CHAPTER 12
Sending The Ghosts
Zac came awake with a start.
The Coke bottle slipped out of his hand and fell to the ground.
The television was now showing The Minions.
“Oops!” Zac said and quickly picked up the bottle because Coke was spilling out.
He set it on top of the fridge and was going back to the bed to sleep when he heard the sound of a truck.
Zac scowled and walked quickly to the door, remembering suddenly that it was locked and bolted from the outside.
He knew the sound of those trucks very well; once he and Bobo had sneaked out of the dormitory and crept up to the administration block to see Mistress Ohenewaa and the shady people who loaded provisions meant for the children into trucks and took them away. They had informed Uncle Pat but there was nothing he could do, he had stated.
Zac knew Mistress Ohenewaa and the other Companions sold orphanage rations to the retailers, always leaving a shortage of provisions at the orphanage and making the children go hungry.
“Oh, I see now,” Zac said to himself, shaking his head sadly. “This is why Mistress Ohenewaa wanted to lock me up so badly. They’ve come to take the food Uncle Micky brought.”
Zac moved toward one of the blank walls and waved a hand.
“I wish to see,” he whispered.
Another locket on the chain glowed, and suddenly the whole wall lit up, like some giant screen, and Zac was looking at the scene that was going on in front of the administration block.
Mistress Ohenewaa and two men were standing to one side. Two trucks were parked at the back of the administration block, where the new store room was. Some men were loading items from the storeroom into the two trucks.
Zac saw the two men with Mistress Ohenewaa each handing her a fat envelope, obviously filled with money.
Mistress Ohenewaa suddenly turned her head, and for a moment she seemed to look straight at Zac, and it was so real and so near that Zac took a startled step back with a little cry of fear. It took a moment for him to realize that she could not see him, and he gave a very shaky laugh.
He could see Mistress Ohenewaa now dropping the envelopes she had been given into her handbag hanging from her right shoulder. She shook hands with one of the men and laughed at something the other man said.
Zac saw that the men were in very sharp contrast to each other. One was tall and lean, whilst the other was short and obese. They were both wearing very black clothes and long overcoats.
“Well!” Zac said softly. “We can’t have this, can we? This should stop, shouldn’t it? But what can I do to stop you? What should I do?”
He racked his brain for something to do.
He knew the time was limited. Soon the two trucks would be filled and they would leave as usual. He turned his head, and saw that there was an advert on the television now; an advert about some upcoming movie attraction about ghosts. He saw the cartoonish ghosts which looked like sheets of white cotton with holes in them.
Suddenly Zac began to giggle as an idea hit him.
Even as he was once again overcome by gales of laughter, he spoke.
“I wish for ghosts!” he said, almost choking on his laughter. “Dozens of mean ghosts with sharp teeth!”
He was still laughing when he heard a buzzing sound behind him, a droning like millions of bees, and he opened his eyes and turned … and screamed.
They were lined up on the bed, a group of ghosts absolutely unlike the ones in the adverts he had seen on the television.
These were no white-cotton ghosts. These were red ghosts, with fangs for teeth, and eyes that blazed like the fiery flames. They droned, writhed, and made terrible clashing sounds with their teeth, and their hands were bony shears that looked like double-edged knives.
They really scared Zac, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do.
The red ghosts fixed him with their flame-like eyes and knife-like fingers as they growled angrily at him, and for a moment it seemed as if they wanted to attack him. There were a lot of them, about twenty, and they were greatly agitated.
“Go!” Zac said, the laughter dying from his throat, his fear now paramount. “Go and stop the thieves and don’t come back here again.”
The red ghosts made sounds like barking dogs, roaring lions, hissing snakes and wailing werewolves all at once. They blasted out of the room with a terrible viciousness that Zac’s good heart thudded with fear.
“Oh, what have I done?” he whispered with alarm. “What have you done now, Zachariah?”
He watched everything on the wall screen, like some giant cinema.
The terrible red ghost-things screeched and roared and soared in the air.
The first man to see them was the driver of one of the trucks. He was standing to one side with a phone pressed to his ear. He looked up suddenly and saw a red apparition with terrible teeth bearing down on him.
He dropped his phone and let out a scream that could easily have been heard on Jupiter, and took to his heels.
Luckily for him, the door of his truck was already open with the engine running. He jumped in without any consideration for anybody else and drove away, and a man who was mounting into the cabin of the truck with a sack of rice on his back suddenly lost his balance and fell right down on his face.
“Gooooo awaaaaayyyy!” the red ghost things whispered in terrible hissing voices.
They seemed to be everywhere.
They were scary, they were vicious, and they were aggressive.
Pandemonium suddenly broke out.
Zac saw Mistress Ohenewaa wheeling round and, seeing the fiendish ghost-things coming towards her, letting out a wail of total fear so beautiful that Zac broke into peals of laughter.
“Yes!” he cried as he jumped and punched the air with a fist. “Now you know fear, Ohenewaa Dragon!”
The short and obese businessman made a mad rush for his sedan, his face a mask of pure horror, but one of the ghost things settled on him and drove him to the ground. They were attacking everybody, settling across their shoulders and pressing them down.
Even the Ohenewaa Dragon was down.
All the men were down, and the Companions who were Mistress Ohenewaa’s allies were all down, struggling under the red ghosts. Zac was suddenly afraid. He went close to the wall screen and stared with horrified eyes.
“Oh, no, no, no!” he said. “Please don’t hurt them! I just wanted you to scare them away!”
The moment he spoke it was as if the red ghosts heard him, because they all raised their scary faces and stared in his direction, straight at him, as if they could see him, and there was such blatant fury and evil in their flaming eyes that Zac back-pedalled from the wall with a little moan of fear.
The red ghosts soared into the air and disappeared into the dark skies, and then all the people got up and started running away. They entered the other truck, and the two businessmen fled into their cars and sped off, all the while screaming with fear.
The Bright Stars Orphanage had never known such terrible noise as that night.
When they had all fled, leaving bags of rice, bottles of oil, hundreds of canned food, cereals, drinks, and a whole lot of assorted provisions lying around, one solitary figure remained.
It was the Ohenewaa Dragon.
She stood up slowly, looking haggard and bedraggled.
She looked around her, still with a little fear, and when she was certain that the terrible, scary, absolutely fiendish ghost creatures had indeed disappeared, she turned her face toward the Star Room and let out a blood-curdling yell:
“Zaaaaaaaaac!” and then she came tearing toward the Star Room, almost breathing fire like a real dragon.
“Oh-oh!” Zac said as he moved from the door. “Here comes the menace! Quick, quick, what do I do? Yes, yes, she’s always been scared of rats.”
Zac stood in front of the door and shut his eyes.
“I wish for rats, to drive her away!”
When he opened his eyes about six of the biggest rats he had ever seen were crouched on the floor. They were as big as fat puppies, and they snickered and chatted with terrible anger.
Zac heard the padlocks on the door being opened, and he heard the bars falling down. A moment later he heard the key turning in the door, and then the door flew open, and Mistress Ohenewaa was standing in the doorway, huffing and puffing like an angry Greek goddess.
Before she could speak the rats went for her.
She took one look, saw them, turned and fled with a speed so swift and a scream so loud, that it made her look like an alien.
Zac went to the door and silently ordered the giant rats to disappear, and in the blink of an eye, they disappeared into thin air. The Ohenewaa Dragon did not know that, though, and she continued to flee towards her quarters, still screaming and in panic.
Suddenly, the deep chimes of the giant clock filled the air. It was the clock on the tall tower of the Catholic Church not far away from the orphanage.
Zac realized suddenly that it was midnight.
Zac, still watching the fleeing Ohenewaa Dragon, was suddenly aware of a terrible sound in the sky, making him look up. What he saw drove a terrible fear into his heart.
Descending from the sky was a gigantic golden door that seemed to be on fire. There was fire all around it, and it was made even more glorious and sinister because of the night sky.
“Goodness me! What have you done now, Zachariah?” Zac cried with horror, remembering what had happened when he made time stand still.
He watched, horrified, as the burning golden gate slammed into the ground in front of the dormitory.
“Araba, Bobo,” Zac cried with fear, and then he left the Star Room and began racing towards the dormitory.
