Creeping Terror Read Free

actually know. The new kids just get an overview. Then they’re off, back to their real schools. But meand Rupam and Gemma and Maria – we’re in this so deep …’
    They walked on in silence for several moments. Then Sam said, ‘That girl Jenny’s a bit weird. She dreams she’s her own great-great-grandmother living in Barnsley.’
    Ben laughed. ‘You’re dead – you can talk!’
    It had been a shock, of course. When Ben first realised that no one else could see his older sister, that she had died, he’d been devastated. But to him Sam seemed every bit as real and alive as ever. She couldn’t remember anything about what had happened to her – the ceremony performed by the devilish Carstairs Endeavour to raise a powerful demon … Her death .
    Sam wasn’t with Ben all the time. It seemed to be an effort for her. She came when she could, stayed as long as possible. She never talked about where she went when she was not with him. Maybe she was nowhere, or maybe their time together seemed constant and continuous to Sam, or maybe she was – quite literally – in Hell.
    In his quest to learn the truth about what had happened to his sister, Ben had ended up here, at Gibbet Manor, in the middle of Dartmoor. The School of Night, it was called – nicknamed afterits founder, Dirk Knight. The children who came here were gifted with the ability to see ghosts and demons, to sense the extraordinary. As far as Knight knew, Ben was one of those children.
    But the truth was very different. The only ghost Ben could see without the help of the special mobile phone that all the children had was Sam. He’d bluffed his way into the school. Now he was bluffing in order to stay.
    Even so, he was beginning to sense things. There was a sort of stirring somewhere deep inside him, as if he was starting to feel the approach of the supernatural. Not that he’d ever be as gifted as Gemma, one of the few other permanent pupils here. He’d never see as much as Sam had done when she was alive … He felt more like Maria – just eighteen and already losing her abilities as she grew into an adult and left the innocent, open-minded state of childhood behind.
    Then there was Rupam. He was Ben’s best friend, but Ben couldn’t pretend he understood the boy. Sometimes Rupam saw the ghosts and spirits, and he knew all there was to know about Indian and Asian creatures and demons. But most impressive was his memory. He had only to hear or read something once and he’d remember it forever.Show him a photograph for just a minute and weeks later he could describe it in exact detail.
    Even the latest intake of new pupils had more ability and talent than Ben. They were already nearing the end of their residential course and would soon be sent home to parents who thought they’d been on an Outward Bound course, camping and enjoying outdoor activities on Dartmoor, with no idea what they’d really been learning about.
    Ben hadn’t been at the School of Night that long himself. He was used to being moved from foster family to foster family, orphanage to institution – had been for as long as he could recall. He didn’t remember either of his parents. But up until now he’d always had his sister with him, looking after him.
    It was strange. Ben had never felt more at home than he did at the School of Night. But he had never felt more alone and out of place either.
    Just that morning, one of the boys – tall and thin, with dark hair and glasses – had made some sarky comment to Ben about how he knew it all. Ben was painfully aware that he didn’t. And he feared that even the new students would soon see he was a fake, that he had no right to be here.
    In a school where everyone else could see through the fabric of reality and into the realm ofthe supernatural, being able to chat to the ghost of your dead sister seemed unimpressive and ordinary.
    *
    A raised, paved terrace ran down the side of the house. Stone steps led up to it, but Ben and Sam