Jaz Jordan and the Dungeon of Bones

By Thorn Steafel

There is something evil inside the school called Chimney House.

It has slumbered for 150 years, dismissed as a rumour by teachers...but the kids have heard scratching sounds late at night, from behind the panels of the Games Room.

During the long summer holidays, a bored girl and a runaway boy break into the vacated school.

Awakening the evil.

And trapping themselves in a maze of shuttered corridors.

A maze forcing them downwards, to a cellar and its grisly occupant...

BOOK 1 OF THE HUMAN XPERIMENTS SERIES

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thorn Steafel
• Release date: Jun 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310656200

Thorn Steafel

Thorn Steafel works as a librarian by day, a fortune teller by night, and at the weekend builds mazes and labyrinths for people to walk in their gardens (but only if they have asked him to, of course).It doesn't leave a lot of time but he manages to hook up with Jaz regularly to turn her adventures into the Human Xperiments series.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

It was time for the old woman to find a new body, for this one was old. Its joints hurt as it shuffled through the fairground crowd; into flashing lights and hot-dog smells, hearing screams from above the tree-tops...

It was August and the Lammas Fair had turned St Andrews into a riot of noise and colour. The streets were filled with stalls and white-knuckle rides and excitement shook the ground. The old woman watched the youngsters being strapped into fearsome machines - giant robots that screamed 'ARE YOU READY! ' and span them into the sky - and blinked her watery eyes. How Lammas had changed, since her day!

'Now,' she muttered. Which ride? They all looked so powerful, flashing with their lights and pulsing noise...but she needed a certain shape.

'You,' said the woman, to MegaBeast III. She queued with the youngsters for a place, and when the time came struggled into a plastic seat, uncertain how the harness worked.

The attendant did a double-take as he helped her. 'You sure, Grandma?' he said, jingling change in his apron. 'There is an age limit.'

The old woman ignored the stares (the circle of seats faced inwards, on this ride), and asked him, 'How high, sonny?'

He jerked a thumb upwards. 'Higher than those tree-tops.'

'Oh, good,' the woman said, as if he'd told her the soup today was lentil, and closed his hand around a very generous note. 'You keep the change, now.'

The attendant pulled the harness down so it clanged. 'Wish my granny was cool like you.'

The old woman found his words funny. 'I'll not be cool for long.'

It seemed an odd thing to say, but the attendant waved to the control cab.

The floor dropped away, the music cranked up, and MegaBeast III began to do its thing.

* * *

The spin accelerated with alarming power, pressing their heads back into foam. The old woman's rain hood blew from her face.

'ARE YOU READY!' cried a voice, electronically Americanized into all-purpose carnie accents. Everything blurred outside the circle of seats as MegaBeast III slid upwards on its two monster legs. The street, and trees, and crowd, became strings of light.

'ARE YOU READY!' repeated the cry.

Am I ready? the old woman asked herself. I was not ready this morning. And have not been ready much of this year. But I am ready now, aye. She tightened her grip on the harness.

Ready to die.

The ring of bodies began spinning around itself. Up became down. The very stars bent to meet her. Nothing existed beyond this tremendous machine, whirling through the night sky!

And still, it wasn't high enough.

The old woman had left it so late. The nightmare of forgetfulness had swallowed her like quicksand - for years at a time. It was a rare curse, to have a rotting mind. Tonight, though, she popped out into a rare bubble of lucidity, and on the calendar saw the word 'Lammas'. Circled in red, the last time she was sound.

Her last chance. She had stolen from the nursing home through a fire-door. She had shuffled to the Lammas. She had found the best ride.

But still it needed more height.

'LET'S SEE THOSE ARMS IN THE AIR, YEAH!'

The night began to melt.

'LEMME HEAR YOU SCREAM!'

The ride formed a sphere of streaking light. They were really screaming now, on MegaBeast III, but not from pleasure. The spots on their bare arms were not rain.

This rain burned, and the onlookers below were burned too, by droplets of molten plastic. It looked to those on the street that MegaBeast's whirling ring flapped with fire. On the ride, they would tell the police later that it started in the woman's chest. White fire erupting outwards. A comet of unholy fire.

MegaBeast span on. In its control box the young lad (chatting into his phone with a very unAmerican voice), thought they screamed to go faster, and flicked a button. He released dry-ice that drifted upwards, making MegaBeast a pulsing haze; a UFO caught between the houses.

The woman's burning corpse traced a crackling sphere. Cut off, the riders span for three long minutes before the ride could be killed. Such speed takes time to temper; even with brakes it seemed an age before the ride lowered, slowed, and stopped at ground level once again.

When the dry ice cleared a black gap marred the circle of seats; as if a tooth had been ripped from a jaw. Of the old woman nothing could be seen. A foot would be located an hour later, where it had thudded onto the fortune-teller's caravan.

The rest was ash and had blown away. But she was not gone. Only waiting.

Waiting, for the next host.

ONE

The next day was sunny, and chasing their crisp shadows through St Andrews were two thieves - a man in a felt hat, and a girl of twelve in red specs.

'They still after us, Jaz?' he asked.

'No,' the girl said. She didn't need to look around to see.

They scurried along the cobbles of Market Street, past a cross-pattern in the stones that meant nothing to them. Centuries before it had been the site of the gallows, where thieves and witches were executed; but this thief and his witchy daughter lived in more enlightened times, and stepped over to the cafe beyond.

It was quiet inside the cafe. Jimmy chose a booth giving a view of who might enter the place - but needn't have worried. They'd lost their pursuers. The place was empty, but for them and a bored waitress texting.

Jimmy ordered strong coffees and big breakfasts. He sounded very London. Once the waitress had gone, he turned to Jaz. 'We can pay for this, yeah?'

Jaz unzipped her backpack. Under a blonde wig (her spare), and make-up that made her look far older than twelve, were jiffy bags containing (Jaz reckoned) about £20,000.

Not bad for a night's work.

But most of it was in casino chips - and to cash them, she and Jimmy would have to return to the hotel.

Which they'd left pretty abruptly, without paying for the room.

And which was the next place where the gang of crooks would look for them.

Further down Jaz found money money and pulled out a red note. 'They're fifties,' she said. 'They won't cash a fifty in a dump like this.'

'Course they will,' Jimmy said. 'All the golf tournaments up here? This town is loaded, Jaz. They see fifties all the time. I bet Wilma Waitress over there has 'em as hankies.'

Jaz managed to find a £20 note, as the waitress returned with their coffees. 'But what about the chips?' Jaz asked her dad.

'You didn't order chips,' the waitress said.

'I wasn't talking to you,' Jaz said, and once the waitress was gone, she opened the jiffy bags for her dad. 'These chips. Take these back to the hotel, and there'll be ketchup on 'em.'

Jaz shuddered. She couldn't help remembering the final minutes of last night's endless game into the wee hours. The deciding hand they had played. The harsh words of the losers. The threats that had been made. The Emergency Exits that had been opened, and fled through. Yet to look at Dad now you wouldn't think it had happened; he was the model of calm.

Jimmy blew on his coffee. 'Don't sweat it. We'll figure something out.'

Jaz couldn't believe her ears. 'They just chased us through the town! It was too close, last night. When you aced that tattooed guy he wanted to break your legs.'

Jaz had lost her appetite. 'They wanted to take you down,' she told Jimmy. 'The men and that woman. It was horrible. That's the trouble, you don't see this stuff. I do.'

The tattooed man had been bad enough, glowering all night at Jaz like a multi-coloured walrus. But their boss, the guy in the suit! He was Hannibal Lecter with a beard. Jaz shook the images from her head. 'I just want to get away from here.'

Jimmy was on his smartphone. 'I thought you'd like St Andrews,' he murmured. 'It's got beaches. A castle. You like old things.'

'Old things like me,' Jaz said. 'I'm not so sure I like them.' A suspicion was forming. 'You're not suggesting we stick around?'

Jimmy didn't look up. 'Course not. -Well,' he said. 'I mean. Why not have a nice holiday now we're here? We've got the dosh-'

'And crooks wanting to break our necks...'

'Okay, not St Andrews,' Jimmy said. 'Inland.'

'No,' Jaz told him.

She loved her dad but he was nuts, and it was tiresome living with a nutter and no Mum in the picture. Moving one place to another.

Though...a holiday might be nice? Holing up for a while?

Jaz shook her head. Her whole life was holidays! 'They'll find us.'

'Hardly.' Jimmy drained his coffee. 'Ain't looking for us, are they?'

He stroked his upper lip and when his hand fell away, the moustache had disappeared into a shirt pocket. He ran hands through his hair and left it two shades lighter. Without drawing attention he had become a different person.

And the transformations weren't limited to James Jordan. Shortly, in the cafe bathroom, Jaz would remove the itchy wig so her own red curtain fell...and wipe off make-up and six years from her face...

But breakfast lost its flavour when you were eighteen at the first bite, and twelve by the coffee. This seat-of-the-pants living was wearing thin. Can't we just be normal for once? Jaz wondered.

Jimmy slid his phone over. It showed a white cottage and a holly hedge, before a pine forest. It looked lovely. The text, from suck-up B&B organisations, affirmed just how lovely it was.

'Holly Cottage,' Jimmy read, when she didn't pick the phone up. 'Relax in our four-star luxury converted gamekeeper's cottage, enjoying stunning views of forests and lakes-'

'And tattooed knuckles,' Jaz interrupted. 'God! Just tell me those thugs won't find us.'

'It's hours from here,' Jimmy said. 'I promise you - they won't have a whiff of our trail.'

TWO

'What is that pong?' asked the woman in the Mercedes, holding her nose. 'It is mingin'.'

The car was cruising around a Lammas-free St Andrews. The Fair had vanished, in entirety, overnight. This was its final trick each year and it never failed to catch everyone out. Through the early hours the carnies laboured until no trace of the rides remained; even the litter was gone. The streets became boring, full of cars instead of rides...and in a parked purple Mercedes (custom plates P4IN N0W), sat four men and a woman, looking for Jaz and Jimmy.

'Smells like burned human flesh,' said the driver of the car, Mendes Maltravers. He rubbed his beard. 'Not a smell you forget,' he mused. 'It's from that ride over there.'

Correction - Lammas was almost gone. One ride remained, abandoned by the fairground herd. MegaBeast III sat in shame, ringed with yellow DO NOT CROSS police tape.

Mendes glanced at it and away. 'So where did they go?' he snapped. 'Come on people, my mouse-mat is bigger than this town. How did you let that Londoner and his little stooge out of my sight?'

The three men crowded into the back seat stiffened, hearing anger in his voice. But Madeleine ignored him, rolling down her window and turning her astonishing eyes - known to cause traffic accidents - onto the mangled ride.

Part of MegaBeast's ring had warped downwards. A seat was missing. The lightbulbs had shattered and the metal was streaked with smoke. The spray-painted backdrop (bikinied girls, muscled guys) had bubbled into cinder zombie faces.

Before the zombies, a policeman in a cherry-picker examined trees for evidence, pulling branches down.

'I would've loved to see that ride catch fire,' Maddie said.

'Yeah,' agreed Harelip from the back seat. 'Why couldn't we have gone to the fair?'

'Shut up,' Mendes said, as a woman from the crowd came forwards and tied flowers to the police barricade. 'How pathetic,' he sneered. 'As if Death will be placated by supermarket carnations.'

Madeleine opened her door and stepped out. 'I'm going to have a wee nosey.'

Mendes pointed at her seat. 'Excuse me. We're looking for the guy and the kid.'

Maddie eyed the pointing finger, and ignored him. She strolled off. She could do that.

Pictures picked his colourful nose. 'Must've been some accident,' he said. 'Look where the trees are scorched.'

'The man?' Mendes said, in a bored voice, 'the girl? Anybody?'

'They could be anywhere,' Pictures said, waving a tattooed hand. 'How do we know they're not at the hotel now? Checking out?'

'Won't go back to the hotel if they've any sense,' Harelip said. 'Got money now to buy everything new.'

'They have to cash their chips,' Pictures told him. 'You can only cash 'em at the place you won 'em.'

Harelip snorted. 'Listen to Einstein here. Like he's won more than an arm wrestle.'

Pictures grabbed Harelip's tie. 'Shall I fix your teeth to match your mouth?'

Mendes sighed, and twisted round to yell. 'Not in the car! I'm sick of trying to get blood out of these seats.'

The passenger door opened and Maddie slid back in. 'Someone died on the ride,' she confided.

The chubby man on the backseat, Chins (who had three of them), thumped the window. 'Man! We never have any of the fun. Why couldn't we have gone to the fair?'

Madeline was gabbling. 'Apparently they caught fire. The police wouldn't tell me anything but I got talking to this reporter. She said she was going to use the Spontaneous Human Combustion angle.'

'What's that?' Pictures wanted to know.

Madeleine's eyes glittered. 'It's when someone burns up for no reason, from an uncertain heat source. Usually leaving a foot in a slipper, and the surroundings around them untouched. Want to see some pics?' she asked, pulling out her phone.

'Intense,' Pictures said.

'We should make our jobs look like that,' said Chins.

'You'd have to cover 'em in petrol,' Harelip mused.

'But dip one foot in water,' Chins reminded him.

Mendes had driven them some distance towards the Old Course, when he stopped at lights, and suddenly slapped the dashboard.

'THERE THEY ARE!'

A girl and a man were hurrying by.

'But she's got red hair, boss,' Pictures said.

'Look at the eyes, man! The specs. Who wears red specs?'

Mendes thrust the car into gear.

'Hurt Mode, people,' he said. 'Now.'

THREE

Whilst transforming in the cafe bathroom, Jaz had counted the money in the jiffy bags.

They had £8,900 in notes and £17,500 in casino chips.

That was over £25,000!

She had packed it in her bag very