Mr Mumbles. Barry Hutchison

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       Chapter Three GHOSTS OF THE PAST

      My breath formed faint clouds in the musty air as I pulled myself up into the confines of the attic. My fingers left ten little ovals in the thin covering of dust on the ladder, and I studied them for a few moments, pretending to myself they were the most interesting things in the world. Truth be told, I was just delaying the moment I’d have to step further into the loft.

      The torch I carried was near powerless against the sheer depth of the darkness, like trying to slay a dragon with a teaspoon. The beam wobbled and shook in my hand, sending twisted shadows stretching across the planks and beams.

      ‘There’s nothing here,’ I whispered, trying to reassure myself. ‘There’s nothing here except me and a mouse.’

      I let the torch’s beam fall on to the floor as I looked around for somewhere to put the mousetrap. It was tempting to just drop the thing and run, but the instructions had said to set it near a wall, and the last thing I wanted was to have to come back up and do all this over again.

      The floorboards creaked in protest as I shuffled forwards, fixing my eyes on the point the roof met the floor. I would set the trap and then get out of there as quickly as I could. I’d be back downstairs in less than a minute. I just had to keep my nerve until then. Sixty seconds of bravery, that was all.

      I set the torch on top of a dusty cardboard box and fumbled with the trap. Stupidly I’d left the instructions in the kitchen, thinking it would just be a case of pulling back a spring and sticking a bit of cheese on to a spike. That’s how they always work in cartoons, anyway.

      Around three minutes later, with my heart still thudding against the inside of my chest, I finally figured out how the trap operated. Hurriedly, I sat it down on the floorboards and gently pushed it against the wall, being careful not to bring it snapping down on my fingers. Since it didn’t seem to be required, I decided just to eat the little cube of cheese I’d brought up with me.

      Mission accomplished, I leapt to my feet. My head thumped against a thick roof beam and I cried out in pain. I rubbed the back of my skull and looked at my hands. They were clean, so I wasn’t bleeding. That didn’t stop it hurting, though.

      I reached down to pick up the torch, then stopped. A piece of paper lay next to it on top of the box. I hadn’t noticed it there when I’d walked over, but there it was, large as life. As I picked it up, the sheet felt oddly warm against my fingertips.

      Angling the paper into the torchlight, I studied the crudely drawn crayon picture. Thick bands of black and brown covered most of the page, stretching down from the top of the paper to the bottom. Here and there the lines were broken by clumsy sketches of spiders skulking in their webs.

      Two figures stood at opposite ends of the page. On the right-hand side a stick figure of a boy had been drawn, a tiny bow clutched in his pudgy round hands. Leading up and to the left were a dozen or so arrows, each with a bright red rubber suction cup stuck on to the end. They were all arching through the air in the direction of the other figure – a darkly dressed man.

      My eyes followed the arrow trail and fell on the only other patch of red on the page. A demented fountain of blood sprayed out from the man’s chest, where an arrow had embedded itself. His mouth – not surprisingly given the circumstances – was pulled into an upside down letter U. Clearly he was not happy with this turn of events.

      I stared closely at this larger figure. There was something about him which intrigued me. He seemed to be drawn in a different style. He was darker, bolder, as if the crayons had been pressed harder against the page. He was also dressed strangely, with a long grey overcoat pulled up to his ears, and a black hat pulled down almost to meet it.

      The image stirred some long dormant memories. That hat. That coat. It was all familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like the memory of a dream I couldn’t hold on to. Was this my imaginary friend?

      Absent-mindedly, my gaze shifted across the page. There was something familiar about those vertical stripes, too. Were they bars? No, they were too thick for that. They looked solid, though. Solid; brown; evenly spaced. I’d seen them somewhere recently, but where?

      The realisation hit me like an electric shock. I spun to face the attic wall. The lines in the picture weren’t bars. They were beams. Wooden roof beams, like the kind I was standing next to. The picture was of right here in the attic!

      A movement off to my left broke my concentration and I gasped with fright. Dropping the page I staggered back, knocking the box with my leg. My stomach lurched as the beam of the torch swung down. I grabbed for it too late. As the torch bulb smashed the attic was plunged into absolute darkness.

      ‘Wh-who’s there?’ I stammered. With the light gone I couldn’t even see the clouds of breath in front of my face any more. I held my breath and listened, but the only reply was the hissing and bubbling of the hot water boiler.

      I tried to tell myself I’d imagined it, but if truth be told I don’t have that good an imagination. Something had moved. Something was there in the attic with me, and unless mice were growing up to be a lot bigger these days, it was definitely no rodent.

      A stack of boxes toppled over as I stumbled blindly through the dark, my hands flailing wildly in front of me. Unsure of which direction I should be heading, I blundered towards where I guessed the hatch should be. My foot caught on some scattered junk and I felt the floor rise up to meet me.

      Moving on their own and fuelled by panic, my legs kicked wildly against the debris from the boxes, struggling to find a foothold. My hands thrust forwards, fingers scrabbling on the floorboards as I desperately tried to pull myself towards the dim glow of the hatch.

      A splinter stabbed into my palm and I cried out in shock. My eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark now, and I saw something on the floor by my hand which chilled me to the bone. A series of claw marks had scored deep grooves in the wood.

      An elastic band of fear tightened around my stomach. I wasn’t sure what could make marks like that in solid timber, but one thing was for sure, no mousetrap on Earth would hold it.

      Hot tears streaked my face as I scrambled to the hatch. Kicking, crawling, dragging myself on, I finally made it to the ladder. Without hesitating, I hauled myself over the edge, tumbled head first through the hole, and landed hard on the floor.

      Ignoring the sharp pain in my shoulder I leapt back to my feet and shoved the ladder up into the loft. With the steps down there was no way of closing the hatch, and with the hatch open there was nothing to stop whatever was up there following me out.

      The ceiling shook when I slammed the hatch closed. My fingers refused to behave as I struggled to fasten the latch, and it took me a full thirty seconds to secure it. I stood there for what felt like forever, my hands pressed against the gloss-painted wood, listening СКАЧАТЬ