The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale (32 page)

The final photograph is a group picture: all of those in attendance are gathered together, row upon row: tallest at the back, shortest at the front. Most people who leaf through the album just glance at it and move on. They have seen enough photos by then. There is food to be eaten, and champagne to be drunk. There is even some beer, for Spiggit’s has brewed a special ale for the occasion. It is called Spiggit’s Old Faithful, and those who have tried it swear that it is very good once their memory has returned. The brewers are here somewhere, too. They are giving rides on their backs to small children, who don’t care that they smell a little odd and can only say “Hurh!”

But those who take the time to look more closely at this last photograph in the album might pick out what appears to be a small, gelatinous being in the bottom right-hand corner. He is wearing a top hat, and has borrowed a bow tie for the occasion. To his left, wearing a suit with one sleeve on fire, is a man disguised as a ferret, or a ferret disguised as a man. Whatever he is, he is grinning broadly, mostly because he has not yet noticed the flames.

The bride and groom stand in the middle of the front row. Maria looks beautiful, and Samuel looks like a man who knows that the woman beside him is beautiful, and that she loves him, and he loves her. At their feet sits a small dachshund. He is not Boswell—for Boswell has gone to another place—but the son of Boswell, and yet the spirit of his father lives on in him.

To Samuel’s right is a figure dressed in a very elegant dark
suit. His skin has a slightly greenish tinge to it, although that might just be a problem with the camera. His chin is very long, and tilts upward at the end so that, in profile, he resembles a crescent moon. He has a white flower in his buttonhole, and he is content.

• • •

Let us leave the album and move back into the sunlight. The oldest of the trees in the garden is a spreading oak. Beneath it, shaded by leaves and branches, is a bench, and two friends are seated upon it. Nearby, Wormwood tends the garden, aided by Crudford. Wormwood, it has emerged, is a skilled gardener, perhaps the greatest the Multiverse has ever known. A dachshund digs beside him, hoping to unearth a bone. This is the great-great-great-grandson of Boswell.

His name, too, is Boswell.

There is much of Samuel the boy in Samuel the older man as he sits on the bench, a glass of champagne by his side. His hair, now gray, still flops across his forehead, and his glasses still refuse to sit quite evenly on his nose. His socks still do not match.

Nurd’s appearance has not changed. It will never change, for he will never age. He once used to worry about what might happen when Samuel died, for he could not imagine a Multiverse without his friend, but he worries no longer: he has learned the secrets of the Multiverse, and has seen what lies beyond death. Wherever Samuel goes, Nurd will go, too. When the time comes, he will be waiting for his friend on the other side.

Waiting along with a host of Boswells.

“Tell me a tale,” says Samuel. “Tell me a story of your adventures.”

He has heard all of Nurd’s tales many times before, but he never tires of them. It is not just in appearance that he resembles the boy he once was. He has never lost his enthusiasm, or his sense of wonder. They have carried him through difficult times, for it is not only Nurd who has led an exciting existence over the years. Samuel’s life, too, has always been enjoyably odd, and there are stories about him that may yet have to be told.

And as the sun warms them, Nurd begins to speak.

“Once upon a time,” he says, “there was a boy named Samuel Johnson . . .”

My thanks to Emily Bestler, Judith Curr, Megan Reid, David Brown, and all at Atria/Emily Bestler Books; Sue Fletcher, Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood, and the team at Hodder & Stoughton; Clair Lamb and Madeira James; and all of my foreign publishers and agents who have supported these odd little books. As always, I’m indebted to my agent, Darley Anderson, and his staff, without whom I wouldn’t have a career at all. Finally, love and thanks to Jennie, Cameron, and Alistair.

THE CHARLIE PARKER THRILLERS

Every Dead Thing

Dark Hollow

The Killing Kind

The White Road

The Reflecting Eye

(novella in the
Nocturnes
collection)

The Black Angel

The Unquiet

The Reapers

The Lovers

The Whisperers

The Burning Soul

The Wrath of Angels

OTHER WORKS

Bad Men

Nocturnes

The Book of Lost Things

The Wanderer in Unknown Realms

(a novella)

THE SAMUEL JOHNSON STORIES (FOR YOUNG ADULTS)

The Gates

The Infernals

NONFICTION

Books to Die For: The World’s Greatest Mystery Writers on the World’s Greatest Mystery Novels
(as editor, with Declan Burke)

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Bad Dog Books Limited

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,
131
, and
165
© Alamy

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Books hardcover edition October 2013

Jacket art and design by Alan Dingman

Author photograph by Iaán Giménez Costa

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ISBN 978-1-4767-5709-4

ISBN 978-1-4767-5711-7 (ebook)

Chapter I: In Which a Birthday Party Takes Place, and We Learn That One Ought to Be Careful with Candles (and Dangling Prepositions)

Chapter II: In Which Someone Sees a Ghost (Yawn)

Chapter III: In Which We Travel to a Galaxy Far, Far Away, but Since It’s Not a Long Time Ago the
Star Wars
People Can’t Sue Us

Chapter IV: In Which We Go Shopping, and Rather Wish That We Hadn’t

Chapter V: In Which We Go on a Date—Well, Not “We” as in You and I, Because That Would Just Be Awkward, but We Go on a Date with Other People. No, Hang on, That’s Still Not Right. Oh, Never Mind. Just Read the Chapter.