by Ali Sparkes
Freddy suddenly stopped, twenty metres or so before they would reach their gate. He leaned against a tree at the roadside and bent over, panting, his hand to his face. As he caught up, Ben saw, with horror, that Freddy’s nose was bleeding. A lot. He touched the boy’s shoulder and Freddy shrugged him off. ‘Go ahead!’ he said. ‘Don’t stop for me. You’ll have to go on ahead.’
‘You can keep going!’ argued Ben. ‘It’s just—it’s just a nosebleed. You’ll be OK!’ Freddy turned to face him, but he did not look right. It wasn’t the blood on his face. It was something else.
‘You have to go ahead … and then come back for me,’ said Freddy. ‘I’m sorry, old chap … it’s just that I can’t see.’
‘YOU!’ Rachel was so flabbergasted that this was all she could say. Polly was also gaping with astonishment. After the terrors of the last thirty minutes: the silent phone call, the shadows in the garden, unknown people breaking in, their desperate escape onto the roof and down the ladder; the very last thing in the world she could have imagined was this.
‘Hello again. Rachel, is it?’ The woman perched on the arm of the sofa opposite them, smiling. She was holding a small metallic case with curved edges, about the size of a book, in her hand.
‘You—you’re the librarian!’ Rachel’s brain could hardly bend around this. What was the town librarian doing down in their vault? Visions of black shadows in her garden fought with the sight of this woman, here in her trousers and navy cardigan, smiling as if she’d just been asked for Wind in the Willows.
‘Well remembered,’ she said, smoothing back her neat brown hair. ‘Hello, Polly. How are you?’
‘What are you doing down here?’ Polly demanded. ‘You’ve jolly well no right to be down here!’
‘I’ve been given permission. Don’t worry your head about it. Everything’s going to be fine. How are you finding twenty-first century life?’
Polly looked at Rachel. Could this woman know?
‘How would you expect her to find it?’ snapped Rachel.
‘Pretty dreadful, I should think. Poor child. Has the bleeding started yet?’
Again Rachel and Polly gasped and stared.
‘I see that it has,’ sighed the librarian. ‘Which makes it even more important that you come with me now. I can take you somewhere safe and make sure you get the care you need.’
‘She’s not going anywhere with you!’ said Rachel, fiercely. There was something about the woman’s tone that she hated. A smug, know-it-all kind of tone that made Rachel want nothing more than to punch her hard in the face.
‘Oh, but she is—and so are you,’ said the librarian. ‘I wish I could leave you behind, Rachel, but there’d be far too much trouble if I did. Now, be good girls and come along with me. Making a fuss really won’t help.’ Rachel and Polly anchored themselves to the sofa and glared at her. ‘Really, Polly, I’m surprised at you,’ she said, getting up and walking to the door to the exit corridor. ‘Don’t you want to see your father?’
Ben staggered to the side of the road and tore great ragged gasps of air through his aching lungs. He had tried to drag Freddy along with him but the boy had struck out at him and insisted he had to go on alone. ‘I can’t help you! I’m no good to anyone now, blast it!’ he’d said, with tears in his voice, which convinced Ben he was right. Freddy really could not see. Now Ben thought of the rats which had died in Professor Emerson’s early experiments and shuddered. Just a few steps away was the fabled black car. It had to be a second one— the first would have passed them on the road if it had come here, and he knew it hadn’t. It wasn’t possible to make out if anyone was inside because the windows were mirrored, so he daren’t dash past it. For the third time that day Ben dropped to the ground, this time to wriggle across the tarmac of the road on his belly. His only chance was to stay very low and hope no lightning flared to show him up as he went. A few drops of rain were beginning to fall now and the thunder rumbling in the east sounded louder.
As soon as he reached the gate he crawled around it and scrambled into the hedge to the right. Panting, he got up on his knees and stared along the drive to the front door of Darkwood House, which was wide open, with light flooding out. As he watched, a man clothed in black came out from the hallway, speaking into a hand-held radio or phone. The man signalled to another, who now joined him from the side alley of the house, moving with purpose towards the back garden. He shouted something in a foreign language, taking no care now to keep his voice down. Ben felt his heart thud hard inside his chest. They must have got Rachel and Polly then. And even if he had hoped against hope that they were actually just the local— or even London—police, sent by their own government after a tip off, the foreign language convinced him they were not. They sounded Russian. What should he do? They were too late. What would Freddy say? He felt fearful indecision settle on him like wet cement.
‘You mean he’s … he’s alive?’ Polly abandoned all pretence. The thought that her father was still on the earth knocked every other thought out of her.
‘I can take you to him,’ said the librarian. ‘Come with me and you’ll see him very soon. I work for the same people your father works for.’
Polly took a step towards the librarian. ‘You work with him?’
‘For the same people,’ she repeated. ‘The government. That’s how I know about you and about this place. So come on now—he’s missed you so much, Polly. He told me he’s looking forward to giving you a big hug and a kiss and telling you how much he loves you.’
Polly blinked, and then a coldness crept over her face. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you? You’re making it up!’
The librarian looked slightly uneasy, for just a fraction of a second. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because Father isn’t like that! He’s not a hugging and kissing sort at all and he certainly wouldn’t ever say that to you. You don’t know where he is at all and you certainly don’t know him!’
The librarian sniffed and pursed her thin lips. ‘I really don’t have time for this. Look, I work for some very powerful people, who would really think nothing of it if I just finished off your friend here, Polly. We don’t need her. So fine—come nicely or don’t come nicely. It’s all the same to me.’ She walked briskly along the exit corridor as Polly and Rachel exchanged appalled glances, and then they heard her go up the metal rungs of the shaft and then press the unlock button.
‘She might lock us in!’ said Rachel, suddenly getting to her feet, and they both ran along the corridor and began to climb up the rungs. The librarian was sitting on the edge of the hatch and smiled tightly down at them as they climbed. She was talking into a phone or radio—yes, judging by the beeps before she spoke, it was a radio.
‘I’ve got them,’ she said. ‘Come right now. No— I haven’t sedated them yet—they’re way too jumpy. I’ll be needing your help.’
Rachel stopped climbing and looked down at Polly, who shared her frightened expression. ‘Sedate us?’ she whispered, and her words rang up through the concrete shaft.
‘Yes,’ called down the librarian. ‘For your own good. It’s going to be a long journey—tricky in places— better that you’re asleep really.’
‘What have you done with Ben and Freddy?’ asked Rachel, climbing a rung or two higher.
‘Nothing,’ said the librarian. ‘We expected to find them here with you. Where are they?’
‘As if we’d tell you that!’ said Rachel.
She reached the top of the rungs and a moment later she was seized from behind by a blur of black. In the struggle and through flashes of lightning she saw another darkly-dressed man grab Polly. Soon they were both standing on the ground beside the hatch and the librarian was moving towards them. She had opened her little metallic case, which had several syringes in it. She drew one out, took the cover off its needle, and went towards Rachel first. As Rachel shouted out ‘No!’ and tried to pull against the iron grip that pinned her arms back, the librarian jabbed
her suddenly in the shoulder.
‘Sorry, dear,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think I would ever really do this kind of thing … but the rewards are just so much better than government pay.’
Whatever was in the syringe was fast. Three seconds later, as Polly gave a little shriek, Rachel’s vision turned black and white and then purple and then she knew nothing at all.
Hiding low in the bush, Ben watched the men in black vanish down the garden. He wondered what on earth to do next. Where were Rachel and Polly? How could he help them? He’d just decided to get up and run into the house, in case he could find the girls hiding in a cupboard or something, when a third man came out of the front door, carrying Bessie. The puppy was looking around nervously from behind the big bulky arms of her captor. Ben felt rage shoot up through him and then caught his breath. He must try to stay calm and think. Rachel and Polly were in danger—and poor Freddy was blind. Now Bessie was being dognapped and here he was, shivering under a bush. He had to do something.
He crawled forward slightly, and his knee knocked into something cold and hard. Squinting down in the dim light he saw the old camera which Uncle Jerome had pulled out of the chestnut tree a few days ago. The aged flex wound off it like a tail, through the wet grass. An image sprang into Ben’s mind. A warrior, swinging a flail. The man holding Bessie had taken her to the car and now returned, walking within feet of Ben’s hiding place. He paused and pulled out his radio, his back to Ben. ‘You got them yet?’ he heard the man say, with a strong accent. ‘Yes, drug the Emerson girl too. We have no time for hysterics. Your former colleagues will be here any moment. Hurry up.’
Ben felt the rage rise up in him again and this time he did not try to contain it. He needed it—this might be his only chance. He stood up with the bulky rectangle of the camera in his hands, wound the flex twice around his fist and began to swing the metal box from the end of its own tail. He swung it fast around his head, three times. The swooping noise it made seemed horribly loud, and he felt sure the man talking into the radio would turn around at any time. But he didn’t. Which meant that Ben really would have to go through with it. He thought of Freddy, blind, bleeding, and possibly dying, shouting for him to run on and save the girls. Could he be the warrior? He must. He stepped forward and let the full force of the hurtling camera flail crack into the side of the man’s head.
In the split second that the weapon connected Ben felt absolute triumph and absolute terror strike him. Now the man would turn and kill him. But the man did not turn. He fell over. And he didn’t get up, but groaned, curled into an anguished shape on the wet driveway, and then his eyes rolled up into his head and he lay still. Ben stood rigid with shock. He felt a wave of overwhelming guilt—had he murdered him? But no, the man was breathing, in a snore-y sort of way.
‘For goodness’ sake, you clot!’ shouted Freddy, in his head. ‘You’ve brought him down! Don’t just stand there! Save the girls!’
Ben shook himself out of his shock and ran down the garden on legs that trembled beneath him. He froze as soon as he reached the rhododendrons. He could see torchlight and a group of people heading up the garden. A woman and two men—the men were each carrying a lifeless form. He gulped. Rachel and Polly. Were they dead? No—he couldn’t believe that. Unconscious then … drugged, of course—that’s what his victim had said just before being rendered unconscious himself. Ben moved back up the garden and crouched around the corner of the porch, gasping for breath as terror pounded through him. Now what? Now what?
As the party reached the driveway one of the men shouted something in another language. They all drew up in shock at the sight of their comrade on the floor. Then both men dumped the girls on the ground and ran towards him. Thunder and lightning rolled and flashed all around them now. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ shouted the woman and Ben, peering around the brick porch, realized with astonishment that it was the town librarian. ‘Get him in the car! We have to go now! We’ll miss our flight!’
Flight? Ben’s panicked mind did not seem capable of squeezing any more awful things in—but here was a new one. Their home had been attacked, Rachel and Polly were drugged and being kidnapped, along with Bessie, and taken … out of the country? Ben groaned. He wanted to cry. Where was Uncle Jerome? Where was his dad? His mum? Someone who could help? He thumped his fist, painfully, against the wall, and stood up in despair, thinking he might as well give up. His head struck against something and he looked up to see the satellite dish which had fallen off the wall last week, just before all this madness started, dangling by its wire. If he could cut off the wire he might use it as a frisbee … see if he could take out another foe. But he couldn’t, and besides, he knew he wasn’t the kind of Boy’s Own hero that Freddy probably was. The success of his camera flail was just a fluke.
The men were dragging their concussed comrade into the black car at the gate now. ‘Put the girls in the boot—fast,’ said the librarian. ‘Then search the garden one more time. Someone attacked Anton—it could be the boys. But fast! If we don’t get them on one sweep, we’ve got to go. I didn’t turn traitor just to get caught!’ A crash of thunder punctuated her words, theatrically.
Ben crouched low beside the porch. There was nowhere he could run without being seen. He glanced around desperately for some kind of weapon. A few feet away he saw Freddy’s old-fashioned bicycle pump. He moved across in the shadow of the house and grabbed it. At least he could try to cause a bit more damage before they got him. Then his eye picked up something beyond the lightning flashes … he could see a beam of light hitting the broad trunk of the big oak tree across the other side of the road. He knew what this meant. Someone was driving round a bend in the road that led in to Darkwood Lane, maybe a third of a mile away. A car was coming!
‘OK—forget the search,’ called the librarian, who’d seen it too. ‘We go now!’ She ran for the car and the two men followed.
Ben stood up. He had to delay them.
‘STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!’ he bellowed and all three turned round. Ben tucked the bicycle pump under his armpit and held it like a rifle. ‘I AM ARMED AND I WILL SHOOT!’ bellowed Ben, trying to sound ten years older.
‘It’s a kid,’ sniggered one of the men. They advanced—carefully—and one began to grin. ‘Give it up, little boy,’ he said. ‘You can’t shoot people!’
‘No? W-well I can knock them out with a flail, c-can’t I?’
The men faltered slightly. ‘You?’ said one. ‘Not bad for a shrimp.’
‘Just get him and go!’ yelled the librarian. ‘Now! There’s a car coming!’ Now the men were close enough to see that they were being held at bicycle pump point. They strode forward and grabbed it off him and yanked his arms back and up, doubling him over with pain. They propelled him to the waiting car and hurled him into the back where the librarian was already waiting with her syringe. Before she could inject him, though, the man who had jumped into the driver’s seat shouted something in another language. His shock and anger were easy to translate.
He looked back at the woman. ‘Keys! Someone has the keys!’
Ben laughed, in spite of his fear. He just knew it! Freddy! And yes—there was Freddy haring across the garden towards the house. Unfortunately, Ben wasn’t the only one to spot him. The men crashed back out of the car and gave chase and then drew up short. Freddy was holding the car keys out over the garden well.
‘I’ll let them drop!’ he shouted. ‘Get my sister and my friends out of the car now and you can have your keys back and go!’
Once again, two grown men stood, hesitating before a thirteen year old, unaware that the ornamental well only went down two feet. Ben, peering out of the window while the librarian grasped his arm tightly and drove the needle into him, couldn’t imagine how this could end. And in fact, nobody else could ever have imagined it either.
There was an incredible bang and a simultaneous flash and a white hot rivet of lightning struck the satellite dish beside the porch, then threw jagged fingers of burn
ing silver out in several directions, seeking an earth. It found two earths. A second later, two men were flat on the driveway, smoking slightly.
A second after that Ben blacked out.
Rachel was bumped awake. Her head, which felt as if someone had vacuum-packed it with hot custard, slammed into something hard. She raised her hand to her stinging brow, trying to work out why she was being rattled about in the dark. Where was she?
Now she realized she could hear a car engine and smell petrol. The last few images before she was injected flashed into her mind and fear flared through her chest. She felt around her—yes—she was in a car. In the boot of a car. Her hand fell on something warm— Polly’s face. ‘Polly!’ shouted Rachel, in a voice that sounded odd and slurred. Of course … she had been drugged. She took a deep breath and shook her head. She had to wake up properly. Oh! The car thumped her up and down, again knocking her brow on the low underside of the boot lid—they must be going over very uneven ground. ‘Polly!’ she called again, and this time sounded more like herself. But Polly only moaned and didn’t answer.
Where were they being taken? The librarian had talked about a ‘long journey’. Maybe … maybe she really was from their own government. Maybe they were being taken to Polly’s father. But no. There would be no need to dump them both, unconscious, in the boot of a car, if that were so. And now she remembered the librarian threatening to kill her, if Polly didn’t co-operate.