FRIGHT NIGHT THE SHRIEKING STONES by STEVE ROGERS

Author:STEVE ROGERS [ROGERS, STEVE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2008-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

The stone staircase was a dark and dizzying spiral and the steps were treacherous, causing the twins to stumble. Every time, they would pick each other up and carry on racing upward.

Behind, they could hear Ghian’s scrabbling footsteps chasing them. The witch’s voice echoed after them: ‘Come here, my little darlings! Come back to Auntie Ghian!’

Adam and Lana could think of half a dozen things they could have shouted back at her, but they said nothing and kept running. The stairs wound up and up – finally – into the open air. But the daylight was so gloomy with fog that breaking out of the cave didn’t feel at all like freedom.

Ghian’s cackle followed them outside, amplified by the stairs and rebounding off the surrounding rocks.

‘Come, come! Too much fresh air will blight your lungs! The weather is cold and rotten – like old fish! You’ll catch your deaths!’

Adam glanced back and tensed. There was the witch, coming at them out of the underground darkness, her cloak spreading like bat-wings and her arms reaching out as if to scoop them up in a loving hug.

Lana started up the cleft and Adam scrambled after her. Again they stumbled, scraping their knees, but forced themselves to keep going. Lana reached the top first and turned, throwing her hand out for her brother. He grasped it gratefully and let her pull him up.

Below them, Ghian was making short work of the climb, hopping up the rocky slope like a mad mountain goat.

Now they were on open ground and Adam had to search around for the stones to get his bearings. They were even harder to make out than before, but yes, they were still visible – faintly. Great block-shouldered ogres, shrouded in mist.

But as they raced towards them, Adam couldn’t shake off the fear that Ghian would be able to make even better speed once she was free of the rocks.

She did. She practically flew after them.

Lungs burning, Adam and Lana forced themselves into the hardest run of their lives. Floating after them, flitting low over the ground much as Fergus had done, the witch waved her arms in an elaborate pattern, as though she was beckoning to the thick fog.

The twins watched in horror as, around them, swirls of mist began to take on a sinister shape. At first, Adam thought the fog was merely thickening, but soon he could see that dark patches were clumping together like ominous grey candyfloss. Far worse, the clumps sprouted legs and began to scurry this way and that in mid-air, shaping strands of the fog as though it was silk. Fog spiders were spinning misty, silky webs to cut off the twins’ escape.

Many of the spiders were tiny, and they worked furiously like a small army of weavers, hanging up their handiwork all around like delicate nets. Three or four others were still forming, gathering in the fog and growing into fat-bodied monsters. These giant fog spiders twitched into horrid life and scuttled across the grass.

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