Professor Gargoyle

SIXTEEN





“I knew you’d come eventually,” Professor Goyle told Robert. He had forced the boys to sit at the round wooden table beside Karina. “You mentioned you’d been spending some time in my Master’s house.”

Robert shook his head. “I never said that.”

“Of course you did! Don’t you remember? When I caught you with the mutated rat, you said you’d found it in the attic above the library—but there is no attic above the school library! The only logical conclusion was that you’d found a way to cross over.”

Glenn was bewildered by the entire conversation. “Cross over where?”

“This is the attic of Tillinghast Mansion,” Karina explained. “I lived here in 1983. And I guess I still do. My parents were scientists who worked for Crawford Tillinghast.” She looked to Goyle with disgust. “Until they learned the true nature of his research.”

“Your parents were cowards!” Goyle said. “Master gave them an opportunity to change the world!”

Karina shouted back, “My parents wanted to help the human race, not destroy it!”

Goyle shrugged. “Well, it’s water under the bridge. Their souls belong to Master now. So do yours,” he told Robert and Glenn. “You boys won’t be returning to Lovecraft Middle School, and neither will your little polycephalous friend. Give me the backpack.”

Robert removed the bag from his shoulders and flung it across the room, knowing Goyle wouldn’t find more than a few notebooks. The professor carefully searched each of the pockets.

“Now that’s peculiar,” he said. “I’m certain I smell rodent fur.” He walked over to the patchwork curtain, sniffing the surrounding air. “Did your creatures insist on waiting outside? Were they afraid to cross over with you?”

Robert didn’t say anything. He didn’t want Goyle to know that he was exactly right, that he’d left Pip and Squeak at the bottom of the stairs, waiting in plain sight.

“Well, I suppose I should fetch them,” Goyle said. “You boys sit tight. I won’t be long.”

As soon as Goyle passed through the curtain, Robert turned to Karina and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’ll give him two minutes and then we’ll sneak out of here.”

She didn’t move. “It’s no use.”

“What do you mean? We can’t stay here.”

“Seriously,” Glenn said, standing up. “I’m not waiting another second.” He crossed the room, threw back the patchwork curtain, and nearly collided with a brick wall. “Where are the stairs?”

“He took them away. He can make them vanish and reappear,” Karina said. “That’s why you haven’t seen me since Monday night. He’s kept me trapped up here. Now we’re all trapped.”

Robert paced the length of the attic, searching for windows or ceiling hatches or something. He found an old flashlight and aimed its weak beam along the walls. Most of the space was given over to old books and bookshelves. But in one corner he spotted a pile of old blankets, a pillow, and a few small framed photographs. He realized he was looking at a young girl’s bedroom. A very lonely bedroom.

Glenn drummed his fingertips on the table. “Look, Karina, I need you to start at the beginning and walk me through this. If we’re inside Tillinghast Mansion, what happened to Lovecraft Middle School?”

“It’s all around us,” Karina explained. “Or rather, we’re all around it. That was Tillinghast’s plan. To create a parallel dimension where he could rule for eternity.”

“Slow down,” Glenn said. “You’re already confusing me. I thought you died in an explosion.”

Karina shook her head. “When the laboratory exploded, we didn’t really die. We simply left your dimension and moved to a new one.” She scowled. “My parents and I have been trapped here ever since, forced to help Tillinghast raise his army of monsters and demons. In this dimension, his house is never demolished. It’s always 1983.”

Glenn pressed his hands against the side of his head, like he was trying to keep his brain from exploding. “But in my dimension, his house was demolished,” he said. “It was turned into Lovecraft Middle School.”

Karina nodded. “Yeah. That’s the confusing part. Somehow the transformation created holes between the dimensions. I call them gates. Places where you can pass from one world into another. They’re all over the mansion and throughout the school.”

Karina explained that the real Professor Goyle was a kindly old science teacher who had stumbled through a gate by accident. Now Goyle’s soul was a prisoner of the mansion—and his physical body was being used as a disguise by Azaroth, an ancient demon under Tillinghast’s control.

“An ancient demon?” Glenn asked. “Like an actual monster?”

“Exactly. Every time a person accidentally crosses over, their human soul is captured and one of Tillinghast’s monsters goes back in their place. He’s transforming the school one person at a time. And you guys are next in line.”

“What are you saying?” Glenn asked. “Some monster’s going to wear my body like a cheap rubber mask?”

Karina nodded. “Pretty much.”

“And what happens to me?”

“Your soul will stay here. Trapped with Goyle’s and the others for all eternity.”

Robert knew that being trapped for all eternity wasn’t the worst of it. Not by a long shot. The worst part was that, sometime today, a person who looked like him and sounded like him—but was definitely not him—would go to his house, talk to his mother, and sleep in his bedroom. There would be a monster under his own roof and his mother would have no idea.

Glenn pointed to the far end of the room, to the door barricaded with the wooden planks. “What if we rip off those boards?”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, it goes the wrong way. Deeper into the mansion.”

“Right, but you said there are more gates inside the mansion. What if we find one that brings us back to the school?”

“There are … things on the other side of that door. Things you do not want to meet.”

“What kinds of things?”

Karina fell silent. She had just explained a number of very complicated concepts, but somehow the challenge of describing these creatures left her speechless. They were more horrific than words could convey.

“Things that fly?” Glenn asked. “Things that breathe fire?”

“How big are they?” Robert asked. “Six feet tall? Eight feet tall?”

Karina shook her head. She stared down at her hands, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper.

“They’re spiders.”

Robert laughed. “Did you say spiders?”

“It’s not funny.”

“Karina, don’t take this personally, but you’re a ghost. Spiders should be afraid of you!”

“There’s a lot of them, Robert. Tillinghast knows I’ve got arachnophobia, so he keeps a bunch of them waiting behind that door.”

“Then you just need to stand up to them,” Robert told her. “The best way to face your fear is to deal with it head-on. Do you remember giving me that advice?”

“I do,” Karina said, “but it was a lot easier to say it than to mean it.”

The attic was quiet as they contemplated their choices. It was Glenn who finally broke the silence.

“We can wait here for Goyle, or we can stomp on a few creepy-crawlies.” He placed his size-twelve boots on the table. “And I’ve got really big feet.”