The Hunted (24 page)

Chaos. Kyle butting grown-ups with the axe handle. Shouts from the other kids. Ed trying to call him back. Trio screaming. Trey telling her to shut up.

There was a spray of blood across the back window. The flash of a blade chopping down. Light was getting through. Had Kyle cleared a path? Only thing was, if Lewis sped up and reversed away there was a danger he’d leave Kyle behind.

‘What do I do?’ he said.

‘Bloody Kyle,’ Ed muttered. ‘Bloody idiot.’

‘There he is!’ Brooke shouted and Macca leant across between the seats and grabbed hold of Kyle as he tumbled back in through the open door.

‘Floor it, man!’ he yelled and Lewis stamped down hard. The car surged backwards. More thumps, bumps and rattles underneath. It skidded and swerved.

‘It’s OK,’ said Ebenezer. ‘The road is clear. Kyle did it.’

‘Ebenezer’s right,’ said Trio. ‘It’s empty; you can go.’

Lewis pulled the steering wheel round and the car slewed sideways into the crash barrier in the centre of the motorway. He shunted the gear into drive, gave it some gas and they steamed forward, taking a wide arc across the
tarmac. Slamming into some grown-ups who’d caught up. Spilling them off to the side.

‘Just go,’ Ed shouted. ‘Head for the M25 turn-off.’

‘I’m going, man,’ said Lewis, staying calm. Staying cool.

‘Bad call. My fault,’ Ed added. ‘We should have gone that way before. No more risks.’

‘Was worth it,’ said Kyle. ‘Worth a try, and at least now we know our limitations – this car ain’t no tank.’

‘There’s something wrong,’ said Trey quietly.

‘There’s a whole lot wrong,’ said Kyle. ‘Tell me something new.’

‘Are we OK?’ Brooke asked. ‘Have they done any damage?’

Lewis shrugged. ‘She’s handling OK.’ As if he knew what he was talking about. It did seem to be all right, though. It was steering straight and felt like it was responding to the pedals properly.

‘There’s more of them,’ said Trey. ‘I can feel it.’

‘We keep moving, we’ll be OK.’ Ed leant over and turned the music down a little. The guy was just like a parent or a teacher. He had his head on straight, but Lewis wondered if he’d be any good in a fight. Somebody had certainly got the better of him one time. Given him that ugly, dirty scar down his face. He was posh and all. Not from the streets of Holloway where Lewis had grown up. Still, if a hench kid like Kyle could accept him as the boss man, he must have something going for him.

That had been some stunt the big guy had pulled. Leaping out like Thor and cutting a path.

Cool.

Lewis kept the car at a steady speed and they soon
arrived at the M25 turning. It was a little complicated getting on to the slip road as they were approaching it from the wrong direction and there were no signs, but they managed it OK and were soon heading north.

‘Keep on here until we get to the M40,’ Ed explained. ‘That’ll take us west again and then we’ll look for a turn-off that’ll swing us back south.’

‘Whatever you say.’ Lewis settled back in his seat, feeling the tension ease away. It was an open road again. Danger over. Close one, though. Real close.

‘We’re still not safe.’ Trinity had been banging on about danger all the way. Lewis was tired of it. Wanted to tell them to shut up. In the end Macca did it for him.

‘You’ve made your point,’ he said. ‘So how about you change the subject? I mean, it’s not as if any of them tossers are gonna be able to keep up with us. I’d like to see that – a hundred-mile-an-hour sicko.’

They cruised on to the M40, but it was a good few miles before they found a way off it, a turning to Beaconsfield, Amersham and Slough.

‘This’ll do us fine.’ Ed was consulting his map again. ‘We’ll try Slough first. It was on my list, one of the places to check out.’

They left the motorway and were very quickly into countryside, narrow roads, fields and hedges and trees and woodland off to the sides. Long grass, huge weeds and bright wild flowers growing everywhere, even up through cracks in the road, so that they brushed the underside of the car with a swishing noise as they drove over them. Lewis hadn’t been anywhere like this for months, years even, had almost forgotten that the rest of the world even existed, he’d been so used to buildings all
around him. The city. Now nature was taking over. He relaxed another couple of notches. He liked it here. Was glad he’d come.

‘Look at that,’ came Macca’s voice from the back.

‘What is it?’

‘Stop a minute.’

Lewis slowed the car and brought it to a halt in the middle of the road. Didn’t have to pull over to the side. No danger of any other vehicles coming along here. Ed switched the power off on the music system. Silence.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What did you see?’

‘Over there,’ said Macca. Lewis could see in the mirror that he was pointing to something.

‘What am I looking for?’ Ed asked.

‘Smoke.’

‘Yeah.’ Lewis could see it now, a thin grey column rising up above the trees in the distance and fading out as it blurred into the sky.

‘What you reckon?’ said Macca. ‘No smoke without a fire, they say, don’t they?’

‘Yeah,’ said Brooke, pretending to be impressed. ‘They
do
say that, don’t they?’

‘And a fire means people,’ said Kyle, ignoring her sarcasm.

‘Not necessarily,’ Ed butted in, peering at the smoke. ‘Could just be … like, I don’t know. A tree on fire. Fires start.’

‘Usually, though,’ said Macca, ‘a fire means someone’s lit it. And these days that means kids. Sickos ain’t got the brains for it.’

‘Brains …’ said Brooke, impersonating a cartoon zombie.

‘Is it worth checking out, do you think?’ Trio asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Ed didn’t sound convinced. ‘My plan was to check the towns out first.’

‘We’ve come to find people, ain’t we?’ said Kyle. ‘I vote we check on the smoke. Otherwise we’re just driving around blind.’

Ed turned to look at Trinity.

‘What do you reckon?’ he asked. ‘Can you sense any big crowds of sickos around here?’

‘There’s something out there,’ said Trio. ‘But the signal’s thin. Not crowds … I don’t know what. We should be careful. I mean, we’re never alone.’

‘You’re never more than two metres from a rat,’ said Kyle. ‘Or a sicko.’

‘What would any sickos be doing around here?’ Macca asked. ‘Except maybe camping.’ He laughed at his joke.

‘He’s right,’ said Brooke. ‘Except maybe camping.’

‘If there’s kids around there’s likely sickos too.’ Ed really was a cautious type. ‘That’s what they prey on. Everyone’s after the same thing. Food and water. Staying alive. Lewis, what do you think?’

‘Worth a look,’ said Lewis. ‘We got the car, we’re mobile. If it’s a waste of time we can move on quick. And if it’s dangerous no probs, we easily just roll away.’

Ed pressed the power button and brought the music back up, but still keeping the volume down.

‘Head for the smoke,’ he said and Lewis set the car rolling forward.

It took them some time to find where the smoke was coming from. It wasn’t as easy as they’d assumed. There were too many trees in the way to get a clear view and it felt to Lewis that for a lot of the time they were driving around in circles. It didn’t help that none of the roads went in a straight line and they had no idea of just how far away the smoke was. But eventually they thought they had a beam on it.

The road they were on went through thick woodland. Their view was cut off as they got nearer, so they had to trust that they were heading in the right direction. When they finally came to a junction and broke clear of the trees, they saw a gateway in a high wall leading on to a private road. It was trashed. A car had driven into one of the posts and knocked the gate down. It must have started a fire because the sign explaining where the road led was all burnt and blackened. There were the charred remains of two skeletons in the front seats.

‘Yeah, well, that’s a good sign,’ said Macca. ‘Very welcoming. What is this? The gates to hell?’

‘If this was hell there’d be a three-headed dog waiting for us,’ said Trio.

‘Yes, well, you would know all about that,’ Ebenezer muttered.

‘What are you saying?’ Trio sounded none too pleased with Ebenezer’s comment.

‘I am not saying anything.’

‘Oh, OK, fine,’ said Trio with heavy sarcasm. ‘Only a more sensitive person than myself might have thought you were making a comment about us having three heads.’

‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘It’s the law of threes,’ said Trey.

‘Oh, don’t start on that,’ said Trio.

‘Cerberus, the dog with three heads,’ said Trey. ‘Or there’s the Chimera, with the head of a lion, a snake’s head for a tail and a goat’s head coming out of its back. Or the three Furies, the three Norns, the Morrígan, Hecate? The Holy Trinity. Take your pick. Which do you want us to be, Ebenezer?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Me either,’ said Lewis. ‘You want me to drive on?’

Ed slapped his hand on the top of the dashboard. ‘Let’s do this,’ he said.

The driveway wound along through trees. The weeds and wild flowers had grown up all around and were starting to invade the road from both sides, leaving only a narrow strip to steer down. At the end of the drive was a big old house with smoke rising from one of the chimneys.

‘Don’t look much like hell to me,’ said Kyle. ‘Unless the devil’s inside getting his butler to toast sinners for him.’

‘Toast crumpets more like,’ said Brooke.

Lewis drove up to the front of the house where there was an overgrown parking area. He switched off the engine. Studied the building. It was tall and grand, three floors high, with a wide, square porch held up by six big
pillars. It looked to Lewis like a shrunk-down version of Buckingham Palace. The white painted walls were grubby and streaked with dirt and rain.

There were blinds and shutters and net curtains covering all the windows at the front of the house, and no sign of any lights inside, so it was impossible to see if there was anybody in there. Lewis had to admit, though, that if he was hiding out anywhere around here this was the sort of place he’d have chosen. It was solid and well built. A brick wall enclosed the gardens. There were clear lines of sight all around. Only thing was – if he’d been living here he’d have repaired that gate. So what was up?

‘Is it safe, do you reckon?’ asked Ed.

‘Please be careful,’ said Trio. ‘The signal hasn’t changed. Like something following us.’

‘Relax,’ said Brooke. ‘It looks bare civilized. I mean, come on, what sicko is going to light a fire in a fireplace?’

‘Even if it’s kids it doesn’t mean we’ll be welcome.’ Ed undid his seat belt. ‘As Trio says, let’s go careful. Nobody do anything stupid, OK?’

‘Oh,
please
,’ said Kyle. ‘Let me do something stupid.’

‘Seriously, Kyle. If it
is
kids, and that’s obviously what I’m hoping, they may have defences, traps.’

‘Why don’t we just go knock on the door?’ said Macca.

‘You all sure about this?’ said Trey. ‘I’ve got a humming in my head and it’s not going away.’

‘Sure as I can be.’ Ed opened his door. ‘At some point we all knew we were going to have to get out of the car.’

‘I already did,’ said Kyle, sliding his door open and climbing out. ‘Back there on the motorway. Or didn’t any of you losers notice?’

He got out and walked over towards the house, swinging
his bloody axe idly in one hand. Lewis shoved his own door open and jumped down. Next out was Trinity. Lewis was impressed with how well the kids got about, joined up as they were. They had two normal legs, one each, with smaller shrivelled legs tucked up in between, under their body. They didn’t wobble or stumble at all, and seemed to use one brain when it came to manoeuvring. They walked over to join Kyle, and Lewis saw the third body on their back, sticking out below their pack. It looked dead, like an old mummy or a goblin, or something.

He thought he caught a movement in the corner of his eye and threw a look to the house. Sure he’d seen a face at a window, pale, like a ghost. No. Stupid. There were no ghosts. Zombies, yes. At least grown-ups who thought they were zombies. But no ghosts.

There was nothing at the window now. If there ever had been.

Next out were Brooke and Macca.

‘You cool with this?’ Macca asked Brooke, hovering too close to her.

‘You’ll look after me, won’t you?’ Brooke simpered.

Macca grinned, puffed up. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to worry about anything as long as I’m around.’

Lewis grinned. That boy was so dumb. Couldn’t he see when someone was winding him up? Taking him for a ride? Getting ready to dump on him.

Lewis caught Brooke’s eye. She made a face behind Macca’s back and pointed at him –
Can you believe this?

Lewis was waiting for it. The moment when Brooke dropped the bomb on him. Looking forward to it. Must be any second now.

‘I’ll get my crossbow down off the roof,’ said Macca. ‘I’m a bare good shot.’

‘One thing, Macca,’ said Brooke. Macca turned and hesitated.

‘Yeah?’

This was it. He was gonna get it now.

‘There’s one thing I want to say to you …’

‘Yeah?’

But Brooke never told him, because at that moment something dark unfolded itself from the roof of the car, leant over the edge and half fell on Macca.

He yelled in fright and jerked as if he’d been electrocuted.

It was a father. He must have been holding on to the roof rack. How had none of them seen him? He had Macca’s head locked in his arms and had sunk his rotten yellow teeth into his throat.

Macca screamed and groaned. There was a gush of bright red blood. And then Lewis was moving fast. He was closest. He smashed a fist into the side of the father’s face. His jaws were wide apart and Lewis felt the lower jaw break, teeth come loose. Then Lewis grabbed one of his arms and yanked him down from the roof.

The father flopped to the floor with a wet thwack. And now Kyle was there. He swung his axe at him and got him in the neck, nearly cutting his head off; another swing and the head rolled free.

Macca had dropped to his knees and was clutching his bleeding throat. He was sobbing and raving, his voice sounding strangled, like he was drowning in his own blood.

‘Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, no, not this, oh, help me, Jesus, help me, Mum.’

Brooke went to his side and held on to him, looking round at the others with a helpless expression. Meanwhile, Ed had dropped his bag to the ground and unzipped it, dug out a first-aid kit. He unscrewed the top from a bottle of disinfectant, pulled Macca’s hands away from his wound and splashed liquid over it that caused Macca to hiss and groan. Then Ed ripped open an antiseptic bandage wrapper, pulled a white, square wad out of it and pressed it to Macca’s neck.

‘Hold this,’ he said to Brooke, already scrabbling to open a bottle of painkillers.

Lewis was impressed by how quickly and expertly Ed did all this. He went to the car and checked the roof rack, making sure there were no more of the bastards up there. It was clean. He freed up his spear, a short wooden pole with a sharpened end, and grabbed one of Ebenezer’s javelins and chucked it over to him. Lewis had his katana in the car, but he still preferred the spear. He was scared of the Japanese sword, worried it would cut him worse than his enemies.

Macca had gone very white and was shaking. Lewis had seen enough when Ed had pulled Macca’s hands away to know that the sicko had chomped a fair-sized chunk out of him. Ed forced some pills into Macca’s mouth and Brooke made him swallow some water from a plastic bottle.

‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You’ll be OK.’

‘Will I?’ said Macca. ‘You’re not lying to me.’

‘You’re all right.’

‘Oh my God, we should have known.’ Trinity had got out of the car. They stood there, not sure what to do, rubbing their hands.

Ed was staring over at the building. ‘We need to get him inside,’ he said.

‘We don’t know what is in there,’ said Ebenezer.

‘Well, let’s find out. If it’s people they can help us.’ Ed walked round to the back of the car and fetched his sword from the boot. It was a big heavy-looking old thing. He started towards the house, calling out commands as he went.

‘Lewis and Kyle, you come with me. The rest of you stay here. Look after Macca. Protect him.’

Lewis and Kyle hurried to catch up with Ed as he hammered on the front door.

‘Hello,’ he called out. ‘Open up. Please. We know there’s someone in there.’

Lewis went over to one of the windows, pressed his face to the glass and shaded it with his free hand. He could see nothing inside past the net curtains, just darkness. He was considering whether to smash the glass when Ed shouted …

‘It’s open.’

Lewis ran back to him. Sure enough the front door had opened a crack. It was impossible to see anything beyond it. He looked to Ed. Ed shrugged.

‘Let’s go for it.’

Ed stepped up to the door and carefully pushed it wider. Still nothing visible beyond. Lewis walked in, his spear ready. It was dark in the hallway, a short, wide corridor leading to a large hallway, a room off to either side. As Lewis walked further in, he became aware of a brief movement off to his left. Something alive. Holding still now but definitely alive. He could sense it.

A person?

He tensed. Waiting. Held a hand out in warning as Ed pushed the door wider and came in. More light was thrown down the hallway and Lewis saw the person move, ducking into the room off to their left.

‘What is it?’ Ed asked.

‘There’s someone here,’ said Lewis. ‘Must be them’s opened the door.’

‘Hello?’ Ed called out. ‘It’s OK, we’re kids …’

‘What if
they
ain’t, though?’ said Lewis.

‘Then we merk them,’ said Kyle, pushing past with his heavy axe.

Ed was sniffing the air. ‘Does this feel like a sicko den to you?’ he said. ‘Does it smell like it?’

‘No,’ said Lewis. It smelt of soap and flowers and hospitals. Hadn’t smelt anything like this in a long time.

‘Smells clean,’ he said.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Kyle. ‘Ain’t natural.’

‘Hello?’ Ed called again and then turned to Lewis. ‘Which way did they go?’

‘In there.’ Lewis pointed to the door on the left and Kyle advanced towards it. Ed held him back. This time he was going in first. Kyle and Lewis stayed close behind.

There was just enough light coming through the closed shutters to see that they were in a large sitting room, with sofas and chairs, all very neat and tidy. And there was another door that must lead through to the main hallway. Ed pulled the shutters open, filling the room with dusty light.

A quick scout around showed them that there was nobody in there.

Whoever had come in had obviously sneaked out through the other door.

‘It’s all right,’ Ed was shouting again. ‘We’re kids. We don’t want to hurt you, but one of us is injured. We need help.’

Still no reply, but Lewis had heard movement from outside the door.

‘There’s definitely people here,’ he said. ‘They let us in, so now what? We got to go play hide-and-seek.’

‘I say we stop the nice-guy routine,’ said Kyle and he put on a moist, lisping voice. ‘Oh, hello, do
please
help us, we’re really nice …’

Ed sighed and looked at his friend. ‘Kyle,’ he said. ‘It’s not an act. I
am
really nice.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Kyle, gripping his axe tightly in both hands, ready for action. ‘You’re a monster, Ed, and you know it.’

‘You two lover boys stay cool,’ said Lewis. ‘I’m going on through. I’ll find whoever’s here. You dress back.’

He opened the second door into the hallway. Took a quick look to check it was all quiet. Stepped through.

It was a grand space. Sort of place you expected to see big paintings and suits of armour in old movies. Nothing like that in here. It was almost bare. Doors off everywhere, big old wooden stairs up the back, with high, dirty windows letting in a feeble light. Not enough to lift the murk and gloom. He scanned the area for any signs of life.

Nothing.

Just his own breathing. Sounding noisy in the big empty quiet. And then he saw a yellow flicker, coming along the landing at the top of the stairs, throwing shapes and shadows on the walls. A candle appeared, in a candlestick, someone holding it, walking slowly, a long grey dress, white hair, white face.

A ghost
. Slowly coming down the stairs. A second figure, tucked up close, hiding behind her skirts.

Lewis swore, got his spear ready.

‘You see anything?’ Ed called through from the sitting room.

‘Maybe.’

‘What is it?’

‘Sickos,’ said Lewis bluntly.