The Good, the Bad and the Deadly 7 Page 5

  Nelson loved his uncle Pogo very much and would never want anything bad to happen to him, but the thought of phoning him to say, ‘One of those things you are taking out of the sea contains an evil monster and you must put it back,’ felt like it would result in yet another member of his family thinking he was making up stories, and he could really do without that right now. Just imagining his uncle asking, ‘Who told you about this evil monster?’ and his reply being, ‘My own monsters heard it from a seagull called Edna, and she heard it from some Greek fish,’ sealed Nelson’s decision to pull his pillow over his head and do nothing. It was a decision that would turn out to be the worst one of Nelson’s life.

  THE STORM INSIDE THE TRAIN

  It was Saturday night. Twenty-four hours had passed since Doody and Pogo’s live deep-sea dive had aired in the UK, and everyone working on the show considered it to be the highlight of the series. As the TGV train they were travelling on hurtled its way through the moonlit French countryside, inside the train all but one of the TV crew dozed comfortably in their cabins.

  The wide-awake passenger happened to be Nelson’s uncle Pogo, and he could feel his chin being tickled. Doody had fallen asleep with his head resting on Pogo’s shoulder so that Doody’s green Mohawk brushed against him.

  Opposite them sat Hilary, the director of their TV show, and James, the camera operator. Pogo smiled at how they had all managed to get equally sunburned faces and decided to take a look at the photos on his phone for the third time. He chuckled. There were several photos of the happy crew preparing underwater cameras for the shoot and at least a dozen photos of Pogo’s prosthetic leg on to which he had attached an underwater jet. It had felt so good to move with such ease underwater; on land, movement always required a great deal of effort. Pogo couldn’t help but imagine how much fun it must be to be a seal (apart from being a shark’s favourite snack), but it was nothing compared to the heart-stopping thrill of discovering the shipwreck.

  They had recovered 116 individual relics from the wreck, some as large as a cow and some as small as coins. Once they were back in London, they planned to carefully chip away the salty crusts and discover exactly what was beneath, but for now all the relics were just as they had found them and perfectly preserved in frozen containers. The Greek naval ship they had hired had brought them to the south coast of France, where they had loaded their discoveries and themselves on to a high-speed train bound for Paris. From Paris, the plan was to transport everything to London on the Eurostar, but that part of the plan was never going to happen.

  The train was suddenly screeching to a halt. Luggage was falling from the overhead racks. A tumbling chaos rippled throughout every carriage. Somewhere a baby started crying. The train driver was saying something over the public address system in French, but no one could hear a word above the passengers’ cries of anguish and surprise.

  ‘Whoa! Woss goin’ on?’ blurted Doody, who had slid off his seat and was now looking up at Pogo from the floor with wide, startled eyes.

  ‘I dunno,’ said Pogo, bracing himself against the window and staring out into the night. ‘Maybe someone’s pulled the emergency break.’

  The train shuddered to a stop. Pogo pulled Doody back into his seat and stood up to lower the window. Even though the train was now at a standstill, the outside air rushed into their carriage with tremendous force, whipping anything loose and light into a mini whirlwind. Pogo winced as he turned away from the wind, the skin on his arms bristling with goosebumps, and the temperature inside the carriage dropping from cosy and warm to freezing cold. This was the kind of weather you would expect from the top of a snowy mountain, not the balmy south of France.

  ‘Pogo! Close the window!’ called Doody, but Pogo was too busy trying to see what was going on outside to respond.

  To his left, Pogo could see the front of the train stretching into the distance and three guards clutching their hats to their heads as they ran past his window. Pogo turned to his right to see them running towards another train guard standing on the tracks beside the rear of the train. She was waving a flag furiously and blowing a whistle, though you could barely hear her over the roar of the wind.

  ‘What’s with all the arctic wind?’ said Doody through chattering teeth.

  Pogo closed the window and headed for the door. ‘There’s something wrong at the end of the train. I’m gonna check our stuff is all right.’

  ‘Hold up, mate! I’ll come with ya,’ said Doody breathlessly, and then turned to the rest of his TV crew, who sat looking like startled rabbits. ‘You lot stay ’ere. Back in a mo. And don’t go nickin’ my Rolos, Hilary.’

  Hilary blushed and nodded guiltily. Until that moment, she thought she’d got away with stealing the odd chocolate from Doody’s secret stash.

  The corridor running the length of each carriage was packed with passengers flapping about in a panic or moaning about having been thrown from their seats. There was no way Pogo or Doody were going to reach their precious freezer containers in a hurry taking this route, so they decided to leave the train via the carriage door.

  ‘Pheeewy! Did we just get diverted to Siberia or something?’ shouted Doody as he tried to keep up with Pogo through the flurry of snow that hit them as they exited the train.

  ‘No! I think we’re currently somewhere close to the Dordogne!’ (pronounced Door-doy-n).

  ‘The Dordogne? Well, remind me to never book a holiday in the Dordogne!’

  ‘This isn’t normal weather for round here, Doody! There’s something wrong – look!’

  Pogo was pointing to the last train carriage that had contained all of the objects they had brought up from the shipwreck. I use the past tense because right now there were pieces of their deep-freeze containers and the relics that had been inside them scattered all over the ground.

  ‘Pogo! It’s all smashed up! All of it!’

  Doody picked up a broken piece of barnacle-covered metal, but Pogo was way more concerned with what was happening inside the train. Though he had to squint, Pogo could see that where once there had been windows and a door to the carriage, there were now gaping wide holes.

  ‘The snow! It’s coming from inside the carriage!’ shouted Pogo, leaning into the blizzard and reaching out a hand towards the train.

  At that very same moment, a thunderclap erupted from the train. Bolts of lightning shot out from the broken windows, striking nearby trees and bushes and setting them aflame. Pogo and Doody ducked, covering their heads with their arms as a garage-door-sized piece of the train roof was blasted into the air on a fountain of wind and snow. Neither Pogo nor Doody saw the sheet of metal fall from the sky. One moment they were cowering on the train tracks, the next they were both knocked unconscious by the falling debris.

  As snowflakes settled on the metal covering Pogo and Doody, and fire continued to lick hungrily at the trees, the vague silhouette of what might have been a dog-sized bird with an oversized and twisted beak sat breathing heavily on what remained of the roof of the train. And what a stench it brought with it. It smelt as if all the bad breath in the world had been brought together to create one foul wind. Some of the passengers had climbed out of the train and were holding their noses as they tried to see what was going on, but to the untrained eye, the creature was invisible, only coming into focus as flakes of snow landed on its outstretched wing, which was pointing north with a trembling claw.

  And though none of the passengers could hear it, the creature screamed.

  ‘BUZZAAAAAAAAAAARD!’

  THE SMELL OF FEAR

  It was midnight, but as Saturday turned into Sunday, every animal in London Zoo was awake. Every backbone tingled with fear. The monsters felt it too. It was the feeling you get as someone finishes telling you the kind of ghost story that ends with ‘. . . and they say the ghost still haunts this very room’.

  ‘I say, does this creepy-crawly sensation have something to do with what Edna was on about, or do you think we might all just have a case of the windy
pops?’ Hoot was always the last to understand what was going on, but Miser put him straight.

  ‘I believe this means Master Nelson did not heed our warning.’

  ‘Oh I bet this means he didn’t phone his uncle, doesn’t it?! That idiot!’ barked Stan.

  ‘HONK!’ Crush was defending Nelson, and Stan stepped back. Even Stan wouldn’t mess with Crush when he was feeling defensive.

  ‘All right! All right! ’E’s my friend too, but if we’re honest ’ere, Nelson’s probably let us all down big time!’

  ‘Nah, Nelly-son a good boy.’ Nosh tried to sound supportive, but even he couldn’t hide his disappointment.

  Spike sat down on the ground and looked at his stubby green feet. ‘Well, that’s it then. There’s nothing we can do. Just sit and wait.’

  ‘Yes, now when you say “wait”, what exactly are we waiting for?’ asked Hoot, but Spike could only shrug. It was Crush who answered Hoot, and though he did not use any words, his low, trembling honk said it all.

  ‘Hoooooooonk.’

  As Crush said this, a howler monkey on the other side of the zoo began to howl. It was soon joined by the other howler monkeys, and within just a few seconds every animal in the zoo had joined the awful chorus.

  ‘There! Can you smell that?’ Spike was taking repeated sharp sniffs of the evening air. ‘It’s the smell of fear.’

  The other monsters sniffed the air, except for Puff, who was in the midst of an extremely long yawn. He wasn’t bored – in fact quite the opposite. He was extremely agitated, and the more anxious Puff felt, the more he yawned.

  ‘Nah! Smells more like leaves and freshly cut grass to me,’ said Stan, and he was right. There was a very strong smell, but it was a pleasant smell. The scent of all things green and fresh.

  ‘Nope. The plants and trees and grass give off that scent as a warning to each other.

  They’re scared. They know something bad is coming. Look.’ Spike pointed to the trees that stood around the zoo. They were shedding their leaves. This would be a normal thing to see in the autumn when the leaves were brown and the wind was blowing, but the leaves were still green, and not even a breath of wind could be felt. It looked as if someone had pressed an emergency leaf-release button.

  ‘They’re shedding their leaves to protect themselves. They know a big storm’s headed this way.’ Spike looked through the railings of the zoo into Regent’s Park and saw leaves falling from trees everywhere.

  ‘This is nuts! Even the trees know somefing’s wrong. I say we go to Nelson’s house right now!’ said Stan, and the others cheered. Except for Miser.

  ‘No! Master Nelson made it clear! We are NOT to go to him and especially not to his home!’

  Stan sighed. ‘Then what do ya suggest, eh? We gotta do something!’

  ‘I suggest we contact Master Nelson by some other means.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Like what?’ Stan was getting more furious by the second, so Puff stepped into the conversation in order to settle the mood.

  ‘Miser, you know our voices don’t work on the phone. We tried before, remember? That time Crush got locked in the zoo gift shop and we called to ask Nelson what we should do and his mum answered the phone?’

  ‘I remember only too well, which is why I do not suggest we use the telephone.’

  ‘Then what?’ said Puff.

  ‘I suggest we confer with Godfrey.’

  ‘Who’s Godfrey?’ said all of the monsters but Crush.

  ‘Godfrey is a most inventive fruit bat,’ said Miser, and with that he turned and ran off towards the enclosure known to London Zoo visitors as Fruit Bat Forest.

  GOOD-LUCK CHARM

  It was early the next morning. The Sunday sky was headache grey. Nelson followed the smell of bacon to the kitchen where he found his father wearing boxer shorts and an R.E.M. tour T-shirt cooking at the stove while his mother swooshed around in her bright green dressing gown decorating the walls with multicoloured Post-it notes.

  ‘Morning, Nelse. Bacon sarnie?’ asked his father as he shoved bacon around the frying pan.

  ‘Uhh . . . yeah. I’d love a sandwich please, Dad,’ said Nelson, who had only just realized what his mother was up to. She had written inspirational phrases for Nelson on each Post-it. Before he could protest, she leaped to her own defence.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, but I thought it would just help to put up a bit of extra positive thinking around the place.’

  Nelson read one of quotes, this one from Thomas Edison: Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. Nelson sighed.

  ‘Listen, I’d go over Niagara Falls in a lunchbox if I thought it would help you get your act together at school,’ said his mother, and she stuck the last note on Nelson’s forehead.

  Nelson rolled his eyes at his dad, who could only offer a shrug and a smile in return. Nelson peeled the note off his head, flopped down into a chair and reached underneath their kitchen table to pet Minty the dog. Minty raised her scruffy little head for a moment before letting it flop back down on the floor. So far, it had been a pretty uneventful weekend for a change. Saturday had passed by without a peep from his monsters, and their warnings of an evil creature being dragged up from the deep by his uncle Pogo had faded away as the weekend rolled on. With a bacon sandwich on the way and a dog asleep at his feet, Nelson felt things were returning to normal.

  ‘Quick! Uncle Pogo’s on the telly!’ Celeste had just burst into the kitchen, still wearing her pyjamas and looking wild with panic.

  ‘Darling, he’s been on the telly for the last four weeks,’ said their father as he carried Nelson’s sandwich across the room.

  ‘No, not on Doody’s show. He’s on the news. Right now. He’s been in an accident.’

  Nelson’s father put down the plate and ran, Nelson and his mother following close behind.

  Sure enough, there was a photo of Uncle Pogo and Doody on the TV news. The news reporter spoke in an earnest tone that gave Nelson the creeps.

  ‘. . . were struck by debris from an explosion on the train. Doctors have confirmed that both men remain unconscious and are currently being treated for serious multiple injuries . . .’

  As the picture changed to images of the train carriage, Nelson was struck by a huge and horrible feeling. It was a stomach-churning cocktail of déjà vu and regret. Here he was, looking at the TV news and seeing exactly what his monsters had warned him would happen if he did nothing.

  Hilary, the director of Doody’s TV show, was being interviewed by the side of the train wreck. She looked lost and confused, her suntan drained from her face, and her eyes red and puffy.

  ‘. . . It’s hard to say exactly, but I saw something that looked . . . well, it looked like a sort of storm cloud coming from inside the train . . . It was very dark and there was snow everywhere. Loads and loads of snow and lightning that burned the trees. But the hole in the roof of the train looks like it was made by a creature because there were claw marks all over the metal . . . and the smell, oh it was dreadful . . .’

  ‘Creature? Did she just say creature?’ asked Nelson.

  ‘Shhh!’ said his mother. And while the rest of his family continued to listen to Hilary describe what she’d seen, Nelson turned away, the better to focus on recalling the warning from his monsters.

  What was it they had said? A very evil monster trapped at the bottom of the ocean and Uncle Pogo must not raise it to the surface.

  The newsreader moved on to a different story that involved two world leaders shaking hands as their picture was taken, but no one in Nelson’s house was listening. As his father rushed to the phone and began making calls to find out which hospital Pogo and Doody had been taken to, Nelson slipped away to his room.

  Outside the trees were bare and the pavement ankle-deep with leaves. All over town, dogs (except for Minty) were barking, cats miaowing, and though Nelson couldn’t hear them, mice were squeaking, ducks were quacking, and even the an
ts were yelling their heads off. Birds filled the sky, all flying as fast as they could in the same direction: north. Worms were squirming deeper into the soil. Termites buried deeper into trees. And bats. Yes, there were bats flying up and down his street. He’d never seen bats at night, let alone during the daytime. Every living thing could feel and smell the fear in the air, and the message was clear: something very bad was going to happen.

  THUD! Something hit the window, and Nelson jumped backwards and fell on to his bed. THUD! It struck again, and this time Nelson could see it was something soft and grey and nothing to be worried about.

  He opened the window and looked down to see Celeste’s boyfriend, Ivan, standing on his doorstep.

  ‘Hi, Ivan,’ said Nelson.

  Ivan waved with his left hand and with his right hand threw something up towards the open window. Nelson caught it and found he was holding a cuddly toy rhino. It was soft and grey and dressed in a white T-shirt with the words ‘I’M A WINNER’ printed on it.

  Ivan signed to Nelson. It’s for you.

  Nelson ran downstairs and opened the door for Ivan.

  ‘What does that sign mean – I can’t remember?’ asked Nelson, and Ivan replied without his hands, his words sounding softer at the edges than they would for someone with normal hearing.

  ‘It’s for you. I won it at the steam fair last night. Thought it might bring you good luck in your tests.’

  ‘Thanks, Ivan.’

  ‘Sorry you’ve been going through such a hard time at school, mate.’

  Nelson shrugged.

  ‘Well done on the rugby.’

  Nelson made the sign for ‘Thanks’.

  Ivan smiled. ‘I need to teach you more sign language.’