Boy X (26 page)

01 hr and 26 mins until Shut-Down

‘
T
his way!' Isabel took off at a sprint, racing around the right side of the building. Ash followed close behind.

They passed beneath a crumbling balcony, heading towards an ornate stone railing built right onto the edge of the crag. On the other side of the railing, the cliff fell away in a sheer drop to the beach, more than a hundred metres below. It would be easy to tumble over and fall to a messy death.

They followed the railing around the building, until they came to a break in the barrier.

‘Apart from the road, this is the only way down,' Isabel said.

‘My God. You've got to be joking. That's
it
?'

The black steps were little more than fifteen centimetres wide, carved into the cliff face, zigzagging down to the beach. There were metal posts buried in the rock at regular intervals, with wire strung between them to form a flimsy handrail. Even when it was first built it would have been dangerous, but right now it was a death trap. Some steps were broken away while the rest were coated in slippery moss, and to make matters worse, the railings had all come loose so the wires hung limp from their securing.

Ash summoned all his courage and sidled close to the edge, but it was like looking into a void and his vision began to swim. He felt woozy, his stomach lurched. If he fell down there he would bounce off the rocks like a water-filled

(
blood-filled
)

balloon, smashing from crag to crag until he finally landed dead in the black sand. The world spun around Ash and he stumbled forward, foot slipping on loose rocks. For a second he teetered over the brink of the void, then he felt Isabel grab the back of his shirt and pull him away.

‘You OK?'

Ash nodded and rubbed his face. ‘
No one's
getting down that way.'

‘Then what do we do?' Isabel's voice rose. ‘If we use the road they'll catch us. Or shoot us. I'm sorry. We shouldn't have come to the steps. I thought . . .'

Ash looked at the loose wires from the railings, then down at the beach below. The boat was
so
close. He stared at it for a moment, wishing there was some way of
getting down there quickly, some way to— He jerked his head round and looked up at the tower to his left. ‘There,' he said. ‘Maybe there's another way.'

Ash put his shoulder to the heavy front door and pushed it open on moaning, rusted hinges. A damp smell oozed out, accompanied by a flutter of disturbed wildlife and a long, low creak from the heart of the building.

Ash hurried in, aware of the ghosts that had haunted him: the white and gold house, the monster with needle-like fangs. He had been in this place. A long time ago, when he was a different person, his feet had touched these floors. Images swam in his memory, overlaying the mansion as it was now with images of how it had been. Just being there made his stomach cramp.

But he had faced Pierce. This place held no power over him.

I am Ash McCarthy. I am strong. I can do this.

He ran across the main hallway – a huge space, with a high ceiling and a wide central staircase that split halfway up and swept around to either side of the first floor. The balustrade was flaked with peeling gold paint, and the steps were covered in carpet that was once scarlet and plush but was now threadbare and grime-coated.

Damp had eaten through the ornate ceiling so that rotten beams and plaster hung from holes like the building was spilling its guts. The walls were a mess of peeling wallpaper and huge patches of mould, and the corners of the room were thick with bird droppings.

‘We need to get to the tower.' Ash started up the stairs, wondering if maybe this was a bad idea, but they only had a few more minutes before Cain caught up with them.

At the top of the stairs, the landing stretched in both directions, with windows all along the front giving an awesome view of the bay. The glass in every window was smashed, and plants forced their way through, bursting like green explosions along the wall.

Dodging the broken floorboards, they sprinted along the landing and came to a door hanging crooked from its hinges. Beyond it was a narrow flight of stairs.

‘I think this goes to the tower,' Ash said as they climbed. ‘I remember it.'

‘
Madre de Dios
, it stinks,' Isabel complained.

‘Imagine how I feel.' The stench of decay was overpowering and Ash put a hand over his mouth and nose, concentrating on pushing it away. The air stung his throat and lungs and made his eyes stream with tears, but he kept going until he came to the top and pushed through a door into a huge square room with a giant bed against the far wall.

There were still sheets on the bed, but they were tattered and covered in a dense layer of filth. One leg had been gnawed right through by animals, so the bed was at a crooked angle, and the floor around it was thick with droppings and rubbish collected by birds to build their nests.

Three massive arched windows lined each side of the room

‘Look!' Isabel ran to the window at the front of the building
and pointed at the figures heading across the scrub towards them. ‘They're getting closer.'

‘Get away from the window. Don't let them see you.' Ash hurried to the opposite side of the room, but when he looked out at the sea a sudden tidal wave of dreamlike memory crashed over him.

He faltered under the weight of terrifying images, and he was suddenly a toddler again, pressed close to the open window with Pierce's hand on the back of his neck.

They have come up to the tower to watch the storm over the sea. Each time lightning flashes, the boy shudders. Thunder follows, drowning the sound of the waves crashing on the black beach. It is dark inside the tower and Uncle Damian takes the boy to the window. A spark of lightning gleams on the needle as it goes into his skin, and when it is over, Uncle Damian lifts him and holds him close to the open window so he can look down at the churning sea. ‘This is our secret,' he says with a soft grin. ‘You can't tell anyone. Not even your mother. If she finds out, I'll bring her up here and make her fly from this window. You think she can fly? Imagine what would happen to her if she couldn't. See how far it is to fall? You don't want that, do you?' When the scientist releases him, the boy looks up and his eyes fix on the badge on the scientist's jacket. The boy is old enough to know the letters on the logo, but too young to form the words. BioMesa. But instead of an ‘O' there is a black sun with eight points radiating from it. To the boy, though, it doesn't look like a sun.

To him, it is a spider.

‘So what now?'

‘Hmm?' Ash shook the memory away.

‘What now?' Isabel looked at the wire Ash had taken from the railings by the cliff. He had gathered a length of it and twisted it into a coil that he now held in his right hand. ‘Is that for what I think?' she said.

‘Yes. It is.' Inside, he was a wreck, but he tried to sound brave. He was overwhelmed by memories of what had happened here, and petrified by what he was going to do next, but he really couldn't see any other way.

Other than surrender, this was the only choice they had.

01 hr and 10 mins until Shut-Down

A
sh unlatched the broken window and shoved it open. His stomach cramped when he leant out and turned round to look up, but he told himself he was strong. He could do this. It was Pierce who had made him afraid, but now Pierce was gone.

About half a metre above his head, a large metal plate was bolted to the wall, with a thick taut steel cable protruding from it. Ash reached up and tugged it hard to test its weight.

‘You're crazy,' Isabel said. ‘You can't use that.'

‘It'll be like a giant zip-wire.' Ash turned and scanned along the cable, seeing where it stretched over the balcony, past the cliff with the rickety steps and out across the bay.
It continued at an angle, running all the way down to the concrete building on the beach below. ‘I'm not heavy, so it should hold me.'

‘Like the river crossing? No, it's too dangerous. Stay here, and—'

‘And what?' he asked. ‘As soon as Cain gets here, she's going to kill us and take this bag.' He patted the messenger bag he was carrying across his chest. ‘And she's going to leave in that boat. There's no choice here. No. Choice. I mean, if you can think of any other way,' Ash said, ‘please tell me now. Anything.'

Isabel took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘I don't have anything.'

Ash blinked hard. He felt as if he was floating somewhere above his body, looking down on a crazy boy about to do a crazy thing.

‘Once I've called for help, I'll use the last of the HEX13 to damage the boat.'

‘You remember the channel number and the message?' Isabel asked

‘Seventy-two,' Ash heard himself say. ‘Titan Down.'

‘Right.'

With his heart stuttering, Ash took a bandage from the survival pack and split it in half, winding the pieces around his small hands for protection. He touched the identity tag and muttered the McCarthy mantra, then unravelled the wire he had brought from outside. He wrapped it tight around one hand and leant out of the window to throw the loose end over the steel cord that ran down
to the beach. After wrapping it tight around his other hand, he lifted his feet off the floor to test the strength of the cable.

‘Don't forget . . .' His voice trembled. ‘Try to break the cable once I'm down. They mustn't follow me.'

Ash stepped up onto the window ledge and sat down, looking out over the endless drop beyond. The breeze whisked about him, chilling the sweat that had broken out all over his body. He couldn't feel his legs any more. All he could feel was the hammering beat of his heart.

He tugged once more on the wire to check it would take his weight, then tried to shuffle further forwards on the window ledge, but his body didn't want to work.

‘
Buena suerte,
' Isabel said. ‘Good luck. And . . . thank you.' She paused. ‘For doing this.'

‘
De nada,
' Ash mumbled, and tried to make himself drop, but couldn't. His muscles were frozen in fear. ‘Isabel?'

‘
¿Sí?
'

‘I need you to push me.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Push me!' He shouted the words, forcing strength into himself, making himself angry and determined and unafraid. ‘Push me!'

He felt Isabel's hands on his back.

‘
Buena suerte,
' she said again, and gave him a good, hard shove.

There was a moment of weightlessness, then a sudden jolt as the wire became taut. It dug into his palms, tightened in the places where it was wrapped around the back of his
hands, and cut off the blood supply to his fingers. But Ash didn't notice any of that. All he could think about was falling.

Falling and dying.