27 - A Night in Terror Tower (7 page)

He was right. I didn’t see any silverware at the tables.

Two chickens, squawking loudly, fluttered across the floor, chased by a large
brown dog. A woman had two babies in her lap. She ignored them while she chewed
on a large hunk of meat.

“It’s a costume party,” I whispered to Eddie. We hadn’t the nerve to move
from the doorway. “This must be where those guys in the hoods were going.”

I gazed in amazement at the colorful costumes in the room. Long robes,
loose-fitting pajama-type outfits of blue and green, leather vests worn over
black tights. A lot of men and women wore animal furs around their shoulders—despite the blazing heat from the fireplaces.

In one corner, a man appeared to be wearing an entire bearskin. He stood
beside a giant wooden barrel, working a spigot, filling metal cups with a thick,
brown liquid that oozed from the barrel.

Two children in rags played tag under one of the long tables. Another child,
dressed in green tights, chased after one of the squawking chickens.

“What a party!” Eddie whispered. “Who
are
these people?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t understand what they’re saying too well.
Can you?”

Eddie shook his head. “Their accents are too weird.”

“But maybe someone in here can tell us how to get outside,” I suggested.

“Let’s try,” Eddie pleaded.

I led the way into the room. Even though I was walking slowly, timidly, I
nearly tripped over a sleeping hound dog.

Eddie followed close behind as I made my way up to one of the men turning the
roasting deer on the spit. He wore only knee breeches of some rough brown cloth.
His forehead and the top of his body glistened with sweat.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said.

He glanced up at me and his eyes bulged wide in surprise.

“Excuse me,” I repeated. “Can you tell us how to get out of the hotel?”

He stared at me without replying, stared as if he had never seen a
twelve-year-old girl in jeans and a T-shirt before.

Two little girls, wearing gray dresses down to the floor, walked up to Eddie
and me, staring up at us with the same shocked expression as the man. Their
streaky blond hair fell wild and tangled behind their backs. It looked as if it
had never been brushed in their lives!

They pointed at us and giggled.

And I suddenly realized that the entire room had grown silent.

As if someone had turned a knob and clicked off the sound.

My heart started to pound. The strong smell of the roasting deer choked my
nostrils.

I turned to find everyone in the room gaping in open-mouthed wonder. Staring
in silence at Eddie and me.

“I—I’m sorry to interrupt the party,” I stammered in a tiny, frightened
voice.

I let out a cry of surprise as they all climbed noisily to their feet. Food
toppled off the table. One of the long benches clattered to the floor.

More children pointed and giggled.

Even the chickens seemed to stop clucking and strutting.

And then an enormous red-faced man in a long white gown raised his hand and
pointed at Eddie and me.
“It’s THEM!”
he bellowed.
“It’s THEM!”

“Do they
know
us?” Eddie whispered to me.

We stared back at them. Everyone seemed to freeze in place. The man stopped
turning the deer on the spit. The only sound in the huge dining hall was the
crackle of the fires in the twin fireplaces.

The man in the white gown slowly lowered his hand. His face darkened to a
bright scarlet as he gaped at us in amazement.

“We just want to find the way out,” I said. My voice sounded tiny and shrill.

No one moved. No one replied.

I took a deep breath and tried one more time. “Can anyone help us?”

Silence.

Who are these strange people?
I wondered.
Why are they staring at us
like that? Why won’t they answer us?

Eddie and I took a step back as they began to move toward us. Some of them
were whispering excitedly, muttering to each other, gesturing with their hands.

“Eddie—we’d better get out of here!” I whispered.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But I didn’t like the excited
expressions on their faces.

And I didn’t like the way they were moving along the wall, moving to get
behind us, to surround us.

“Eddie—run!” I screamed.

Angry cries rang out as we both spun around and hurtled toward the open
doorway. Dogs barked. Children started to cry.

We darted back into the dark hallway and kept running.

I could still feel the heat of the fire on my face as we ran, still smell the
tangy aroma of the roasting deer.

Their excited, angry cries followed us through the long hall. Gasping for
breath, I glanced back, expecting to see them chasing after us.

But the hall was empty.

We turned a corner and kept going. Candles flickered on both sides of us. The
floorboards groaned under our shoes.

The eerie, dim light. The voices far behind us. The endless tunnel of a
hallway. All made me feel as if I were running through a dream.

We turned another corner and kept running.

The misty candlelight blurred as I ran. I’m floating through a dark orange
cloud, I thought.

Do these empty, candlelit halls ever end?

Eddie and I both cried out happily as a door appeared in front of us.

A door we had never seen before.

It
has
to lead to the outside! I told myself.

We raced to the door. We didn’t slow down as we reached it.

I stuck out both hands. Pushed hard.

The door flew open.

And we stepped out into bright sunlight.

Outside! We had escaped from the dark maze of the hotel corridors!

It took a few seconds for the harsh white glare to fade from my eyes.

I blinked several times. Then I gazed up and down the street.

“Oh, no!” I wailed, grabbing my brother’s arm. “No! Eddie—what has
happened
?”

“It—it’s daytime!” Eddie stammered.

But the bright sunlight wasn’t the only shock.

Everything
had changed.

I felt as if I were watching a movie, and the scene had changed. And suddenly
it was the next day—or the next week—and I was seeing an entirely different
place.

I knew that only a few seconds had passed since Eddie and I had burst out of
the hotel. But in that time,
everything
had changed.

We huddled close together and stared in one direction and then the next. We
saw no cars. No buses. The street had vanished, replaced by a lumpy dirt road.

The tall buildings had disappeared, too. The road was dotted with small,
white cottages with flat roofs and low, wooden shacks built without doors or
windows.

A tall mound of straw stood beside the nearest cottage. Chickens clucked and
strutted across the road or stood in front of cottages pecking in the dirt. A brown cow poked its
head out from behind the mound of straw.

“What’s going on?” Eddie asked. “Where
are
we?”

“It’s like we stepped back in time,” I said in a hushed voice. “Eddie—look
at the people.”

Two men walked by carrying lines of slender, silvery fish. The men had thick
beards and wild, unbrushed hair. They wore loose-fitting gray smocks that
dragged along the ground.

Two women in long, brown dresses were on their knees, pulling up root-type
vegetables with their hands. A man leading a scrawny horse, its bones sticking
out at its rib cage, stopped to say something to the two women.

“They look a lot like the people in the hotel,” I told Eddie.

Thinking about the hotel made me turn around. “Oh, no!” I grabbed Eddie and
made him turn around.

The hotel was gone.

In its place stood a long, low building built of brown stone. It appeared to
be some sort of inn or meeting hall.

“I don’t understand this,” Eddie moaned. In the bright sunlight, he looked
very pale. He scratched his dark brown hair. “Sue, we’ve got to get back to the
hotel. I—I’m very mixed up.”

“Me, too,” I confessed.

I took a few steps along the dirt road. It must have rained recently. The
road was soft and muddy.

I could hear cows mooing nearby.

This is downtown London! I told myself. How can I hear cows in downtown
London? Where are all the tall buildings? The cars and taxis and double-decker
buses?

I heard someone whistling. A blond-haired boy, dressed in an outfit made of
black and brown rags, appeared from behind the long building. He carried a
bundle of sticks in his arms.

He seemed about my age. My shoes sank into the mud as I hurried across the
road to him. “Hey—!” I called. “Hi!”

He peered over the bundle of sticks at me. His blue eyes widened in surprise.
His hair was long and unbrushed. It fluttered over his shoulders in the breeze.
“Good day to you, miss,” he said. His accent was so strange, I could barely
understand him.

“Good day,” I replied uncertainly.

“Are ye a traveler?” the boy asked, shifting the bundle onto his shoulder.

“Yes,” I replied. “But my brother and I are lost. We can’t find our hotel.”

He narrowed his blue eyes at me. He appeared to be thinking hard.

“Our hotel,” I repeated. “Can you tell us where it is? The Barclay?”

“Barclay?” he repeated the word. “Hotel?”

“Yes,” I said. I waited for him to reply. But he just stared back at me,
squinting his blue eyes and frowning.

“I do not know those foreign words,” he said finally.

“Hotel?” I cried impatiently. “You know. A place where travelers stay?”

“Many stay at the abbey,” he replied. He pointed to the long, low building
behind us.

“No. I mean—” I started. I could see that he didn’t understand me at all.

“I must be getting the wood along home,” the boy said. He nodded good-bye,
lowered the bundle from his shoulder, and headed down the road.

“Eddie, that boy—” I said. “He doesn’t know what a hotel is! Do you believe—?”

I turned back. “Eddie?”

Eddie was gone.

“Eddie? Eddie?”

My voice grew higher and more frightened as I called his name.

Where did he go?

“Hey—Eddie!” I shouted.

The two women glanced up from their vegetable picking.

“Did you see where my brother went?” I called to them.

They shook their heads and returned to their work.

“Oh!” I had to jump out of the road as a cart, pulled by a groaning, grunting
ox, came barreling past. The driver, a fat, bare-chested man, his pouchy skin
darkened by the sun, slapped the ropes that served as reins. He bellowed at the
ox to move faster.

As the wagon rolled past, its wooden wheels sank into the mud, leaving deep
ridges in the road.

Chickens clucked and scurried out of the way. The two women didn’t even
glance up.

I made my way to the entrance of the abbey. “Eddie? Are you back here?”

I pulled open the door and peered inside. The long candlelit hall stretched
before me. I could see men in hooded robes gathered at a doorway.

We just came from there, I told myself as I closed the door. Eddie wouldn’t
go back inside.

So where was he?

How could he run off and leave me here? How could he just disappear like
that?

I called his name a few more times. Then my throat tightened up. My mouth
felt dry as cotton. “Eddie?” I called weakly.

My legs began to tremble as I walked to the side of the first cottage.
Don’t panic, Sue,
I told myself. You’ll find him. Just don’t panic.

Too late.

I was really scared.

Eddie wouldn’t suddenly wander off and go exploring without me. He was too
scared.

So where was he?

I peered into the open doorway of the cottage. A sour smell floated out from
inside. I could see a crude wooden table and a couple of wooden stools. No one
in there.

I made my way behind the cottage. A grassy pasture stretched up a gently
sloping hill. Four or five cows stood halfway up the hill, their heads lowered as they chewed
the grass.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and called to my brother.

My only reply was the soft mooing of a cow.

With a worried sigh, I turned around and made my way back to the road. I
guess I’ll have to search every cottage, I decided. Eddie couldn’t have gone
very far.

I had only taken a few steps toward the next cottage when a shadow slid over
the road.

Startled, I raised my eyes—and stared at the dark figure blocking my path.

His black cape fluttered behind him in the wind. He wore a new black hat, and
his pale, pale face poked out from its dark brim.

I stepped back, out of his shadow. I raised my hands to my cheeks and stared
at him in horrified silence.

“I said it was time for us to go,” he said softly, moving closer.

“Wh-where is Eddie?” I managed to choke out. “Do you know where Eddie is?”

A thin-lipped smile crossed his pale face. “Eddie?” He snickered. For some
reason, my question seemed to amuse him. “Do not worry about
Eddie
,” he
replied with a sneer.

He took another step forward. His shadow fell over me again.

It made me shiver.

Glancing around, I saw that the two women picking vegetables had disappeared
into their cottages. Everyone had disappeared. The road stood empty except for
some chickens and a hound dog, asleep on its side in front of the straw pile.

“I—I don’t understand,” I stammered. “Who are you? Why are you chasing us?
Where
are
we?”

My frantic questions only made him chuckle. “You know me,” he replied softly.

“No!” I protested. “I don’t know you! What is happening?”