Wail of the Banshee Read online

  “He’s not that special,” grumbled Resus.

  Luke gave me a sly wink. “Resus is just grumpy because Dr Skully is also our teacher,” he explained.

  “I don’t mind him,” hissed Resus. “I just think that, if he’s so keen to help ease suffering, why does he hand out so much homework!”

  “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

  The banshee’s wail was almost unbearable now that we were in the same room as her. My stomach wobbled and flipped like a jelly on a trampoline as the noise vibrated right through it.

  “Is Favel OK, Dr Skully?” asked Cleo.

  The skeleton turned to see the four of us gathered in the doorway. “Ah, children!” he exclaimed, the corners of his lip-less mouth twisting into a bizarre smile. “And we have a newcomer, I see!”

  “Hi!” I said, nervously, not sure how you were supposed to conduct a conversation with a grinning skeleton.

  “I’m afraid Favel is not very well at all,” Dr Skully said. “She has a very bad toothache, hence the incessant wailing.”

  As if to demonstrate, Favel opened her mouth and gave another howl of pain. “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

  Then a figure stepped out of the shadows: an old woman with a mass of grey, knotted hair. “WHAT?!” she screeched.

  “That’s Favel’s gran,” explained Cleo. She turned to the old woman. “Hello, Mrs Tapp!”

  “WHAT?”

  “Told you,” grinned Resus. “Deaf as a post.”

  Dr Skully continued his examination. “I can see the offending tooth,” he said. “It’s rather badly infected.”

  “Can’t you take it out?” asked Resus. “That’s what you did with my cousin Kian when he had that ingrowing fang.”

  Dr Skully sighed. “If you’d been paying attention in biology class, Master Negative, then you’d know that banshees’ teeth are not at all like yours or mine.”

  “They’re not?” I asked. Resus gave me a grateful smile for interrupting his lecture.

  “Not at all,” the skeletal teacher replied. “A banshee’s teeth are completely hollow. She uses them to amplify her voice.”

  “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

  “They’re working, then!” bellowed Luke over the racket.

  “Alas not,” Dr Skully countered. “Every time poor Favel here wails in pain, the infection is driven deeper into the offending tooth. If it is not extracted soon, the disease will spread to the rest of her body. We have to act quickly or she could become gravely ill.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” demanded Cleo. “Pull it out!”

  “That’s exactly what I was about to do when you arrived,” said Dr Skully severely. “Now, this is a very delicate operation so, if you children are going to remain here, I must insist that you remain silent.”

  The skeleton opened a black medical bag and took out a large pair of pliers that seemed to me to be more suited to DIY than dentistry. “OK,” he said calmly. “Here we go…”

  Cleo adjusted the bandages on her face so they covered her eyes. “I can’t look!”

  Holding Favel’s mouth open with one hand, Dr Skully cautiously lowered the pliers into her mouth with the other. “I just have to grip the tooth… There! Now, on the count of three, I’m going to pull it out. One … two … three!”

  It all happened so fast. Dr Skully pulled as hard as he could on the pliers, Favel screamed and clamped her mouth shut, and there was a tinkling sound as though someone had dropped a teaspoon on the wooden floor.

  Only it wasn’t a teaspoon – it was one of Dr Skully’s fingers. Cleo gasped and stooped to pick it up. “Doesn’t that hurt?” she asked the skeletal teacher.

  “A little,” he confessed, “although I imagine it would have been worse if I were still in possession of my nerve endings.” He snapped the finger bone back in place and peered into the banshee’s mouth.

  “Did you get the tooth?” asked Luke.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Dr Skully, reaching in to remove what remained of the pliers – now little more than a lump of twisted metal. “You have quite a bite on you, young Favel.”

  The banshee shifted in the bed, whimpering. She looked very pale – but I didn’t know whether that was normal for her or not.

  “What about using an anaesthetic?” I suggested. “I had one when I had a tooth out. Didn’t feel a thing.”

  “A wise suggestion,” said Dr Skully, dropping the ruined pliers back into his bag. “But unfortunately, the only anaesthetic powerful enough to dull a banshee’s senses would be Calm Balm – and that’s impossible to get hold of nowadays.”

  “Wouldn’t Eefa sell it in the Emporium?” asked Resus.

  “If she did, she’d be in big trouble with G.H.O.U.L.,” replied Dr Skully. “Calm Balm is so potent that a single touch would render any non-banshee out cold for weeks at a time. It was swiftly banned after goblins began to use it to knock people out so they could burgle their homes.”

  “That’s not fair!” said Cleo. “How can we help Favel if this stuff is banned?”

  “That I cannot say,” admitted Dr Skully. “Now, if you youngsters will excuse me, I must try to stop this infection from spreading into Favel’s bloodstream.”

  Luke ushered us all out of the room.

  “We can’t just leave her,” said Resus. “We have to help.”

  “But what can we do?” I asked.

  “There must be something,” said Luke thoughtfully. “Come on – we need to make a plan!”

  Chapter Five

  No one spoke again until the four of us were gathered together in the garden, out of earshot of Dr Skully.

  “We need to get Favel some of that Calm Balm,” said Luke.

  “How?” asked Resus. “You heard what Dr Skully said. The stuff was banned years ago.”

  “Then we have to find someone who bought some before it was banned.”

  “That’s a bit of a long shot, isn’t it?” said Cleo. “And just think how long it will take us to search every bathroom cabinet in Scream Street.”

  “Plus, even if we do find some, there’s no guarantee it will still be in date,” Resus pointed out.

  “It’s a shame we don’t know what the ingredients are,” I said. “We might have been able to make some ourselves. My mum works at a pharmacy and she mixes her own creams and stuff all the time.”

  Luke grinned and clapped me on the back. “That’s a brilliant idea!”

  “But we don’t know what’s in this Calm Balm,” said Resus.

  “Maybe not,” admitted Luke. “But I bet I know someone who does…” And with that, he pulled a strange looking book from the back pocket of his jeans. It had a silver cover, with the raised image of a man’s face on the front. It was called Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street.

  But Luke didn’t open the book and flick through the pages to find what he wanted. Instead, he spoke to the face on the cover. “Mr Skipstone,” he said, “we need your help. Do you know anything about Calm Balm?”

  The face opened its eyes and blinked. “What’s that you say? Calm Balm?”

  I almost laughed. These kids had a talking book! With all the things I’d seen so far today, I don’t know why I was even surprised.

  The man’s eyes swivelled towards me and his silver features broke into a smile. “Hello there!” he said. Always nice to see a new face.”

  “Same here!” I grinned.

  “This is our new friend, Jamie,” said Luke.

  “And this is the famous author, Samuel Skipstone,” said Resus. “He’s a book now.”

  “He wasn’t always a book, though – he used to be a werewolf,” said Cleo.

  “Cool!” I replied. This place was getting better and better by the minute.

  “So, you want to know about Calm Balm?” asked Mr Skipstone.

  “Yes
please,” said Luke. “Favel’s got a bad toothache, and—”

  “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”

  Clamping our hands to our ears, we quickly moved away from the house and hurried along the street until we reached some kind of town square.

  Luke addressed the book once more. “Dr Skully says Calm Balm is the only anaesthetic that will work on banshees,” he said.

  “Very true,” Mr Skipstone confirmed. “And I presume he also told you that it was banned after several cases of misuse?”

  Cleo nodded. “He said the goblins were using it.”

  Feeling rather strange that I was about to talk to a book, I took a step closer. “I don’t suppose you know what the ingredients are, do you?” I asked. “We wondered if we could make some. Just enough to help Favel, of course.”

  Samuel Skipstone smiled. “A worthy idea! Now, let me see…” The front cover opened, and the yellowing, handwritten pages began to turn. “Aha! Here it is!”

  The page showed an advertisement for Calm Balm. The ad featured a drawing of what looked like a toothpaste tube, complete with the slogan “When you want to feel nothing at all!”

  “That looks like it,” said Cleo.

  “And here’s the formula!” exclaimed Luke, reading through some scribbled notes beneath the advert. “It says there are three ingredients…”

  “Just three?” said Resus. “That’s not too bad.”

  “It depends how difficult they are to get hold of,” Cleo pointed out.

  Luke read the list out loud: “We need two teaspoons of griffin sweat, one drop of cleaver-tree sap, and three tablespoons of anti-honey.”

  “Anti-honey?” repeated Cleo. “What’s anti-honey?”

  “No idea,” admitted Resus. “But I’ve got an Auntie Wartcream. She’s in an old vampires’ home now. Her fangs fell out years ago and she has to drink her blood through a straw.”

  Luke closed the book. “Mr Skipstone,” he said. “What’s anti-honey, and where can we get some?”

  “Anti-honey is, as the name suggests, the scientific opposite of honey,” explained the author. “As for where you can obtain some – I would suggest that depends on whether young Master Negative here can locate a bottle of spinal fluid within his wondrous cape…”

  Resus plunged his hand into his cloak and fumbled around for a few seconds before producing what appeared to be a dusty bottle of wine – only the liquid inside was a shimmering white. “1783,” he read from the label. “Let’s hope it was a good year!”

  A few minutes later, Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street was back in Luke’s pocket and we were standing at the door of number 28 Scream Street. I raised my hand to knock, but Luke stopped me. “No good doing that,” he said. “He won’t be in there.”

  I frowned. “If no one’s home, then why are we here?”

  “He didn’t say no one was home,” grinned Resus, “just that he won’t be in there…”

  My confusion wasn’t helped by Resus stepping onto the patchy front lawn and holding the bottle of spinal fluid in the air. “Ready?” he asked.

  Luke and Cleo nodded.

  “Here goes…” The vampire dropped the bottle and I stepped away, expecting it to break. But, just before it hit the ground, a green hand burst up through the soil and caught it.

  Then a second hand appeared, widening the hole until it was large enough for a head to emerge. “Dude!” it proclaimed, keeping a tight hold on the bottle. “Now that’s one tasty looking tipple!”

  “It’s for you,” said Luke as the rest of the creature climbed out of the hole. I couldn’t help but stare. The man’s flesh was rotting away, and parts of his body seemed to be stitched together with thick, black thread. Some of them didn’t even match.

  “You’re a zombie!” I gasped.

  “Hey!” beamed the man. “There’s a new dude in town!” He threw a diseased arm around my shoulders. “Welcome to Casa Doug, hombre. But be careful with the z-word, bro – we prefer the term ‘differently deceased’ these days.” He ripped the cork from the bottle of spinal fluid with his broken teeth and downed a couple of large gulps.

  “We need your help, Doug,” said Cleo.

  “No problemo, little lady! Ask and you shall receive!”

  “We want to know where we can find anti-honey.”

  A smile spread over Doug’s rotting features and, for a split-second, I could see hundreds of tiny white maggots squirming beneath his skin.

  “You’ve come to the right place, little dudes!” smiled Doug. “Come and meet my zom-bees!”

  Chapter Six

  We stood at one end of Doug’s back garden, staring across at a battered wooden crate. A loud, angry buzzing sound came from inside and, every now and then, a plump black and green striped insect would fly out, circle the crate, then disappear back inside.

  “What are those things?” asked Resus.

  “Say what you see, dude,” said Doug, taking another swig from the bottle.

  “Well, they look like bees – but they’re the wrong colour.”

  “Don’t judge by what’s on the outside man,” said the zombie. “Inside, they’re just as dead as you and me. Well, me anyway.”

  “I get it!” exclaimed Luke. “Dead bees – they’re zom-bees!”

  “Aww,” said Cleo as another one buzzed past us. “They’re cute!” She took a step towards the hive, but Doug quickly stopped her. “Look, but don’t touch, my bandaged beauty,” he warned. “One sting from a zom-bee and you’ll find yourself on the slow train to nowheresville!”

  “You mean they’re deadly?” asked Resus.

  “In a way,” the zombie replied. “Your body may crumble, but your mind will stay as sharp as a tack. Trust me, dude – it’s a totally bogus way to go.”

  “That would explain why anti-honey is used in making Calm Balm,” I said. “It must be powerful stuff.”

  “It sure is,” agreed Doug. “But I’m not sure how you’ll get any. Those little buzzers will sting anyone who goes within a corpse’s length of their hive.”

  “Then we can’t help Favel,” sighed Cleo.

  “Actually, maybe we can,” I ventured. “I could distract the bees while you guys get some honey.”

  “No,” said Luke, firmly. “You’ve only just arrived here. We’re not having you getting injured – or worse.”

  “It’s OK,” I assured him. “I’m a Walker.”

  “Aren’t we all?” said Resus. “I used to have a bike, but a gremlin ate through the front tyre, and Everwell’s doesn’t sell puncture repair kits…”

  “No, I mean I’m a Walker – a kind of living ghost,” I explained. “I can leave my body for short lengths of time and, as long as I stay connected to it, can climb back in again.”

  “That’s incredible!” exclaimed Cleo, and I blushed at the compliment.

  “It sure is,” agreed Resus. “Imagine the people we’ll be able to scare with that!”

  “We’re not here to scare anyone,” said Luke. “This is about helping Favel.” He turned to me. “Are you sure you can lure the zom-bees away from the hive?”

  “I can try.”

  “And you won’t get hurt?”

  “Once the inner me is out there, there’s nothing physical for them to sting.”

  “OK,” he said. “Let’s give it a go.”

  Doug downed the last of the spinal fluid. “I’ll leave you dudes to your fun,” he said. “Play safe!” Then he flung himself onto the ground and began to dig with his hands. A moment later, he had disappeared beneath the lawn.

  Resus pulled an empty jam jar and a spoon from his cape. “Here’s something to keep the honey in.”

  I took a deep breath. “OK,” I said. “Here goes…” I closed my eyes and allowed my inner self to Walk forwards. I felt the air chill, and knew that I was outside my body again.
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  “Wow!” said Cleo. “That’s amazing!”

  I looked over at the trio, who were all staring at me, open-mouthed. “You can see me? My family have never been able to see me when I’m Walking.”

  “It must be something to do with being in Scream Street,” said Luke. I saw his gaze flick back to my unmoving body. “Is that the connection you were talking about?”

  I nodded. “It connects the inner me to the outer me in some way. I don’t really know how it works – just that I can only go as far as the rope will let me.”

  “Do you think it will reach to the zom-bee’s hive?” asked Resus.

  “Only one way to find out!” I grinned. Then I began to Walk.

  The zom-bees were nothing like normal bees, who are always busy at their different tasks. I heard a lone buzz off to my left as I approached the hive – and then they all swarmed on me at once!

  There must have been thousands of them, all flying angrily at me, furious at the intrusion. Close up I could see that their green and black fur was torn and ragged, and their wings were ripped and puckered with holes. Meanwhile their stings, which looked like rusty needles, were being aimed at me. Thankfully, I couldn’t feel anything as they deposited their poison into my inner self – it was a bit like a doctor trying to give a flu jab to a cloud.

  I looked over to where the others were busy at the hive. Luke had lifted the rotting lid, and Cleo was spooning drops of dark green honey into the jar that Resus held out. Despite the fact that my stomach was at the other end of the garden, I actually felt a bit sick at the sight of the stuff. It looked like diseased snot!

  Cleo looked up from the hive. “Look out!” she called. And she was right to be worried. The zom-bees were starting to realize that their stings weren’t working on my ghostly form. Then Luke, Resus and Cleo cried out in alarm as a final creature buzzed up, out of the hive. The queen zom-bee!