The Attic World by Peter Howard

Chapter 3

3

HERE, THE WILD THINGS ARE

A monster steals away the breath

Of children hopelessly out their depth

The Walrus fell, reared up once again, and let out a terrifying bellow.

It was big, impossibly big, as tall as three or four double-decker buses and as long as a football pitch. Or so it seemed to Liam, it was impossible, too bewildering, to tell, to gauge this huge rush of grey. Its teeth/tusks, stained yellow and gnarled, must have been at least twenty feet long. Strange, ancient looking markings were crudely and crossly scored into the surface of the mottled tuskteeth, and although not even Kate could begin to make head nor sense of what they were, they looked to her not unlike hieroglyphics, an unknown and unknowable language that perhaps, she thought, even Lyra’s expert Uncle Asriel would have difficulty translating.

Were he real and not just an image fashioned in a children’s tale she’d recently read.

The beast stood as tall as it could and paused for what seemed like an awful eternity, fixing it’s dark inhuman stare at all three children before displaying it’s might with yet another devastating bellow:

‘WuhrrRAAggHHRRWuhRRR,’ it screamed, causing the ground beneath them and even the now dark skies above to shake and tremble in protest. Or was it simply fear?

And then the walrus beast creature lurched towards them.

‘Run!’ implored Eric, ducking down and out the way.

‘Which way?’ cried Liam, trying his best to protect his beloved Mr Ted.

‘I think it’s this way!’ shouted Kate. But try as he did, Liam couldn’t move. His legs were marshmallow and refused to work. The Walrus, as if sensing the smallest of the children was the weakest, made towards him. Eric, realising the awful danger his little brother was in, scrambled back up into The Attic and ran towards Liam, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him towards Kate. Safety in numbers, he reasoned.

This courageous act of defiance only seemed to madden the monster walrus further. He made towards them, picking up a speed that belied its size, and the three children ran as if their lives depended on it. As it now indeed did.

‘Don’t look back!’ screamed Kate, remembering some story she'd heard at school from the Bible and a woman who'd turned to salt, as she scooped Liam and Mr Ted up in her arms and made a grab for Eric’s hand.

‘It’s so fast it’s catching up on us!’ advised Liam, ignoring Kate's sound advice and unable to prevent himself looking nervously over her shoulder, salt or no salt. The wind was strong now, almost a gale, blowing square towards the children making escape even harder, the snow obscuring their vision and seemingly taunting them with its melancholy song. ‘It’s all over,’ it seemed to say, ’There’s no escape, there's no escape, you’re ours, and ours forever!’

‘I said don’t look back!’ repeated Kate, annoyed at Liam's disobedience, although it was becoming increasingly difficult now to even look forward.

They ran up the snow drift they’d only just before come down but the ground was rocking and moving and heaving and belching beneath them in a beat to match the Walrus monster’s gargantuan moves. Liam, unable to resist disobeying Kate’s advice once again stole another furtive glance over his and her shoulder. It was no good, the Walrus, slow in each movement but aided and abetted by its sheer size, was gaining and gaining fast. No way could Kate outrun it, no matter how hard she tried, especially carrying Liam and dragging Eric behind her.