CHAPTER THREE: "THINGS GET WEIRDER"

[WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN CHAPTER ONE AND NOW: Colin hears the hound howling again outside his classroom, but nobody else does. Since Colin has been prone to daydreaming in class since his father's murder a year ago, his teacher assumes this is another episode and sends Colin to Head Teacher Machen's office. Machen informs Colin's mother that he believes Colin could use some professional counseling to help him through his grief, but Colin assumes Machen believes he is going crazy. Colin starts to doubt his own sanity after he is left along in Machen's office for a few minutes and he stares out a window and begins to daydream about a fantastic battle between knights in armor and fantastical monsters. The daydream becomes all too real when one monster lunges through the window only to vanish before it can stab Colin, but its knife appears to slide under Machen's bookshelf. That evening, Colin decides to return to Machen's office and find out if he really losing his mind or not.]

IV. The Knightmare Knife

Once Colin put his mind to it, he completed the day's homework assignments in less than half an hour. He dutifully took his work downstairs, where his mother checked it for errors.

"Very good," she told Colin, handing it back. "What about the old homework on your desk? Did you get to any of that?"

Both of them knew the answer was no, so Colin said, "Sorry, Mum. I can go do some of it now if you want, but I was hoping to go up the wooden gwelly." He meant go upstairs to bed. "Been a long day."

"Yes, it has. Take your bath first. And don't forget to feed your cat."

"Yes, Mum." Colin hugged her and kissed her good night. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Colin. Off with you." She watched her son go into the kitchen and put some food and fresh water in Shadow's bowls, then wave to her as he disappeared up the steps. Alone, she stared at the pamphlets stacked on the end table, and sighed.

Upstairs, Colin bathed, put on clean sleepwear, and climbed into bed. Shadow routinely came over and curled against Colin's feet about now, but tonight the cat stayed on the windowsill and looked outside. Shadow was still looking an hour later when Mrs. Sinclair opened the bedroom door a crack to check on Colin. Her son appeared to be sleeping. Mrs. Sinclair closed the door and went to bed.

An hour after that Colin got up and put his clothes back on. Carefully, quietly, he reached around Shadow to open the window. Colin nudged the cat outside then followed. On the roof, Colin slid the window closed, then shimmied down the gutter pipe while Shadow took his own favorite path to the ground.

The pair hurried to Colin's school, a fifteen-minute walk from Old Bread Street. The time was nearly midnight when they got there. Colin wasted no time slinking up to the old building, where he gingerly tested the first floor windows, hoping to find one unlocked.

You scrut! This is cocky, and you know it! Colin thought what he was doing was stupid, but didn't stop.

Coming around to the school's southeast corner, Colin got lucky. A cafeteria window was unlatched! He tugged it open a few inches then scampered through, Shadow right behind him.

You shouldn't be here at this hour. Colin didn't want to stay any longer than necessary so he hurried to the main hallway, where orange EXIT lights above every public entryway provided the only illumination. Being in the school at an abnormal hour was a strange experience. Colin felt as if he had entered a twilight or nightmare version of his school. He had been coming to this building almost every day for over six years, but tonight its familiar hallways, bulletin boards, and lockers looked weird, as if covered with a gauze that made them appear unnatural and menacing. If Shadow hadn't been with him, the skittish boy wondered if he might not have turned tail and fled.

But Colin didn't turn back. He couldn't. The only thing he could think about since leaving school that afternoon was returning here.

Colin found Head Teacher Machen's office. Unsurprising, the door was closed.

"It'd serve you right if it was locked," he joked, whistling past the graveyard. Mouth dry, palms sweaty, Colin took hold of the doorknob and turned.

The door was unlocked.

Colin picked up Shadow and placed the cat around the back of his neck as he entered the office.

A streetlamp half a block from the school shone bright enough that Colin could see the head teacher's bookshelf.

"I was just daydreaming. I do it all the time. That's why I was in here."

Colin walked to the bookshelf and kneeled, keeping Shadow around his neck.

"It didn't happen. Not for real. I'm not going crazy."

He slowly lowered his face to the floor, the way children do when checking under the bed for a boogeyman.

"Or maybe I dozed off. Had another nightmare. Like this morning."

He inched the fingers of his left hand under the bookshelf. Into the cramped black space between the floor and the shelf's legs. Colin's hand disappeared up to his wrist in the darkness.

"If anything grabs me," he said, more to the bookshelf than himself or Shadow, "I'll scream bloody…"

Colin hollered as he touched something hard and thin. His fingertips started throbbing, and he felt something warm. He jerked his hand out of the dark, scraping his knuckles. Staring at his middle fingers, Colin saw blood.

"Something bit me!"

Shadow, almost bucked off Colin's neck, dug in his claws to hold on.

"Ow!"

The needle-sharp pain brought Colin back to his senses. He looked again at his fingers. He hadn't been bitten. He'd been cut.

Being more careful this time, Colin reached back under the bookshelf. He found the hard, thin thing again, and very warily withdrew it.

Colin got back up on his knees, and he and Shadow stared at their salvage.

It was the abomination's knife.

The knife was heavy, with a leaf-shaped blade as long as Colin's head, a trickle of his blood running down one edge. Two tiny crimson rubies capped both prongs of an upside-down U-shaped hilt, and a large ruby was mounted to the bottom of the knife's leathern handle. Some kind of runes Colin didn't recognize were carved into the blade. He watched his blood slither like a red worm into one of these runes. Instantly all the runes flowed like mercury and rearranged themselves into the name "Colin."

"Daw!"

One second after that, Colin began to see terrible images in his mind's eye.

A few seconds after that he came charging out of the school's front doors, Shadow in pursuit. The boy didn't care if anyone saw him. He just wanted to get away.

At the same time, back in Head Teacher Machen's office, the knife lay on the floor in a patch of streetlamp light. Two feet stepped into the light and a strong hand took hold of the weapon.

The big man with the matching tweed cap and pea jacket appraised the knife with an expert eye. Removing his cap, he used the inside of it to clean off Colin's blood, and the name on the blade went back to being runes. The man tucked the knife into a jacket pocket and left the office, closing the door behind him.

PREVIOUS