I lay Manchee across my lap. “What was in that pill?”
“It was just a little crumb of a human painkiller,” she says. “I hope it’s not too much.”
I run my hand over his fur. He’s warm and asleep so at least still living.
“Todd–” she says, but I stop her.
“I wanna keep moving as long as we can,” I say. “I know we should sleep but let’s go till we can’t go no more.”
She waits a minute and then she says, “Okay”, and we don’t say nothing more, just finish the last of the food.
The rain keeps up all night as we go and there’s no racket like rainfall in the woods, a billion drops pattering down a billion leaves, the river swelling and roaring, the squish of the mud under our feet. I hear Noise now and again in the distance, probably from woodland creachers but always outta sight, always gone when we get near.
“Is there anything out here that could harm us?” Viola asks me, having to raise her voice over the rain.
“Too many to count,” I say. I gesture to Manchee in her arms. “He awake yet?”
“Not yet,” she says, worry in her voice. “I hope I–”
And that’s how unprepared we are when we step round another rocky outcropping and into the campsite.
We both stop immediately and take in what’s in front of our eyes, all in a flash.
A fire burning.
Freshly caught fish hanging from a spit over it.
A man leaning over a stone, scraping scales from another fish.
That man looking up as we step into his campsite.
In an instant, like knowing Viola was a girl even tho I’d never seen one, I know in the second it takes me to reach for my knife, I know that he’s not a man at all.
He’s a Spackle.
The world stops spinning.
The rain stops falling, the fire stops burning, my heart stops beating.
A Spackle.
There ain’t no more Spackle.
They all died in the wars.
There ain’t no more Spackle.
And here’s one standing right in front of me.
He’s tall and thin like in the vids I remember, white skin, long fingers and arms, the mouth mid-face where it ain’t sposed to be, the ear flaps down by the jaw, eyes blacker than swamp stones, lichen and moss growing where clothes should be.
Alien. As alien as you can be.
Holy crap.
You might as well just crumple up the world I know and throw it away.
“Todd?” Viola says.
“Don’t move,” I say.
Cuz thru the sound of the rain I can hear the Spackle’s Noise.
No words come out clear, just pictures, skewed up strange and with all the wrong colours, but pictures of me and Viola standing in front of him, looking shocked.
Pictures of the knife now outstretched in my hand.
“Todd,” Viola says, a small warning in her voice.
Cuz his Noise has more in it. It’s got feelings, washing up in a buzz.
Feelings of fear.
I feel his fear.
Good.
My Noise turns red.
“Todd,” Viola says again.
“Quit saying my name,” I say.
The Spackle pulls himself slowly upright from where he’s skinning the fish. He’s made his camp underneath another rocky outcropping down the slope of a small hill. A good part of it’s dry and I see bags and a roll of moss that might be a bed.
There’s also something shiny and long resting against the rock.
I can see the Spackle picture it in his Noise.
It’s the spear he’s been using to catch fish in the river.
“Don’t,” I say to him.
I think for a second, but only for a second, how clear I understand all this, how clear I can see him standing in the river, how easy he is to read, even tho it’s all pictures.
But the second passes in a flash.
Cuz I see him thinking about making a leap for the spear.
“Todd?” she says. “Put the knife down.”
And he makes his leap.
I leap at the same time.
(Watch me.)
“No!” I hear Viola scream but my Noise is roaring way too loud for me to hear it as more than a whisper.
Cuz all I’m thinking as I take running steps across the campsite, knife up and ready, bearing down on the Spackle, all skinny knees and elbows as he stumbles heading for his spear, all I’m thinking and sending forward to him in my red, red Noise are images and words and feelings, of all I know, all that’s happened to me, all the times I failed to use the knife, every bit of me screaming–
I’ll show you who’s a killer.
I get to him before he gets to the spear, barrelling into him with my shoulder. We fall to the less muddy dirt with a thud and his arms and legs are all over me, long, like wrestling with a spider, and he’s striking me about the head but they’re little more than slaps really and I realize and I realize and I realize–
I realize he’s weaker than me.
“Todd, stop it!” I hear Viola call.
He scrabbles away from me and I thump him on the side of his head with a fist and he’s so light it topples him over onto a pile of rocks and he looks back up at me and his mouth is making a hissing sound and there’s terror and panic flying outta his Noise.
“STOP IT!” Viola screams. “Can’t you see how scared he is?”
“And well he should be!” I yell back.
Cuz there ain’t no stopping my Noise now.
I step towards him and he tries to crawl away but I grab him by his long white ankle and drag him off the rocks back onto the ground and he’s making this horrible keening sound and I ready my knife.
And Viola must’ve put Manchee down somewhere cuz she grabs my arm and she pulls it back to stop me cutting down the spack and I push into her with my body to shake her off but she won’t let go and we go stumbling away from the Spackle who cowers down by a rock, his hands in front of his face.
“Let go of me!” I yell.
“Please, Todd!” she yells back, pulling and twisting my arm. “Stop this, please!”
I twist my arm around and use my free one to push her away and when I turn the Spackle’s skittered along the ground–
Heading for his spear–
Has his fingers on the end–
And all my hate erupts into me like a volcano at full bright red —
And I fall on him–
And I punch the knife into his chest.
It crunches as it goes in, turning to the side as it hits a bone and the Spackle screams the most terrible, terrible sound and dark red blood (red, it’s red, they bleed red) sprays outta the wound and he brings a long arm up and scratches across my face and I pull back my arm and I stab him again and a long screeching breath comes outta his mouth with a loud gurgle and his arms and legs still scramble around him and he looks at me with his black, black eyes and his Noise filled with pain and bafflement and fear–
And I twist the knife–
And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die–
And in a moan and a shudder he dies.
And his Noise stops altogether.
I gag in my throat and I yank out the knife and paddle my way back along the mud.
I look at my hands, at the knife. There’s blood all over everything. The knife is covered with it, even all over the handle, and both my hands and arms and the front of my clothes and a splash on my face that I wipe away mingling with my own blood from the scratch.
Even with the rain coming down on me now there’s more of it than seems possible.
The Spackle lays where I–
Where I killed him.
I hear Viola make a choking and gasping sound and I look up to her and when I do she flinches back from me.
“You don’t know!” I shout at her. “You don’t know anything! They started the war. They killed my ma! All of it, everything that?
??s happened, is their fault!”
And then I throw up.
And I keep throwing up.
And when my Noise starts to calm I throw up all over again.
I keep my head to the ground.
The world has stopped.
The world is still stopped.
I don’t hear nothing from Viola but her silence. I feel my rucksack digging into the back of my neck as I lean forward. I don’t look over at the Spackle.
“He woulda killed us,” I finally say, talking into the ground.
Viola don’t say nothing.
“He woulda killed us,” I say again.
“He was terrified!” Viola cries, her voice breaking. “Even I could see how scared he was.”
“He went for his spear,” I say, lifting my head.
“Because you came after him with a knife!” I can see her now. Her eyes are wide and growing more blank, like they did when she closed up on herself and started rocking.
“They killed everyone on New World,” I say.
She shakes her head, fiercely. “You idiot! You stupid fucking IDIOT!”
She don’t say effing.
“How many times have you found out that what you’ve been told isn’t true?” she says, backing away from me even further, her face twisting. “How many times?”
“Viola–”
“Weren’t all the Spackle killed in the war?” she says and my God how I hate how frightened her voice sounds. “Huh? Weren’t they?”
And the last of my anger drops outta my Noise as I realize how I’ve been the fool again–
And I turn round to the Spackle–
And I see the campsite–
And I see the fish on the lines–
And (no no no no no) I see the fear that was coming from his Noise–
(No no no, please no.)
And there’s nothing left for me to throw up but I heave anyway–
And I’m a killer–
I’m a killer–
I’m a killer–
(Oh, please no) I’m a killer.
I start to shake. I start to shake so bad I can’t stand up. I find I’m saying “No” over and over again and the fear in his Noise keeps echoing around mine and there’s nowhere to run from it, it’s just there and there and there and I’m shaking so bad I can’t even stay on my hands and knees and I fall into the mud and I can still see the blood everywhere and the rain’s not washing it off.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight.
And there’s only blackness.
Only blackness and nothing.
One more time, I’ve ruined everything. One more time, I’ve done everything wrong.
From a long way away I can hear Viola saying my name.
But it’s so far away.
And I’m alone. Here and always, alone.
I hear my name again.
From a far, far distance I feel a pull on my arm.
It’s only when I hear a squib of Noise not my own that I open my eyes.
“I think there’s more of them out there,” Viola whispers down near my ear.
I raise my head. My own Noise is so filled with junk and horror that it’s hard to hear clearly and the rain is still falling, heavy as ever, and I take a stupid moment to wonder if we’ll ever get dry again and then I hear it, murmuring and indistinct in the trees, impossible to pin down but definitely out there.
“If they didn’t want to kill us before,” Viola says, “they’ll sure want to do it now.”
“We need to go.” I try to get to my feet. I’m still shaking and it takes a try or two, but I do.
I’m still holding the knife. It’s sticky with blood.
I throw it to the ground.
Viola’s face is a terrible thing, grieved and scared and horrified, all at me, all at me, but as ever we ain’t got no choice so I just say again, “We need to go,” and I go to pick up Manchee from where she’d set him down in the dry lee of the Spackle’s outcropping.
He’s still sleeping and shivering from the cold when I pick him up and I bury my face in his fur and breathe in his familiar doggy stink.
“Hurry,” Viola says.
And I turn back to her to see her looking all around, the Noise still whispering all around thru the woods and the rain, the fear still on her face.
She returns her gaze to me and I find it impossible to hold and so I look away.
But as I’m looking away, I see movement behind her.
I see the bushes part behind where she’s standing.
And I see her see my face changing.
And she turns in time to see Aaron coming outta the woods behind her.
And he’s grabbing her by the neck with one hand and smashing a cloth over her nose and mouth with the other and as I call out and take a step forward I hear her scream from beneath it and she tries to fight with her hands but Aaron’s holding her tight and by the time I’ve taken my second and third steps she’s already swooning from whatever’s on the cloth and on my fourth and fifth steps he’s dropping her to the ground and Manchee is still in my arms and on my sixth step he’s reaching behind his back and I don’t have my knife and I have Manchee with me and I can only run towards him and on my seventh step I see him bring around a wooden staff that’s been strapped to his back and it swings thru the air and strikes me full on the side of my head with a
CRACK
and I fall and Manchee tumbles from my arms and I crash into the ground on my belly and my head is ringing so hard I can’t even catch myself and the world goes wobbly and grey and full of only pain and I’m on the ground and everything is tilting and sliding and my arms and legs weigh too much to lift and my face is half in the mud but half turned up and I can see Aaron watching me on the ground and I see his Noise and Viola in it and I see him see my knife shining red in the mud and he picks it up and I try to crawl away but the weight of my body sticks me to the spot and I can only watch as he stands over me.
“I have no further use for you, boy,” he says and he raises the knife over his head and the last thing I see is him bringing it down with the full force of his arm.
Falling no FALLING no please help me Falling The Knife The Knife Spackle spacks are dead, all spacks dead VIOLA sorry, please, sorry he’s got a spear FALLING Please please Aaron, behind you! He’s coming! no further use to me, boy Viola falling, Viola Eade spackle the screaming and the blood and no WATCH ME watch me no please watch me he woulda killed us Ben please I’m sorry Aaron! Run! E-A-D-E More of them we have to get outta here FALLING falling dark blood The Knife dead run I’m a killer please no SPACKLE Viola Viola Viola–
“Viola!” I try and scream but it’s blackness, it’s blackness with no sound, blackness and I’ve fallen and I have no voice–
“Viola,” I try again and there’s water in my lungs and an ache in my gut and pain, pain in my–
“Aaron,” I whisper to myself and no one. “Run, it’s Aaron.”
And then I fall again and it’s blackness . . .
. . .
. . .
“Todd?”
. . .
“Todd?”
Manchee.
“Todd?”
I can feel a dog’s tongue on my face which means I can feel my face which means I can tell where it is and with a rush of air clanging into me, I open my eyes.
Manchee’s standing right by my head, shifting from foot to foot, licking his lips and nose nervously, the bandage still over his eye, but he’s all blurry and it’s hard to–
“Todd?”
I try to say his name to calm him but all I do is cough and a sharp pain soars thru my back. I’m still down on my belly in the muck, where I fell when Aaron–
Aaron.
When Aaron hit me in the head with his staff. I try to raise my head and a blinding ache stretches over the right side of my skull all the way down to my jaw and I have to lie there gritting my teeth for a minute just letting it hurt and blaze before I can even try speaking again.
&
nbsp; “Todd?” Manchee whimpers.
“I’m here, Manchee,” I finally mutter but it comes up outta my chest like a growl held back by goo and it sets off more coughing–
Which I have to cut short cuz of the sharp pain in my back.
My back.
I stifle another cough and a horror feeling spreads out from my gut into the rest of me.
The last thing I saw before–
No.
Oh, no.
I cough a little in my throat, trying not to move any muscle at all, failing at it and surviving the pain till it ebbs as far as it’s gonna and then I work on making my mouth move without killing me.
“Is there a knife in me, Manchee?” I rasp.
“Knife, Todd,” he barks and there’s worry all over him. “Back, Todd.”
He comes forward to lick my face again, the dog way of trying to make it better. All I do is breathe and not move for a minute. I close my eyes and pull air inside, despite how my lungs are complaining and already seem full.
I am Todd Hewitt, I think, which is a mistake, cuz here comes all of it back, falling on me, dragging me down and the Spackle’s blood and Viola’s face frightened of me and Aaron coming outta the woods and taking her–
I start to weep but the pain from the grip of the weep is so bad that for a minute I feel paralysed and a living fire burns thru my arms and back and there’s nothing to do but suffer it till it goes.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I start to uncurl one arm from beneath me. My head and back hurt so bad I think I pass out for a minute but I wake again and slowly, slowly, slowly reach my hand up and behind me, crawling my fingers up my wet filthy shirt and up the wet filthy rucksack which unbelievably I’m still wearing and up and back till there it is under my fingertips.
The handle of the knife. Sticking outta my back.
But I’d be dead.
I’d be dead.
Am I dead?
“Not dead, Todd,” Manchee barks. “Sack! Sack!”
The knife is sticking in me, up high twixt my shoulder blades, the pain’s telling me all about it very specifically, but the knife’s gone thru the rucksack first, something in the rucksack’s stopped the knife from going all the way in–
The book.
My ma’s book.
I feel with my fingers again, slowly as I can, but yes, Aaron raised his arm and brought it down thru the book in the rucksack and it’s stopped it from going all the way thru my body.