trusty sidekick, remember?’

She thought about arguing. I knew she wanted to, but something on my face must’ve told her she couldn’t possibly win.

‘Be careful,’ she told me, as she made for the stairs. ‘I’ll shout if she’s there.’

I turned back to the coffee table. Outside, the dolls of my schoolmates giggled like hyenas as they continued to hurl
themselves against the windows and door.

Blood dripped through my fingers and on to the carpet as I inched forward. The pain locked my teeth together and tightened my free hand into a fist. I needed medical help, and I needed it fast. But right now there was no possible way of getting it.

The electric blue sparks were still buzzing around inside me, but they were still erratic and confused, like bats lost in the daytime. I couldn’t harness them, but then I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to.

The sense of power had been overwhelming. I’d felt drunk on it, like nothing in the world mattered but me and my abilities. My mum was in danger, and I’d forgotten.

No, worse – I hadn’t even cared.

‘They’re here.’ Ameena’s voice was muffled by the ceiling above me, but I heard her loud and clear. ‘They’re tied up, but they’re OK.’

‘Untie them and stay with them,’ I said, as loudly as I
could manage. ‘Keep them safe.’

‘Ten-four.’

At least Mum was in good hands now. Even if anything happened to me, I knew I could count on Ameena to protect her.

I shuffled forward until I was less than a metre from the table. I lowered myself to my knees, being as careful as I could not to jolt my body and make my wound even worse. Cautious as I was, the pain flared like fire, and I had to catch hold of the tabletop to avoid falling on to my face.

The room was almost silent as I bent forward. Even the relentless hammering of the dolls outside seemed to ease off, as if they had stopped trying to get in and were all now just watching me.

As the floor beneath the table came into view I saw…nothing. Nothing but empty carpet. I bent further, pushing through the pain, until I could see the underside of the tabletop itself. There was nothing hiding there, either.
Whatever had been under the table had come back out.

So where was it now?

Down there on my knees I suddenly felt very vulnerable. Using the table, I pushed myself back up into a standing position, ignoring the dizziness and nausea the sudden movement brought on.

Pit-pat-pit-pat.
It came again, somewhere off to my left. I turned, but saw nothing.
Pit-pat-pit-pat.
Where had it come from this time? Somewhere close by, but…

Pit-pat-pit-pat.
The scampering was very close now. Outside the dolls had begun hammering on the windows with even more force. They sniggered and chattered, their porcelain heads wobbling excitedly on their soft shoulders.

Another laugh – high and scratchy, like a witch’s cackle – made itself heard above the rattling of the windowpane. This laugh was louder. This laugh was here, inside the room.

Directly above me.

I craned my neck and looked up. I barely had time to recognise the single eye of Raggy Maggie before she landed on my face.

The doll cackled as she lashed out at me. I caught her with my free hand and tried to yank her off, but her dirty, tattered legs were latched on to my throat. She lurched at my eye, her mouth open. I saw a flash of pin-like teeth, and barely managed to pull back before they snapped shut.

My fingers wrapped around one of Raggy Maggie’s legs. It felt solid and strong as I heaved against it. The doll screeched and wriggled, but I managed to tear the leg from my neck.

With a flick of my wrist I sent her spinning across the room. She bounced off the wall with a
crack.
When she hit the carpet she only had part of her head left.

It didn’t stop her.

The half-face she had left twisted into a furious scowl. She kept her one-eyed stare on me as she scurried along
the floor, staying close to the wall.

I watched her, swaying slightly, the high-speed pumping of my heart spilling more blood out of my stomach.

‘You’re a bad boy,’ Raggy Maggie grimaced. I could see Caddie from where I was standing. Even though the girl still appeared unconscious, her lips moved in time with her doll’s. ‘You’re a very bad boy, and you know what happens to bad boys, don’t you?’

I realised too late where she was heading. I stumbled forward, but even without the hole in my belly I wouldn’t have been fast enough to stop her.

‘Bad boys get
punished,’
she screeched. And with that, she leapt up, caught the door handle, and pulled it open. A tumbling sea of red pushed in, tiny arms outstretched, faces stretched into a cruel mockery of a grin.

Backing away, I found the coffee table. I clumsily clambered on to it, as dozens of demented dolls flooded my living room. They pushed past and fell over each other
as they rushed to get at me, their beady eyes glazed with wicked delight.

The top of the table was taller than the dolls were, but it didn’t take long for one to climb up. I recognised it as Mark Simpson, one of Billy’s cohorts. The satisfaction I felt when I toe-punted him across the room almost made the whole experience seem worthwhile.

Another doll made it up, then another. I kicked them both away, but others rushed to take their place. No matter how hard I booted them, they immediately rejoined the throng, falling over themselves to reach me.

Four dolls made it on to the table at the same time. I lashed out, sweeping my leg around in an arc, and managed to send them all flying. The move took its toll on me, though, and I had to fight to keep my footing on the table.

I couldn’t keep this up for long. Any second now they were going to knock me off. I could almost feel them
swarming over me, their tiny hands and feet gouging me, tearing at me.

I wanted to shout for help, but what if the dolls didn’t know about Mum upstairs? What if my shouts gave her away? I couldn’t risk it, so I kept my mouth shut.

Tiny arms wrapped round my leg before I knew what was happening. I turned, but the doll clung on and moved with me. I looked down into the painted face of Mr Jones, my geography teacher. I saw his mouth snap open, heard him hiss, and felt his jagged teeth sink into my calf.

Even as I stumbled, the table was wobbling. Some of the dolls were under it, pushing up, lifting it off the floor. My arm flailed wildly as I fought to stay balanced, but it was no use. The floor became the ceiling as I flipped over and landed in the middle of a frenzy of snapping jaws.

I kicked out, but for every doll I hit I missed fifty more. They were all over me, tiny hands and feet digging into
every part of my body. Teeth chomping through my clothes, searching for my flesh.

They pinned my arms, exposing the wound in my stomach. They caught hold of my thrashing legs. I kicked out with even more fury, sending half a dozen of them hurtling away, but twenty, sixty, a
hundred
more hands caught my ankles and forced them to the floor.

They caught my ears and they pulled my hair, stopping me moving my head. Only my eyes were mine to control, but I shut them, too terrified to look at the disturbingly familiar faces of the dolls.

A clutch of tiny hands tilted my head backwards, as I had done to Ameena’s when I thought she was dead. I doubted I was in for the kiss of life, though. The dolls, I was sure, had something far nastier in mind.

I heard a giggle by my shoulder, felt a sharp pressure against my throat and braced myself for the end.

‘Stop it.’ The voice floated over from somewhere near
the couch. The sting of the teeth against my throat eased off at once, but the other dolls continued to hold me down.

I opened my eyes. Caddie was standing above me. Raggy Maggie was perched on her shoulder. Both of them looked down, their faces wearing matching expressions of contempt.

‘Let him go.’ The girl and her doll both said the words at the same time. Two mouths. One voice.

At once I felt the pressure of a thousand tiny hands leave me. I moved to get up, but an icicle stabbed through my brain again and my whole body went limp. Without any effort, Caddie had pinned me down far more effectively than the dolls could ever have done.

‘There are people up the stairs,’ Caddie and Raggy Maggie told the chattering dolls. ‘Get them. Bring them down.’ Her narrow eyebrows crawled halfway up her forehead. ‘He’s going to watch them die.’

T
he dolls of my classmates sniggered as they swarmed off up the stairs. I lay there, powerless to stop them. Powerless to protect my mum.

In just a few seconds, all the dolls that had come into the house had disappeared upstairs, leaving me alone with Caddie, Raggy Maggie…and the knife in Caddie’s hand.

The dolls’ heads had blocked the kitchen knife from my view, but now I could see it all too clearly. The blade was red with my blood. It dripped along the metal and sploshed on to the carpet beside my head. The wound in my gut throbbed sharply, as if remembering how the knife had felt.

‘Your daddy said you’d play rough.’ Caddie knelt next to me on the carpet. Raggy Maggie swung down from her shoulder and landed on my chest. Now it was half broken, I could see right inside the doll’s porcelain head. It was completely smooth and empty, with no brain or anything else to speak of.

But that didn’t make her any less alive. As Caddie continued speaking to me, the doll crawled down my chest to my stomach.

‘But I don’t think you’re so tough,’ Caddie said. She leaned in closer to me, so her face was almost touching mine. ‘I think you’re just a big baby,’ she whispered.

Agony went off like a bomb in my stomach, as Raggy Maggie wriggled an arm or a leg – I couldn’t tell which – into my stab wound. The coldness inside my head had my whole body frozen, so I couldn’t even open my mouth, couldn’t even scream.

Caddie put one hand on my forehead, steadying
herself. She raised the knife, holding the point a few centimetres above my heart. She and Raggy Maggie giggled at the same time, but behind it I noticed another sound too. The fast thudding of hundreds of tiny footsteps running down the stairs.

I heard a woman’s voice cry out: ‘Get away from her. Leave us alone!’

Mum.
The electrical power inside me buzzed furiously, but it was still disjointed and erratic. Too random and chaotic to harness.

Caddie’s head rotated like an owl’s, until it was completely facing the other way. We both watched as the dolls flooded down the stairs, their rigid hands carrying Mum, Ameena and a little girl I guessed was Lilly above their heads.

‘Oh, look,’ Caddie sang. ‘It’s Mummy. You’re just in time.’

‘Kyle!’ Mum yelped. She thrashed against the dolls, but
every time she came close to getting up they dragged her back down.

Ameena too was lashing out. She was grabbing at the tiny figures, hurling any she caught across the room. Each one thudded against the wall, dropped to the floor, then scurried back over to rejoin the pack.

Only Lilly wasn’t fighting. She was holding herself still. Her mouth was open and her eyes were screwed shut. She was crying so hard no sound was coming out.

‘Put them down,’ Caddie commanded. The dolls immediately set their prisoners down on the floor. ‘Now go away. These are
ours
to play with.’

Like a shoal of fish, the dolls all turned in unison and made for the door. Mum jumped up even before Ameena did. I’d never in my life seen her looking as angry as she did when she threw herself towards Caddie.

Halfway there, a strange, shocked look flashed across my mum’s face. Her legs buckled under her and she
dropped to the floor. She lay there, motionless, except for her eyes, which flicked helplessly around the room before settling on me. I could see the pain in them. The sorrow. The fear. And it nearly killed me.

‘Lilly, stay down,’ Ameena roared. She leapt over my Mum, drawing back a fist as she closed in on Caddie.

For a moment I thought she was going to make it. But then the same expression of shock was on her face, and she was slumping on to the floor just a metre or two away from me.

Caddie’s head swivelled back until she was looking at me again. Her hand pressed down harder on my head. Raggy Maggie scuttled up Caddie’s arm and perched on her shoulder. What remained of the doll’s face was lit up with a barbaric glee.

‘You know what’s the tricky part?’ Caddie asked. ‘Picking who I’m going to kill first.’

She kept her eyes on me while she stood up. She raised
the knife until it was pointing towards Ameena. I watched helplessly as she began to move the knife from Ameena to Lilly to Mum, then back to Ameena again.

‘My mummy and your mummy were hanging out the clothes,’ she sang, the knife switching target with every word. ‘My mummy gave your mummy a punch on the nose. What colour was the blood to be?’

The knife stopped. Caddie’s head twisted round to see who had been chosen to die first.

‘Oh, look,’ she said. ‘It’s your mummy!’

I met Mum’s gaze with my own. Her eyes were shiny with tears. She didn’t look away from me, not even when Caddie’s shadow fell across her face.

‘After this it’s your girlfriend,’ Caddie told me through a giggle.

The power rushed through my body in every direction at once. The pain and the fear had shattered my control. There was no way I could make it do anything I wanted.

‘W-wait.’ The word came slurred from my mouth. Caddie’s eyes widened a little, as if surprised I’d managed to speak at all. ‘My dad,’ I murmured, ‘he…he’s using you.’

Caddie seemed to think about this for a second, then her shoulders raised in a shrug. ‘Oh well,’ she said, turning her attention back to my mum.

‘The Darkest Corners,’ I gasped. Caddie froze at the name. ‘He’ll…he’ll b-bring you back.’

‘No, he won’t!’ Caddie turned on me like a wild animal, her face contorted into a snarl. ‘I’m never going back to that place,’ she snapped. ‘Never
ever.’

‘He w-will,’ I insisted. Just making my voice box work was agonisingly difficult, but I forced the words to come. ‘When he’s done w-with you he’ll take you back.’

‘Shut up,’ the girl hissed, the knife trembling in her hand as she pointed it at me. ‘Shut up right now.’

‘You’ll be stuck there,’ I told her. ‘Trapped. F-for ever.’

‘I said shut up!’
She flew at me, knife drawn back by her ear. Raggy Maggie clung on to her neck, her broken face fixed in a mask of hatred.

Caddie’s hand slapped down on my head. Her teeth were clenched tight, and flecks of spittle bubbled at the corners of her mouth. Her narrowed eyes fixed on the centre of my chest. I had a second – maybe two – before she plunged the knife into my heart. I couldn’t control the sparks colliding in my head. I couldn’t make my power work.

But I didn’t have to. All I had to do was concentrate. All I had to do was ignore the burning in my belly and the terror in my throat and trap one spark.

The knife and Caddie’s hand began to move.

I thought of Mum.

The rest was easy.

The carpet at my back went first, followed by the patterned paper on the walls. I watched the ceiling
disappear. The bedroom above vanished too, followed by the attic. In the blink of an eye I was looking up at a sky full of black, swirling clouds.

In just a few seconds the whole room had changed into a dark mirror-image of itself. No, not just the whole room.

The whole world.

Caddie’s snarl caught in her throat and her hand stopped, mid-way to my chest. Terror lit up her eyes, and I felt the cold fog lift from inside my head. My muscles relaxed. I could move again.

‘We’re…we’re…’ she stammered.

‘You’re home,’ I told her.

‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s not fair. Take us back. Take us back!’

The hand holding the knife trembled, its knuckles bony white. She caught me by the hair and held the blade just a few centimetres from my eye.

‘Take us back,’ she hissed. ‘You’d better take us back
right now.’

I didn’t answer. Instead, I put two fingers in my mouth and blew. A shrill whistle rose into the night.

ThuBOOM.

Caddie froze. Raggy Maggie’s grip tightened on the girl’s shoulder. ‘What was that?’ they whispered together.

ThuBOOM.

I shifted my weight and caught hold of the hand holding the knife.

ThuBOOM.

‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure what it’s called.’

An enormous shape appeared above the broken walls of my house, blocking out the sky. Clouds of hot air billowed from the dino-beast’s flared nostrils.

‘But it sure looks hungry.’

With a grunt I pushed Caddie away. She and the doll both screamed as they were thrown backwards on to the dirty wooden floorboards.

The monster lunged, its jaws open – wide enough to
swallow all three of us. My focus slammed shut around another spark in my head.

In a heartbeat I flitted between the two worlds, and as I did Caddie’s scream echoed across them both.

The carpet felt soft against my back. I lay there, unmoving, eyes fixed on the ceiling above me. I could hear Ameena moving. Behind her, Mum was already getting to her feet.

‘Kyle!’ she cried. ‘What happened? Where did you go?’

She was by my side, arms over me, hugging me tight. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t ever want it to stop.

‘Long story,’ I wheezed. ‘Maybe…I can tell you about it later.’

She pulled away and looked at me. Her tears fell down on me like raindrops. ‘Everything,’ she nodded. ‘We’ll talk about everything.’

Her head came down as she hugged me again, and I
saw Ameena standing behind her. A little girl with wispy blonde hair was in her arms. Lilly’s head was tucked in tight against Ameena’s neck, and her crystal blue eyes were wide with fear.

‘You did it then,’ Ameena said with a nod.

‘I did it.’

She gave my leg a friendly poke with her toe. ‘Nice going.’ Ameena glanced at the window, then back down at me. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. ‘You know you’ve got about a thousand really confused school kids outside your house, right?’

I lifted my head and looked across to the window. I could make out a mass of red jumpers milling around in the garden. ‘Only about six hundred.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, then that’s not so bad…’

It took a lot to convince Mum not to take me to the hospital. In the end she agreed that they’d ask too many questions
about how I’d come to have a four-centimetre stab wound in my stomach.

We decided she would clean it and dress it as best she could. If it got worse, she said, then she’d drag me to the hospital kicking and screaming if she had to. I agreed. It was the best deal I was going to get.

When we came to examine the wound, though, it didn’t look too bad. It felt a little better too, and it wasn’t long before I realised why.

Mesmerised, we watched the skin gradually knitting itself back together. It wasn’t happening fast, but it was definitely happening. The hole was closing over. The injury was mending itself right before our eyes.

‘How are you doing that?’ Mum asked in a hushed whisper.

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I mean, I don’t think I am. Not on purpose, anyway.’

We were in the kitchen now – me standing by the table,
Mum kneeling in front of me, studying the hole in my belly.

‘Incredible,’ Mum whispered. She gazed at the closing wound for a few more seconds, then gave her head a shake. ‘I’m going to put a dressing on it anyway,’ she said.

‘OK.’

She began wiping round the wound with a foul-smelling green liquid. It hurt almost as much as the knife had.

‘So,’ Mum said, dabbing at the dried blood, ‘your friend…’

‘What about her?’

‘She seems…nice.’

‘She’s not my girlfriend, if that’s what you’re going to ask,’ I said.

‘Perish the thought,’ Mum smiled. She finished wiping the blood away and began applying some gauze and cotton wool. ‘Where does she live? Your friend. What’s her name again?’

‘Ameena.’

‘That’s it. Where does she live?’

I shrugged, earning myself a ‘Keep still.’

‘Nowhere, really,’ I said. ‘She’s pretty much homeless.’

Mum nodded. The tape for the dressing felt sticky and tight as she pressed it to my skin.

‘You know,’ she said, not looking up at me, ‘Nan’s room isn’t doing anything at the minute.’

I glanced through to the living room. Ameena had moved the couch back into position and was now sitting on it, Lilly still nestled in her arms. I couldn’t have held my smile back if I’d tried.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I whispered. ‘You’re the best.’

I stood in the doorway of Nan’s old room, not quite sure what to say. Ameena was standing by the bed, looking at it as if it might explode at any minute. The light from the full moon outside illuminated the hideous flower pattern of the bedsheets.

‘Mum says she’ll get you other covers,’ I said, seeing Ameena’s expression. ‘They’re a bit…old-fashioned.’

‘What? No, they’re fine, they’re great, it’s just…’

‘Just what?’ I asked, my hands wringing nervously together. ‘Is it the curtains? We can probably change them too if you don’t—’

‘Calm down, it’s not the curtains, either.’

‘Well…what then?’

‘It’s just been a long time since I slept in a bed,’ she said. ‘A proper actual bed.’

She lowered herself down on to it and sighed. But it was a sigh of happiness and contentment.

‘Goodnight then,’ I said, watching her lie back and slowly close her eyes.

‘Night, kiddo,’ she said.

‘Sleep tight.’

She opened one eye. ‘I will if you shut up for five minutes.’

We both smiled, and I closed the door, leaving her to her dreams.

Her room was directly across the landing from mine. Mum had gone to bed over an hour ago – just before midnight – so I tiptoed to my own room and quietly closed the door.

I slid the curtains closed, blocking out the view of the Keller House, where I’d faced off against Mr Mumbles just two weeks ago. My encounter with him had seemed like a nightmare at the time, but I’d take him over Caddie, Raggy Maggie and an army of evil dolls any day.

As I pulled back my covers I found myself wondering what the kids and teachers from my school must be thinking right now. From what I could gather none of them had the foggiest idea how they’d arrived in my garden. As far as they were concerned they were in school one moment, and milling around outside my house the next. Their collective amnesia would no doubt make the papers, but hopefully
the finger of suspicion wouldn’t end up pointing back at me.