1: The Paranormal Life Of Philip Quint
“Those exams have killed me I tell you!”
“Yeah, sure, because you know what it’s like to feel dead. Now get over it; Mr Sneak still wants to test us.”
“Well he’s certainly living up to his name. Another school project on the day our exams end! I mean, I thought they at least wanted to keep us alive.”
“A project on Egyptian culture won’t kill you. It’s easy. We know loads about Egypt.”
“I don’t.”
“Your problem is you don’t watch enough TV mate.”
“No, your problem is you watch too much.”
Philip Quint just couldn’t understand Tony Mantegna. It was just another fun school project. You’d think the exams were hard.
His internal grumblings were cut short however as he realised that they’d reached the bus stop, and that Tony was about to step onto a vehicle which would take him away until tomorrow.
“Wait,” Philip called, “Do you want to walk to my house for dinner?”
“You live over fifteen miles away!”
“So? My parents are going away for the summer, if you came over we could arrange for us to meet up. It will be harder once they’re gone. It’s not like you’re coming on the science trip to Switzerland.”
Tony sighed, “I’m busy.”
The bus door slammed shut and his friend was driven away. Once the bus was just a dot in the distance Philip began his own way home along the side of the dual carriageway. Cars of all shapes and sizes zoomed pass him in a blur of colour. The din was so great that it prevented any other sound from being heard. Philip could only just hear himself think of his homework. Mr Sneak had said something about either doing Egyptian lifestyle or Egyptian mythology. He wondered if he could do both. He might get more marks. But then again, Mr Sneak might punish him for being a show-off and not doing the task properly. Oh well, the fun was worth the risk.
He had reached the bridge leading cars out of the town, the broad river running beneath it. It was an old, stone bridge, with iron railings on either side. One side was plastered in graffiti. On the dull, grey stone, the glaring, gaudy, vulgar words contrasted to such a degree that they seemed to glow. Your eyes might just water at the sight. He leaned over the side, watching the small, blue-green ripples pass. The sounds of the roaring cars seemed to melt into the background; all he could see was the river. Every so often there was some sign of a fish. Philip began to wonder if the Nile would have looked this pretty back in Ancient Egypt, with the pyramids on the horizon and clear skies above. If he’d lived back then, he would have knelt down on the sand by the Nile and watched the boats go by. The image in his mind’s eye was so peaceful. He could use that in his project: ‘A Day By The Nile, by Philip Quint.’ It had a good ring to it. He decided to write it down when he got home.
*
Philip’s peripheral vision came back into focus. He stood up and got his new bearings in the woods. Philip took one step forwards and tripped over a gnarled tree root. He fell face first into a pile of fallen emerald leaves. The thick canopy let little light through, so the details of his surroundings were quite hard to distinguish. This was the complete opposite of the open sky above the bridge where he’d been just a second before. His legs felt like jelly as he clung to the crumbling bark of a nearby tree. Looking down, he saw something black on his hand. Philip pulled it off, only to recoil, dropping the slug. Rubbing his forehead, he set to work on locating his home. After a minute, he worked out that he was only a mile from his house, and began to follow the path west in the leaf-littered undergrowth. He had to congratulate himself; he’d landed further away in the past.
Once at his front door, he fumbled in his pocket for his keys. When he’d retrieved the tangle from his pocket, Philip opened the door and stepped into the peach-painted porch. He slipped his trainers off, put them onto the shoe rack and headed straight for the flight of stairs.
“Hello dear, how was your day?”
Damn it. He turned to face his mother, who was standing in the living room. She was tall, with chestnut hair which fluttered in the draft from the open window. Her loving, round eyes matched her misty top, and they were focused on him.
“Fine, mum. I’m just going to my room.”
“Okay. Dinner will be at five.”
Once he’d escaped, he ran up the stairs and onto the landing. He slowed down here, knowing he was alone. She was kind-hearted and benign, but maybe too much so. He just liked to be ignored when at home.
Now, what was that idea he’d thought of about the project?
At the end of the corridor he reached his white locked door. This time he didn’t bother with his keys, he didn’t really notice, he was too focused on his project. It had been something about the Nile hadn’t it? Not really thinking, he walked straight through his solid door, not leaving a mark.
His bedroom was relatively big, compared to those of his friends. One wall was taken up by bookcases, another by two desks. His bed took up the third. Philip swung his bag down on his bed and began taking out his many school books. There was a tinkling sound on the floor. He looked down to see his jumble of keys. It was then that he realised he hadn’t unlocked his door. Oh well, he’d been doing it subconsciously for many years now, it hadn’t killed anybody, yet. Philip skimmed through his bookcase for his atlas. He found it on the centre shelf and extracted it from its fellows. Flicking through it, he found Egypt on page 178.
At first he didn’t realise he was hearing it. It was a rustling, coming from the chair by his desk. After two minutes of Philip not noticing, the figure gave up.
“Hello. Skeleton sitting with his feet up on your desk eating one of your chocolate bars, goes straight through me of course, but you have to appreciate that I came all this way. Are you even paying attention to me?!”
Philip looked up to see…what numerous sources of fiction would have him believe was the Grim Reaper sitting up in his chair. Who else would a talking skeleton in a black robe be?
“Yes?” he asked after a moment of stunned silence.
The skeleton looked taken aback, “That’s it? Does this happen to you often? How many other skeletons are you acquainted with? Every other day, does a creature from some God-forsaken dimension materialise in your home? Earth’s changed since…what do you call them…medieval days. People were fun back then. But you’re so boring. You could have at least screamed.”
“Look, do you want something?”
More to himself than to Philip, the skeleton muttered, “I will never understand the human psyche.” Then it hit him, and he turned back to Philip, “Of course...I should have known why you’re not reacting.”
“Yeah, it’s simple. It’s evident that all my exams have sent me mad. I knew I should have been feeling more stress.”
The figure leaned the chair back onto its rear legs; the boy’s acceptance, though planned, was still unnerving, “Well, that’s not the reason I’m thinking of, but I’m sure if you were to see a psychiatrist, they’d be able to find something wrong with you.”
Philip put his book down and stared into the skeleton’s yellow eyes. They didn’t look like the eyes of a hallucination, yet what would he know?
“Let’s just for the moment say that you’re real, why did you bother coming to my house? Am I about to die?”
“No, and I’d rather you didn’t.”
Now Philip was starting to become intrigued; he may be mad, but that didn’t matter. If this was the Grim Reaper, why was he here if not to take him away?
It was as if the figure had read his mind, “I came here to give you two messages. First, concentrate on the task you’ve been given.”
Philip let out the breath he’d been holding in. It was going to be some cryptic clue that he’d have to work out. It was almost a cliché. Maybe Tony was right about him watching too much TV. He was almost disappointed with his brain for conjuring up such an unoriginal concept.
“Second, say ‘no’ at the time.”
“Why should I?”
Once he’d said this, the figure somehow looked a lot more menacing. He hadn’t changed physically, but the atmosphere in the room seemed to have thickened.
“Just do it at the right time. We don’t want you to get hurt. I’ll be in contact, under the name of Gryal.”
This was too much for Philip’s head. He had an Egyptian project to do for Mr Sneak. But before he could further analyse this mental cacophony, he had the sudden urge to not look at the figure in the chair. He couldn’t understand it, but his eyes wouldn’t focus on the man. It seemed to blur, go out of focus...and then it was gone. For a long time Philip stared at the spot where it had been, and at the wall beyond. It wasn’t as if the paint on his wall was interesting, but it was almost as if some invisible force was keeping them there.
“Where are you, dear?”
Either his brain was trying to kill him or this was not his day.
“What, mum?”
He just heard her reply, “It’s just gone five.”
He looked down at his watch and realised that he had been staring at his wall for longer than he had been under that mysterious thrall; she was right. Philip leapt for the door, hand outstretched to unlock it. He was about to close it when he glanced back at his desk. There was no sign of ‘Gryal’, apart from half a chocolate wrapper, and a slightly singed look on the chair.
By the next morning Philip was beginning to think that his visitor had been a dream. Dressed in his school uniform he sat down at the kitchen table and tucked into his breakfast: a bowl of some new kind of cereal. The spoon was nearly at his mouth when his mother sat down beside him.
“Just so you know, your father is taking you to a restaurant tonight.”
Philip replaced his spoon in his bowl. This wasn’t the usual way his mother greeted him in the morning.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“No, I’m busy tonight.”
She was smiling, but her eyes portrayed a different story. They weren’t her normal loving eyes leading to a warm soul, they were deeply worried eyes. There was something she wasn’t telling him.
“What is it?”
She didn’t speak, she just waved her hand as if to brush the question aside. Not too concerned, Philip went back to his breakfast. He had to finish quickly, before it was time for school, and before his mother realised what time it was. Registration started in fifteen minutes.
Ever since Philip had left home, going that short distance away from his home before he could make the rest of the journey to school unseen, he’d been unable to think of anything but the encounter. Had it been The Grim Reaper? The thing’s messages, what had they meant? At what time was he meant to say ‘no’? And his mother’s actions, did she know something? No, it was probably a coincidence.
He stopped sharply. There was a piece of paper with his name on it that had suddenly appeared lying in the road. Looking out for cars, he ran out into the road and snatched up the paper. Once he was back on the verge, he unfolded the note.
The time is soon, but don’t miss it. And don’t fill your mind with thoughts of your mother. Concentrate on the tasks ahead of you, nothing else. I have told you the consequences. Stray too far and you will lose something you shall dearly miss and regret your actions.
Gryal
Out of anger more than anything, Philip tore the note apart and threw the fragments of paper back into the road, then realised that he had rejected a figment of his imagination. Yep, he was mad.
The spacious hall echoed the headmaster’s speech in Philip’s ears over and over again. He had never realised how long Mr Sneak could drone on for in an assembly before now. The head was making a speech about how well they’d done in their exams and about the importance of the Egypt project. He’d made it sound oh-so-appealing just yesterday...
“Now that your exams are over, we do not want to become one of those schools where the students forget everything as they feel they don’t need to know it any more. That is why, though you may not like it, we are giving you the Egypt project. Over the last few weeks before the holidays we still want you to keep your brains active.”
All this soared over Philip’s head. What he did focus on however was that the headmaster couldn’t seem to look any of them in the eye. His eyes were furtive, looking either side of them, and then darting around the hall, but never at the students. He wondered why that was. It seemed that everyone knew something worrying that they would not confide in him. Their excuse of course would be that there was nothing or that he wasn’t ‘mature’ enough.
“Come on!” called Tony.
Philip saw Tony’s green eyes boring into his. He could no longer hear Mr Sneak’s voice reverberating around the art-covered walls. Then it hit him that the assembly had ended. They were two of the last few people in the school hall. As he usually did in such a situation, Philip strode out like nothing had happened. Tony groaned; he knew Philip had some arrogant tendencies, and used to be able to put up with them, but they were definitely getting worse. He could see Philip was already down at the common room without giving him a backwards glance.
His hair was ruffled as what felt like a wall of cold air rushed past his head. Thin fingers flexed around Tony’s shoulder. He turned to the misty intruder. His heart skipped a beat and the blood drained from his face.
“No offence, but it’s extremely important,” it snarled.
“My allegiance is not with you, it never has been.”
It laughed.
“I know.”
Tony tried to rip himself from its grasp, but the smoke just tightened around him.