The Great Ghost Rescue

When the barge was safely alongside and the men had made their way to the Sailor’s Arms up the hill, Rick jumped aboard, found an old sack, dug a hole in the mountain of coal and wriggled his way inside. He was just blackening his hair with coal dust so that it wouldn’t show up when a voice beside him said: ‘Please, can I come in the coal with you?’ – and with a sigh of happiness, Humphrey the Horrible settled in beside Rick.

They all enjoyed the river journey very much. It had stopped raining, a soft wind blew across the water and the city was soon left behind. Travelling by boat is very peaceful. Cows stand and look at you, little boys wave from the bridges. Old ladies bicycle along the tow paths. Gradually Rick, though he wasn’t exactly comfortable with only his eyes above the level of the coal, stopped worrying about what he would say to the Prime Minister if he ever got to him, and just looked out at the willow trees and the ducks and wondered how people could be so idiotic as to poison such a nice river with sewage and chemicals and every sort of muck.

The barge stopped for the night at Lonsdale and as soon as the men had moored and gone down to the cabin for a brew-up, Rick scrambled out. There was no point in staying on the boat any longer because the river changed course and flowed westwards after that, whereas they had to go south across Saughbeck Moors.

It was too late to hope for cars or buses – there was nothing for it except to set out on foot. They walked for one hour, then two.... It was a moonless night with a cold, sighing wind and Rick, who’d had nothing but a few sandwiches all day, grew very tired and very hungry. Beside him, Walter the Wet, dripping steadily, was telling him about all the sailors he’d drowned. By the time he got to number twenty-three, a Viking raider called Knut the Knout who’d fallen off his long ship right into Walter’s arms, Rick’s head had begun to nod. He was almost sleepwalking.

It was the kind Hag, peering out of the door of the coach above his head, who saw how tired he was and called a halt. They found a little wood in a hollow which gave some shelter from the wind. A stream ran through it, with ferns and mosses growing on its banks and a very squidgy toadstool called a Stinkhorn which made the Hag quite jealous because it smelled worse than she did.

There were plenty of sticks so Rick made a fire, taking great care not to damage the trees and then the ghosts helped him to make a bed out of a pile of leaves and he put his anorak on top of that. Of course as soon as he lay down, Humphrey the Horrible came to curl up beside him and then the Shuk lay across both their feet. Aunt Hortensia stretched out on the back seat of the coach, the Hag and the Gliding Kilt, tucking George and Winifred between them, found a mossy hollow, and Walter the Wet went to lie in the stream. It only wet half of him because it was so shallow but anything, he said, was better than being dry.

Rick wasn’t sure what woke him up – he only knew it wasn’t the ordinary sort of waking because one has slept enough. The first thing he noticed was an odd smell. Not the Stinkhorn, not the smell of burnt prunes which drifted from the Hag as she slept. No, this was a strange musty smell. Rats...? Mice...?

And then he saw the eyes. Weird, mad, red, greedy eyes. One pair to his left by a great beech tree, one pair straight in front of him not three yards away... Five pairs of eyes altogether, in a circle, surrounding him.

Cold with terror, Rick peered into the darkness. Were those fangs? Wings? Unspeakable folds of skin...?

And then suddenly he had it. Vampire bats. They were completely surrounded by blood-sucking vampire bats!

Seven

It was a frightful moment. Everything he’d ever read about vampires flashed through his mind: how they sucked blood from people’s throats while they slept; how they robbed graves; how they lived in dark and ghastly places; how they terrorized everyone who saw them. He must have screamed without realizing it because the mad red eyes came closer. Gloating. Waiting.

And now, beside him, Humphrey stirred and sat up, rubbing the ball and chain on his ankle. Then, before Rick could stop him, he had darted forward – right at the largest of the terrible, staring eyes.

‘Cousin Susie!’ he shouted. ‘It’s me! Humphrey! Humphrey the Horrible!’

The red eyes closed, opened again, and the largest of the vampire bats came forward into the light of the dying fire. ‘Good heavens! If it isn’t Mabel’s boy,’ said Sucking Susie. She peered forward, slicing through his ectoplasm with her ghastly fangs. ‘Well, you’re not getting any horribler are you, my poor child.’

‘I will later,’ said Humphrey, sighing. He couldn’t help wishing that everybody didn’t make the same remark. ‘This is Rick, Cousin Susie. He’s a human and he’s going to find us all a place to live.’

‘A human, eh?’ said Sucking Susie. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

She edged closer. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’