The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures by Sebastian Gregory Page B

must run.” He pointed to a spiral staircase. “That way, because someone bad is coming.” Then, like smoke from a dead ember, he was lost to the air.
    “Goodbye,” he said, becoming nothing.
    To the staircase the pair went; downwards they went as fast as their bruised legs could carry them. Of course, if the ghost boy had had the time before moving on he would have clearly told his friends not to take the stairs downward. But he did not and they did.
    Down and down into a thick darkness they ran. To the part of the asylum where even the insane feared to tread. There was a long corridor as was the design of the maze, however here there was only one cell at the very far end. The door to the cell had been obliterated and stood splintered in the doorway. Even in the gloom, Red Riding Hood could see that was not the way to proceed. No sooner had they begun to walk that long dark corridor than they both felt a crunching underfoot. Red Riding Hood reached down to feel her way and found it to be littered. There were thousands of them and all around. Bones: animal bones, bird bones, mice and ravens’ but as the two moved forward, crunch, crunch, crunch, they saw the bones of people.
    “Where has all this come from?” Thumbeana voiced curiously.
    “I think it is from the broken cell,” Red Riding Hood said. “I think we need to leave quickly.”
    They would of course have done so, if not for the music that was suddenly filling the air, but more than that it filled their very beings, overwhelming their senses and rooting them to the spot.
    The Pied Piper bowed in front of the two. He was horrible, thin and tall, like an insect dressed as a person. He danced and played his pipe, skipping this way and that, jumping as he played. Finally he pulled the pipe from his horrible lips.
    “My, my. What do we have here? Two pretties eager for my rats?” His voice was venom.
    Red and Thumbeana could only watch and listen as the piper played his hypnotic sound. Oh, what music played. It called the rats of all shapes and sizes crawling from holes in the brickwork or gnawing their way through the floor itself. Hundreds if not thousands appeared as the piper played. Rats of razor-sharp teeth and pestilent fur. They crawled over the piper and each other in time to the piper’s tune. Then he stopped playing and the rats reared in anticipation.
    “You see, my pretties, my pets need feeding, and they are here to feast. Just like the children of Hamlet—oh, what a banquet they had.” With that he simply pointed a bony finger and the vermin poured forward in a wave of disease and pain. Chittering, they swept towards the two as again the piper played a feasting tune. When then and all of a sudden something much worse and vast descended from the ceiling. It moved exactly like wet shadow and as it took form the corridor lit up once again. The girl realised the terrible truththat the corridor was not in darkness, the thing was the darkness itself. Yet there was more to its smooth oily surface: bones white and brittle, trapped in place all around it like skeletons in tar. At first, when Red saw the piper she presumed he was the one who had caused the bones in some evil way. However this was not the case. She witnessed the rats drowning in the black with barely enough time to scream before being skinned to pure white bone that rattled against the stone floor.
    The dark thing turned its attention to the piper, whose pipe had fallen to the floor from his terrified mouth. The piper could only gasp before the darkness took him. The bones followed the pipe to the stone with a clatter. Instantly Red and Thumbeana could move again; however, there was little point in doing so. There was no escape from the prisoner. A skull appeared amongst its surface, giving the oil a face of sorts as it flowed towards them. Red Riding Hood recognised the creature as would everyone who ever lived in the fairy tale kingdom. Many years ago it had been named Grandfather