Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World Read online

  BENJAMIN FORREST AND THE SCHOOL AT THE END OF THE WORLD

  ENDINFINIUM #1

  CHRIS WARD

  CONTENTS

  About the Author

  Also by Chris Ward

  Contact

  I. At the End of Everything

  1. Greeting

  2. Scatlocks

  3. The Bridge

  4. The Great Hall

  5. Admissions

  6. The Rubbish Creature

  7. Captain Roche

  8. Lunch

  9. Wilhelm

  10. The Dormitories

  11. The Housemaster

  12. Dinner

  13. The Sin Keeper

  14. Punishment

  15. Threats

  16. Setup

  17. Trap

  18. The Teachers’ Apartments

  19. Memories

  II. The Road into Dark Places

  20. Edgar

  21. Message

  22. Time slips

  23. Rising Army

  24. Sanctions

  25. Davey’s Absence

  26. Between the Walls

  27. Rescue Plans

  28. Transportation

  29. Hunters

  30. Lawrence

  31. The Baggers

  32. Capsules

  33. Edgar’s Stand

  III. The Battle for the End of the World

  34. Miranda’s Secret

  35. The Wave

  36. Fallenwood

  37. Viewing Platform

  38. The Lighthouse

  39. Mutiny

  40. Dressing Down

  41. The Cavern

  42. Plans

  43. Stolen boat

  44. Memories

  45. Parting

  46. Escape

  47. Showdown

  48. Rout

  49. Meeting

  50. Friends

  Available for pre-order now

  Contact

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A proud and noble Cornishman (and to a lesser extent British), Chris Ward ran off to live and work in Japan back in 2004. There he got married, got a decent job, and got a cat. He remains pure to his Cornish/British roots while enjoying the inspiration of living in a foreign country.

  www.amillionmilesfromanywhere.net

  ALSO BY CHRIS WARD

  Novels

  Head of Words

  The Man Who Built the World

  Fire Fight

  The Endinfinium series

  Benjamin Forrest and the School at the End of the World

  Benjamin Forrest and the Bay of Paper Dragons

  (forthcoming)

  The Tube Riders series

  Underground

  Exile

  Revenge

  In the Shadow of London

  The Tales of Crow series

  The Eyes in the Dark

  The Castle of Nightmares

  The Puppeteer King

  The Circus of Machinations

  Thank you for your interest in my work.

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  You can also chat to me on Facebook at

  Chris Ward (Fiction Writer)

  and follow progress on new books on my website at

  www.amillionmilesfromanywhere.net

  Thank you for reading!

  For Luna

  my moon and my sun

  and my world

  There is no such thing as magic.

  There is only natural order, and unnatural order.

  And unnatural order should not be influenced, in any place or time.

  For any reason.

  By anyone.

  Partial text of the Oath of Admission,

  Endinfinium High School,

  Author Unknown

  There are only two concepts of which a pupil need be aware: creation and destruction.

  Nothing else matters.

  ~Anon.

  PART I

  AT THE END OF EVERYTHING

  1

  GREETING

  A couple of miles from the shore, the sea, a ruffled blanket of blue, grey, and white, appeared to fall over the edge of the world.

  Benjamin Forrest sat up and, blinking as though waking from a long sleep, ran a hand through his hair to remove some of the sand. His hair felt longer than he remembered. Unkempt and tangled. His fingers smelled of grease and sea salt.

  He was sitting in a bowl of shingle just back from the foreshore. Smooth, grey stones mixed with colourful beads of plastic. Some felt warm to the touch. He didn’t remember being dumped here like a piece of driftwood, but that’s how it appeared. He still wore his favourite blue T-shirt and the black jeans his mum had bought from Tesco’s last February, but they were dirty and ripped and smelled of salt water. A piece of green ticker tape had caught on a thread of denim just below his knee. The laces on his black school shoes had come undone, and even though he felt dry, they were scuffed and stained as though he had spent the morning being tossed around in the shore-break like an old rag doll.

  Above him, pale orange clouds floated past, bunching together as they moved toward the horizon. Then, as they crossed an invisible threshold, they elongated suddenly and slid below the line of the sea like streaks of colour from a chalk painting washing away in the rain.

  Was this all a dream? Perhaps the sea didn’t just fall away into nothing. Perhaps any time now he would wake up in his own bed in his parents’ semi-detached estate house in Basingstoke, southwest England, and he would get up to look out the window at the beige council houses on Victoria Road, and not have to worry about whatever was digging its way up out of the shingle by his feet—

  ‘Hey you! Be careful! They’re hungry! It’s breeding season, don’t you know!’

  He didn’t have time to look for the speaker. The thing climbing up out of the stones was turning toward him, groaning with hunger. It looked like a car crossbred with a turtle, all shiny black chrome and spinning things like wheels with claws. The car’s bonnet opened and closed in rapid snaps, metal spikes resembling teeth shining in the afternoon sun.

  Something closed over his shoulder. He gave a yelp of surprise, but it was only fingers, someone’s fingers, strong and insistent.

  ‘Move! Now! Move—’

  The sharp voice didn’t have to repeat itself. Benjamin was already moving, heels kicking at the loose shingle, reverse-cycling away from the metallic monstrosity that seemed rather hungrier than any car should be.

  ‘Don’t forget your bag!’

  The absurdity of the statement registered no more than the reality of his old school bag with the faded picture of Spiderman on its side, lying there on the shingle, its strap perilously close to the chomping maw of the turtle-car. Benjamin stared at it as stones shifted and it tipped toward the monster’s mouth, disgorging a fan of dog-eared textbooks. Too late for his math book; it slid into the turtle-car’s mouth, becoming a mess of shredded paper in a single snap. His science books were next, but there, on the top, sat his pride and joy: the story notebook he scribbled in while sitting alone at lunchtime.

  ‘No!’

  He dived forward, hands closing over the remnants of his schoolwork. He tossed a boring French textbook into the creature’s mouth to distract it, then retreated with another backpedalling scrabble of feet as the turtle-car lurched, its hood-maw pointing skyward, emitting an engine misfire t
hat must have passed in this bizarre place as a belch. With a rattle of shifting shingle, it disappeared back into the earth, leaving only a small depression of wet stones to show where it had been.

  ‘Wow! He was hungry! What was that you gave him to eat?’

  Benjamin turned, heart still beating like the bubbles rattling out of the pump of his old goldfish tank back in his little Basingstoke bedroom. The girl, hair as red as an evening summer sky, eyes as blue as the dawn, watched him with a wide smile.

  ‘A Tricolore,’ he said. ‘It was the French textbook or me.’

  ‘It was almost you. Don’t worry,’—the girl shrugged—‘you wouldn’t have been the first. Don’t think you’re special, you know.’

  Benjamin stared at the depression in the sand, trying to ignore a niggling that the school would make him pay for the textbooks the creature had eaten. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said. Looking up at the girl, he added, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Is that any way to greet someone? I’m Miranda. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Um, I guess so. We don’t get to pick our own names for people, do we?’

  ‘I picked mine, but not all of us, no.’

  She turned and started walking off before Benjamin could think of a suitable response. He’d never found it easy to talk to girls, and Miranda already seemed stranger than any of his classmates. He glanced back at the beach, frowning at the piles of washed-up junk along the shoreline. Some of it appeared to be shifting, as though other great beasts hid underneath, and he shivered at the thought. When he looked back at Miranda, she was already some distance ahead, arms straight against her sides, legs stiffly lifting up and down as if she couldn’t decide whether she were a marionette or a soldier. Benjamin hurried after her.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Back to the school.’

  ‘What school?’

  ‘Our school.’

  She stopped so abruptly he bumped into her. His foot turned on a loose rock and he sat down heavily on the shingle. Something sharp poked into his back. He pulled out a dirty mantel clock from underneath him and tossed it away. As it bounced on the rocks, it made what sounded like a cry of discomfort.

  Miranda folded her arms and glared down at him. ‘What are you messing about down there for? I’m late for an appointment.’

  He smiled. ‘You’re like a robot.’

  Miranda frowned and, clearly not taking his comment as a joke, aimed a kick at his leg, but he managed to slip backward out of the way. ‘What a thing to say to a girl. I am most certainly not. You, Benjamin Forrest, need to learn some manners.’

  ‘How did you—’

  A finger rushed across her lips as she made a zipping sound. ‘Stop talking. I know your name because I was down on the beach waiting for you. Grand Lord Bastien said you would be arriving some time soon, and that it was best to keep a lookout. I’ve been coming down here every day for the last month. I’ve never been so fit.’

  ‘The Grand Lord?’

  ‘Sometimes he knows, sometimes he doesn’t. Dreams, he said. I was told you would likely show up on this beach, and it’s my job as a first-year prefect to ensure you are delivered to the school safely. It’s such a waste of ceremony when a newcomer gets munched by a turtle and ends up turned into a cleaner or a nasty ghoul in the Haunted Forest before they’ve even met anyone—wouldn’t you say so?’

  Benjamin lifted a tentative hand as though back in “Dagger” Dangerfield’s biology class and afraid those beaming blue eyes would laser-beam off the top of his head.

  ‘Um, excuse me….’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One little question, if that’s okay…?’

  ‘Hurry up.’

  ‘Where exactly am I?’

  Miranda turned with a rapid sweeping gesture of her hands. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I just had things on my mind.’ She waved around her. ‘This place is called Endinfinium. It’s a bit odd, but you’ll get used to it. From today onward, you are a pupil of Endinfinium High School. Most of us don’t call it that, though.’

  ‘Oh? What do you call it?’

  Miranda smiled and, spinning on her heels, held her arms out. Benjamin worried that she might burst into song.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she said. ‘Most of us know it as the School at the End of the World.’

  2

  SCATLOCKS

  ‘It wouldn’t do to stray too far,’ Miranda said, as Benjamin followed her up a steep path rising into the cliffs that backed against the beach. ‘At least not until you’re familiar with what’s dangerous and what isn’t.’

  Benjamin shot fearful glances into the bushes to either side of them as they walked. All sorts of strange creatures moved about in there—cat-like things; big, lumbering things; small things that jumped from branch to branch and moved with the creak of metal—and every single one seemed to be looking in their direction.

  ‘Is anything else hungry?’ he muttered.

  ‘Oh, everything,’ Miranda said. ‘You’ll get used to it. Most things are more of a nuisance than an actual danger, though.’

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Look, I need to drill you on a couple of things. You’ve appeared on the awkward side of the school. To avoid a very long walk inland that we don’t have time for before dinner, you’ll have to get past the old gatekeeper before you can be shown to your room and get on with formalities. Gatekeeper has been a bit of a grouch since the new entrance was finished, though; if he smiles, it’s probably a bad thing, so just put up with his snarls and complaints and answer his questions.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. I’ll meet you on the other side.’ At the top of the path, she turned to head back down.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I have to meet a friend,’ she said. Then, for the first time, uncertainty replaced her brusque exterior. ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Thanks. See you in a bit.’

  With that, she was gone as quickly as she had appeared, jogging back down the path as though the strenuous climb up had been nothing. Benjamin looked around him, feeling nervous. The bushes—oddly coloured, spiny things with strange flowers that reflected the sunlight like shards of glass—seemed to watch him, and without Miranda there for guidance, he felt like a side of sliced beef put out for a buffet.

  With a crunch and an electric hiss, something white and square bounced out onto the path behind him, and Benjamin jumped around in alarm. The thing looked like a refrigerator with stumpy, elephantine legs. It turned in his direction, and a fat mouth opened, then snapped shut. Benjamin hurried away from it, and when he glanced back, it had disappeared into the bushes.

  A short distance ahead, the path dipped into the lee of a towering buttress of brown rock. Benjamin stepped out of the bushes into a courtyard of cropped couch grass. Overhead, the bluff face reared high enough to leave the courtyard draped in shadows. Set into the foot of the cliff was a large pair of wooden doors too ill-fitting for the space. Away to the left, a battered old tractor lay on its side on the grass, its white bonnet and red chassis shining in the courtyard’s only patch of sunlight.

  Benjamin looked around for the gatekeeper Miranda had mentioned, but there was no one about. He went over and knocked on the door. The wood reverberated with a hollow tingle, booming as an echo from inside.

  No one answered.

  Tired from the walk, Benjamin sat down beside the tractor, leaning his back against tires warmed by the sun. With nothing else to do, he opened up his school bag and pulled out his remaining textbooks. His physics book was on top, complete with unfinished homework, while underneath lay his English book, followed by his home economics book. At the bottom was the little notebook with the green cover and the curled corners in which he wrote his stories. He opened it to the first page and read, “Welcome to the School at the End of the World.”


  ‘Huh? I didn’t write that….’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you did.’

  Benjamin jumped up at the gruff old voice. At the exact same time, the tire beneath him had shifted, and now the tractor was moving, turning over, bending and distorting as if made of flexible plastic.

  In a few moments, something rusty and contorted stood in front of him, its hood end bent over to allow a red radiator grill and small circular lights to become a mouth and eyes. The lights blinked at him, and the radiator emitted gusts of warm air like breaths. Small front wheels flapped like ears, while the large rear treads shifted back and forth to keep the creature’s balance. Gears and levers poking out of the sides gestured like arms.

  ‘What’s so odd? Never seen a David Brown 760 before? Classic model—1967, discontinued in ’71. Collectors’ favourite. Me, though, I had the personal misfortune to not belong to such an elite. Broke down in a waterlogged field, left there to rust. If you asked me to put a date on it, I’d say ’85. May or June? Field got cleared out for a new housing estate, and lucky old me was compactor bound.’ The tractor’s head shifted sideways. ‘In case you were wondering.’

  ‘Oh. It’s a sad story.’

  ‘With a happy ending. Of sorts. For a while, at least.’