SUMMER storymaking at Ottie and The Bea - read the lastest inklings imaginings here ...

CHAPTER ONE

{imagined by Astrid, Farrah, Mary, Miles and Ottilie}

Romilly opened her eyes. At least, she thought she opened them. It just didn’t seem to make any difference. She patted her face to check. OW! Yes – definitely open.

Only, it seemed to be darker with them open than it was when they were shut.

In all her twenty years, she’d never seen darkness like it. Come to think of it, could you even see darkness? She couldn’t see anything at all at the moment.

She felt around on the chest by her bed. Lamp … book … watch. Watch! Pressing the button on the side that lit up the clockface with a bright green luminous glow, she checked that she hadn’t accidentally woken up in the middle of the night. No, definitely seven o’clock, and definitely the morning.

Where had the sun gone? Normally it was really annoying the way it shone so rudely through her curtains and woke her up before she was ready. But now it wasn’t there she was starting to feel a bit freaked out.

So she did what she always did when she was feeling freaked out. Even now she was practically a grown up. She checked under her bed. She didn’t know what she was even looking for. It’s not as if the sun would be hiding under there. But it seemed like a good place to start.

Only of course she couldn’t see anything, what with it being pitch black. She pressed the button on her watch again, and it cast its feeble green glow into the shadows. The blankets were hanging down in the way, and she was just lifting them up to peek further underneath when

Argh

A hand jabbed out and grabbed her wrist.

Romilly shrieked and tried to dive back under the covers, but the bony fingers clutched her tight and she couldn’t get away. It was petrifying. She scrabbled desperately at her bedside chest. The lamp crashed to the floor, but she managed to get the book and used it to bash and bash and bash until the grip loosened and she was free.

It was only when Romilly leaned back against her bedroom wall, gasping and wondering what to do next, that she realized her watch was gone. Its comforting light was a lot less cheerful now it was shining from the floor, being held by who-knows-what monster under her bed.

Then it started to move, and Romilly took a firmer grip on her book (thank goodness she’d got Harry Potter 6 out of the library and it was a good hefty hardback). She heard a scraping, itchy noise that sounded worryingly like claws, followed by a creepy dragging that made every hair on her body stand on end – even the little tiny ones in her ears.

She was just about to leap forward and bang the book down on those hideous hands before they could come out any further when she heard a whispering voice:

“Rommy? Are you okay?”

It was her little sister Amber, standing at the bedroom door holding a silver candlestick.

Before Romilly could shout out a warning, a wordless moan came from under the bed

Aaaaaooooooooeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrggggggggaaaaarrrrrggggg

Amber walked into the room, but unlike her sister, she didn’t seem to be trembling. On the contrary, her sweet face in the candlelight was smiling as she bent down to peek under the bed.

“Oh, hello,” she said. And then groaned “eeeeeooooooooaaaaaaarrrrrrrreeeeegggg”

“What are you doing?” Gasped Romilly. “Quick – go and get dad, run away, be safe!” And she leaped forward, brandishing her book like a sword, and started jabbing downwards at the monster-thing that reached out from under her bed, still clutching her watch in its giant fist.

“You’ll hurt him!” squeaked Amber.

“Errrm, yes? That is the idea!” panted Romilly, aiming blows randomly downwards in the darkness.

“Stop!” Her little sister yelled, and waving the candlestick alarmingly close to Romilly’s long brown hair, she made a grab for the book.

Romilly squealed as hot wax landed on her hands, and let go of her precious paper weapon.

“What did you do that for? I nearly had him!”

“Leave him alone! He’s just one of the undead! He’s more afraid of you than you are of him!”

“What? The undead? You mean – a zombie?”

“Yes, only they don’t like to be called that. It gives them a bad name.”

“No, it’s drinking people’s brains that give them a bad name. Now give me that candlestick, I’m pretty sure you’re meant to use fire to keep zombies at bay.”

But instead of helping her, Amber darted backwards, then, putting the candlestick carefully on the floor, she stretched out and took hold of one of the horrible gnarly hands scrabbling towards her.

In the flickering light from the flames, Romilly watched in horror as a creature with mottled green blue white skin slithered out from under the bed and curled up to stand next to her sister. Amber was only six. How come she wasn’t screaming and running away like any normal girl her age? Any normal girl of any age, come to think of it. Romilly certainly felt like screaming and running away, and she was twenty.

Gggggiiiiiiiaaaaaooouuuuugggghhhhh? Groaned the monster, and if Romilly hadn’t know better she might have thought he was asking if she was okay.

“He wants to know if you’re all right” interpreted Amber.

“—“ Romilly was speechless.

The monster regarded her with deep black eyes that reflected the dancing candle flame. Then he held out a bulging fist the size of a football and dangled her watch towards her on one curved blue claw.

Romilly swallowed. Her mouth was suddenly full of spit and she thought she might be sick – either with fear or disgust, she wasn’t sure which. And she definitely wasn’t sure that she wanted her watch back now. Then she realized it wasn’t a good idea to upset a zombie, so with trembling fingers she took her watch.

His skin, where she accidentally brushed it with her palm, was surprisingly warm.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, before she could stop herself.

“What is it?” asked Amber.

“Well, he’s warm. I always thought that zombies – the undead I mean – would be cold. You know, what with being dead and everything.”

“They’re not dead, they’re undead. It’s completely different.”

“Well, okay, so one day you and Mr bluenose here must explain to me the finer points of dead and undead, but for now I think we have more pressing matters. Like, for example – what happened to the sun?”

“Yes, that’s what I was coming to ask you. I woke up and at first I thought I’d forgotten to open my eyes. And then I thought I was having one of those dreams where you dream you’re awake but really you’re still asleep, so I lay there waiting to wake up but then when I didn’t I thought I’d come and find you, to see if you were still asleep too.”

“Ah, you mean this is all a dream? Thank goodness. For a moment there I don’t mind admitting I was pretty petrified. No sunshine and zombies under my bed. But if it’s all a dream, that means I can snuggle back under the covers and soon I’ll wake up and it’ll be morning and we can all eat our Cheerios like usual.” Romilly started pulling the blankets back onto her bed and plumping her pillow.

“I don’t like Cheerios, you know that,” said Amber, picking up the candlestick,  “and I don’t think it is a dream. Come on, we’d better go and find Dad. He’ll know what to do.” And – eugh – taking the zombie’s nasty great hand, her little scrap of a sister left the room as quietly as she’d entered it, leaving Romilly staring into the darkness once again, wondering if it was just her, or the whole world, that had gone mad.