The Hunted (11 page)

But he didn’t wake up.

It was no use. He was just lying there, slowly bleeding to death. Ella couldn’t help him. She couldn’t move him. All she could try to do was help herself.

She forced herself to stand up, turned her back on him and headed for the ladder. She might be able to see a way out of here without being killed by the dogs.

As she put her foot on the first rung, she heard a voice behind her.

‘I can talk,’ it said.

She turned round. Scarface had his good eye open and had raised his head enough to be able to see her.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I
can
talk. And I’m not a grown-up.’

Ella was in the chicken shed. And she was crying. This place had always been so full of noisy life, and now it was quiet and still and dead. When she got there, she’d found the door open. The padlock hanging from the clasp with the keys still in it. The sisters had been there. And when they’d left they hadn’t even bothered to lock the door. Which meant the dogs had got in. They’d gone crazy in there. Must have just run round and round killing the chickens, eating a few, but leaving most of them lying on the floor.

Dead.

Ella felt so sorry for Scarface. He’d tried to protect all this and in the end it had been the girls who’d messed everything up. Ella picked out a few birds that weren’t too badly mangled and put them in her carrying bag. At least they wouldn’t
all
go to waste.

She went back out and rescued Scarface’s keys from the padlock. Finding them had been the easiest thing she had to do. Going into the farmhouse was going to be the hardest.

The dogs had gone. There were no more living grown-ups on the farm. It was just her now. She walked up to the front of the farmhouse, key held out ready, and waited.
Trying to get brave enough to open the front door. In all the time she’d been here Scarface had never let her go inside, although he’d sneak in there at the end of every day, and in her mind she’d built it up to be a big deal. There was something in there. Something bad. It wasn’t just the fire. It was worse than that. She just knew it. Although she was finding it hard to think of anything that could be worse than what she’d been through in the last few hours. How she was still walking around and doing things she had no idea. Except that when you were busy doing things you didn’t have time to think about other stuff. The quicker she got everything done, the quicker she could get away from this place. Already the stink from the dead bodies was foul, and it would only get worse as they started to rot.

‘The dogs will eat some of them, the flies will lay their eggs and their maggots will have the rest,’ Scarface had said. ‘And they’ll spread disease. If we stay here we’ll die from it.’

Ella was still trying to get used to him speaking. Not that he’d exactly said a lot. His voice sounded croaky and cracked and the words seemed to get stuck in his throat.

He’d only really said five things so far.

He’d told Ella that they couldn’t stay here.

He’d told her that he had another hiding place, away from the farm, and together they were going to get there, whatever it took.

He’d told her that he had an emergency kit in the cellar of the farmhouse that contained all they needed to survive for a few days.

He’d told her where exactly to find the kit.

And he’d told her that she wasn’t to go anywhere else inside the house.

When Ella had asked him if it was dangerous, he hadn’t said anything.

That was it.

So now here she was. The windows of the house were dark and she wondered whether Scarface had boarded them up. All this time it had been sitting here, in the middle of the yard, with its black windows and black walls. And she was going inside it.

She slid the key into the lock. It turned easily and the door clicked open. As it did, she heard a noise. A sort of humming noise, as if from an engine, and she had the spooky feeling that the house was somehow alive.

She pushed the door open wider. Stepped over the mat. Wiped her feet out of habit. The noise was all around her now. It felt hotter in there than outside and the feeling that the house was alive was even stronger. There was a stink in here as well. A stink of damp and mould. The stair carpet was green and grey from fungus, and more climbed up the walls like ivy.

Turn left into the kitchen
, Scarface had said and Ella did as she’d been told. The kitchen was neat and tidy, everything in its place, except that the walls were streaked from water leaking in and it was crawling with flies. They covered every surface and, as she passed the windows, a great swarm of them took off from the glass and swirled round her head in a black cloud. Light burst into the room. The windows hadn’t been boarded up, they’d been covered in a layer of flies, like a living curtain.

She put her hands up to protect her hair and face and waved them around to keep the flies from landing. Some
battered into her and she shook her head. She carried on walking quickly to the door on the far side like she’d been told, snapped on her torch and opened it.

It’ll be dark in the cellar …

There was a short corridor leading to the cellar, with hooks along the wall for coats and a rack for shoes and boots. The door was at the end. When Ella got to it, she once again selected the right key and then started to go down.

She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think about it.

Don’t be scared. There’s nothing down there. So long as you do exactly what I tell you, there’s no way there’ll be anything alive in there …

Yeah. Except the flies, filling the place with their noise.

You won’t be scared, will you?

No.
Of course not
. It was just her and the flies. But the light from the torch was jumping about all over the place and her teeth were clamped so tightly together to stop them from rattling that her jaw was aching. Halfway down Ella stopped to throw up, spattering the creaky wooden steps with watery sick.

When she got to the bottom, she found a small dry cellar. Cobwebs covered the walls – the spiders in this house must be fat as mice – and there, in the corner, just as Scarface had described it, was a large metal box with a padlock on it. Once again Ella selected the right key and tried to poke it in the lock with trembling hands. It took her several goes and she swore at herself until she got it right.

Get the kit and get out. Don’t look in any other rooms …

Inside the box was a rucksack. It was a big green army thing with a camouflage pattern and it was almost too
heavy for her to lift. The first few times she got it halfway out and let it slip back. Eventually, though, she managed to haul it over the edge and it fell to the floor with a thump, sending up an explosion of dust.

She dragged it across the floor and began to bump it up the steps. The dust and dirt in the house were sticking to her sweaty skin and she had to keep spitting it out of her mouth and trying to cough her throat clear.

It took her ages to get the rucksack up the steps, but when at last it was up she found it much easier to haul down the corridor and through the kitchen to the hallway. It got caught on something in the kitchen doorway, though, and she tugged and pulled until it came away with a jerk and she staggered back, exhausted, and fell on to the main staircase, surrounded by a cloud of buzzing flies. Ella closed her eyes, let them land on her, ignoring the tickle as they explored her face, pretended she was dead and nothing could annoy her. Nothing could hurt her. She could easily fall asleep now, but another gush of sick woke her up and this time it sprayed over her shoes.

She stood up. Head throbbing. Scarface was waiting for her outside the barn. Between the two of them they’d managed to get him outside into the fresh air and sunlight – half walking, half crawling – Ella struggling to hold him up and pull him along. She wondered now how on earth they were going to get the two of them and this heavy old rucksack away from the farm and to the woods where Scarface’s hideout was.

Best not to think about that. Best to just keep going.

She looked up the staircase. The humming of the flies filled the house. Filled her head. She could just turn now and go out of the front door. Leave the house behind.

Don’t look in any other rooms …

Why not? What was in here? Why did he always come here after they’d been out hunting and never let her in? What was his secret? And he must have thousands. Like being able to speak. That was a big one. She really knew nothing about him.

Before Ella knew what she was doing she was climbing the stairs, following her torch beam like a moth as it slid up the mouldy stair carpet.

The house smelt worse upstairs, and it wasn’t just the smell of damp. There was something else. The charred, sour, smoky smell from the fire. The walls up here were black. Light came in through the broken roof and she looked up at a cold grey sky. There was a closed and charred bedroom door right in front of her. Why was she here? This was stupid. When someone tells you not to open a door, you don’t open it, do you?

All you can think about, though, is what might be on the other side. And this would probably be her only chance to find out.

She got her torch ready, pointing straight ahead, and pushed the door open. At first she couldn’t work out what she was seeing.

And then she understood.

The bedroom was full of heads. A great mound of them, carefully stacked. The ones at the bottom were not much more than skulls, with the flesh dried up and the skin stretched and brown, bones and teeth showing through. But, as each layer piled up towards the ceiling, the heads got fresher and fresher. Some of the ones on the top layer Ella recognized as grown-ups they’d hunted together. Not that any dead grown-up ever really looked
fresh
– they were rotten and eaten away even before they died.

There was a thick covering of flies crawling over the mound, and maggots everywhere, wriggling in the eye sockets and spilling out of open mouths. They were shiny and pale. Munching away. Plus, there was something else. That wormy grey stuff she’d seen dripping from Scarface’s bag. It oozed here and there from the heads on the top row, trickling down to the skulls below.

Ella closed the door. She hadn’t seen it. That’s what she’d tell herself. It wasn’t real. She glanced in through the open door of another bedroom and saw a similar sight. The house was full of them. She swallowed. Felt sick rising up her throat again. They were only heads, only the heads of dirty grown-ups.

No … The house was empty, remember? Just an ordinary farmhouse. There was nothing in it. She hadn’t seen anything
…

She went quickly down the stairs, picked up the rucksack and pulled it out of the front door, which she locked carefully behind her. The house and its secrets could stay there.

When Ella eventually got to him, Scarface looked to be asleep, but he opened one eye and peered at her when she got close.

‘Water,’ he said.

‘OK.’

She fetched a plastic bottle of water from the stash in the barn and tipped some into his mouth. His own head didn’t look much different to the dead ones in the farmhouse. There were fresh cuts to add to the scars that covered his skin. There were so many chunks missing from him it was like the maggots had been at him already. He didn’t seem able to open his bad eye any more. That was OK. She didn’t like that bloody, dead jelly.

When he’d drunk enough, Ella took a big swig herself and then sat down next to him.

‘What are we going to do?’ she said. ‘I can’t carry you
and
the bag and
everything
. How far can you walk?’

‘Not far. You?’

‘Not far. I’m so tired.’

‘It’s only five minutes away. In the woods. You know the tree that’s split by lightning?’

‘Yeah. I think so.’

‘Five minutes,’ Scarface repeated.

‘If you could walk normally,’ said Ella. ‘Which you can’t.’

‘We’ll go one step at a time. You take the bag ahead. Then we’ll catch it up.’

‘I can’t do it,’ said Ella. ‘I can’t do anything any more. What do you think I am?’

‘I think you’re a hero,’ said Scarface. ‘I think you’re the bravest girl in the world.’

‘You’re just saying that.’

‘I haven’t spoken in nearly a year, Ella,’ said Scarface with his broken voice. ‘I’m not going to waste my breath on lies. Get me to the hide and you can sleep for a thousand years. When you wake up, everything will be fine.’

‘I’ve seen things today,’ said Ella. ‘I’m not ever going to be normal again.’

Scarface gave a little laugh and Ella glared at him. Cross.

‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Scarface, closing his eye. Laughing had tired him out. ‘It’s just … I kind of know the feeling. Now take the bag to the shed near the gate then come back for me.’

‘No …’

‘Ella …’

Ella huffed and got up and lugged the rucksack over to the gate, her legs aching, her back sore, her fingers going white where they tugged at the straps. When she got back, Scarface had somehow managed to get up on to his feet and was leaning against the wall, eyes closed again, sweat running down his cracked, leathery cheeks.

‘I’m not sleeping,’ he said when he heard Ella. ‘Just resting.’ And he put a hand on her shoulder. The hand with the missing fingers. His other hand was gripping the shotgun, which he was using as a sort of walking stick.

‘Come on then,’ he said, gripping Ella tighter. ‘We can do this.’

Step by painful step, they crossed the yard, barely
moving. They didn’t stop, though, and when they eventually got as far as the bag Scarface slumped down with a moan. It looked like he’d never get up again.

He mumbled something that Ella couldn’t hear and she shook him and told him to say it again.

‘There’s a wheelbarrow in the shed,’ he said, his voice not much more than a whisper.

‘I can’t take you in a wheelbarrow.’

‘Not me, the bag. You can wheel it down the road.’

Ella found the wheelbarrow. It was quite wobbly and hard to steer at first and she swore at it. It tipped over three times as she tried to get the bag in it. At last it was done, though, and she set off. It was even harder to steer with the weight of the bag inside, but slowly she got the hang of it. It was certainly much easier moving the rucksack like this. She took it about a hundred metres down the road then came back for Scarface and on they went. Inch by inch by inch.

They’d got about halfway to the barrow, and Ella was wondering if they’d ever get there, when she saw someone approaching in the distance. Moving quickly down the road.

‘There’s a …’ she started to say.

‘I’ve seen it,’ Scarface interrupted.

‘Is it a grown-up?’

‘No. It’s a kid. You can always tell. A boy, I reckon.’

I can’t always tell
, thought Ella, but she didn’t say anything. They stopped walking and stood there, waiting. They couldn’t have run away even if they’d wanted to. As the boy got nearer, Ella realized that she recognized him.

‘It’s Isaac,’ she said.

‘You mustn’t tell him,’ said Scarface.

‘Tell him what?’

‘Anything,’ said Scarface.

Isaac seemed to take a long time getting to them. He wasn’t running, just walking, tramping steadily along, head down. When he finally arrived, he looked the two of them over.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

Ella nodded.

‘I came back,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t leave you.’

‘What happened?’ Ella asked. ‘Did you stay up on the look-out platform all night?’

‘I couldn’t get down,’ Isaac replied. ‘I tried and tried, but there were always grown-ups there. Waiting. Some even tried to climb up. I couldn’t see into the barn, didn’t know what was happening inside. But I had to watch it all, the grown-ups outside, circling, clawing at the walls. Then there was that massive fire. I thought they’d all be burned. There were so many, though. You couldn’t count them. I saw Daniel come out. I tried to shout to him …’ Isaac trailed off into silence.

‘It was horrible,’ Ella said quietly. ‘I’m sorry about your friends.’

‘I saw Sonya and Louisa this morning,’ said Isaac. ‘I didn’t sleep all night. There were grown-ups still around. The girls got away just as the dogs arrived. I shouted to them. They ignored me. Luckily the dogs chased off the rest of the grown-ups. I guess they were scared of an army, but not a few stragglers.’

‘Harry died,’ said Ella.

‘Oh.’ Isaac looked away. Not wanting to show Ella his tears. ‘We were at school together,’ he said, then sniffed and went all serious.

‘I’m heading back to Bracknell. You need to come with me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s too dangerous to stay here, Ella.’ Isaac looked desperate to get away.

‘I can’t leave Scarface,’ said Ella. ‘He’s my friend. He’s too badly hurt to go fast.’

Isaac took hold of Ella and dragged her a little way away so that Scarface couldn’t hear them.

‘You have to leave him. We have to go right now.’

‘I can’t.’ Ella was shaking her head. ‘He saved me. He looked after me. Now I have to look after him.’

Isaac laughed. He sounded slightly crazy, almost crying.

‘Just leave him,’ he said. ‘You have to. He’s just a –’

‘Just a
what
?’

‘He’s one of
them
,’ said Isaac. ‘If you bring him with us they’ll just kill him when we get there.’

‘Then I’m staying here,’ said Ella. ‘We’ve got another hiding place.’

‘Where?’

Ella remembered what Scarface had said – that she mustn’t tell him anything. But Isaac could help them. Maybe if she just told him a little.

‘In the woods,’ she said. ‘Will you help us before you go?’

Isaac thought for a second.

‘Come on then,’ he said, walking back and taking hold of Scarface. ‘Let’s do this.’

So the three of them set off. Ella wheeling the barrow, Isaac supporting Scarface. It was harder going when they got off the road and had to cross a field to the trees, but they kept on moving. Four times Ella’s barrow tipped up
and Isaac had to help her get the rucksack back on-board. They made it to the woods, though, and stopped to rest, Scarface leaning up against a big tree whose bark was as gnarly as his face. He caught Ella’s eye and made a jerky movement with his head as if to say, ‘Get rid of him.’ He obviously didn’t want Isaac to know exactly where the hideout was, just in case.

‘We’ll be all right now,’ Ella said to Isaac. And he looked unsure, checking out the woods.

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Ella nodded. ‘There’s a place we can shelter here.’

‘I’ll get you all the way there.’

‘You need to go,’ said Ella.

‘Well …’

‘We’re away from the farm,’ said Ella. ‘We’ve got food in the bag. We’ll be fine.’

‘If you’re really sure? OK.’

Ella could tell that Isaac wanted to be off. She gave him a hug and thanked him.

‘If you ever make it to Bracknell,’ he said into her hair, ‘look for me. Isaac, yeah? Isaac Hills.’

‘OK.’

They separated and Isaac started to hurry away.

‘Isaac!’ Ella called out and he turned round.

‘It didn’t get you,’ she shouted.

‘Who?’

‘That fate thing. You dodged it.’

‘I did this time.’

‘Good luck.’

Soon he was gone and Ella wondered if she’d ever see him again.