John Connolly - The Creeps - A Samuel Johnson Tale

Nurd picked up the elf by one leg and stared at it. The elf struggled a bit, and tried to twist its body in order to bite Nurd again.

“Not very Christmas-y, is it?” said Wormwood.

“No,” said Nurd. “I suspect that if you found one of these in your Christmas stocking, you’d write a strongly worded letter to Santa Claus.”

There were noises from outside. The pyramid of elves, seemingly aware that the elf in the bedroom was now a captive, was trying to rearrange itself. One of the two elves who now formed the tip of the pyramid was trying to climb onto the windowsill with the aid of its colleague. The pyramid wobbled uncertainly.

“Wormwood,” said Nurd, “could you get the football from under your bunk, please?”

Wormwood did as he was asked. He handed the football to Nurd, who exchanged it for the elf. Nurd leaned out of the window.

“Oh, elves!” he called.

The elves looked up. Nurd raised his arms, and threw the football with as much force as he could muster.

The pyramid disintegrated, scattering elves and bits of elves over the front garden of the house.

“What about this one?” asked Wormwood, holding up the captive elf.

“Unless you’re planning to adopt it, I’d suggest you get rid of it.”

“I can’t throw it out the window! It doesn’t seem right.”

Wormwood had let the elf get a little too close to his face. It snapped at him, and missed the end of his nose by a finger’s width.

“Oh, all right, then,” said Wormwood. “Bye, elf.”

Out of the window it went. They watched it land in a thorn-bush. It managed to free itself with the help of some of its friends, and shook its little elf fist at Nurd and Wormwood. It then went into a huddle with the other elves. Nurd and Wormwood could hear them giggling. As they watched, more elves were trying the windows and the doors on the ground floor of the house. One of the brighter ones found a stone and threw it at the living room window, but the elf couldn’t send it high enough to hit the glass. Still, it had the right idea. Soon the elves would find a way inside, and then Nurd and Wormwood would be trapped.

“We have to get out before they get in,” said Nurd.

“But what do they want?” asked Wormwood.

“You know,” said Nurd, “I think they want us .”

XXIII

In Which the Cracks in the Relationship Between Samuel and Lucy Become Greater

ALL WAS STILL AND silent on the ground floor of Wreckit & Sons. The darkness had cleared to reveal the store. It was as if they had passed through a tunnel in order to enter. Samuel, Lucy, and the two policemen could now see out of the windows perfectly well, and so could take in the unusual sight of the people of Biddlecombe fleeing from elves, abominable snowmen, and various fairy-tale villains that seemed more smoke than substance, but they could hear nothing. When they tried to leave through the door they met only resistance from the air, and ripples like waves on water ran through it from floor to ceiling. Of Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley there was no sign.

“Well, this isn’t much fun,” said Lucy. “What kind of date is this?”

She glared at Samuel accusingly.

“It’s not my fault,” said Samuel.

“Oh, really? And who invited me to this rotten opening in the first place?” said Lucy.

“I didn’t invite you,” said Samuel. “You saw the invitation and sort of invited yourself!”

“So it’s all my fault, is it? That’s typical, just typical!”

There then followed a long speech blaming Samuel for every unfortunate event that had blighted Lucy Highmore’s young life so far, most of which Samuel was fairly certain were not his fault, along with a lot of others that he was absolutely certain weren’t his fault because he hadn’t been born when any of them happened or, if he had been, then they were out of his control, including a number of wars, world hunger, global warming, and the business with the apple in the Garden of Eden. When she had finished, Lucy folded her arms and looked away. Her bottom lip trembled. After a great deal of effort, she managed to force a single small tear from one eye. It hung on her cheek for a second, decided that it wasn’t about to have company anytime soon, and promptly dried up somewhere around her chin.

Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel, who had been doing their best not to get involved, or to attract Lucy’s attention for fear that they might catch an earful as well, watched her from a distance. When it became apparent that the storm had calmed itself for now, Constable Peel sidled up to Samuel.

“Are you going out with her?”

“I am,” said Samuel. “Or I was.”

Constable Peel gaped at him.

“Why?” he asked.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time to ask, and she said yes,” said Samuel.

“You live and learn,” said Constable Peel. “Now you know why some people become monks.”

Sergeant Rowan coughed deliberately.

“None of this is helping,” he said. “There’s some bad business going on here, and it’s up to us to get to the bottom of it. Come along now, Constable. You, too, Samuel. And you, young lady, suck in your bottom lip. It looks like someone has built a shelf over your chin.”

Lucy gave Sergeant Rowan her best glare of rage.

“I shall tell my father what you said. He’ll have your job!”

“He can have it if he wants it, miss, although why he would, I don’t know. Constable Peel, are you crying?”

“No, Sarge. Why do you ask?”

“Because I heard crying and simply assumed it was you.”

“Not me, Sarge. I can’t say that I’m not tempted, but I’m holding it in.”

“Very brave of you, Constable.”

“Thank you, Sarge.”

“That said, I can still hear someone crying for mummy. I think there may be a child in here with us.”

Constable Peel listened.

“More than one, Sarge. I can hear lots of them.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” said Lucy. “They’re dolls! We’re in a toy shop. They’re probably demonstration models left out for children to play with.”

To their left was the entrance to the doll section of the store. It was clear that the sounds were coming from there.

“That’s a relief,” said Constable Peel just as a doll waddled into view and blinked at them. It was about eighteen inches tall, with dark hair. It wore a blue dress and blue shoes. Its eyes were entirely black.

“Mummy,” said the doll, its lips moving to form the word.

“That’s very impressive,” said Constable Peel. “In a creepy way. And it has quite big teeth for a doll.”

“It has quite big teeth for a shark, ” said Sergeant Rowan. “Constable, I’d take a step or two back from it if I were you.”

Constable Peel didn’t need to be told twice. More dolls were joining the first. Some walked and some crawled. One doll pushed another doll in a pram. A number of them were armed with knives. The ones that couldn’t talk just cried, but the ones that could talk said things like “Mummy,” and “Bottle,” and “Change me.”

And “Kill!”

• • •

Mr. Karloff had managed to stop running for long enough to call the police. Constables Wayne and Hay, who were out in a patrol car, were now aware that Biddlecombe was in trouble again. There were rumors of eerie noises from the old prison, and strange lights in the abandoned asylum. They had tried to contact Sergeant Rowan and Constable Peel, with no result, so they had locked up the police station and headed out to investigate.

As it happened, their route back to the center of town took them by the battlefield. They paused for a moment and took in the sight of dozens of undead Vikings and Saxons merrily attempting to kill one another and, when that didn’t work due to the fact that they were already dead, contenting themselves with lopping off limbs and heads.