Grey howled. A burned smell reached my nostrils.
“His skin’s burning,” Morrie said. “It’s like BBQ-property developer, which I must admit is how I prefer my developers. Dracula must be drinking from Grey, too, because the garlic is giving him a lovely color.”
Grey staggered back into the tunnel, gripping the walls as he breathed hard. I noticed he no longer put weight on his other foot. “You think I mind a little pain?” he gasped out. “I’ll do anything to serve my master.Anything.”
With a yell, he surged forward again, slamming his body into the entrance. His limbs flailed as the garlic repelled him, but instead of falling back, he growled and grunted and pushed his way forward. The air sizzled with the sound of boiling flesh, and the smell of pork BBQ made me want to puke. A horrible scream tore from Grey’s throat as he crawled along the floor, one hand over the other like he was pulling himself through quicksand. The water soaked his clothing and splashed in his mouth, cutting off his next scream into a spluttering couch. He was doing it. Inch by inch, he crawled forward into the cellar.
“Well, that’s something.” Morrie flattened us against the far wall. I hugged Fiona’s box to my chest with one hand while the other felt along the bricks. My fingers brushed Victor’s extension cord. A desperate idea came to me. I dropped my hand from Morrie’s and followed the cord along the wall, feeling for the dangling plug. When I found it, I stooped to pick up the other end. It had been dragging in the water. I wiped it dry on my t-shirt.Please, don’t let this kill us all.
“Morrie,” I yelled. “Get above the water.”
“You won’t escape me.” Grey sent up great waves of cold water as he crawled toward us. Now that he was past the garlic, he seemed to gain strength even as steam rose from his smoking skin. He grabbed the edge of Victor’s table and gripped it as he tried to haul himself to his feet.
Morrie appeared beside me. “Toast him, gorgeous,” he whispered.
I jammed the plugs together. A light flickered overhead as a surge of electricity hit Victor’s machine. Sparks flew across the room, and I screamed and dropped to my knees as Morrie bent his body over mine to protect me.
Lights burst to life along the edge of the table, and a whirring, sizzling noise drowned out Grey’s cries. As I watched, horrified and transfixed, the lump on the table shot upright, the sheet falling away to reveal a human-like figure.
He looked exactly the way I expected Frankenstein’s monster to appear in the flesh – more terrifying than any horror film could do justice. Everything about him screamedwrong, from the wide, flattened forehead, the ill-fitting snub nose and beady eyes, to the places where the flesh hadn’t stretched properly over bone and organ. From the neat rows of stitches crisscrossing his patchwork skin to the pair of industrial-sized bolts sticking out from his neck.
“Wh-wh-what is that?” Grey stared at the monster. The monster turned to Grey, its beady eyes rolling and swirling and focusing on Grey with a kind of naive curiosity. It reached out with hands like tractors and grabbed Grey’s shoulders.
“Please,” Grey begged. He didn’t get to finish his plea.
With a roar, the monster flung Grey across the room. He crashed into the wall with the sickeningSNAPof bones breaking.
“Good thinking, gorgeous.” Morrie shoved me toward the stairs. “Now, run!”
I scrambled up the steps, throwing myself from the cellar and across the rug as the monster roared behind us. Morrie slammed the cellar door shut and drew the bolt across. He leaned his back against the door and breathed an audible sigh as crashes and snarls and pleas for mercy shook the shop.
“My creature!” Victor cried, falling to his knees. “You’ve woken him before he was ready. What have you done?”
“Mina saved all our asses.” Morrie sank to his knees, clutching his stomach. In this moment, my Napoleon of Crime didn’t look very sure of himself. Downstairs, Grey screamed, and I heard the roar of the monster receding as it chased him back along the tunnel.
Victor glared at me. “You’ve set him loose on the village, and he cannot be controlled.”
“One more monster in this place won’t make any difference.” I loosened my grip on Fiona’s box, letting it fall into my lap. I sucked in a deep breath, then another, trying to calm my racing heart. My fingers fumbled with the latch but now, without panic blinding me, it opened easily, revealing a thin layer of dirt on the bottom. Heathcliff tossed me a fresh bottle of holy water, and I sprinkled it inside.
“It’s done.” I let my head fall back against Morrie as Heathcliff and Quoth sank down beside me. “We’ve only got one more box of earth left to find, and then we can destroy Dracula once and for all.”
ARGLETON GAZETTE
FOREIGNER IN FRANKENSTEIN COSTUME PICKED UP BY POLICE
Astranger was picked up by officers in the early evening shuffling across the motorway while traffic swerved to avoid him. Luckily no one was seriously injured, and the man was escorted off the motorway for his own safety.
Due to movie FX-grade makeup and the realistic-looking bolts sticking out of his neck, the officer was able to deduce our stranger was bound for Argleton’s Halloween festival.
It transpired that the man, who police believe to be a foreigner with a speech impediment, is a guest of Heathcliff Earnshaw, resident at Nevermore Bookshop, 22 Butcher Street. This reporter is unsurprised to find the bookstore proprietor keeping such peculiar company. The stranger has been returned to his home and Mr. Earnshaw given a verbal warning by police not to allow his houseguests to break council bylaws.
Chapter Twelve
“I’ll take this book, thank you.” A dour-looking woman handed over a copy ofThe North Staffordshire Railway in LMS Days, Volume 2. “Do you gift wrap? It’s for my husband’s retirement party. He’s an avid railway enthusiast.”
“Of course.” I rang up her purchase and unrolled the purple wrapping paper across the desk. Gift-wrapping was one of those little extras I’d introduced that set Heathcliff’s teeth on edge. The service was much in demand, as long as I was the one doing it – Heathcliff threw books at anyone who asked for gift-wrapping and Morrie liked to hide little presents inside the paper (usually notes with mysterious and vaguely threatening messages for people to puzzle over). Quoth was excellent in human form, but he preferred his raven form around the shop, and ravens can do many things, but gift wrapping is not one of them.
Besides, it’s not as if Quoth is here to help.I tried to push away the negative thought as I folded over the edges of the paper. Quoth had been out all night again. He flew in just before sunrise and was upstairs, sound asleep. Still, at least he’d been here yesterday when Morrie and I broke into Dracula’s place.I can’t wait until the exhibition is over and we can go back to normal – as normal as anything ever is around here…
