Colm & the Ghost's Revenge (13 page)

B
y the end of the journey Colm half-expected to find his hair had turned white with the shock. Of course a quick glance in the mirror confirmed it hadn't. That would have been ridiculous. But he was glad they'd stopped driving. His nerves were shattered, yet his bones were intact, so all things considered, it could have been worse. He didn't know if it was just because Lauryn had had such difficulty with the gears or if she was a terrible driver in general, but he knew that as long as he lived he never again wanted to be in a car when she was behind the wheel.

They had driven through Ballymun and onto the M50, changing lanes at breakneck speed. They'd passed vehicles in which the passengers were gripped with absolute panic when Lauryn's car veered wildly in their direction. Car horns had blared. Fists were shaken. Dogs had stuck their heads back inside car windows until they'd passed. Colm had been so glad to get away from the thugs he'd been happy to let Lauryn drive the car. After forty-five minutes of sheer terror, however, he wasn't sure it was the right choice.

They'd made it as far as Blanchardstown, a suburb on the west side of the city, and driven into a half-finished housing estate, the type the earnest men on serious radio programmes liked to call a ghost estate. Most of the houses were unoccupied and some had already begun to fall down. Grass grew in odd places. Rubble, blocks and discarded, rusted pieces of building equipment were piled on the ground at various intervals. There was an air of sadness about the place.

Lauryn had parked the car at the back of one of the houses, although parked was a kind way of describing it. Unlovingly abandoned at a jaunty angle might have been more appropriate. They'd checked the glove compartment and found a rental slip with the name ‘Cedric Murphy' on it, and an almost empty bag of M&Ms.

They'd walked out onto the road to make sure the vehicle was out of sight and unlikely to be noticed by any passers-by or local busybodies, and when they were as sure as they could be that the car was well hidden, they went into the first house they could access. The Brute had stuck his hand through a broken pane of glass and unlocked a window. When they were all inside Lauryn produced a small torch from the pocket of her black leather jacket and began to examine each one of the downstairs rooms in turn, even though she wasn't really sure what she was looking for or expecting to find. The interior of the house was as unfinished as the outside. Everything was grey, as if someone had come in and deliberately drained the place of any colour. The night air blew through the spaces set aside for plastic vents, chilling the open room. It was as unlovely as could be. There was nothing to sit on, so they sat on the hard floor.

‘OK, does anyone have any idea what's happening? Because this whole thing seems a bit mental to me,' The Brute said, goose bumps prickling his bare orange arms.

‘It is kinda crazy,' Lauryn agreed. ‘Hey, you're wearing an Eagles t-shirt.'

‘What? Oh, this old thing. I'd forgotten I had it on. Yeah, big fan of the Eagles. Huge,' he replied.

‘That's a coincidence. I'm from Philly,' she said.

‘Really? Cool,' The Brute replied.

Colm knew that Lauryn had mentioned she was from Philadelphia at least three times when they'd met before. She probably knew it too. And she'd probably guessed his cousin had bought the t-shirt in her honour. Was she just toying with The Brute? If she was, then Colm decided to let her get away with it. After what they'd been through and what they still had to face, she was allowed a private moment of fun.

The Brute leaned back, faking a yawn, stretching his arms to show off his bulging biceps.

‘You've been working out for the same reasons as me, I guess,' Lauryn said.

‘Huh?'

‘To be prepared for the next time we encountered a situation like this. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.'

‘No,' The Brute said. ‘I've been bulking up 'cos the chicks love it.'

‘Excuse me – the chicks?'

Uh-oh, Colm thought. He could hear the tension growing in Lauryn's voice.

‘Yeah, the chicks. Y'know, the babes. The broads as you might say in America.'

‘I hope you're not talking about girls, 'cos that's totally insulting,' Lauryn said.

‘No, what I meant was … ahm,' said The Brute, realising his error and reddening up. He'd suddenly remembered why he used to be tongue-tied around this girl. She was as tough as old boots. Just like her grandmother, Mrs McMahon, who, as far as The Brute was concerned, resembled an old boot. He loved Lauryn, but he was also a little bit scared of her and when he was a bit scared he always said the wrong thing. Always.

‘Sorry,' he said. Time to change the subject. ‘So, how's your grandmother these days? Still the same old battleaxe?'

‘She died.'

The Brute's face was now so red that Colm was genuinely worried that he might be on the verge of a stroke.

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' Colm said, trying to calm things down.

‘Thanks,' Lauryn replied.

The Brute slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead repeatedly.

‘Soooo, you've gone to the gym a bit?' Colm said to change the subject.

‘Sure. I started doing all these self-defence classes, weapons training, running five miles a day. Things like that.'

‘But no driving practice, huh?'

Lauryn smiled. ‘No, Colm.' She pronounced it ‘Collom'. He didn't correct her. ‘No driving practice. I didn't just do fitness work, though. I got Prof, that's what I call Peter Drake, to design some brain-training programmes for me. You gotta be sharp, right? I mean anyone can get caught out by a zombie or a criminal once, but a second time … that'd be dumb.'

‘Definitely,' Colm said. ‘Very dumb.'

‘So what kind of training did you do?' she asked.

‘Ahm, we really should be talking about what's going on and what we're going to do next,' Colm said, avoiding the question and at the same time wondering why he hadn't done more to get into good physical shape. If he'd been expecting an attack for all this time, then surely it would have made sense. Yet he'd given up after just three karate lessons. He wasn't exactly Navy Seal material.

‘You're right. We've got to figure out what's going on. Then we can take some action.'

‘Huighhhhhhhhhhh,' said The Brute, suddenly caught in the halfway house between wanting to say something that would impress Lauryn and wanting to say nothing at all for fear of offending her.

‘Huh?'

‘I think he's wondering what you're doing here,' Colm said.

‘Heeuuuuurgggh,' agreed The Brute.

She brushed a strand of blonde hair back from her tanned cheek. ‘It started a couple of weeks ago back in Philly. My Dodge was in the shop so my boyfriend drove me home …'

There was a strange, hacking sound as The Brute almost choked.

‘Boyshfriendsh?' he spluttered.

‘Yeah, his name is Dan and he's a running back with our high school team,' she said. ‘He's not your typical jock though. He's a straight-A student.'

Of course he is, The Brute said to himself. I hate you, Dan.

She continued her story. As she'd sat in the car chatting to Dan, she'd spotted a man she'd never seen before sneaking out from the back of her house. He'd peered around carefully, as if checking that no one was around, so she'd presumed he was a burglar. He hadn't seen them as they were parked farther down the street, and Lauryn was about to get out of the car and confront him when Dan grabbed her arm and told her to stay where she was. He'd guessed the man wasn't alone. Sure enough, ten seconds later two other men emerged, each carrying what appeared to be a heavy weight in a hessian sack. The sacks were wriggling. Lauryn realised that the only things that could be that size and struggling in that way were her mother Marie and the professor.

As she continued talking, The Brute's thoughts drifted off. Colm and The Brute had met Marie briefly. She seemed like a nice woman, which The Brute thought was a good thing since if he ended up marrying Lauryn, which he planned to do once she'd copped on that Dan was a big tool, he'd probably be having Sunday dinners with her mother and it would make life easier if they got along. Of course that was only if they lived in America, but Lauryn would probably want to stay in the land where she grew up and, with him being the man and all, he'd have to do his best to please her. He wondered if he'd like America. It looked good on the telly, but they didn't seem to play much hurling or rugby over there and those were two of his favourite things in life.

‘Hey, are you listening to me?' Lauryn snapped. ‘I'm telling you something important here.'

The Brute nodded, snapping out of his little daydream. He hadn't heard a thing she'd said in the last minute and he hoped that she wouldn't ask him any questions or else he'd be caught out like he always was in school.

‘Sorry,' said Lauryn, noticing his shame-faced expression, ‘I'm a bit on edge. That's why I'm …'

‘Cranky?' Colm volunteered.

‘Cranky. Yeah, that's a good word for it,' Lauryn said.

‘So your mother and Professor Drake were kidnapped, but you managed to avoid capture thanks to your boyfriend, Dan,' Colm said, recapping for The Brute's benefit. ‘Then you tried to follow the kidnappers, but you lost them. You didn't know what to do, so you hid for a few days before sneaking back into your house. You didn't even answer any of Dan's calls 'cos you didn't want to drag him into this mess.'

‘Do you recap every time someone tells a story?' Lauryn asked. She kept her tone pleasant, but was thinking: I've teamed up with two imbeciles. She tried to remember if they'd been like this when they'd met before. From what she could recall, the guy who was in love with her hadn't changed that much, except for his cool new haircut and fake tan, and the weird way he kept trying to show off his muscles. Her impression was that Colm had seemed smarter last time, although when she really thought about it, he'd been easily fooled at the start, yet had figured out most of what was going on in the end. Plus it had been him who had come up with the clever way to destroy the Lazarus Key. Maybe she was underestimating him.

‘Yeah, I hid out in an abandoned building like this one. It was a horrible place and I was kinda scared 'cos there was a lot of gang activity in the area, but I couldn't risk goin' back to the house in case those guys came back, so I waited a few days before returning. I knew I had to stay free if I was going to be able to help Mom and the Prof. To do that I had to figure out why they'd been taken and who took them. I had plenty of time to come up with an answer when I was sitting in that house day after day,' she said.

‘And the answer you came up with was The Ghost,' Colm said.

‘Yup,' Lauryn said, thinking that she had underestimated him after all.

‘Who?' The Brute asked.

‘The little rat-faced man, the one who wanted the key and took us into the woods to meet that zombie … thing,' Colm said. There was no time to explain the whole vamumzompire saga to Lauryn. ‘We all thought that he was The Ghost and that he'd been killed by the creature. But I've been thinking. What if he wasn't The Ghost?'

‘I agree with you. That's what I think too. And I also think the real Ghost is behind all of this. Who else in this world would have something against the three of us? It's not like we hang out together. We don't even live in the same country. No, this has to be something to do with that night. He took my mom and the Prof. If he was coming after my family, then he'd be going after yours. I decided I needed to be here in Ireland. That was where everyone else involved in the situation that night was. I guessed that's where my mom and the Prof would be taken too. I went back home and got the emergency pack the Prof and Mom had prepared for a situation like this – money, fake ID, stuff like that – then I caught a plane to Dublin. I've been hanging out near your house for the last two days. Freezin' my butt off. I wanted to talk to you, but I thought it'd be better to observe from a distance, see if anything strange was happening. For forty hours there was nothing interesting, other than you coming home stinking up the place real bad. But then I saw Mikey appear and run around in circles for a while, before he launched himself through your restroom window.'

So I didn't outrun the dark figure after all, The Brute thought glumly. Of course, if I'd known it was Lauryn who was following me, I wouldn't have taken off in the first place.

‘He looked like he was on the run, like he was escaping from something, so I hung back, thinking that whoever was after him would show up sooner rather than later. An hour later I saw those three guys going into the house.'

The Brute was impressed. Hugely impressed. Lauryn had managed to evade capture, and survived on the mean streets of Philadelphia and the slightly less mean streets of Colm's housing estate. Not only that, but she'd caught a flight by herself, using a false passport. She was like a super spy. If he hadn't been in love with her before, he'd have fallen for her that very moment. He wondered if he should kick Colm out of the house and tell her how he felt about her. Or maybe he should compose another poem first, praising her beauty and stuff. Chicks loved poems, didn't they? He wasn't sure. Girls were hard to understand, especially when you never spent any time talking to them.

‘Wow, you must be wrecked,' Colm said to Lauryn.

‘Yeah, I've hardly slept and when I did catch some z's it was on rock-hard ground beneath some shrubbery. Not the most comfortable bed ever created, but when you're tired you'll sleep anywhere. That doesn't matter now. We've got to figure out where this guy has taken Mom and the Prof.'

‘Michael's mam and stepfather have gone missing too. And I can't get in touch with my own parents,' Colm said.