Gustav Gloom and the People Taker (9781101620748) Read online

  Brad Gloom’s grin was now ear to ear. “No, Mr. What. You have fffffollowed me exactly where I intended to take you.”

  Mr. What adjusted his eyeglasses, studied his neighbor’s face for several seconds, then turned to the Pit, and after a few seconds of serious consideration, thought he understood. “I’m certainly not surprised that you showed this to me.”

  This turned out to be precisely the very last thing Brad Gloom expected to hear. “Oh?”

  “Of course,” Mr. What said. “Once I told you about my background as a safety expert, you could hardly be expected to do anything else. And you’re right. Naturally, you need to put up a safety railing around that thing. And a warning sign. If you want, I’d be happy to help you fix it up after breakfast.”

  Nothing Mr. What could have said or done gave him and his older daughter a better chance of lasting the next few minutes than the words that had just come out of his mouth. They stopped the People Taker—or Brad Gloom, as Mr. What believed him to be—utterly. “A warning sign? Really? Are you ssssserious?”

  “Of course I’m serious,” Mr. What said. “I would suggest one that points out this rather serious danger. Otherwise, somebody could fall in and get hurt.”

  The infinite wonder in Mr. Gloom’s eyes as he stood before Mr. What slowly shaking his head was a thing to behold. “Because someone could always wander by my bottomless pit, without warning, down here in my basement.”

  Mr. What thrust out his chin and declared the most deeply held philosophy of his entire life. “Better safe than sorry.”

  The People Taker fell silent for ten seconds, then started to laugh.

  It was the laugh of somebody who was not just bad but proud of being bad, in the same way that Mr. What was proud of his lifelong support of safety railings. Only a man like Mr. What, for whom safety had always been a matter of what dangers could be predicted and what special padding had to be attached to things to protect people from them, could have failed to sense that he was in the presence of a monster.

  But Pearlie sensed it. She swallowed all the nervousness that had been building in her since she first saw the sudden evil in Mr. Gloom’s eyes and stepped between her father and the man threatening them. Her voice trembled, but there was more rage and grief in it than fear. “You threw her in there, didn’t you?”

  Mr. What was shocked by his daughter’s impossible rudeness. “Pearlie!”

  Pearlie ignored her father and focused all her attention on the figure she knew only as Mr. Gloom. Her voice quavered, but behind it was the kind of courage she and Fernie had both inherited from their mother. “You’re not a nice man who makes pancakes. You threw my little sister in there. And now you want to throw us in. That’s what this is all about. That’s the kind of man you are.”

  Mr. Gloom’s smile faded, replaced by a grimace that seemed to drain all the heat from the room. “Yesssss, my dear. That’s exactly the kind of man I am.”

  He moved.

  Pearlie had not been raised by shadows and was not nearly as fast as Gustav. She was not able to evade the People Taker. She just barely had time to do the first thing that came to mind, which was to shove her father away as hard as she could, before the bad man could seize her by the throat.

  Mr. What tried to regain his balance, but all he managed to do was change the direction of his fall. Instead of toppling through the open doorway behind him, he spun, fell sideways, and hit the stone wall with his head. There was no crunch, but there was a loud thud. He sank the rest of the way to the floor, out cold and no doubt having a very nice dream about where everything even the least bit dangerous was corrected by a safety inspector.

  The bad man lifted Pearlie off the ground by her neck, her legs kicking and thrashing with a fury that had more to do with sheer indignation than will to survive. His arm was so long that none of her kicks came even close to hitting him, and her punches just brushed his arm without affecting him at all. He let her choke for several seconds before, that evil smile spreading again, he spun on his heels and began to stride toward the Pit with the struggling Pearlie at arm’s length.

  He was almost to the Pit when the shadow of a little girl flew in through one of the other doorways, flitted through the air, and darted straight at his face. The People Taker had spent too much time hiding out in the Gloom mansion in the day and venturing forth to take people at night to be scared by shadows, but this one distracted him at a key moment. He waved his arm to shoo the annoying thing away, flapping Pearlie at it like she was a towel being snapped at an intrusive fly.

  The little girl shadow circled around him and then flew at his face a second time as insistent as a moth determined to get at a lightbulb. This time the People Taker recognized the shadow, because he’d used a shadow cord to leash it not all that long ago. His cry of realization was almost delighted. “It’s Fffffernie!”

  “No,” the real Fernie said from behind him. “It’s just my shadow.”

  In the surprisingly long and rich history of people hitting other people in the back with chairs, there have been a number of more effective swings. A lot of times the chairs were heavier, and the people swinging them were stronger. Fernie was just a young girl and would not have made any list of the top ten. Frankly, she didn’t even crack the top hundred.

  This is not even close to the same thing as saying that the impact didn’t hurt.

  The People Taker fell to one knee, dropping far enough for Pearlie to land with her feet on the floor and be able to swallow a quick breath. He stood almost immediately, yanking her off her feet again and resuming his march toward the Pit with her at arm’s length. His strides were so long that Fernie had to run after him to keep up.

  She swung the chair again.

  This time he reached behind him with his free hand and caught her midswing, snatching the chair out of her grasp with an audible snap. A quick overhand toss and it plummeted into the Pit. If it hit anything on the way down, even the Pit walls, no sound returned to offer testimony.

  “There,” he said. “That’s better. Don’t worry, Fffffernie. I’ll be dropping her soon enough. And then you sssssecond. I’ve changed my mind about your being the one I’ll keep. Your fffffather is way too entertaining to give up.”

  He was now fewer than three steps away from dangling Pearlie over the Pit. Fernie’s shadow darted at his face again, and this time became solid enough to strike him a couple of times, but he didn’t seem to be bothered or slowed at all. Fernie jumped on the People Taker’s back, wrapping her arms around his neck as if the slight addition of her own weight possibly stood any chance of bringing him down. It didn’t, as she knew it wouldn’t, but she had no ideas left, and doing something, even something that didn’t work at all, was better than doing nothing.

  Two steps from the Pit now.

  One.

  Suddenly another tiny form ran into the room and scrambled up the People Taker’s back, wrapping his arms around the villain’s neck and unbalancing him so much that he actually had to take a single step backward to keep himself from falling over.

  “Gustav!” Fernie cried.

  It was indeed Gustav, who as far as Fernie knew should have been part of a chair in the Too Much Sitting Room for the rest of his life but was instead running around and free and, most wonderfully, here.

  Gustav seemed just as surprised and delighted to see Fernie as she was to see him, but it didn’t stop him from treating the People Taker’s ears like the lids of peanut butter jars that just needed a strong grip and a decisive twist before they’d agree to come off.

  They didn’t come off, unfortunately, but they did hurt the People Taker even more than being hit in the back with the chair had. He spun in a circle and stumbled away from the Pit, almost completely crossing the room before getting control of himself and managing to stand upright again.

  He threw Pearlie away.
She sailed across the room, hit the floor, and skidded to a stop at the edge of the Pit, arms and legs flailing. For one terrifying heartbeat she almost rolled in, but then she looked down, straight down, into the infinite darkness below her, and almost levitated away with instinctive fear of the country far below.

  Unburdened now, the People Taker spun his arms trying to grab Gustav. But the strange boy had jumped off his shoulders and was not there to be grabbed; he was instead standing just beyond the People Taker’s reach, saying, “It isn’t going to be that easy.”

  Ignoring him, the People Taker snarled, ripped Fernie away from his neck, held her at arm’s length as she shrieked, and resumed his march back toward the Pit.

  Crying out, Gustav jumped on his back again, but all his additional weight accomplished was to drive the People Taker toward the Pit faster. Pearlie lowered her head and charged him with everything that she had, ramming him in the belly and forcing him back half a step. While the People Taker was off balance, Fernie took the opportunity to scramble onto his back.

  Fernie’s shadow swooped around another time, again flying at the People Taker’s face. Angry fingernail scratches appeared on his cheeks. A flurry of movement ended with three children and one angry shadow riding on the People Taker’s back and pounding him with everything they had.

  It still wasn’t enough to stop him. The People Taker was stronger than all of them put together and was still able to march forward, the grin widening on his face as he saw his victory growing closer with every step.

  Then yet another shadow flew across the room and wrapped itself around the People Taker’s head, crying out in the voice of a being too brave and too formidable to have ever worried about being protected by a safety railing. It pounded the People Taker on the face with its fists, driving him back.

  “Let them go!” that new shadow roared in a voice deeper and stronger than any Fernie had heard from the man who still lay out cold by the doorway.

  “Dad!?!?” Fernie gasped.

  “You know better than that, Fernie! I’m not him; I’m just his shadow! But he’d be doing this himself if he could!”

  Fernie had always known that her father wanted her safe, but it had never occurred to her that he could fight for her. With his shadow, she dared to hope, they might even have a chance.

  But no; the People Taker was so strong that he could force himself forward even with three children and two shadows weighing him down. Groaning from the effort, he gathered up his strength and staggered toward the Pit.

  Pearlie’s shadow and Gustav’s shadow also separated from their people and added their own fury to the battle, punching and hitting the People Taker with a ferocity that might have been too much for any other man. Pearlie’s shadow wrapped itself around his ankles and Gustav’s shadow concentrated on pounding his nose, both while calling him the kinds of names that even a man who made people disappear for fun might have found more insulting than he deserved.

  It slowed him down only a little. He continued carrying them all toward the Pit.

  The three children and now four shadows on the People Taker’s back did the only thing they possibly could: They started screaming for help. Fernie and Pearlie cried out for their real flesh-and-blood father, who still wasn’t moving. Gustav cried out for Great-Aunt Mellifluous, the shadow Mr. Notes, and whomever else he could think of. The shadows in the fight all cried out for any of their kind who might not only be able to hear them but also be inclined to come help.

  None of this did any real good. No dark army came running to their rescue.

  And then, three steps from the edge, things got even worse.

  An inhuman roar from one of the entrances to the room established that the Beast had caught up with Gustav at last, and it so completely filled up the doorway that it resembled a walking wall of darkness.

  Fernie screamed. Pearlie saw the Beast for the very first time and screamed louder. As someone who had already tangled with what they were facing and knew how badly it doomed their chances of defeating the People Taker as well, Gustav might have screamed louder than the two girls put together if he’d had the chance to make a sound, which he didn’t. Because that’s when a yowling and spitting black-and-white missile with fur standing straight up all over his little body rocketed into the room and launched himself, claws first, at the People Taker.

  Harrington landed on the People Taker’s face and stuck there, front claws digging into his temples, rear claws digging into his neck, angry mouth biting his nose. The People Taker shrieked but still stumbled the remaining two steps toward the edge of the Pit. Gustav turned what would have been his scream of fear into a shout of urgent command.

  “Everybody let go!”

  The What sisters dove for the floor. The shadows flew at the ceiling. Gustav remained on the People Taker’s back until he knew they were clear, then dove away at the last second, pushing off with one furious kick.

  The People Taker teetered with one foot on and one foot off the edge of the Pit, his arms spinning like pinwheels in a desperate attempt to regain his balance. Harrington registered the vast open space below him and, with a cat’s unerring instinct for self-preservation, decided that the rage he felt at this guy who’d threatened his people was not quite worth sticking around for the full plunge. He leaped straight up, his back curled in a feline arc.

  His leap provided the last fatal nudge.

  The People Taker screamed and spun his arms but fell in, his splash into the shadow-stuff sending clouds of darkness puffing into the air around him.

  The Beast saw its master plunge into the Pit, let out its own inhuman cry of grief and rage, and also charged, a billowing, shapeless darkness afraid of losing what might have been the only being in two worlds it could possibly ever obey. The wind it made as it passed over the prone children felt like a hurricane, if any hurricane wind could be not just powerful and destructive but also downright malicious. Caught up in the wind, the What girls each slid a couple of feet closer to the edge before hugging the floor tighter and managing to hold on.

  The Beast cleared the backs of Gustav and the two What girls and plunged into the Pit, looking like a cloud of black exhaust being sucked back into a hole. The very last of it disappeared just as the yowling Harrington, who had leaped straight up and not off in some other direction as he’d intended to, plummeted back down toward the Pit, thrashing all four legs as if he could somehow turn the air to water and swim the distance to safety.

  He didn’t quite make it to solid ground.

  Just as Harrington was about to be swallowed by the shadowy blackness, Gustav, who’d hurled himself toward the edge and made a wild grab over the side, pulled him back up by the scruff.

  “Nice cat,” he murmured, scratching him on the top of the head.

  “Tell me about it,” the trembling Fernie said. “I’m never calling him stupid cat again. He is so getting extra noogums today.”

  Harrington purred. The shadow Harrington, which had joined him on that last charge and was now beside him duplicating his movements as it had been for all of his life, made no sound but seemed just as pleased with this most recent development as the real cat was. Just what had transpired between real cat and shadow cat during the long night was something that neither of them seemed inclined to explain, but they had certainly come to some kind of understanding.

  Fernie glanced at Pearlie, who was sitting up and just starting to realize that she still didn’t understand anything that had happened. Mussed by the wind, the hair on the heads of both sisters stood up almost as straight as Gustav’s. They both glanced at their father, who still lay unconscious in the corner, a slight smile on his lips the only indication that he might have sensed everything was all right.

  Gustav released Harrington, who stretched, licked a paw, and hopped into Fernie’s lap.

  “See?” Gustav said. “I tol
d you I’d find your cat.”

  Fernie didn’t have a laugh in her, not quite yet. She coughed, spit out dust, and told her sister, “Pearlie, this is Gustav. He’s by far the coolest friend I’ve ever had.”

  Shaking her head, Pearlie managed a breathless, “Really, I got that.”

  “Gustav,” Fernie continued, “this is my sister, Pearlie. She’s by far the coolest older sister I’ve ever had.”

  Gustav looked equally dazed. “I got that, too. Hi, Pearlie.”

  Pearlie said, “Hi, Gustav.”

  All three nodded at one another and then collapsed on their backs.

  EPILOGUE

  CHOCOLATE CHIPS ON SUNNYSIDE TERRACE

  The next day, Fernie What sat on the stoop of her Fluorescent Salmon house and watched the shadows dance. It was a bright, sunny day, so the shadows were easy to spot if you knew where to look for them. In the tiny patches of mixed darkness and light formed by the leaves of every tree on Sunnyside Terrace, there were a number of other shapes amusing themselves with games of tag.

  From time to time, one of the shadows would dart back across the street to the constant gray murk of the Gloom yard or from the Gloom yard on other mysterious errands.

  Gustav had told her that shadows had always been this open about their activities and this easy to spot, not just here but everywhere they lived. It was, he said, just the kind of thing flesh-and-blood people overlooked until they really saw it for the first time, at which point they never stopped seeing it.

  Fernie found that she didn’t mind. In her book, anything that made life more interesting was a good thing.

  Mr. What came out dressed in an old pair of jeans and one of his favorite T-shirts, one displaying a list of instructions on what people should do if they’re ever attacked by a bear. He carried two glasses of ice water and handed one to Fernie as he sat beside her.