Slawter

Lights, camera, SLAWTER… on the web at

www.darrenshan.com

First assistant director:

Bas “lurhmann”

hair by:

“figaro” Brian

screenwriting muse:

Lynda “minder” Lewis

spliced together by:

Stella “stargate” Paskins

a Christopher Little studios production

PART ONE: VISITORS

Life as We Know It

Pray at Him

Lambikins

Monsters Galore

Don’t Go Down the Cellar

PART TWO: LIGHTS… CAMERA… DEMONS!

Film Folk

The Laughing Stock

Missing

D

Fresh Meat

Kidnap

PART THREE: THE LABORATORY

Disciples

PART FOUR: DEMONS-A-GO-GO

Wakey Wakey

Assembly Call

The Real Stars of the Show

The Chase

Battle

Bitter Sweet

A Little Chat

Other Books by Darren Shan

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

→ “My eyes! They stabbed out my eyes!”

I shoot awake. Start to struggle up from my bed. An arm hits the side of my head. Knocks me down. A man screams, “My eyes! Who took my eyes?”

“Dervish!” I roar, rolling off the bed, landing beside the feet of my frantic uncle. “It’s only a dream! Wake up!”

“My eyes!” Dervish yells again. I can see his face now, illuminated by a three-quarters full moon. Eyes wide open, but seeing nothing. Fear scribbled into every line of his features. He lifts his right foot. Brings it down towards my head — hard. I make like a turtle and only just avoid having my nose smashed.

“You took them!” he hisses, sensing my presence, fear turning to hate. He bends and grabs my throat. His fingers tighten. Dervish is thin, doesn’t look like much, but his appearance is deceptive. He could crush my throat, easy.

I swipe at his hand, yanking my neck away at the same time. Break free. Scrabble backwards. Halted by the bed. Dervish lunges after me. I kick at his head, both feet. No time to worry about hurting him. Connect firmly. Drive him back. He grunts, shakes his head, loses focus.

“Dervish!” I shout. “It’s me, Grubbs! Wake up! It’s only a nightmare! You have to stop before you–”

“The master,” Dervish cuts in, fear filling his face again. He’s staring at the ceiling — rather, that’s where his eyes are fixed. “Lord Loss.” He starts to cry. “Don’t… please… not again. My eyes. Leave them alone. Please…”

“Dervish,” I say, softly this time, rising, rubbing the side of my head where he hit me, approaching him cautiously. “Dervish. Derv the perv — where’s your nerve?” Knowing from past nights that rhymes draw his attention. “Derv on the floor — where’s the door? Derv without eyes — what’s the surprise?”

He blinks. His head lowers a fraction. Sight returns gradually. His pupils were black holes. Now they look quasi-normal.

“It’s OK,” I tell him, moving closer, wary in case the nightmare suddenly fires up again. “You’re home. With me. Lord Loss can’t get you here. Your eyes are fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“Grubbs?” Dervish wheezes.

“Yes, boss.”

“That’s really you? You’re not an illusion? He hasn’t created an image of you, to torment me?”

“Don’t be stupid. Not even Michelangelo could sculpt a face this perfect.”

Dervish smiles. The last of the nightmare passes. He sits on the floor and looks at me through watery globes. “How you doing, big guy?”

“Coolio.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asks quietly.

“You couldn’t if you tried,” I smirk, not telling him about the hit to the head, the hand on my throat, the foot at my face.

I sit beside him. Drape an arm around his shoulders. He hugs me tight. Murmurs, “It was so real. I thought I was back there. I…”

And then he weeps, sobbing like a child. And I hold him, talking softly as the moon descends, telling him it’s OK, he’s home, he’s safe — he’s no longer in the universe of demons.

→ Never trust fairy tales. Any story that ends with “They all lived happily ever after” is a crock. There are no happy endings. No endings, full stop. Life goes on. There’s always something new around the corner. You can overcome major obstacles, face great danger, look evil in the eye and live to tell the tale — but that’s not the end. Life sweeps you forward, swings you round, bruises and batters you, drops some new drama or tragedy in your lap, never lets go until you get to the one true end — death. As long as you’re breathing, your story’s still going.

If the rules of fairy-tales did work, my story would have ended on a high four months ago. That’s when Dervish regained his senses and everything seemed set to return to normal. But that was a false ending. A misleading happy pause.

I had to write a short autobiography for an English assignment recently. A snappy, zappy summing-up of my life. I had to discard my first effort — it was too close to the bone, and would have only led to trouble if I’d handed it in. I wrote an edited, watered-down version and submitted that instead. (I got a B minus.) But I kept the original. It’s hidden under a pile of clothes in my wardrobe. I dig it out now to read, to pass some time. I’ve read through it a lot these past few weeks, usually early in the morning, after an interrupted night, when I can’t sleep.