Arthur Quinn and Hell's Keeper by Alan Early Page A

untouched. Even the large second-storey window, which had a vinyl sticker of the trademarked bear on it, was still intact.
    It seemed as good a place as any to go, so Arthur swam through one of the smashed first-floor windows. He was careful to avoid the sides where shards of glass remained fixed in the frame. There were spots of what looked like blood on some of the slivers, Arthur noticed grimly.
    Swimming through the shop gave Arthur the creeps. It just felt wrong. The first floor had been home to the girls’ section and every surface had been painted one shade of pink or another. A single fluorescent bulb buzzed overhead – crackling out sparks every few seconds – but it provided him with just enough light to see. Baby and Barbie dolls floated in the water and were swept aside by the waves from his kicks. One of the doll’s voice boxes was malfunctioning in the wet and kept repeating the same word over and over, only in a hoarse, staticky crackle: ‘ Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! ’ A shiver crept up his spine as he passed the yapping doll and he couldn’t resist shoving it under the flood to silence it.
    He made his way towards an escalator that stretched out of the water and led to the top floor. Like almost everything else in the store, its electrics had failed and the stairs were at rest now. He reached the escalator and stepped onto the nearest tread. He looked over the handrail but, seeing only darkness descending towards the ground floor, he turned and climbed the steps.
    The top storey of the toy shop was just as he remembered it from his brief visit last October. Half of it was taken up with floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed full of action figures, play-sets, transforming trucks and so on. The other half contained large toys for all ages: bikes, go-karts, swings and see-saws. Unlike downstairs, not a single light was working and he had to rely on the faint daylight coming through the large windows to see by. He let his bag slide off his back and then stripped off the hoodie gratefully, flinging it away. The floor was blessedly dry here and he collapsed onto the linoleum in an exhausted heap.
    He lay on his back there for a whole half hour, although it barely felt like half a minute. He simply stared up at the dark light fixture in the ceiling, not thinking of Loki or the Norns or what had happened to the world. He concentrated on getting his strength back and he only realised that he’d been lying there for so long when he found that his clothes had dried in the stuffy heat of the shop.
    His stomach rumbled and he found that he was suddenly starving. Of course, he hadn’t eaten since the train that morning, which seemed like days ago. For all he knew, it had been days ago. He got to his feet as more hunger pains cramped his belly and he surveyed the shop. He didn’t have to look long before he spotted his salvation. Just to the left of the escalators was a metal door marked ‘Staff Only’. He grabbed the backpack, leaving the hoodie where it was, and went through the door.
    Arthur found himself in a long corridor with cardboard boxes piled high on the right-hand side. A red emergency light glowed at the end of the hall. He walked beside the boxes, his fingers tapping off them as he went. He passed one door on his left which read ‘Storeroom’ and a second which read ‘Office’. Both were locked. The third door, though, was the one he was most interested in. ‘Canteen’, the sign read in blocky black text. He breathed a sigh of relief when he turned the handle and the door opened.
    The staff canteen was little more than a room with a basic kitchenette on one side and a breakfast table on the other side. Old newspapers, novels and copies of Heat magazine were piled on the table, alongside crusty-topped bottles of ketchup and brown sauce. A chocolate-bar wrapper lay next to the magazines but, when Arthur checked it, he found with dismay that the sweet