Secrets of the Dead Read online

  ‘I don’t believe in magic sleep,’ Oliver told Fletcher. ‘You’ve made it up to scare me.’

  ‘Here, take the knife. I’ve sharpened its blades today.’

  The cold steel felt reassuringly heavy in Oliver’s hand. It annoyed him that Fletcher said these strange things, but maybe that was just Fletcher’s way? Perhaps Oliver would get used to his idiosyncrasies. Meanwhile, he had an opportunity to handle the amazing knife with its foldaway blades; that alone made Oliver more forgiving of his friend’s quirky behaviour.

  Fletcher put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. ‘Look … mice.’

  Five, no, six mice scurried across the lane in front of them – little splodges of pale fur in the gloom. Quick as a flash, they vanished beneath a bush.

  Fletcher said, ‘At night you see more animals. I can show you where the foxes play in the forest.’

  ‘I can’t go far. What if my mum and dad wake up and find that I’ve gone? They’ll go ape.’

  ‘Magic sleep.’ Fletcher turned the cap around, their secret code for when he was joking, or doing one of his peculiar, wacko things. ‘Magic sleep conquers all.’ He grinned, then turned the hat back around so the peak faced to the front again.

  They continued along the lane. Oliver decided he’d go to see the foxes before returning home. A breeze flowed through the forest. The sound seemed to mimic respiration; a sense that gigantic lungs inflated then deflated.

  A dark shape raced out of the gloom.

  ‘Fox,’ Fletcher whispered. ‘There’s another one. Two, three, four foxes. They’re running this way. Something’s scared them.’

  Oliver stared as the foxes ran by; they seemed too frightened to even notice the pair of humans standing there in the starlight. Their eyes glinted with terror. Oliver shuddered. What kind of predator would make foxes run away like that? More animals rushed by, all running in the same direction. Rabbits, mice, rats, badgers, stoats, hares.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Oliver whispered. ‘Something bad’s happening.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Something wicked this way comes.’

  The breeze blew harder, making a whooshing sound in the treetops. Oliver suddenly felt very cold, because a figure had appeared on the lane in front of them.

  Twenty yards away stood a tall figure. Very thin, very still and very strange. It didn’t move, yet something did move on its arms and legs and torso. Oliver clearly saw that strips of cloth fluttered in the breeze. They streamed outwards, all in the same direction, like pennants or small flags on a pole. The figure still didn’t move, and the rounded shape of its head didn’t seem right to Oliver. In fact, it was very wrong. More skull than head.

  Then Oliver saw why. The figure stepped forward in their direction. Light from a street lamp fell on this lone night-walker. And the light illuminated a ruin of a body. A shrivelled face, with eye sockets that held darkness and nothing more; a hairless head, with holes in the scalp that revealed bare skull; arms as thin as bones; feet that clicked when this monstrosity walked – the sound of one bone clicking against another.

  This man is dead. He is one of the mummies from the castle. Oliver knew that simple, irrefutable fact. His hands clenched into fists as terror screamed through him. The penknife in his hand hurt his palm, even though the blade was safely shut away inside the steel body of the knife. The pain was due to the sheer pressure he exerted on the object.

  ‘It’s the mummy,’ Oliver muttered to Fletcher. ‘It’s alive.’

  ‘I told you … I said that when people sleep that’s when the mummies wake up.’

  The tall figure, wrapped in bandages, walked towards them. The eyes, which weren’t eyes but holes in the front of the face, appeared to be locked on to Oliver’s own face. He realized that although this nightmare man didn’t possesses living, human eyes it saw him nevertheless. Oliver could hardly breathe; his throat grew tight. It felt like he’d been holding his breath for a full minute. Breathe, he told himself. Breathe!

  But breathing was beyond him. Moving was beyond him. He wanted to scream but couldn’t even utter the slightest of croaks.

  Fletcher thumped Oliver’s arm. ‘Run!’

  Fletcher darted away into the shadows. Oliver, however, couldn’t move so much as a finger. That’s when the mummified corpse began to move faster. Oliver watched, appalled, as the face grew bigger the closer it got. Starlight revealed jagged cracks in its face. The head appeared to be encircled by a metal headband. After three thousand years in an Egyptian tomb, the man’s lips had shrivelled; they’d shrunk back to form an everlasting snarl. Oliver saw its teeth; he glimpsed the dried member that was its dead tongue.

  Oliver knew then he would be killed by the mummy in this lane in Devon. He’d hear his own bones break; perhaps he’d glimpse his blood running out of gaping wounds. Even though he was only eleven years old, he knew that his death would be agonizing. And there would be terror … absolute terror.

  The mummified corpse loomed over him, a gigantic totem of broken skin, bones, fluttering bandages; there were criss-cross strips of linen over the chest, through which some of the naked bones of the ribcage were clearly visible; there was an overwhelming impression that a dry shell of muscle and skin enclosed its skeleton.

  Oliver felt a painful jolt as the dead thing crashed into him. Instead of falling, however, the boy realized he’d been picked up. The man – what had been a man long ago – had picked him up in its arms. It carried him along the lane, running at a furious speed. Trees blurred past. Oliver couldn’t scream. He lay limp in the tight grip of dead arms. The face was no more than ten inches from his. He looked into the empty pits of the eye sockets – it was like looking into the pit of a grave. There was darkness there, a frightening darkness that seemed to whisper promises of terror and dead things to Oliver. The monster carried him away into the night. He didn’t know where they were going. He certainly didn’t know what would happen to him when they finally arrived at their destination, or exactly what the mummy would do to hurt him.

  At last, Oliver found his voice. ‘My name’s Oliver Tolworth. I’m Oliver. Please don’t hurt me. I’m Oliver.’ Whether it was to establish some human connection by identifying himself, or something else, Oliver didn’t know. Instinct told him to keep saying his name aloud to the monster. Perhaps it’s harder to slaughter a person you know the name of? Oliver didn’t know. All he could do was to keep repeating his name as this dried-up, bandaged thing carried him.

  ‘I’m Oliver Tolworth. My name’s Oliver. I’m just a kid.’

  The arms gripping Oliver held him even tighter. The ruined face filled his field of vision. The empty eye sockets, the open crevices in the skull. Oliver could even see beard stubble on its jaw.

  ‘My name’s Oliver … Please don’t kill me.’

  Fletcher Brown arrived home long after midnight. His father slept soundly, not even knowing that his son had been night-walking. Fletcher took off the red cap that Oliver had given him. ‘I’m sorry, Oliver,’ he whispered to himself. ‘I told you, didn’t I? When people sleep, the mummies wake up. You’re dead now, Oliver, and that’s the end of that.’

  He went to his room and sat on the bed. In his hand was the penknife that he’d picked up in the lane. Oliver had dropped it when he’d been attacked. Fletcher was sad for the boy, and he was sad to be by himself again – friendless. He saw his own life thirty years from now. Returning to a house where he lived alone. He’d watch television, eat a meal, then lie down and go to sleep. To his neighbours he’d be the strange man. The peculiar guy that people crossed the road to avoid. But that’s what nature had done to him. His brain was different to everyone else’s.

  ‘Oliver’s been killed by a mummy from the castle. That’s a fact of life.’ Fletcher could do nothing to change what had happened. ‘I wonder what Mr and Mrs Tolworth will do when they find out that their son is dead?’

  Oliver lay there. Sunlight pierced the gap in the curtains, creating a brilliant white line on the opposite wa
ll.

  His mouth was dry. His hands were sore; his head was full of the strange and frightening dream he’d had the night before. He remained lying in the same position on his back, vivid images erupting inside his mind. The dream had been incredibly vivid – frighteningly vivid. He dreamt he’d gone night-walking, as Fletcher called it. He and Fletcher had walked along the lane in the middle of the night. Fletcher had teased him again with some strange story about people falling into a magic sleep, saying that they couldn’t be waken whatever you did to them, whether shouting in their ear, or, as Fletcher suggested, sticking the sharp points of a fork into their face.

  Oliver shuddered as he remembered what happened next in the dream. An old Egyptian mummy had appeared in the lane. It had picked him up and then run away, carrying him. Now, that was weird … heck, nightmare weird. Oliver still felt pangs of fear when he remembered that dried-out face with crusty holes where the eyes should be.

  He remembered telling the mummy that he was Oliver Tolworth, believing it might somehow save him from being killed by that dead husk. Funny … it worked, because, after a while, the mummy had stopped running and had put Oliver down.

  Oliver hadn’t wasted a second. He’d dashed back home. He’d run so fast that he’d lost his balance and gone down – bang! – hard on to the ground, scraping his hand. Well, that’s what happened in the dream, anyway. Oliver continued to lie there in bed. He watched an insect flying through the light coming through the gap in the curtains. Its wings seemed to turn to gold as it flew from the shadows into the light. Oliver had experienced plenty of worrying nightmares before. The trick was to keep telling himself it was only a dream. When he put his hand to his mouth to try and stifle a colossal yawn, though, he realized how sore his hand was. He held his hand out into the shaft of light piercing the curtains. Red scratches covered the palm of the hand. What’s more, it was dirty. The scrapes on the skin were of the kind he suffered when he fell while running.

  He whispered to himself, ‘I was running in the dream. The scratches weren’t there yesterday, were they?’

  TWELVE

  John Tolworth made an early start for work that Monday morning. The rest of his family were still in bed, but then they had no need to get up just yet. This was a holiday for them. He was the only one with commitments today. After munching through a bowl of cornflakes, he decided to put his morning tea into a thermal cup; it would be pleasant to stroll through the meadows to the castle, sipping his drink and listening to birdsong as he did so.

  He’d just filled the kettle when his phone signalled a call. Not recognizing the number, he answered with a simple, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Uh …’ grunted a male voice in his ear.

  ‘Hello?’ John repeated.

  ‘Mr Tolworth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Ben Darrington.’

  John’s heart missed a beat. Ben Darrington? His son. My secret son, at that. Although, strictly speaking, he was a secret no longer. Ingrid knew about Ben now.

  ‘Hello, Ben.’ John spoke clearly, although it almost seemed as if someone else spoke on his behalf. ‘What can I do for you?’

  There was a pause. Ben Darrington had stopped speaking, perhaps not knowing what to say next to his father who, after all, he’d never met.

  ‘How’s your leg?’ John asked.

  ‘Not that good … Ahm, I’m sorry to ask this. The doctor is discharging me from hospital today. I’ve got nowhere to live. What’s worse, because of this busted leg I can’t walk properly, at least for a while, anyway.’ John heard the stranger that shared his DNA take a deep breath, as if having to force himself to ask a tricky question. ‘Mr Tolworth, you could say I’m homeless. Can I stay with you?’

  John Tolworth had planned to make an early start for work that Monday morning. After taking the phone call he realized he’d be late, and on his very first day, too. Talk about making a good impression, he told himself despondently as he climbed the stairs to wake his wife with what would be startling news.

  John imagined Ingrid flying into a berserk rage. What’s that? Ingrid would yell. Bring your son – your SECRET SON – here to live with us? No way! Not ever! Not in a million years.

  Gently, he woke Ingrid. She unfurled herself from the vast white sheet of their king-size bed. She was still so relaxed from the deep sleep that her face seemed prettier and younger than he’d seen it in years. Her dark eyes glinted in the light filtering through the blind.

  ‘Changed your mind about work today?’ She smiled. ‘Are you coming back to bed?’

  ‘Ingrid. I don’t really know how to begin breaking this news to you. But I’ve just had a phone call from Ben Darrington.’ He took a deep breath and simply plunged in, telling her that his son by another woman from over nineteen years ago would be leaving hospital today, and would be homeless.

  For a moment, she regarded him with those dark, exotic eyes that never failed to remind him of paintings of queens from ancient Eastern kingdoms. He could almost see the machinery of her mind through those eyes as she processed and carefully assessed what he’d just told her about Ben.

  ‘Homeless? His mother is still alive, isn’t she?’

  ‘Reading between the lines, or rather listening between the lines, it seems as if Carol Darrington is still as emotionally erratic and unreliable as she was when I knew her all those years ago. She’s backpacking in Thailand, possibly with her latest boyfriend, who’s only just been released from prison.’

  ‘Prison? What did he do?’

  ‘Ben didn’t say. Although he did sound tense when he spoke about his mother’s latest love interest.’

  ‘Love interest? That’s a quaint way to say “boyfriend”. John, don’t tell me you’re jealous?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Talking about an ex-girlfriend to his wife, even if the girl had vanished from his life over two decades ago, embarrassed him. ‘The bottom line is that the mother gave up her home to go travelling. Ben had left his student accommodation, because he planned to do some summer job or other that came with a room. Of course, he can’t take up the job offer now, and all his friends are either back home, or simply don’t want to have to look after someone with a broken leg for the next six weeks.’

  ‘I see. Ben’s faced with a real problem, isn’t he?’

  ‘Of course, he can’t stay here with us,’ John decided suddenly, realizing what he was asking of his wife. ‘Ben’s a stranger. We’ve never met him. There’s nowhere for him to sleep, either.’ He pulled the phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll call him back and tell him to find somewhere else to stay.’

  But John underestimated Ingrid’s compassion and tolerance. Her wisdom constantly surprised him – he was just about to be surprised all over again. ‘John.’ She leaned forward in bed to take his hand as he sat beside her. ‘John, he must come here to stay with us.’

  John started to protest.

  ‘No, hear me out.’ She gently squeezed his hand while looking at him with a serious expression. ‘Ben is your son. Don’t you think your decision to turn him away, when he clearly needs someone to help him, will come back to haunt you in the future?’

  ‘We don’t know what he’s like, Ingrid. He might be repulsive, argumentative, disruptive.’

  ‘Then again, he might be lovely. He’s also your son. He exists because of you.’

  John felt humbled by his wife’s sensitivity. What’s more, he felt a needling sense of guilt, because he’d expected her reaction to be one of fury and a complete rejection of Ben. All too readily now, he recalled how she’d always devoted herself to her pupils at whichever school employed her. There were late-night calls from desperate children who had no one else to turn to, or perhaps no one they trusted more to help them in times of crisis, whether it was a teenage girl discovering she was pregnant, or a child whose parents had fought to the point that blood had been spilt. Whatever the problem, Ingrid calmly went about finding the solution. Even so, John couldn’t envisage Ben Darrington living under
the same roof as his family.

  He shook his head. ‘Carol might have lied to me. What if I’m not Ben’s biological father?’

  ‘You’ll know the moment you see him.’

  ‘Blood being thicker than water?’

  ‘You’ll just know. Instinct will tell you whether he’s your flesh and blood.’

  He could see that Ingrid wholeheartedly wanted to give Ben a home for at least a few weeks. Maybe she’s seen something incomplete in me, John told himself. Does she think that I’m missing out on an important part of my life, because I’ve never met Ben?

  Ingrid smiled – one of those deeply sympathetic and completely genuine smiles that John found so touching. ‘John, it’ll only be for a few weeks. Give Ben this chance to get to know you. Think how important it could be for him. He’ll be meeting his dad. Think how excited and how scared he’ll be right now. He’ll be imagining what it’ll be like to meet you. His heart will be pounding away like crazy.’

  ‘Mine’s doing the same.’

  ‘Then you’ll phone him?’

  ‘Yes, after work tonight.’ He saw the way she looked at him. ‘He’ll be on tenterhooks now, won’t he?’

  ‘Absolutely. He’s waiting for one of the most important phone calls of his life.’

  He leaned forward, kissing her on the lips. ‘As ever, you’re the wisest half of this relationship. It would be cruel to keep Ben waiting.’

  Ben had made the call – one that John realized was important to him, too. He’d never even seen a picture of his son. All that he had to form an image was the voice. And that voice sounded in his ear right now. A good voice, he decided. Well-spoken. Not harsh. John suddenly found himself imagining a boy opening presents at Christmases and birthdays. Presents from his mother, and from uncles and aunts, perhaps, but never one with ‘From Dad’ on the label. The image of a little boy reading the gift labels flashed through his mind in less than a second, yet it had such a powerful impact on John. So much so that he couldn’t speak for a moment.