Gustav Gloom and the Nightmare Vault by Adam-Troy Castro

Author:Adam-Troy Castro [Castro, Adam-Troy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101610947
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A NICE LEISURELY CHAT WITH HOWARD PHILIP OCTOBER

Fernie retreated against the wall to give Gustav enough room for his most powerful swing. Just as he strained to lift the beater over his shoulder, she obeyed a sudden impulse and stuck her fingers in her ears.

It was not the loveliest swing in the history of the world. The slaves responsible for beating that gong, in whatever emperor’s palace it had come from, might have laughed at Gustav’s weakness, even if he was just a kid. But gravity took over on the downswing, and the beater hit the gong dead center, hard enough to leave Fernie happy to have protected her ears. The ring was not just loud but deafening, with a keening follow-up vibration that she could feel in her teeth.

If anything, the bong seemed to get louder, not quieter, as the next seconds went on. The note echoed throughout the empty space of the atrium, hitting the walls and bouncing against other walls and making the single gong strike sound like a dozen, all almost as loud as the first. The sound must have been as impossible to ignore on the ground floor as it was all the way up on the balcony, and it only grew more insistent as Gustav drew back the beater and struck the gong a second time, and a third.

“Hey!” Gustav yelled. The note was still reverberating. “Howard Philip October! Where are you? I’m caaaallling you! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

He leaned over the edge to look down.

“Come on, Howard Philip October! Stop hiding! You want the Nightmare Vault, I’m the one to talk to! Show your face now and I won’t even say anything about it being so ugly! Come on, Howard Philip October! I’m talking to you!”

His own voice echoed, too, until the atrium before them rang with multiple mocking repetitions of Howard Philip October, bouncing off the balconies like a thousand Ping-Pong balls looking for a place to land.

After a moment, he seemed to see something. “There he is.” And he shouted again: “Up here, smelly! That’s right! I’m talking to you!”

Fernie felt a chill as the air around them grew perceptibly colder. She ventured toward the edge to look down and see a great swirling mass of darkness, like a bowl of ebony spaghetti, writhing on the lower floors. A man-shaped white speck stood in the center of that darkness and seemed to be slowly rising toward the level where Gustav and Fernie stood.

Her heart thumped. “How did you know he’d be able to fly?”

“That’s not so much flying as climbing,” Gustav said.

“But how did you know?”

“I didn’t. I figured. As long as that shadow-stuff inside him is able to reach out and grab things, it should be able to climb.”

“How does that help?” Fernie wanted to know.

“It gives us the few minutes it’ll take him to get here. We’ll be able to have a nice leisurely talk with him without worrying about his grabbing us right away.”

Fernie steeled herself for another glance over the side.

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