The Boy Who Hatched Monsters Page 6
‘But they’re not drowning. Which means someone might be able to fix it.’
Sam had no idea who he was going to find that could turn anyone back into a human.
Bladder retreated from the sea’s attempts to slip between stones to lick at his paws. ‘I don’t think I wanna touch that water though,’ he said, the mob sliding around him. Who knows what’s in it.’
CHAPTER 6
Daniel alighted on the top of the Royal Albion Hotel. The noise had faded, but it had not completely died down.
Sam, Bladder and Yonah sat with the angel and stared around at the twin towns of Brighton and Hove. Even at a distance – and Sam was used to listening to distances – there were not enough of the right sounds, and too many of the wrong ones. The streets so far were mostly empty and the clock tower said it was well after 10 a.m. The few people who woke were doing so sluggishly, into a nightmare. He couldn’t hear specifics, except the sound of the occasional door slam and voices thick with terror sobbing out names. Many phones echoed as the ringing went on and on and no one replied. The majority of doors remained closed. And the shore became less and less of a fish stew as the children-turned-sea-creatures swam further out.
‘How far did the song reach?’ Sam asked.
‘Yonah travelled far and wide,’ Daniel, said. ‘All the way to Worthing that way and Peacehaven the other. It doesn’t go too far inland, though. She got up past Stanmer Park, and told me most of the families up there are behaving normally. Of the houses in the danger zone, though, most children are gone. A few little ones were trapped in cots, like Beatrice. The ones left behind have gone back to sleep. Probably exhausted by their night’s exertions. But it’s Monday,’ he added. ‘and a lot of adults are still asleep. The parents of older kids won’t realise – they’ll think they’ve overslept and the kids have gone off to school. ‘It’s a clever song. Tempts the children out of bed and knocks the adults right out.’
‘A symphony for everyone,’ Bladder scoffed.
‘You couldn’t find where it was coming from?’ Sam asked.
The angel shook his head.
‘It’s coming from over there.’ Bladder pointed beyond the pier.
‘It seems to carry on the wind, changing direction. For us anyway.’ Yonah cheeped to support Daniel.
Sam winced as a hysterical voice – he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman – shrieked out ‘Bram! Abraham!’ but no one replied.
‘The Kavanaghs haven’t woken up yet?’ Bladder asked.
Daniel shook his head. ‘Like most of the adults. Nick was out flat on his face, he’d drooled a huge grey patch on to his pillow. But he’s all healed.’ Daniel held out his hands to show the source of the healing. ‘Michelle and Richard, Beatrice as well, hardly moving.’
‘And … ?’ Bladder asked.
‘Wheedle, Spigot and Nugget are fine. Wheedle may have helped himself to your stash of chocolate. Stress eating, he said.’
Sam shrugged. He was more concerned about the scene before him. ‘We have to follow the song, to find out where the kids have gone,’ he said.
‘Let’s get going, then. Can’t sit here all day,’ Bladder replied, and headed for the footpath.
They listened; the sound lilted distantly in the air. Sam could barely hear it.
Daniel grabbed Sam and flew him towards the ground. It was so odd to do that in the middle of town on a weekday morning, but the main road, normally chock-full of commuters and buses bursting with schoolkids, sat silent and empty. Grey seas churned towards the town; the wind set the ashy skies boiling above.
Sam looked at Brighton Pier. A half-shaved, unbrushed man shuffled towards one of the food stands. ‘I’m so late,’ he muttered. He yawned a few times. He stopped and stared at the other stands, and looked around. Sam could guess what he was thinking. If I’m late, where’s everyone else? When no one approached him, after a few moments he sat down and nodded off.
Bladder raced across the street. There were no cars to run him down and the only people looking were an old couple treading at a sprightly pace down the footpath. Sam stared at them. The few other people he saw shuffled along staring at their feet. The woman gawked at Bladder and Sam, shook her head and trundled on. Sam heard her whisper, ‘Do you think they’re with the Christmas show?’
The old man, the first person Sam had seen with any energy, looked at her with a frown and then clicked on his hearing aid as he walked past Sam.
The gargoyle flumped down on the footpath. ‘Being able to run around without scaring anyone’s quite odd.’
A woman came hurtling out of a hotel door and called, ‘Margery? Margery?’
‘Tell me again what Maggie said,’ Daniel said. ‘Describe everything for me.’
Sam described the sound and how Beatrice had behaved. Bladder added pointers on Nick’s response. Then, of course, what happened in the water, when the children all turned into sea creatures.
‘Maggie said the wet witches sang a spell about the sea and then the kids all ended up in it,’ Sam concluded.
‘Bet you Maggie’s doing it. Banshees sing too, you know,’ Bladder said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve only heard her use her singing voice once, but it makes people miserable, not behave like that.’
Both Daniel and Bladder opened their mouths, but more people appeared in the street. Even with a gargoyle in full view, though, they were only interested in Sam. A man came shambling along the front, holding the railing for support. He drew closer and peered up at Sam, a smile almost on his mouth, before studying him closer.
‘Have you seen a boy about your age, dark hair? He’ll be wearing …’ And then the man stopped. ‘I don’t know what he’ll be wearing.’ He staggered up the footpath. He wasn’t the only one searching for someone, Sam heard doors banging and confused calls turn into high-pitched yells.
‘It’s nearly eleven a.m.,’ Daniel said. ‘The parents are waking.’
Bladder used his nose to point at wild-eyed adults staggering into the streets. ‘Better make our apologies and go.’ He peered out to sea again. ‘It’s like the pied piper came and whistled the children away. Do you think it’s that? The salty version of a pied piper?’ Bladder asked.
A woman ambled towards them.
She stopped, groggily peering at Sam. ‘Sam,’ she said. ‘Is that you?’
Sam looked at the face and its half-hearted attempt at a smile. It was the owner of the sweet shop in The Lanes. ‘Hello, Mrs Williams,’ he said.
‘It’s all gone haywire today. I’m not sure where’s up and where’s down. People on my street seemed to have misplaced their children. It’s such a relief to see one in the flesh. Come by the shop later and let me give you a sugar mouse or two.’
‘I don’t have any money, Mrs Williams.’
‘Don’t worry about that, I’m just glad to see you. If you’re here, it might be a prank? Right? It did scare me though, I called my daughter to make sure my grandchildren were all right.’
‘Were they?’
‘Oh, yes, she’d taken them off on the school run a couple of hours ago. Everyone was there, she said.’
‘Where was that?’
‘Molesey,’ she said. ‘Near Hampton Court Palace. Have you been there?’
Sam shook his head.
‘It really is good to see your face, Sam,’ Mrs Williams said. ‘Come by the shop, I’ll give you a big bag of something.’ She stared at Bladder. ‘Aren’t these pieces amazing? I’ve seen some in The Lanes. They move them around.’ She pushed on Bladder. ‘So heavy, though – don’t know how they do it.’
Daniel and Yonah flew off in one direction to check on something and left Sam and Bladder as a few more people appeared, screamed and disappeared up the streets.
They watched for a while, until Bladder looked up, listening. ‘The sound’s stopped.’
Sam listened too. Yes, it had gone. Just wind and human voices filled the air. Something else had changed as well. A man wandered past Sam and Bladder and shook his head as if waking himself. Shops began to open, and in a few minutes there seemed to be police officers everywhere, many scrambling to put on their uniforms properly as they ran on to the streets. Soon, cars came out of side streets and the road along the beach looked as packed as normal.
The people on the streets were growing more alert, Sam realised. Traffic started to build too, but the drivers weren’t watching the roads as well as they could. Too often people looked at him, called out and had to slam on their brakes for fear of hitting pedestrians. Others screamed at each other.
‘Let’s get out of sight a bit?’ Bladder suggested.
Sam heard a click across the street as someone’s TV went on and he could saw a flickering screen through a window. He scurried towards it as people called to him: ‘John’, ‘Waleed’, ‘Sonny’. Only one woman gasped to see the stone lion running behind him.
Although Sam couldn’t make out the pictures on the television, he could hear it. He huddled down by Bladder’s side, using him to shield him from people’s eyes and as a windbreak. It didn’t help much; Sam was freezing. His fingers had turned blue. He bet his lips had too.
A news reporter’s voice said, ‘Just in. It appears there has been a mass disappearance of children in Sussex. The central city of Brighton seems most affected, but losses have reached as far as Goring-by-Sea to the west and Newhaven to the east. Areas north of Brighton seem unaffected. All the missing children are seventeen and younger, and some are babies. The police are baffled. Evidence suggests the children left willingly. There have been no signs of forced entry recorded, and in many cases the front door was left wide open. A secondary effect that has MI5 officials concerned is the apparent drugging or sedating of many adults in the area. Even childless adults have succumbed to what professionals are describing as a “mass narcolepsy”. People are mentioning signs of grogginess, over-sleeping and difficulty in focusing. The town, most famous for its holiday …’
Bladder peered up. ‘Incoming!’ he yelled as Daniel and Yonah landed on the footpath. Sam huddled close to Daniel, trying to warm himself in the angel’s wings.
Bladder looked at Daniel’s dour face. ‘What?’
‘Was Wilfred at home?’ Sam asked.
‘No. You might be right; it was him in the crowd. The shifters were just as affected as everyone else. We checked on Hazel and Amira. They’re all gone. All the puppies. Mrs Kintamani rang ’Thrope Control, calling in the big guns. It’s obviously supernatural in nature.
Yonah looked as dejected as Daniel.
‘There’s something you should …’ Daniel started.
A noise smothered his voice. A jam had halted the flow of traffic and angry people were pouring from their vehicles, filling the street. Open fighting began. A man still in his pyjamas punched a driver in the face; another man jumped out of his car and used a cricket bat to smash someone’s windscreen.
‘Nope, definitely not sleepy any more,’ Bladder said.
‘Yonah,’ Daniel said.
The dove cooed and took to the street. She did nothing more than fly over the conflict and it settled. The woman with the smashed-up windscreen got out of the car. The man with the bat flung it to the ground and fell on to her shoulder sobbing. Two men stopped yelling and fell into a hug. Instead of letting their separate frustrations explode again, they shared their common grief.
‘Recite the poem, Sam,’ Daniel asked.
Sam shuddered. His voice cracked as he spoke.
‘The sea, the sea, the hungry sea,
Send out your damp reply to me,
Eat the children, swallow them down,
Silence their breath. We’ll watch them drown.’
‘Someone stole their breath. Stole their lungs too. They’ve become fish. Turning them into fish would take a huge amount of magic,’ Bladder said.
‘But they didn’t drown,’ Daniel said. ‘The song mentioned drowning.’
‘It’s a metaphor,’ Bladder replied.
Sam felt sick.
Bladder continued. ‘But why turn them to fish?’
A cold as chilly as the Atlantic swept over Sam. We’ll watch them drown. Metaphor or not, the thought made him shudder.
At last, the streets were truly filled with people. They banged into each other, searched for places their children might have visited, knocked on shop doors. Many sobbed out loud.
A man stumbled by in his dressing gown. He stopped Sam. The man’s feet were bare and his toes had turned a shocking blue.
‘Son! Son!’ he called after Sam. ‘Where are the children? Where are the other children?’
When Sam didn’t answer, the man grabbed him by his pyjama top.
Bladder pushed his huge, heavy body between them, growling with the deep threat of the lion he resembled. The dressing-gowned man backed off, then, like all the other terrified adults, he sobbed.
Bladder’s head jerked. He stared at the water once more. ‘Sam, look at that.’
The water was bubbling again. It was full of fish.
‘They’ve come back.’ Sam pelted towards the steps and on to the beach, paddling into the icy water so his pyjama trousers were wet to the knee and he could barely feel his toes. Small fish cruised along the shore. Further out, the larger creatures swam and slid over each other. Even a whale popped up and blew a stream of water into the air.
‘The song’s stopped an’ they’ve come back. Do you think it’s stopped for good?’ Bladder asked. ‘If we can find some magic to turn them back …’
Yonah alighted on Sam’s shoulder and Daniel soared over the water. Under him, light reflected, and a dolphin jumped up, skimming the angel’s belly with its silver snout.
The dolphin turned and chirped at Sam and Bladder.
‘I want a closer look at that dolphin,’ Sam said.
Sam took off back towards the Brighton Pier entrance. Someone had done their job and unlocked the gates, but there were no customers and most of the kiosks remained shut. Sam followed the barrier along the edge; the schools, shoals, floats, fleets, companies, clusters, pods, herds and flocks of sea creatures followed alongside, the mammals in the group barking, yelping and hooting up to him. Daniel carried Bladder to the pier and dropped his heavy stone body on to the planks.
Sam studied the thundering water as he raced towards the end of the pier, where the angel, the dove and the gargoyle waited, staring over the latticed barrier.
The water churned as here and there shapes broke the surface. Silver-metalled fish, grey-furred seals, a black slick-backed shark and a little whale side by side. Most of the creatures of the deep in one place, wriggling over each other. The water eddied and flowed with thousands of them clustering around the pier’s supports.
‘What are they doing?’ Sam asked.
Bladder sidled up next to him with his forepaws on the railing. ‘You’d think with all that food about, the shark would have gone crazy.’
A shark’s wide mouth surfaced over the water and Sam saw myriad teeth inside its head. The fish about it swam away, but the shark did not bite after them.
‘Hey! Hey! Up here, sharky?’ Bladder called.
Many of the creatures looked, not just the shark. Sam studied their expressions; there was something odd about them. He’d only been around six months, but he felt he should know what made the shark’s face look wrong, what made the seal’s face look strange. There were humans inside those sea creatures, he knew, and somehow there was something very human about their faces still. What was it?
The sea creatures peered at him with deliberate, intelligent expressions. Then they all slipped back under the waves.
The water hubbled and bubbled again, troubling him.
Then three heads burst the surface. Yes, the dolphins. The three slithery, silver creatures burbled, their chuckling voices talking directly at him. The one in the middle looked between Sam and Daniel, Daniel and Sam again and again, chortling at them both.
Sam whispered to Bladder. ‘I can see there’s something odd about them, but what is it?’
Bladder grinned. ‘They have human eyes.’
The three dolphins continued gabbling at him. They barked and chatted as if they were expecting him to understand, but he didn’t. He understood birds and dogs; why couldn’t he understand other creatures? Unless the strange song’s magic had muffled that gift.
Three sets of eyes. Human eyes, he knew, with pupils and irises. Two dark brown sets, one honey-coloured.
‘Hazel?’ he yelled. The dolphin with honey-coloured eyes shrieked back at him. She flipped out of the water and head over tail, splashing the pier.
The other two had to be Amira and Wilfred.
‘Wilfred?’ he called. The dolphin chuckled and nodded its shiny grey head. ‘Amira?’ The other dolphin nodded too.
‘Well, at least we know exactly where your friends are,’ Daniel said. ‘And they’re still thinking like humans.’
‘For now,’ Bladder said.
CHAPTER 7
‘I’ve got to find Maggie,’ Sam said. ‘She’ll know what to do. If it’s the wet witches, she’ll stop them.’
‘Yes, of course she will,’ Bladder said, ‘and what’ll she charge you to put it back the way it was?’
Daniel sighed. ‘It’s true. She’ll help you, but she’ll probably ask you to build an army to do the work, and once they have finished helping you, that army will look forward to eating humans. If she has a strong enough army, they won’t need to hide any more – they could come out of the shadows and fight back. At the moment, humans are far too strong for them to be openly destructive.’
‘Well, what can I do to help them?’ Sam gestured at the sea creatures.
‘I wouldn’t make Maggie the first person I asked,’ Bladder replied.
Daniel agreed. ‘Let’s try to do this ourselves first, with no magic help. So, what can we do right now?’
Sam watched the sea creatures. They were grouped in their species, and the water rocked and waved as the bigger creatures cruised below. The dolphins circled the legs of the pier and came back to stare at him, willing him to tell them something.