Chapter Eleven
Doofus hurled himself towards the gate, his muscles bulging, his body quivering.
The lead went taut; and then went PTWANG.
The bush bounced back into Holly and sent her sprawling. By the time she recovered, Doofus had sprung like a racehorse over the gate.
Not just over the gate. He leapt right over the startled wolf and as soon as he hit the ground was speeding away up the road. Holly was left alone in the garden clutching the remains of his lead.
She sat on the grass with her mouth open, staring at the wolf. But the wolf ignored her. It whirled round and set off after Doofus. Holly staggered to the gate and gazed out at the street.
And then she saw shadow after waiting shadow raise itself from gates and hedges. Wolf after wolf took shape in the empty yellow dawn; and, swift and scuffling, followed Doofus down the road.
Holly was transfixed. This trail of wolves in the empty street was something wonderful to behold, like a scene from a Grimm’s fairy tale. Then she reminded herself sternly that these wolves were real, and unlikely to follow fairy tale rules. She shrank back from the gate: but the wolves were only interested in Doofus.
A dozen of them were now loping after Doofus, as if they were playing Follow my Leader. She wondered if they had come looking for him, or were just exploring the village – but either way, they knew him. Rounding the corner of the houses, they disappeared from view.
Holly stood irresolute for about four seconds. Then she ran inside, flung on her jeans, T-shirt and trainers, and went to shake Matt.
“Wake up! Wolves are chasing Doofus. I’m going to follow them. Are you coming?”
Matt groaned and muttered something incomprehensible without opening his eyes.
“Tell Mum and Dad, then,” said Holly. She wasn’t going to tell them herself, because they’d immediately stop her. And scared though she was, she needed to know where those wolves were going.
She ran downstairs, grabbed her mobile phone, and let herself out quietly. She took Matt’s bike from behind the wheelie bins. It was too small for Matt now, but she had nearly grown into it: and it was fast.
Before she left, she threw a handful of gravel at Clive’s window. He did not appear. So much for being nocturnal, thought Holly, as she started pedalling up the road the way the wolves had run.
When she reached the edge of the village, she could see the wolf pack heading up the hill, already maybe half a mile away. They’d got a big head start while she was getting dressed.
She almost sped up the slope past Ailsa’s farm; the gears on Matt’s bike were much better than her old one. She reckoned that on the flat, she would go faster than a wolf. It occurred to her that over the last few weeks her legs had grown to fully fit this bike.
It also occurred to her that this might be one of the stupidest things she had ever done in her life.
Well, she wasn’t going to turn back now. She could see the pack crossing the field ahead, scattering sheep, though they didn’t seem to be chasing them. Doofus was in the lead, and they were still following him up to the moor.
Was he the leader, or was he being hunted? Holly couldn’t tell. She realised she would only know that if they caught him up. Despite her mixed feelings about Doofus, she really did not want to see him being torn to bits by hungry wolves.
However, they weren’t catching him up yet. Doofus actually seemed to be gaining on them slightly. She wondered how long he would be able to keep up the pace.
Switching gears again, she stood on the pedals as the road steepened. She laboured up to the shoulder of the hill, where she caught another glimpse of running wolves before they disappeared from view. But she had a good idea of where Doofus was heading: Barges Bridge.
As the road levelled, she began to pick up speed. She startled a family of badgers snuffling in the earth bank by the roadside. They waddled away as she shot past, only to start snuffling and digging again behind her. She must tell Clive.
High overhead, a lark started up: its busy, hurtling song sounded as if it couldn’t get the notes out fast enough. Somewhere away over the vast moor a curlew was pouring out a musical cascade of blue and silver through the clean, pale dawn. It seemed surreal to be chasing wolves to a soundtrack of birdsong.
Now she was on the long, winding stretch of road to Barges Farm. When she passed its gate, the noisy farm dogs set off barking somewhere inside. Holly winced. They would probably wake Jarvis Turnpike.
However, there was no time to worry about that. Holly hurtled on to Barges Bridge; and there at last she rested, halting on its stone hump that rose like a small whale’s back above the sea of moorland. She surveyed the swell of land: dusty heather, straw-dry grass, no wolves. The lemon sky told her that the sun was just about to rise. Where were they?
All at once she caught sight of Doofus, running fast and low to the ground. Behind him came the pack, a rippling tide of grey. They swung round in a big, slow arc until they were heading towards her – towards the bridge.
Her muscles tensed with sudden fear. She had to get out of their way. What should she do?
The sensible thing would be to run back to Jarvis Turnpike’s farm. She could bang on the door and shelter there. Jarvis might be angry, but she’d be safe.
Holly did not do the sensible thing. She was afraid of Jarvis Turnpike’s temper; so she told herself there wasn’t time to reach the farm. Instead, dropping the bike, she ran down from the bridge and jumped into the stream.
Except that there was no stream now, mid-drought. The tadpole pools had gone. The reeds were parched and yellow. There was no water here at all: just damp mud.
Holly pushed along the dry stream bed to hide beneath the bridge. It was like a small tunnel. Under there, the air was as cold as the stone at her back. It was so dim that she could see little apart from the two semi-circles of light framed by darkness, one on either side of her.
But she could hear. For the first time, she heard a howl, too close for comfort. She froze. That was not Doofus.
There was another strange howl, even closer than the first; and then, to her alarm, a jostling, shuffling rush of feet.
The pack of wolves was crossing the bridge right overhead. Holly stopped breathing. In another minute they’d have passed, and she’d be safe again… Go, go, she urged them silently.
Surely, by now, they must be running down the other side. Her heart lurched as a dark shape appeared, silhouetted in one of the pale semi-circles.
It was not a wolf. It was Doofus. He stopped and sniffed the air.
His head turned towards her, as if he scanned her, for the briefest instant. Then, before she could move or even think, he plunged away from her, away from the tunnel entrance, charging further up the stream bed. The grey horde came into view, but they did not look her way. They followed Doofus, body after body in a rustling, surging mass, until at last they disappeared.
Holly huddled motionless beneath the bridge, listening hard. It took a while for her to hear anything beyond the thumping of her own pulse. But once that quietened, she heard nothing: neither howl, nor rustle, nor any scuffle or scrape of claws on stone.
So after another moment she ventured out to peer along the deeply cut stream bed. She could see the bruised grass on the banks where the pack had pushed past. She could see the marks their feet had written on the mud.
But she could not see them. They had gone. Another carefree lark piped up above her: elsewhere, the silence was intense.
“Half way across the moor by now,” thought Holly; yet she was puzzled. How could they have disappeared so quickly?
Very cautiously she pushed along the dry stream bed a little further, following the clawprints. She went no more than a few metres from the bridge, around a bend–
–and suddenly she was tumbling, with nothing underneath her feet, being scraped and clouted round her head and legs and shoulders. She was sliding, rolling, falling, falling, and she could not help herself.
It seem
ed to go on for ever. After a final thump, it took her several seconds to realise she had stopped. Inside her head she was still falling.
Everything was dark. Holly lay dazed and immobile, trying to work out where she was and what had happened.
There was rough earth beneath her hand. She shifted, and heard the dry rattle of small stones. They seemed to echo, as if she was in a large space.
She was underground. The stream-bed had given way. She might be in one of the old mine-workings: or perhaps it was a natural cave.
Either way, it didn’t make much difference. She was buried deep in the dark, alone, with no way out.