The Last Apprentice: Complete Collection Page 3

What I saw was bad enough, but what he said was even worse.

  “Well, lad, I’ve got business to attend to so I’ll be off, but I’ll be back later. Know what you have to do?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, watching the flickering candle, worried that it might go out at any second.

  “Well, it’s what I told you earlier. Weren’t you listening? You need to be alert, not dreaming. Anyway, it’s nothing very difficult,” he explained, scratching at his beard as if there was something crawling about in it. “You just have to spend the night here alone. I bring all my new apprentices to this old house on their first night so I can find out what they’re made of. Oh, but there’s one thing I haven’t told you. At midnight I’ll expect you to go down into the cellar and face whatever it is that’s lurking there. Cope with that and you’re well on your way to being taken on permanently. Any questions?”

  I had questions all right, but I was too scared to hear the answers. So I just shook my head and tried to keep my top lip from trembling.

  “How will you know when it’s midnight?” he asked.

  I shrugged. I was pretty good at guessing the time from the position of the sun or the stars, and if I ever woke in the middle of the night, I almost always knew exactly what time it was, but here I wasn’t so sure. In some places time seems to move more slowly, and I had a feeling that this old house would be one of them.

  Suddenly I remembered the church clock. “It’s just gone seven,” I said. “I’ll listen for twelve chimes.”

  “Well, at least you’re awake now,” the Spook said with a little smile. “When the clock strikes twelve, take the stub of the candle and use it to find your way down to the cellar. Until then, sleep if you can manage it. Now listen carefully—there are three important things to remember. Don’t open the front door to anyone, no matter how hard they knock, and don’t be late going down to the cellar.”

  He took a step toward the front door.

  “What’s the third thing?” I called out at the very last moment.

  “The candle, lad. Whatever else you do, don’t let it go out.”

  Then he was gone, closing the door behind him, and I was all alone. Cautiously I picked up the candle, walked to the kitchen door, and peered inside. It was empty of everything but a stone sink. The back door was closed, but the wind still wailed beneath it. There were two other doors on the right. One was open, and I could see the bare wooden stairs that led to the bedrooms above. The other one, that closest to me, was closed.

  Something about that closed door made me uneasy, but I decided to take a quick look. Nervously I gripped the handle and tugged at the door. It was hard to shift, and for a moment I had a creepy feeling that somebody was holding it closed on the other side. When I tugged even harder, it opened with a jerk, making me lose my balance. I staggered back a couple of steps and almost dropped the candle.

  Stone steps led down into the darkness; they were black with coal dust. They curved away to the left so I couldn’t see right down into the cellar, but a cold draft came up them, making the candle flame dance and flicker. I closed the door quickly and went back into the front room, closing the kitchen door, too.

  I put the candle down carefully in the corner farthest away from the door and window. Once I was satisfied that it wouldn’t fall over, I looked for a place on the floor where I could sleep. There wasn’t much choice. I certainly wasn’t sleeping on the damp straw, so I settled down in the center of the room.

  The flags were hard and cold, but I closed my eyes. Once asleep, I’d be away from that grim old house, and I felt pretty confident that I’d wake just before midnight.

  Usually I get to sleep easily, but this was different. I kept shivering with cold, and the wind was beginning to rattle the windowpanes. There were also rustlings and patterings coming from the walls. Just mice, I kept telling myself. We were certainly used to them on the farm. But then, suddenly, there came a disturbing new sound from down below in the depths of the dark cellar.

  At first it was faint, making me strain my ears, but gradually it grew until I was in no doubt about what I could hear. Down in the cellar, something was happening that shouldn’t be happening. Someone was digging rhythmically, turning heavy earth with a sharp metal spade. First came the grind of the metal edge striking a stony surface, followed by a soft, squelching, sucking sound as the spade pushed deep into heavy clay and tore it free from the earth.

  This went on for several minutes until the noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun. All was quiet. Even the mice stopped their pattering. It was as if the house and everything in it were holding their breath. I know I was.

  The silence ended with a resounding thump. Then a whole series of thumps, definite in rhythm. Thumps that were getting louder. And louder. And closer . . .

  Someone was climbing the stairs from the cellar.

  I snatched up the candle and shrank into the farthest corner. Thump, thump, nearer and nearer, came the sound of heavy boots. Who could have been digging down there in the darkness? Who could be climbing the stairs now?

  But maybe it wasn’t a question of who was climbing the stairs. Maybe it was a question of what.

  I heard the cellar door open and the thump of boots in the kitchen. I pressed myself back into the corner, trying to make myself small, waiting for the kitchen door to open.

  And open it did, very slowly, with a loud creak. Something stepped into the room. I felt coldness then. Real coldness. The kind of coldness that told me something was close that didn’t belong on this earth. It was like the coldness of Hangman’s Hill, only far, far worse.

  I lifted the candle, its flame flickering eerie shadows that danced up the walls and onto the ceiling.

  “Who’s there?” I asked. “Who’s there?” My voice trembled even more than the hand holding the candle.

  There was no answer. Even the wind outside had fallen silent.

  “Who’s there?” I called out again.

  Again no reply, but invisible boots grated on the flags as they stepped toward me. Nearer and nearer they came, and now I could hear breathing. Something big was breathing heavily. It sounded like a huge carthorse that had just pulled a heavy load up a steep hill.

  At the very last moment the footsteps veered away from me and halted close to the window. I was holding my breath, and the thing by the window seemed to be breathing for both of us, drawing great gulps of air into its lungs as if it could never get enough.

  Just when I could stand it no longer, it gave a huge sigh that sounded weary and sad at the same time, and the invisible boots grated on the flags once more, heavy steps that moved away from the window, back toward the door. When they began to thump their way down the cellar steps, I was finally able to breathe again.

  My heart began to slow, my hands stopped shaking, and gradually I calmed down. I had to pull myself together. I’d been scared, but if that was the worst that was going to happen tonight, I’d gotten through it, passed my first test. I was going to be the Spook’s apprentice, so I’d have to get used to places like this haunted house. It went with the job.

  After about five minutes or so I began to feel better. I even thought about making another attempt to get to sleep, but as my dad sometimes says, “There’s no rest for the wicked.” Well, I don’t know what I’d done wrong, but there was a sudden new sound to disturb me.

  It was faint and distant at first—something knocking on a door. There was a pause, and then it happened again. Three distinct raps, but a little nearer this time. Another pause and three more raps.

  It didn’t take me long to work it out. Something was rapping hard on each door in the street, moving nearer and nearer to number thirteen. When it finally came to the haunted house, the three raps on the front door were loud enough to wake the dead. Would the thing in the cellar climb the steps to answer that summons? I felt trapped between the two: something outside wanting to get in; something below that wanted to be free.

  And then, suddenly, it was all right. A vo
ice called to me from the other side of the front door, a voice I recognized.

  “Tom! Tom! Open the door! Let me in!”

  It was Mam. I was so glad to hear her that I rushed to the front door without thinking. It was raining outside and she’d be getting wet.

  “Quickly, Tom, quickly!” Mam called. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  I was actually lifting the latch to open it when I remembered the Spook’s warning: “Don’t open the front door to anyone, no matter how hard they knock.”

  But how could I leave Mam out there in the dark?

  “Come on, Tom! Let me in!” the voice called again.

  Remembering what the Spook had said, I took a deep breath and tried to think. Common sense told me it couldn’t be her. Why would she have followed me all this way? How would she have known where we were going? Mam wouldn’t have traveled alone either. My dad or Jack would have come with her.

  No, it was a something else waiting outside. Something without hands that could still rap on the door. Something without feet that could still stand on the pavement.

  The knocking started to get louder.

  “Please let me in, Tom,” pleaded the voice. “How can you be so hard and cruel? I’m cold, wet, and tired.”

  Eventually it began to cry, and then I knew for certain that it couldn’t possibly be Mam. Mam was strong. Mam never cried no matter how bad things got.

  After a few moments the sounds faded and stopped altogether. I lay down on the floor and tried to sleep again. I kept turning over, first one way and then the other, but try as I might, I couldn’t get to sleep. The wind began to rattle the windowpanes even louder, and on every hour and half hour the church clock chimed, moving me closer to midnight.

  The nearer the time came for me to go down the cellar steps, the more nervous I became. I did want to pass the Spook’s test, but, oh, how I longed to be back home in my nice, safe, warm bed.

  And then, just after the clock had given a single chime—half past eleven—the digging began again. . . .

  Once more I heard the slow thump, thump of heavy boots coming up the steps from the cellar; once more the door opened and the invisible boots stepped into the front room. By now the only bit of me that was moving was my heart, which pounded so hard it seemed about to break my ribs. But this time the boots didn’t veer away in the direction of the window. They kept coming. Thump! Thump! Thump! Coming straight toward me.

  I felt myself being lifted roughly by the hair and skin at the nape of my neck, just like a mother cat carries her kittens. Then an invisible arm wrapped itself around my body, pinning my arms to my sides. I tried to suck in a breath, but it was impossible. My chest was being crushed.

  I was being carried toward the cellar door. I couldn’t see what was carrying me, but I could hear its wheezing breath and I struggled in a panic, because somehow I knew exactly what was going to happen. Somehow I knew why there’d been the sound of digging from below. I was going to be carried down the cellar steps into the darkness, and I knew that a grave was waiting for me down there. I was going to be buried alive.

  I was terrified and tried to cry out, but it was worse than just being held in a tight grip. I was paralyzed and couldn’t move a muscle.

  Suddenly I was falling. . . .

  I found myself on all fours, staring at the open door to the cellar, just inches from the top step. In a panic, my heart thumping too fast to count the beats, I lurched to my feet and slammed the cellar door shut. Still trembling, I went back into the front room to find that one of the Spook’s three rules had been broken.

  The candle had gone out.

  As I walked toward the window, a sudden flash of light illuminated the room, followed by a loud crash of thunder almost directly overhead. Rain squalled against the house, rattling the windows and making the front door creak and groan as if something were trying to get in.

  I stared out miserably for a few minutes, watching the flashes of lightning. It was a bad night, but even though lightning scared me, I would have given anything to be out there walking the streets; anything to have avoided going down into that cellar.

  In the distance the church clock began to chime. I counted the chimes, and there were exactly twelve. Now I had to face what was in the cellar.

  It was then, as lightning lit the room again, that I noticed the large footprints on the floor. At first I thought they’d been made by the Spook, but they were black, as if the huge boots that made them had been covered with coal dust. They came from the direction of the kitchen door, went almost to the window, and then turned and went back the way they’d come. Back to the cellar. Down into the dark where I had to go!

  Forcing myself forward, I searched the floor with my hand for the stub of the candle. Then I scrabbled around for my small bundle of clothes. Wrapped in the center of it was the tinderbox that Dad had given me.

  Fumbling in the dark, I shook the small pile of tinder out onto the floor and used the stone and metal to strike up sparks. I kindled that little pile of wood until it burst into flame, just long enough to light the candle. Little had Dad known that his gift would prove so useful so soon.

  As I opened the cellar door, there was another flash of lightning and a sudden crash of thunder that shook the whole house and rumbled down the steps ahead of me. I descended into the cellar, my hand trembling and the candle stub dancing till strange shadows flickered against the wall.

  I didn’t want to go down there, but if I failed the Spook’s test, I’d probably be on my way back home as soon as it came light. I imagined my shame at having to tell Mam what had happened.

  Eight steps and I was turning the corner so that the cellar was in view. It wasn’t a big cellar, but it had dark shadows in the corners that the candlelight couldn’t quite reach, and there were spiders’ webs hanging from the ceiling in frail, mucky curtains. Small pieces of coal and large wooden crates were scattered across the earthen floor, and there was an old wooden table next to a big beer barrel. I stepped around the beer barrel and noticed something in the far corner. Something just behind some crates that scared me so much I almost dropped the candle.

  It was a dark shape, almost like a bundle of rags, and it was making a noise. A faint, rhythmical sound, like breathing.

  I took a step toward the rags; then another, using all my willpower to make my legs move. It was then, as I got so close that I could have touched it, that the thing suddenly grew. From a shadow on the floor it reared up before me until it was three or four times bigger.

  I almost ran. It was tall, dark, hooded, and terrifying, with green, glittering eyes.

  Only then did I notice the staff that it was holding in its left hand.

  “What kept you?” demanded the Spook. “You’re nearly five minutes late!”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Letter

  “I LIVED in this house as a child,” said the Spook, “and I saw things that would make your big toes curl, but I was the only one who could, and my dad used to beat me for telling lies. Something used to climb up out of the cellar. It would have been the same for you. Am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, it’s nothing to worry about, lad. It’s just another ghast, a fragment of a troubled soul that’s gone on to better things. Without leaving the bad part of himself behind, he’d have been stuck here forever.”

  “What did he do?” I asked, my voice echoing back slightly from the ceiling.

  The Spook shook his head sadly. “He was a miner whose lungs were so diseased that he couldn’t work anymore. He spent his days and nights coughing and struggling for breath, and his poor wife kept them both. She worked in a bakery, but sadly for both of them, she was a very pretty woman, and some pretty women can’t be trusted.

  “To make it worse, he was a jealous man and his illness made him bitter. One evening she was very late home from work and he kept going to the window, pacing backward and forward, getting more and more angry because he thought she was with another man.

/>   “When she finally came in, he was in such a rage that he broke her head open with a big lump of coal. Then he left her there, dying on the flags, and went down into the cellar to dig a grave. She was still alive when he came back, but she couldn’t move and couldn’t even cry out. That’s the terror that comes to us, because it’s how she felt as he picked her up and carried her down into the darkness of the cellar. She’d heard him digging. She knew what he was going to do.

  “Later that night he killed himself. It’s a sad story, but although they’re at peace now, his ghast’s still here and so are her final memories, both strong enough to torment folks like us. We see things that others can’t, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a very useful thing in our trade, though.”

  I shuddered. I felt sorry for the poor wife who’d been murdered, and I felt sorry for the miner who’d killed her. I even felt sorry for the Spook. Imagine having to spend your childhood in a house like this.

  I looked down at the candle, which I’d placed in the middle of the table. It was almost burned down and the flame was starting its last flickering dance, but the Spook didn’t show any sign of wanting to go back upstairs. I didn’t like the shadows on his face. It looked as if it were gradually changing, as if he were growing a snout or something.

  “Do you know how I overcame my fear?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “One night I was so terrified that I screamed out before I could stop myself. I woke everybody up, and in a rage my father lifted me up by the scruff of my neck and carried me down the steps into this cellar. Then he got a hammer and nailed the door shut behind me.

  “I wasn’t very old. Probably seven at the most. I climbed back up the steps and, screaming fit to burst, scratched and banged at the door. But my father was a hard man, and he left me all alone in the dark and I had to stay there for hours, until long after dawn. After a bit, I calmed down, and do you know what I did then?”

  I shook my head, trying not to look at his face. His eyes were glittering very brightly, and he looked more like a wolf than ever.