The Midnight Hour Page 3

  His shadow disappeared from the door, and a fluting whistle struck up from outside as the front gate clicked shut behind him.

  Emily sagged forward as the whistle moved off down the street, interrupted by a hacking smoker’s cough. She was as horrid and sweaty as if she’d just run a marathon. Who were they going to send around next? There was no way she was going to sit here and wait to be taken away. She’d just have to go and find her mom and dad herself.

  Emily put her sensible head on and worked it out. She had no idea where her mom was, but her dad had gone to the post depot. She’d go there first, then, although not until late tonight. What kind of stupid place only opened just before midnight? What did she need in the meanwhile? Sandwiches, of course. “Never be knowingly under-snacked” was her mom’s motto. She whipped up a couple of subs in the kitchen and popped them in a paper bag. She took them upstairs with her, along with some cans of soda, and, emptying her school backpack out, started filling it with useful things: phone, bus pass, wallet (empty). She’d better get some cash, too.

  She ran back downstairs into her dad’s tiny study, filled only with a desk and a stack of gardening books. She pulled the drawer open, and amid the pencils, rubber bands, and seed catalogs was a pile of change he kept there. Next to it was a canvas pouch, with a Post-it note on it in her dad’s neat handwriting, marked “Just In Case.” She picked it up, and a flash of vivid color gleamed below it. It was a neat, see-through plastic folder with two huge stamps the size of coasters, glistening ruby-red, each with a picture of an angry woman wearing a crown on it. Beneath the red stamps was a sheet of smaller black skull stamps, the same as the ones on the letter from her mom. Her dad was a stamp collector? That figured. If she dug deeper in his desk, she’d doubtless find a book on trainspotting, too.

  She started to rummage in the just-in-case bag. Inside was an unusual assortment of items: a colorful wad of big paper money like foreign banknotes, which on closer inspection were just very old British ones; an old library card in her mom’s maiden name, Connolly. She paused there; her crazy, chatty mom in a library? It was a baffling image. There was also a tatty leather wallet containing a badge for Her Majesty’s Night Post. The coat of arms was the same as on the black stamps: a skull over crossed scrolls tied with ribbons. Tucked inside the wallet was an ornate key, whose fob had the same skull design on it. Emily gave a long-suffering sigh.

  Just in case of what? She shook her head. Her parents were idiots and she’d have to sort it all out herself. She took the whole pouch with her, anyway, just in case, and pocketed the change.

  Bag packed, she went to get the Hog.

  “Hoggins? Where are you? It’s time for you to go back out.”

  He was not in his box. He wasn’t under the bed or behind the wardrobe, either. She filled his saucer with water, and gave up. She was going to miss her bus if she wasn’t careful.

  “You better not poo everywhere!”

  She pulled her biggest, clompiest pair of boots out from the back of the wardrobe, and laced them to the top. She didn’t wear them often because they were a bit mom-ish, but, “Big boots are best.” Another one of her mom’s sayings. As she came downstairs, she reached for her duffle coat, hesitated, then shrugged and grabbed her mom’s tattered bomber jacket instead. There was another waft of spray-paint perfume as she slipped her arms into the bright-orange interior, and she smiled. She pulled her backpack on, patted the necklace of coins through layers of clothes, and went out the back door into the dark.

  She slipped out the back gate along the thin passage known as Dog Poo Alley, and back out onto her own street, but way up from the house and right by the nearest bus stop. Total secret-agent move, just like in one of her books. The bus would be here any minute and take her over the Thames and to the depot in central London in plenty of time for midnight. This whole late-night-mission thing was quite exciting, actually.

  As she waited, something caught her eye. Way back up the street past her house was a man, a very big man, pounding along, holding a petite black umbrella above his head, despite it being dry. Huge … umbrella … it was the man who’d delivered the letter that had taken her mom away! This was perfect, she’d get some answers out of him if she had to bash him with his own umbrella.

  She was about to shout at him, when she stopped. What was he doing? He stood in the street and moved his big head from side to side and … was he sniffing? Even from this far away, she could hear the great gulping snotty intakes of air echoing down the street as he snorted. He towered over the front hedges, which must have made him … seven feet tall? That was never right. He was big, but not fat, despite being large enough to have swallowed a small car. He walked with a slow, muscular stride, and a loping rhythm. He had short legs, and old-fashioned clothes: a tweed suit, gray and fuzzy, stretched tight over the shoulders, tummy, and butt, straining as he moved.

  His face was still hidden. There was a shadow under the umbrella that was deeper than it should have been, covering him in darkness. Something just wasn’t right about him, and she didn’t want to ask him any questions after all, she decided. As he came level with her house, he stopped and sniffed again, harder and harder, his big head moving around, nosing something out. He put a great, hairy hand on her gate and she gave an involuntary yelp. She clapped a hand over her mouth but it was too late. It should have been impossible for him to hear her from there, but his head whipped around and he stared down the street toward where she stood. He took one final, long sniff, then started to stride toward her. She wanted to turn and run, but ice filled her chest and her feet just wouldn’t move. As he drew ever closer something glinted under the umbrella’s shadow. He was grinning with sharp, white teeth.

  Are you getting on or what?”

  The bus driver’s grumpy voice broke the spell. The bus had pulled up alongside her. The door was open and the driver was glaring at her.

  “Oh yes, please!”

  She hurled herself through the doors, and they hissed closed behind her. She stumbled toward him, bus pass in her hand.

  “Please go, quickly.”

  He scowled but pulled away from the bus stop. The huge man was running down toward her now, thundering along far faster than he looked capable of. He only stopped as the bus accelerated off past him down the road.

  “Too late, mate,” muttered the driver.

  The man raised a huge hand and pointed straight at her, until the bus turned a corner and he vanished from view. She slumped back into a seat and put her face in her hands.

  She rocked there for a while, stiff with fright. What had just happened? Also, why was she starving? She added “fear” to the long list of things that made her hungry, and tugged her bag open to root around for an emergency sandwich.

  “OW!” She yanked her hand back out and sucked the end of her finger. Something sharp had stuck straight up under the nail. “What the heck?” She peered in the bag, muffling a scream when something moved inside. There was a shuffling and a grunting noise, and then a small black nose appeared, followed by a brown, sleepy face.

  “HOG! What are you doing in there? You’re very naughty.”

  She cupped her palm and his small-footed weight filled her hand with warmth. She held him up, grinning and cooing over him. The old lady on the other side of the aisle was not as pleased. She got up and moved away, giving them both a dirty look. Who cared? Look what a nice nose her spiky stowaway had.

  “Something very scary just happened, Hoggins. I’m glad you’re here.” The Hog did not respond, but wriggled with pleasure at the nose rub.

  She squeezed him (not too tight) and he tucked in under her chin. The streetlamps and headlights streamed by as the bus took them into the city.

  “Wait, have you been eating my sandwiches, you little git?”

  Half an hour later, and now far too close to midnight, Emily still hadn’t found the post office, which was just ridiculous. She knew where it was. Her dad had mentioned it lots of times. St. Martin’s Le Grand,
right in the middle of the city, where he’d cycle in, no matter what the weather. St. Martin’s was easy enough to find; it was a big built-up area right by St. Paul’s, a mix of shiny new offices and huge old buildings. What it didn’t have was any sign of a post office. It should have been simple; her dad had always made it sound huge. Yet she’d gone around the whole block, and there was nothing but bankers’ offices and coffee shops. There was just no sign of it. She was back out on the corner of Foster Lane and Cheapside now, clearly too young to be out on her own at this time of night and getting funny looks from late-night revelers staggering home. She kicked a lamppost and hurt her toe, even through the big boots. She searched on her phone and found first a Postman’s Park, and then … a post office right where she was! The burst of hope died; it had been demolished in 1912.

  But he’d said it was here. He’d even talked about the loading bay. She stood there, nose running from the cold breeze, while the glass-fronted buildings towered over her and gave no answer. Had her dad lied to her all this time? Was Night Postman even a real job? She had just pictured him delivering mail late at night. That did sound a bit off, now she came to think about it. But if her dad wasn’t a postman, where had he been going every night? Was he one of those people who pretended to still have a job because they didn’t want to tell people they’d been fired? He’d been going there her whole life, though, and all those cardigans and copies of Gardeners’ Weekly weren’t going to pay for themselves. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and went to walk around one more time. She didn’t have a single idea of what to do next if she couldn’t find it.

  She turned up Foster Lane again. Maybe she’d missed something at the back of the big modern building that was sitting on top of where the old post office must have been? She shoved her hands in her pockets, cupping one of them over a snoozing Hog for warmth. His little snores buzzed through her fingers.

  “Girl.”

  Emily lurched as the voice boomed behind her. It was a gritty roar of a voice, like a big engine or a wild animal. She didn’t want to turn around, she really didn’t. There, at the mouth of the lane, on the other side of the road, the streetlights silhouetted a huge figure. It was impossible to make out a face, but its bulk would have been enough of a giveaway, even if it wasn’t topped off with the perfect outline of a small umbrella. It was the terrifying man. How was he here?

  “I smell you, girl,” he growled as if reading her mind. “You reek of sorrow, paint, and ill luck. Easy to follow, even in this stinking place.”

  She was hunched over out of sheer fear. The very sound of his voice paralyzed her again. He hadn’t done anything, and that umbrella was ridiculous, but something deep inside her was screaming that he was as bad as could be.

  “I—I …” Her throat seized up. A thick, musky odor filled the air, all raw meat and blood. He walked toward her, crossing the empty road, and still her legs were locked in place.

  “I take you now. Mistress will be pleased. You stay there, little rabbit.” His voice grizzled lower, a chainsaw symphony, as he crooned at her to keep her still. He stepped into the light coming from a coffee-shop sign, and it cut into the dark under the umbrella, revealing a broad protruding nose, deep-set dark eyes, and a thick black beard that covered most of his face and neck. He filled the pavement, half as broad as he was tall, a boulder of a man rolling toward her.

  “Come with me, can see your mother, girl.”

  Mother? The shock unglued Emily’s feet. She turned and ran, head down and hare fast, pelting down the empty road ahead. Behind her came an awful inhuman roar, and then the thudding of heavy running feet. This was bad, this was bad, this was BAD.

  She panted and hurtled and skidded but, fueled by sheer terror, gained and kept a good distance over him. It was a long, straight road, though, and she’d seen him run very fast toward the bus stop. She passed an old church, then spotted a tiny alley on her right and, letting instinct guide her, shot down it. The entrance arch was stone and wood, one of those little reminders of London’s history you saw everywhere. The alley was small and bendy, like her. She would get down here faster than the terrible-voiced man. As she ran, the coins worked their way from under her T-shirt, and jingled up and down in time with her pumping legs. She zigged to the right as the alley turned, hurtled straight into a small courtyard, and … ran out of road. Twenty yards in front of her was a pile of traffic cones and orange barriers and tape blocking the exit. “CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT WORK—SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.”

  She skidded to a halt and looked around, frantic. The alleyway was all dark brick and guttering and … a door. She ran to it, slamming into it as she failed to slow down. It was an old wooden door with a brass plaque on it. There, under a stylized engraved picture of a skull over scrolls, were the words: “THE NIGHT POST.” Oh, now she found it!

  She grabbed the handle and yanked at it with no effect. She hammered on the door, her hands smarting with pain, and shouted for help. Her voice was swallowed up by the dark, and nobody came.

  “Why are you locked?” she shouted, and then a bolt of lightning lit up her brain! Skulls! Skull on plaque was the same as skull on key in wallet; therefore key might unlock door! She squeaked a noise only dogs could hear, and grabbed at her bag, scrabbling to get into the front pocket.

  Behind her, not far away, a low growl rippled down the alley. “Better when they run.”

  Nothing could have made her turn around. She jammed her hand into the pouch and clawed through the stuff: old money, the wallet, and there, the key! She yanked it out and fumbled it the right way around, as colorful bank notes drifted to the floor.

  “But nowhere left to go.” The deepest voice in the world was closer now. She jammed the key in the lock and turned it and … nothing. It wouldn’t turn, it didn’t fit, the door stayed locked. She was toast.

  She had to look. The huge man stood back down the alley by the entrance to the courtyard, not even breathing hard. Under the pitch-dark of the umbrella, his sharp-toothed grin glinted.

  “So now …” he said and lowered the umbrella to his side. His grin grew wider and wider, stretching out and around the sides of his head, as giant white teeth pushed out to fill it. His face started to ripple and change, nose projecting forward, his beard squirming up to cover the rest of his cheeks and around his eyes, his hair pushing down from the top of his head to meet it. He grew larger and threw his arms back, his hands now covered in hair and tipped with razor claws. A moment later, his huge hairy chest burst through his over-strained shirt.

  His vast paw, because it was a paw now, came up and pointed at Emily as it had earlier.

  “Mine,” he said, his words now a growl from the jaws of a bear.

  She couldn’t move. Not a muscle. The bear-thing grinned and dropped forward onto his paws, arched his back, and roared. If Emily hadn’t been to the bathroom before leaving the house, there’d have been an embarrassing accident right there and then.

  She sobbed. The creature filled the whole alley, grinning, playing with her, and enjoying her fear. He was somewhere between man and bear now, face that of the beast and down on all fours but still draped in tweed, with shoes on his hind legs. He was grotesque, ridiculous even, but still the worst thing she had ever seen.

  Emily pressed her face against the unyielding door and closed her eyes. As she did, the first of the midnight chimes from Big Ben drifted up the Thames and across the city. The key, still gripped tightly in her hand, turned just a tiny bit. She hissed like a cat, and grabbed it in both hands, twisting the key so hard it bit into her fingers.

  “Oh, please!”

  As the delicate chimes finished, and the first big bong sounded, the key clicked and turned, as smoothly as if it had been greased. With her full weight on it, the door swung inward and she fell through. The Bear roared behind her and charged forward, faster than something that big should have been able to move. She yanked the key out of the lock and, scrambling around, threw herself against the door and slammed it. It ba
nged into the frame and, shaking now with pure panic, she managed to fumble the key back into the door and lock it just as the Bear hit. There was an awful impact, and the whole wall shuddered. Any moment the door was going to fall through and the Bear was going to land on her. But it held. There was another vast thud, and another, but the door budged only a fraction and held firm. A horrendous howl of rage came from the other side.

  “Good door, good door,” she muttered, then, as the Bear hurled himself at it again, she squealed and shot down the corridor behind her, into the darkness.

  Emily ran, bouncing pell-mell off walls and corners, zigzagging into the heart of the building. The storm of the Bear’s terrible anger faded behind her, although it might have been the sound of her pounding heart drowning it out. A faint light shone ahead and she slowed to a halt. She clawed down the zipper of the bomber jacket and stood there panting, soaked with fear-sweat and reeking nearly as bad as the Bear had. She was not a fan of sudden, unprovoked exercise at the best of times, and this had been two Olympic sprints in short succession. She slumped against the wall and gulped in air. Was a giant, murderous bear-thing stalking her in the dark? She’d have heard the door crash in, wouldn’t she? But there had been a lot of running just now. Was he in here? WHAT THE HECK WAS HE?

  She pulled herself to her feet and staggered on. She was as sick as a … what was always being sick? Dogs? They did throw up a lot. But so did cats. Sick as a … wait. Was this what being in shock felt like?

  She reached into her bag and opened and chugged a whole can of fizzy soda as she walked. She burped long and loud afterward and the wobbles cleared. She checked on the Hog but he had slept through the whole marathon of terror. What had just happened? Something properly not explainable, something deeply weird. What had that thing been, a were-bear or something? His words rang in her ears, “Come with me, can see your mother,” and she bit her lip, hard. Whatever he/it was, it had something to do with her mom being missing.