Hyenas (24 page)

Chapter 29

Kavi said, “Lucky, lucky boy. Bullet went right
through. He should survive. God is great.”

“Yeah, but not that fucking great,” he heard Dave
reply, “or none of this fucking shite would have happened in the first fucking
place, would it?”

“God is great,” said Kavi, but he sounded a little
doubtful this time.

Time passed and somebody, Jay thought it might have
been Joe, said something about “more antibiotics.”

A little later or a lot later, Ellen placed a cool
palm flat against his forehead and said, “Seems to be coming down.” She smiled
at him.

Jay ducked in and out of sleep or consciousness. Every
now and then, he heard his dad reciting Blake but he knew that couldn’t be
happening.

“
Father!
Father! Where are you going? O do not walk so fast. Speak, father, speak to
your little boy, or else I shall be lost. The night was dark, no father was
there, the child was wet with dew, the mire was deep and the child did weep,
and away the vapour flew
.”

At some point, the boat was hit by a storm. Or maybe
it wasn’t and Jay just dreamed the whole thing. In the dream, if that’s what it
was, Dave reared above him, face screwed up with fury and said, “This is all
your fault, you little cunt! Oh, I’ve got a brilliant idea: let’s escape in a
fucking sailing boat even though none of us has ever sailed before. Don’t
worry, we’ll be fine, we’ve got a fucking book out of the fucking library!
Twat!”

When Jay woke up, he was back in Waterstones, hiding,
the pale wooden underside of the tabletop above him; out of sight, just inches
away, the hyena gorged on Byron. Then he realised it was the ceiling of the
Jerusalem’s cabin he was seeing and the sound of the hyena’s gorging was
entirely imagined, the remnants of a nightmare that had piggybacked into the
waking world.

It was quiet and bright. Gusts of impossibly fresh,
chilly air came in through the glaring rectangle of the cabin doorway. Then the
doorway filled with shadow, and the shadow morphed into Ellen.

Smiling, she said, “Get off your lazy arse, Jay. It’s
a gorgeous day.”

He thought of his dad ducking back below the duvet,
mumbling,
Can I not flow down into the
sea and slumber in oblivion?

He sat up. Every muscle ached and where the bullet had
passed through him felt like he had a splinter the size of a broom handle
lodged just below the surface of his skin, but he felt good.

Ellen helped him stand, then, taking his hand, led him
out onto the deck of the
Jerusalem
.

The sky was cobalt blue and glassy, the sun a blinding
white hole. The sea, motionless, did its best impression of the sky.

Joe was pulling on some rope or other, smiling; he
looked as if he was having the time of his life. Dave and Kavi were both
holding paperbacks and steaming mugs of tea. They were talking with a kind of
easy earnestness and Jay knew they were discussing their books. Dave had a
battered copy of
The Call of the Wild
; Kavi was clutching an equally decrepit
Eric Morecambe Unseen
.

Jay experienced a sudden urge to read, to grab a book,
any book, and devour its every word. It was all he could do to stop himself
from snatching Dave’s book or Kavi’s.

“Where are we?” he said, as much to distract himself
from his sudden bibliophilia as to ascertain their location.

“I’ve no idea,” said Ellen and she seemed perfectly
happy about that.

“We’ve pretty much mastered the sailing bit,” said
Dave.

“But we can’t navigate for shit,” said Joe.

Ellen pointed at the horizon.

“We’re heading for that,” she said.

“But we don’t know what ‘that’ is,” said Kavi. He
grinned.

Jay squinted at the horizon.

Between sky and sea was a short sliver of green.

“Maybe we should name it after you,” said Dave. “You
brought us here.”

Jay scrutinised Dave’s face, searching for evidence of
sarcasm or spite, but Dave was smiling too, just like Ellen and Joe and Kavi.

After a while, Jay started smiling, too.

“God is great,” said Kavi.

Epilogue

Language
laughed.

About the Author

Michael Sellars was born in Oldham, suckled in
Middleton, nurtured in Knutsford and raised in Liverpool. This makes him
Northern
.
He has contributed stories to
All
Hallows
,
Murky Depths
,
Nocturne
,
Fusing
Horizons, Morpheus Tales
, the
Best Tales of the Apocalypse
anthology from Permuted Press and the
From the Trenches
anthology from Carnifex Press.

Hyenas
is
his first novel. A sequel,
Tygers
, is nearing completion and a further instalment,
Dragons
,
is planned.

Find out more:

www.michaelsellars.info