‘You’re totally selling this, Two-Face,’ said Achilleus. ‘Sounds like a real picnic. I’ll bring the cupcakes.’
‘Yeah, and maybe some macaroons,’ said the small boy next to him, who had a strong Irish accent.
‘I never said it was going to be easy,’ Ed protested, holding Achilleus’s stare. ‘That’s why I need fighters, and only fighters. If we’re a small but solid team we’ll be fine. I mean, I’m told you’re the best fighter here.’
‘Yeah,’ Achilleus nodded. ‘You heard right. No one can touch me.’
‘You’d be really useful, mate.’
‘I ain’t your mate.’
‘No.’
‘I saved this place,’ said Achilleus. ‘I saved everyone’s arses. Is what I do. Only I don’t never seem to get no reward for it. So I’m sitting tight, thanks all the same.’
‘We been out there once already,’ said the little Irish kid.
‘Yeah,’ said Achilleus. ‘And I ain’t going again, “mate”. Not on a suicide mission. I mean, you don’t even know where she’s gone, do you?’
‘I’ll find her.’
‘You’ll probably find her body, yeah. It’s sicko central out there. They probably already eating her.’
‘Achilleus!’ A girl in a leather jacket had stood up and was yelling at him. This was Maxie, one of the leaders of the Holloway crew.
‘Ella’s one of us,’ she said. Achilleus just smirked. ‘Sam is one of us. You keep your thoughts to yourself from now on. Have some respect.’
‘Whatever.’
‘What about you?’ Ed said to Maxie.
‘What about me?’
‘As you say, Ella was one of yours. You gonna come with me?’
‘No way,’ said the hard-looking black kid next to her. He was the other leader of the Holloway kids, Blue. ‘I done my bit out that way and me and Max is sticking together from now on. We need to be here with our people.’
‘I don’t get it.’ Ed put out his hands in a hopeless gesture. ‘Is anybody going to help me, or what?’
‘Why should we listen to you?’ called out a girl Ed didn’t recognize. ‘You’re the one who brought a sicko here. Brought a grown-up into our home. Made him a nice comfy room. When we’d just spent ages clearing them all out. Why should we trust you?’
There were shouts of agreement from around the room. And then someone stood up. Ed was pleased to see a familiar face. A friend’s face. It was Finn, a big lad from the Tower, the only survivor from DogNut’s expedition.
‘Ed’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’d trust him more than any other kid I know.’
‘You going with him then?’ said Achilleus, and he sniggered.
‘You know I’m not,’ said Finn, and he raised his right arm, which had a bandage around it. ‘I can’t do anything until my arm’s properly healed.’
‘Yeah, good excuse.’
‘It’s not an excuse.’
‘It’s all right,’ Ed shouted. ‘Leave it.’
Finn had already come to see him and explained that the wound in his arm was still causing him problems. A shame. Finn had been one of the best fighters at the Tower.
‘As I say,’ Ed went on limply, ‘anyone wants to help, come and find me. It’s gonna take me a few days to get everything ready.’
He stepped down off the speaking platform, glad it was over. As he tried to get away, Sam came running over and tugged at his sleeve.
‘I am coming, Ed,’ he said, almost shouting. ‘She’s my sister.’
‘You are not,’ Ed snapped. ‘And if you say one more thing about it to me I’m not going either. OK?’ He had lost it and come across much heavier than he’d intended, but it did the trick. Sam let go of him. Shut his mouth and looked at the floor. His weird little friend, The Kid, came over to him.
‘I told you,’ The Kid said to Sam. ‘Don’t push your luck up a hill. It might roll down the other side. We made it here against the odds and ends. Let’s count our blessings and our blisters. Leave the hard stuff to the experts now, eh?’
Sam looked at Ed, tears in his eyes.
‘She’s not dead, is she?’
‘No.’
‘And you will find her?’
‘I will.’
Ed hoped he sounded more certain to Sam than he actually felt.
2
Ella wasn’t dead. That was the first thing she thought when she woke up.
Not dead. Alive. Not dead.
And the second thing she thought was, Why not?
Why aren’t I dead?
She was lying on her back, in long grass, looking up at the stars. They were a mess. She’d never been able to make out any constellations. She couldn’t see any pictures there, just a lot of random dots.
So why wasn’t she dead?
She closed her eyes. Felt for any pain. There was none. Only a slight tiny soreness in one wrist. It was more like the memory of pain than an actual feeling. Someone must have held on to her by the wrist, pulled her. She couldn’t remember that. The last thing was …
Ella opened her eyes in panic.
The grown-up. The ugly one with the chewed face. Where was he? She was too scared to move anything except her eyes. She rolled them around, trying to see where she was.
‘It’s all right.’
She turned towards the voice without thinking. There was someone next to her. Lying on the ground. She recognized the voice. It was Monkey-Boy.
‘Are you alive?’ Ella asked.
‘Yes … But it hurts.’ Monkey-Boy said this very quietly, and he sounded sad. ‘Are you hurt?’ he added.
‘I don’t think so.’ Ella thought of mentioning her wrist, but decided not to. It wasn’t really important.
Monkey-Boy was just a dark shape on the ground. There was a faint line of starlight across his cheek. The last time she’d see him the grown-up had been holding him and they were still inside the hotel. Nothing made any sense to her. How had they got out here? Ella wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She was quite enjoying just lying there not hurting. Not knowing. In the dark.
‘He saved us,’ said Monkey-Boy.
‘Who?’
‘The grown-up.’
‘What? You mean the one with the mashed-up face?’
‘Yes. He wasn’t with the other ones.’ Monkey-Boy’s voice sounded croaky, wobbly, weak. ‘He attacked them. He saved us.’
‘Why?’ asked Ella and immediately wished she hadn’t. The grown-up had probably captured her and Monkey-Boy to keep them both for himself. Like a lone wolf fighting off other wolves to get to a killed deer or something.
And now she heard herself asking the question she never wanted answered.
‘What happened?’
‘I woke up,’ said Monkey-Boy and now Ella could hear that his voice was all wheezy and bubbly as well, like he needed to clear his throat. All full of phlegm.
‘And then what?’
‘I needed a wee. I was desperate. I didn’t want to make any noise. Maeve and Robbie had told us to keep quiet, and stay hidden.’
‘You needed a wee?’
‘Yes, I was bursting. It was horrible. I didn’t want to wet the bed because you and Maeve were sleeping in it. I was embarrassed.’
Ella wished yesterday had never happened. She wished she’d never left London and all her other friends. Maeve had promised her, though. She’d been so sure. That she’d take them to a better place, in the countryside, with fresh air and fresh food and no grown-ups. A new life. They’d only got as far as a hotel on an island in the river. Monkey Island. That had felt right, a place for the boy who loved to climb, for the Monkey-Boy.
They found a room and settled down for the night. Just the four of them. Her and Monkey-Boy and Maeve and Robbie. Robbie who couldn’t even walk properly because of his wounded leg. What chance did they have? Stupid. Stupid. You needed an army.
Ella fought to stop herself from crying.
‘I thought I was going to explode,’ Monkey-Boy went on. ?
??Lying there in the bed for hour after hour. I couldn’t sleep. In the end I got up and tried to find the door for the bathroom. It’s what you call an ensuite. It means that …’
‘I know what “ensuite” means,’ Ella snapped. ‘It means you have a loo and bathroom right next to your bedroom. I’m not dumb.’
‘Sure. OK. Sorry. I thought I had the right door. Maybe I did and they were hiding in the bathroom, or maybe I opened the door to the corridor by accident and they were waiting out there.’
‘Who?’
‘The grown-ups. They were waiting. Quiet in the dark. They came in quickly. I don’t know how many. Quickly and quietly. I couldn’t make a sound, or shout for help. They were well clever; one of them smothered my face in his stomach. It really stank. I thought I’d be sick. I did wee myself then. And he dragged me away. Up the corridor. He did things to me. He hurt me. He bit me. And two more grown-ups came out with Maeve. She was already dead. I couldn’t watch what they did to her. I went all unconscious. I don’t know how long for, but he did worse things to me when I was asleep.
‘And then the other grown-up arrived. The one whose face is all scarred. There was a fight and he easily beat the one who hurt me. He killed him. I saw him. He was ferocious. With knives and everything. He cut him to pieces and then he picked me up, and he was carrying me away when you came running down the corridor with more grown-ups behind you. Scarface tried to help you, but you fainted and you banged your head. And then he had to fight the new grown-ups. He didn’t waste any time. No way. He killed them quicker than you can imagine, and he brought us here. ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do. He comes and goes.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He went back inside the hotel, I think. For more killing.’
‘And where are we?’
‘Just on the grass, near some trees, by the river. You can see the hotel over there.’
Ella looked over and saw the big square black shape of the building against the stars. Her eyes were getting used to the light and she was seeing more and more. All the time wishing she was still asleep where she was safe. Eyes closed. In the dark.
‘What will he do when he comes back?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. He just sits there. Like he’s keeping watch.’
‘He’s going to do something bad to us,’ said Ella. ‘We have to get away from here. We have to run away.’
‘I can’t,’ said Monkey-Boy and now Ella could see that his face was all shiny and wet. He was crying.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘I can’t move,’ said Monkey-Boy. ‘It hurts too much.’
‘Where does it hurt?’
‘All over. I’m bleeding a lot.’
‘Badly?’
‘I don’t know. It feels bad. I feel bad. All hot and cold and shivery. I’ve got pins and needles in my fingers and my feet.’
Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, thought Ella, and she shuffled closer to him. It was cold out here. That was why he was shivering. She was shivering too, her teeth clacking together. Her body shaking. Or maybe she was just scared.
‘Let me see,’ she said, squinting in the dark, kneeling over him, her shoulders hunched, as if she was expecting something to swoop down out of the sky and attack her.
‘I can’t hardly see,’ she said and touched Monkey-Boy’s jumper. It was soaking wet. Sticky. She held her hand to her face. It looked like it was covered in black ink. Ella knew, though, that if there was more light it would look red, not black.
And then she remembered the torch she kept in her backpack. She quickly felt her shoulders. The straps were there. Robbie had told them all to sleep with their packs on in case they needed to make a quick getaway. She slipped the pack off her back and rummaged around inside it until she felt the familiar hard plastic. It was a wind-up torch and she always kept it wound. She pressed the button and the light shone right into Monkey-Boy’s face. He winced and shrank away from it, blinking.
He was breathing very fast. Panting like a dog. His face very white and splashed with blood. She moved the beam down his body. He was absolutely soaked and there was more blood puddling in the grass around him. How much blood was there in a human being? Her teacher had once told her it was eight pints. She wasn’t quite sure how much a pint was, let alone eight, and surely children would have less blood than adults? How much of his blood had he spilt, though? It looked like a lot.
He was holding his hands over his stomach. His forearms were all scraped and scratched, the skin raggedy and torn, and there was more blood oozing up between his hands and fingers. It was steaming in the chilly night air.
There was a smell coming off him, like the smell of a grown-up. Like bad toilets and old bins. This was worse than pins and needles. He was being very brave. If it was her she would have been just screaming and screaming.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, using the same words he’d said to her earlier. Had he been lying too?
‘I don’t want to move my hands,’ he said. And she saw that there were bubbles coming from inside the blood. Inside his body.
‘If you move them a little I can see how bad it is,’ said Ella.
‘It’s very bad,’ said Monkey-Boy and she could hear the crying in his voice. ‘He bit me. He was trying to eat me, Ella. Trying to eat me alive.’
‘Well, he didn’t!’ said Ella angrily. ‘We were saved, remember. You were saved – you’re going to be all right. Just move your hands a little and I’ll see …’
Then he did and she wished he hadn’t because she saw stuff. Awful stuff. Coming out of him. Like a nest of fat worms, grey and blue and brown and white. And then she screamed as something knocked into her hard, the torch was grabbed off her and shut down. She felt a hot hand pressing over her mouth so that her scream was strangled into silence. She was crushed to the ground, the smell of grass and mud filling her nose, and she knew that soon she would be like Monkey-Boy. She waited for it. The teeth in her skin, her bones snapping …
Eaten alive …
But the body on top of her didn’t move. Just lay there all hot and still, the hand holding her mouth closed. She could hear his breathing, harsh and raspy through his nose … She remembered the nose, how it had looked all mangled, the nostrils open like in a skull. She felt a calm come over her. If this was the end then she would never be scared again.
She waited. The man breathing in her ear.
And nothing happened.
She was still alive. In the dark. A little disappointed that she would have to carry on being scared, carry on struggling. At last, slowly, slowly, the thing rolled off her, still holding her in one strong arm. She could see Monkey-Boy. He hadn’t moved. He was very still. And, beyond him, moving figures. Three people, adults, coming towards them. The grown-up who had hold of her turned her head so that she was facing him – he had his fingers to his lips, shushing her.
She swallowed and nodded. He let go of her. Moved his hands and the next thing he was holding two knives, their blades glinting.
Were they for her?
She didn’t think so. There had been something in his face. Something almost friendly.
Ella heard a noise and turned back to see the three grown-ups had almost got to Monkey-Boy, and he still hadn’t moved. Was he playing dead to fool them?
One of them, a father – she could see now – stooped over Monkey-Boy. And then, in a flappy rustle of clothing, Scarface was up and running, crouching low. He punched out at the father who dropped to the ground. One of the other two grown-ups, another father, hissed and swung his arms wildly, but Scarface dodged them, went under, then up, stabbing at his face. The father fell over backwards. The last of the three was a mother. She was holding her hands up to protect herself, fingers like claws. Scarface easily darted round her, and stabbed twice at her side. She squealed, holding her stomach, and ran around in circles. Finally Scarface did something to her that Ella couldn’t see and she went down with a thump.
It
was very quiet and still now. Scarface waited there, as if listening, raised his face, sniffing the air, then moved among the three dead bodies. Finally he came back over and looked at Monkey-Boy. His shoulders dropped. He touched Monkey-Boy’s face. Knelt there in silence, and then came over to Ella. He gave her back her torch then jerked his head as if to say, ‘Come along.’
‘What about my friend?’ said Ella, nodding towards Monkey-Boy. Scarface shook his head.
Ella felt a great weight of sadness crash down on her, forcing tears out of her eyes and down her cheeks.
It wasn’t fair. Monkey-Boy had never wanted to hurt anyone, he just loved to climb things. Now Ella was all alone in the world.
Except for this creature. This Scarface. And she had no idea what he wanted from her.
But she got up and followed him as he walked away.
3
Ella didn’t know how far they walked that night, but it felt like miles. Sometimes they walked on the road, sometimes across fields, and for a little way through woods. Scarface obviously knew where he was going. Ella followed just behind him. Watching his back. Staring at the logo on the bag he carried. Nike. A grown-up with a Nike bag. She soon got tired. Her legs ached, her feet were sore, she wanted to sleep, and her throat was painful from holding in tears.
When she couldn’t stand it any more she stopped and flopped to the ground.
‘I can’t go on,’ she said. ‘I’m tired and I don’t know where we’re going and what you want from me. I’m not moving.’
Scarface stopped and turned to her, walked back to where she was sitting, squatted down, peered into her face.
She didn’t like to look at him and was glad that it was too dark to see him very well. His face was horrible, like he’d put it in a crocodile’s mouth for a bet. She wasn’t scared of him any more, though. Surely if he’d wanted to kill her he’d have done it by now …
Unless …
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘Are you just leading me to your den, or something? So that you don’t have to carry my dead body all the way?’
Scarface tilted his head to one side, thinking.