‘He just didn’t like the noise,’ said Daisy, glowering at Brick. He felt a perverse impulse to do it again, to start shouting thump-thump at the top of his voice, but he resisted it. ‘He’s fine, he just needs to get out of this place, it’s too dark and scary in here.’
‘Yeah,’ said Cal as he walked to the restaurant door, holding it open and letting faint, dusty light into the room. ‘Come on, it’s too cold anyway.’
Rilke was still unconscious beside her brother. Brick left her there and followed the others down the corridor – grateful that there was no noise from the basement – and out through the fire exit. The heat held him like a golden hug and he wished it was possible to pull yourself out of your skin and soar up over the tin-foil brilliance of the ocean, to just follow the sun around the world for the rest of time and never have to be imprisoned by flesh and gravity and darkness ever again.
‘What’s going on?’ He recognised his own tone – aggressive, like he thought they were all hiding something. But he couldn’t help it. When he was angry, hell when he was any kind of emotional, he just acted like an idiot. It was who he was. Everybody hated Brick Thomas.
‘How should I know?’ Cal snapped back. ‘We don’t know any more than you.’
Brick opened his mouth, ready to fire off some more accusations. He stopped himself, taking a deep breath and counting to five. When he finally spoke his voice was softer.
‘This isn’t normal.’
‘You think?’ said Cal.
Brick bit back his first response and went with his second.
‘We need to work out what’s happening,’ he said. ‘We need to really think about this. Because it’s seriously messed up, Cal. And . . .’ I’m scared, he wanted to say, but something stopped him. He coughed, looking out across the crazy golf course. The one-eyed giant squirrel stared back, grinning insanely.
‘I’m scared too,’ said Daisy, as though she’d read his mind. She had sat down between Jade and Adam on the low wall that surrounded the crazy golf. The little boy seemed to have calmed down, but his doll-like expression creeped the hell out of Brick.
‘We need to work out exactly what we know,’ said Cal. ‘Everything. Like, logically.’
‘People are trying to kill us,’ said Chris.
‘It’s not just that, though, is it?’ Cal pushed himself up from the wall, pacing. ‘They only want to kill us when we’re close to them, when we’re, what did you say, in their radar?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jade. ‘It’s like they sense us and they go mental, like a dog senses another dog.’
‘And if we get away, get far enough away, they go back to normal,’ Cal went on. ‘They totally forget what they’ve done. But why? What would make them do that?’
The only answer was the lapping of the waves.
‘Okay, we need to start from the beginning,’ said Cal. ‘The headache, the thumping. Maybe it was some kind of, I don’t know . . . some kind of psychological change.’
‘Physiological,’ corrected Jade. ‘It would have to be chemical. Maybe we’re producing a new kind of pheromone, some kind of mutant gene that makes people hate us.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Cal, his trainers scuffing the dry ground as he walked back and forth. Each step was treading on Brick’s temper but he swallowed it back down, the anger boiling in his stomach. ‘Until you think about Schiller. And Adam. I’ve never heard a scream like that before in my life.’
‘Daisy too,’ said Brick. Cal stopped, and Daisy looked up, frowning.
‘What about me?’
‘You knew that kid’s name,’ he said. ‘After the explosion. I heard you call it out, before anyone said anything. How did you know that?’
Daisy just shrugged.
‘You wanna hear something weird?’ Cal said, running his hands through his hair. ‘I’ve been doing it too, like I can sometimes see things that you guys are thinking. It’s nothing bad or anything. It’s probably nothing at all. All it is, is that some of the thoughts in my head aren’t mine, you know?’
Brick hawked up a ball of spit and launched it towards the crazy golf. It tasted of ash. ‘You serious?’
‘And what about the explosion?’ Cal said, nodding. ‘Brick, me and you were lying right next to that guy, I mean just feet away. We get thrown halfway across the park, but we’re okay? That blast demolished the hot-dog stand, it cut loose bits of metal from the big wheel, but we’re okay? You think about that?’
Brick hadn’t thought about it, not until now. But Cal was right, if the man had been carrying explosives then they’d have been blown to pulp, bits of them would still be raining down on Fursville. He’d just assumed that they’d been lucky, but that in itself was a long stretch. Luck, after all, was used to giving Brick a wide, wide berth. So maybe the man hadn’t been carrying a bomb, maybe it was something else . . .
But it was, remember, you saw it, something crawling from his belly.
Brick shook his head, the image dissolving like salt in water, forgotten. They’d been lucky, that’s all, lucky, lucky, lucky. Keep saying it, Brick, and you’ll believe it eventually.
‘What does that mean, that we’re invincible?’ asked Chris, leaning against the wall, his expression a portrait of desperation.
‘I have no idea,’ Cal went on. ‘We have absolutely no idea.’
Brick felt the sun on his face, burning his fair, freckled skin. And suddenly something hit him.
‘Not yet, we don’t,’ he said. ‘But I think I might know how to find out.’
‘Dude, this is a seriously bad idea.’
They were in the car park, close enough to the boot of the Jag to hear the feeble moans from inside – ‘Please let me out, I don’t want to die’ – but far enough away not to trigger the guy inside, not to make him feral. It was about twenty metres, Brick had worked out, give or take a few. That’s how far their radar stretched, whether they could see or not. He held a hessian sack in his hands, a big one he’d found inside the kitchen next door to the restaurant. It was filthy, but hopefully it would do the job. Cal, Jade and Chris were beside him. Daisy had volunteered to look after Adam back in Fursville – it was better that they didn’t see this.
‘Seriously, dude,’ Chris said again. ‘This won’t end well.’
‘Gotta say I agree with him, mate,’ said Cal. He was holding several long strips of fabric they’d torn from another sack. ‘You don’t know who’s in there or what he’s capable of.’
‘We never saw him,’ said Jade. ‘He was unconscious when that farmer guy put him in. Could be anyone.’
‘Doesn’t matter who it is,’ said Brick, gripping the bag. The material was rough and the feel of it against his fingertips made his skin crawl. ‘Right now he’s the only one who can help us, he’s the one who can explain what’s going on.’
And Lisa, right? She’s down there, in the basement, you could always tell them about her?
No. Not yet. He didn’t know what to do about Lisa, he needed more time to work out how to help her.
‘Everybody set on what they have to do?’ he asked, psyching himself up – not that the adrenalin needed much help as it cut through his heart. ‘Remember, he’s been in there for a day, in the sun, with nothing to eat or drink. He’s going to be weak. Just remember that.’
‘Christ,’ muttered Chris. ‘This is insane.’
‘Pop it,’ said Brick, opening the sack in front of him. Nothing happened. ‘I said pop it, do it now.’
Chris held out the remote lock and thumbed the boot key. There was a soft click as the metal lid popped up an inch. The moans inside stopped, as if in disbelief.
‘Go!’ Brick yelled, charging forward, hearing Cal’s feet thundering along beside him.
The lid was lifting, darkness peeling away from a pale face. The man saw them coming, his frightened pleas lasting maybe five or six words before they got close enough to do whatever it was they did. His face creased up like someone having an electric shock – his lips pulled back, his ey
es bulging – and he started to scramble out of the boot.
Brick screamed, plunging the hessian bag over the man’s head. The guy was fast, swiping his hand across Brick’s cheek. He ignored the pain, yanking the bag down hard until it covered the guy down to his waist.
‘Quick!’ he panted. The man crunched into Brick and butted him to the floor. He hit hard, forgetting to tuck in his head, fireworks gouging chunks out of his sight. The feral landed on him, knees working into his ribs. Savage, guttural howls blasted out from behind the hessian, the man’s jaw flexing in the cloth, like he was trying to chew his way through it and straight into Brick.
There was a crunch as Cal kicked out, sending the feral rolling to the side. The man managed to find his feet, just a pair of legs and a sack that ran in wild circles. Cal lashed out, an impressive punch that knocked the man on his backside. He pinned him to the floor, calling out for help as he tried to wrap the canvas strips around him.
Chris got there first, sitting on the man’s legs. Jade was quick to follow, pressing both her hands on his head until Cal had looped the first strip round and tied it tight. He wrapped another round the guy’s waist, then used the last one to bind his feet. When he was done he fell backwards, wiping the sweat from his brow and spitting out a couple of choice swears. Chris and Jade retreated too, leaving a hessian mummy squirming on the grass.
‘Yeah, real weak,’ Cal said, his chest heaving, his heartbeat making his words flutter.
‘Now what?’ asked Jade.
‘We get him inside,’ said Brick. ‘Then we make him spill his guts.’
Rilke
Fursville, 1.33 p.m.
Rilke swam up from fire into ice, the inferno of her dream extinguished by the immense cold of the room.
She curled into herself, shivering, knowing that Schiller was close by because nothing else could be pumping out that chill. She lay there, trying to hang on to her nightmare, remembering only that she had been falling through a storm of fire, a tornado of heat and light and noise; falling towards a churning ocean made up not of water but of long limbs and twisted jaws and eyes of burning pitch. The image was so real that she was sweating despite the temperature in the restaurant, her skin burning.
Maybe she was coming down with a fever? It didn’t seem unlikely, given what she’d been through in the last day or so. She’d had one before, a bad one when she was a kid, a temperature of almost 40 degrees but massive chills that had made the bed rattle. She remembered what the doctor had told her, that fevers were a good thing, it meant your body was fighting.
But this was different. This was worse. Because she knew this had nothing to do with being ill. Her body was fighting something, but it wasn’t anything the doctors could fix.
Rilke was suddenly aware of how quiet the room was. She couldn’t even hear the sea any more, just her brother’s soft, rapid breathing, no louder than a heartbeat. Where was everybody?
Outside, she knew. She could almost see them there, an image that hung in the corner of her vision, something she could sense but couldn’t quite make sense of.
‘You okay, Schill?’ she asked, not expecting a response. The pattern of his breathing remained unbroken. She shuffled across the room, remembering the layout, only banging her hip once before finding the table with the candles. She sparked up a match and lit one, the dancing flame bringing back more memories from her dream – a man on fire, something clawing its way free from his skin.
She shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.
That hadn’t been a dream. That had been real.
She collapsed into a chair. What had happened out there, before she blacked out?
An explosion, a shock wave, from the guy you shot in the head.
She had killed somebody. She’d pulled the trigger and taken his life. She rested her elbows on the table, cradling her head in her hands. The knowledge of what she’d done was overwhelming, pulling her towards madness. It had been Daisy, it had been the little girl’s fault. She’d made her do it, she’d whined and cried and screamed until Rilke hadn’t been able to think straight. Had the man been about to kill Cal? There was no way of knowing; she’d shot him before he even had a chance. And worse still, it hadn’t even been one of the ferals, it had been one of them.
Her thoughts blazed and guttered like the candle. She’d killed a man, but it wasn’t just that, she’d killed something else too. She closed her eyes, dragging herself back, seeing the thing that had unzipped the man’s body like a sleeping bag, like a fancy-dress costume, which had torn and ripped and raged its way free, which had opened the abyss of its mouth and howled at her, spread impossible wings of fire. It couldn’t have been real, and yet this thing, this creature, was more real than anything she’d ever known.
Her body shook, her teeth chattering.
Think, you stupid girl, she shouted at herself, slapping her forehead. What had it been, this thing? What was it doing disguised as a man?
Or maybe it hadn’t been disguised. Maybe it had been hiding.
She pictured its face, those eyes that blazed – not with emotion, but with power. The heat from them seemed to burrow into her mind, leaving blackened traces there. What was it? And more importantly, if it had been hiding inside the man then was something like that hiding inside her too? Was there one inside all of them? Was this what made them different? Had they all been . . .
The word ‘chosen’ was what popped into Rilke’s head. That’s right, isn’t it? We’re special, we’ve been chosen.
She curled up against the table, shivering, feverish, wondering what was wrong with her, wondering what it was that her body was fighting. She was strong, like all the Bastion women. When she put her mind to something then she always got it done, whatever the cost. It was no surprise that she’d been chosen.
But chosen for what? She wiped a hand over her brow, the skin hot and damp with sweat. It was as cold as a church in here, and the thought brought back memories of St Peter’s in the village. She’d been forced there for mass every week for as long as she could remember. But maybe all those hours hadn’t been wasted. Because in the stories she heard in church people were always being chosen.
For good things, and for bad.
‘Why are we here, little brother?’ she asked Schiller. ‘Can you see it, from where you are? Are there answers there?’
Maybe it was some kind of test. Maybe she’d been supposed to shoot that guy, proof that she was strong enough to do whatever it was that she was here to do. Maybe his role in all this was a sacrificial one, a pawn to be slaughtered so that she could be pointed in the right direction. There were plenty of slaughtered pawns in those church stories too.
She had killed. But was it really a bad thing? Was it truly any different from the times she’d gone out with Schiller and taken pot shots at the rats in the grain barrels? Or sniped the pigeons on the telephone wires and the guttering? She’d shot a cat once, too, although it had been about to die anyway, stuck in a fox trap for God knew how long. Dead rat, dead cat, dead bird, dead human. What did it matter to her?
Because she was none of those things.
The restaurant reeled, vertigo making her grip the table before she lost her balance. Her body shook, gripped by fever, the truth suddenly as bright and as golden as sunrise. It was almost too much to take in, too much to think about. She closed her eyes, her lips peeling open into a shuddering grin.
And just like that, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Daisy
Fursville, 1.56 p.m.
‘Do you miss your mum and dad?’ Daisy asked.
She sat on the carousel, on one of the three horses that remained. It had lost most of its paint, but she didn’t mind – its plain grey coat made it look more like a real pony. It still had parts of its face, its frightened eyes and its big teeth. It reminded her a bit of the ambulance man but she tried not to think about him. This was Angie – her mum’s name – Angie her beautiful white Lipizzaner. She leant a
gainst the pole, swinging her legs absently, gazing at the horse beside hers. Adam was sitting on it, his arms wrapped around its neck, his cheek resting on the colourless plastic mane. His eyes blinked every few seconds, but that was about all he seemed capable of. She’d had to lift him up there because he was so limp.
Truth be told, she was a little scared of him now. The noise he’d made, back in the restaurant, that scream. It had come from the little boy’s mouth, but it hadn’t been him. She was sure of it.
‘I miss my mum and dad,’ she went on, then stopped because it was making her heart hurt. ‘What shall we call your horse?’
The ice cubes in her head clinked. She was learning to make sense of them, of the different layers they formed. The ones down deep were always dark, cloudy. She could see things in them but she couldn’t see what those things were exactly. The middle ones were better, they had some sounds too, muffled voices or piano music, things like that. But every now and then one would bobble to the surface and it would be just like she was living inside it, as though she were really there. She didn’t always like these ones because sometimes they were too real. And sometimes, very occasionally, they were full of fire. She saw things in the flames, things with burning faces, things that scared her.
‘Geoffrey,’ she said, reading an ice cube, seeing a dog there, a small one with big ears and a goofy dog grin. The boy’s eyes met hers as she said the word, and she thought she saw a smile in them, gone before she could be sure. ‘Was that your dog? Geoffrey? That’s a funny name. Wolfie would be better, or . . .’ She couldn’t think of any other dog names and shrugged. ‘Okay, we’ll call your horse Geoffrey. Mine is Angie, and we need a name for that one too or it will feel left out.’
She pointed at the horse further along the carousel. It was the one that had weathered the best, and she could still make out its bridle and the reins over its shoulders, even splotches of brown left on the saddle.