Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

down on his knees, and was cowering low, arms cradling his head. On the wall behind, the exultant shadows danced in triumph.
    I shuffled forward. Ahead of me, the brick-lined lip: the shaft of soft grey stones leading into peaceful darkness . . .
    Yes. It was easy, it was obvious. I’d known it all along. After all, this was what the house had promised, when I stood hesitating in the lobby all those hours ago. This was where I’d known it would lead me – step by easy step, past all those flittering Type Ones and the ghost-fog and the evil whispers, past the bloody room and, finally, spiralling down the stairs. This was where it was always going to end. In this place. The place where the silence was, at the heart of the Hall and its haunting, where the silence went on for ever. It was very simple now. Just a couple more strides and the screaming would stop. I’d be part of that silence too.
    I took the first step swiftly; as I began the second, a sudden pain flared at my chest: a sharp, cold spasm. I hesitated, clawing at the cord around my neck. It had come from the locket . . . A burst of energy; I’d felt it even through the silver-glass. That Annie Ward – troublesome to the end! Well, no matter. She could be lost with me.
    The well-shaft waited. It promised me so much. I would hesitate no longer. With nothing but relief, I took the last steps forward and walked out over the edge . . .
    And hung there, leaning out above an abyss of black.
    Something had grasped me; something held me tight. Something hauled me back onto the safety of the stones.
    Lockwood: his face haggard, hair dishevelled, his greatcoat torn and stained. Blood ran down the collar of his shirt. He gripped me tighter round the waist and pulled me to him.
    ‘No,’ he said into my ear. ‘No, Lucy. That’s not the way it’s going to be.’
    With that he let me go, ducked his head, shuffled off his loop of chains and dropped it to the floor. ‘Matches!’ he shouted. ‘Give me your matches. And your chains too!’ He fumbled at his belt. ‘I want the extra iron, and any silver seals you’ve got. Come on, do it! We’re being dumb,’ he cried. ‘The well ’s the Source, of course it is. That’s where the Visitors are.’
    The force of his will broke through the ghost-lock, broke through the sapping power of the relentless scream. I threw off my chains, unclipped the seals. I opened a belt-pouch, took out the box of Sunrise matches, while Lockwood ripped a final canister free of his belt. The big one. The one with the dark red wrapper. The industrial-strength flare with the long, long safety fuse, to give you time enough to get well clear.
    Lockwood brought out his pocket-knife and sliced the fuse away, so that only a tiny nub remained.
    ‘Take it!’ he shouted. ‘Light the end!’
    He was already away from me, dragging our chains towards the well, fighting against the suffocating sound. Around the walls the seven shapes paused in their swooping; they too seemed suddenly alert. Spectral arms pushed through the stone, reached out towards us; alongside them the first cowled heads broke clear.
    I struck a match, put it to the oiled fuse. A spark flared, a tiny filament of light.
    At the well’s lip, Lockwood kicked the chains and seals into the hole. He stumbled back, took the canister from me, shouted in my ears, ‘Run, Lucy! Get to the stairs!’
    But I couldn’t move. I still felt the deathly pull towards the well. My body felt immersed in tar; I didn’t even have the strength to turn.
    The Visitors were free of the walls now; they drifted inwards from all sides. Two of the nearest had almost reached George, still hunched upon the floor. The rest converged on us, bone-white faces insubstantial beneath their rotting hoods. Sockets gaped, sharp teeth glittered. And still the screaming rose.
    Lockwood took the cylinder, stumbled to the edge. The nub of fuse had almost burned away.
    He dropped it in. The fuse-glow lit the well-stones for an instant and was gone.
    Lockwood turned. I saw for an instant his slim pale face, his dark eyes meeting mine.
    Hooded shadows swooped upon us.
    Then the screaming stopped, the shadows froze, and a millisecond later the world exploded in a soundless burst of light.

23

    I woke suddenly, in a state of pain. My eyes snapped open, and for a long-held moment my sisters were there, and Lockwood, and Annabel Ward in her pretty summer dress with its orange flowers. They were all smiling at me; I saw