Into the Infested Side

by Shane Hegarty

  “Are you OK?” Emmie asked him. “You went flying across the cave when the gateway opened.”

  Finn shook his arm out, let the spasm dissipate, then looked around again. “This cave is like a near mirror of our world, as if they’d been divided right here.”

  “They’re not identical, though,” added Emmie. “All that goo and the awful smell. But maybe it’s just coincidence we’re in another cave.”

  “Like the way a gateway can lead from open ground in our world to open ground here?” added Finn, trying to stay as calm and reasonable as possible, even when his mind was telling him he’d made a massive mistake. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  Estravon stepped forward, his torch trained on a shadow that suggested a gap in the wall.

  “We can’t stay here,” he said through clenched teeth. “But we can’t go on either. It’s too dangerous.”

  “What do your regulations say?” replied Emmie breezily.

  “Please don’t sneer at our regulations,” said Estravon. “Regulations keep you safe. Regulations keep you from ending up in screw-ups like this one. Except, unfortunately, on this occasion.”

  “If we want to talk to Dad, we need to get a better signal for the radio than this place,” said Finn. “The rock and stalactites must be blocking the radio signal.”

  “We could look for an exit,” suggested Emmie.

  “Firstly,” Estravon said, “when I say that we can’t stay here, I don’t mean that we go out there. And, secondly, they’re stalagmites.”

  Ignoring him, Finn and Emmie walked a few steps towards the gap in the rock.

  “And thirdly,” continued Estravon, his voice rising so he could be heard, “I am wearing a suit. Not a fighting suit. An ordinary suit. Italian tailoring, as it happens. Brand-new. And you two are wearing school uniform.”

  “My fighting suit’s in my bag,” said Finn. “There’s no helmet, but at least it’s something.”

  “There are three of us,” said Estravon, stretching up to his full rangy height. “And I haven’t been your size since about a week after I was born.”

  Finn took the fighting suit from his bag and it fell with a clatter that echoed away from them.

  “Why don’t we just light up a flare to alert the Legends that we’re here?” complained Estravon. “Maybe post them some invitations to dinner.”

  Finn held the quivering, clanking pile of metal, rubber and leather out to Emmie. “You have it.”

  “No, I’ve a better idea,” she said. “Let’s split it.”

  Finn felt it best not to argue, so gave her the torso and took the legs for himself. Emmie pulled her part of the armour over her head, then tightened the clasps at her shoulders and along her sides, before turning round a bit to show it off. “I don’t even mind that it’s smelly or anything,” she said with a grin. “Don’t they give you something to protect yourself?” she asked the clearly disgruntled Estravon.

  “They give us pens. Until now, they’ve proven sufficient for most jobs.”

  Finn felt claustrophobia closing in on him. They were here, without much option but to move on in search of his dad. And it was getting more helpless by the second. “We have no weapons,” he said.

  “Actually,” said Emmie, with a mixture of guilt and giddiness, “that’s not entirely true.”

  She dropped her schoolbag to the floor, unzipped it fully and pointed her torch into it. Finn and Estravon watched from over her shoulder. Inside was a hotchpotch of devices of various sizes, shapes, mostly dark green or tin grey, scuffed and blackened in parts. They looked like the guts of a disassembled machine. “Since Mr Glad’s shop blew up, my dad’s been grabbing bits and pieces from the ruins. But they were just sort of sitting around at home.”

  “Just sitting around?” asked Estravon.

  “Well, sitting around in his safe. Anyway, I thought I should grab a handful, just in case.”

  “It didn’t occur to you they could have gone off at any moment, killing you and anyone standing close by?” asked Estravon, incredulous. “Or, worse, killing me.”

  Finn picked out a rectangular object with spikes at one end. “Do you know what any of these do?”

  “Nah,” said Emmie, closing the bag again and swinging it on to her back. “But I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

  Estravon grabbed her shoulders, turned her round abruptly and zipped open the bag. He picked out a spiked ball and a fat little pistol. “This looks like a Grappler, slightly modified, but in working order.” He next took out something that looked a bit like a metal pineapple, with clasps on its side. “This is probably a Knock-out Box. Crude but effective.” He pointed at a thin strip that resembled a firework. “That’s a Roman candle. Handy for a firework display; not much use in a fight.”

  Finn and Emmie were both staring at him.

  “You learn a lot in two years of Advanced Weaponry Class,” explained Estravon.

  They kept on staring.

  “What?” he said, hurt by the implicit disbelief about his knowledge. “We don’t have much else to do at the Council of Twelve other than study, you know. You try spending your life in the headquarters of the world’s Legend Hunters when there are no actual Legends to fight any more. The days need to be filled somehow.”

  Finn took a deep breath, wished he hadn’t filled his lungs with the stench, then pulled the torch from Emmie’s hand and decided he had no choice but to head forward through the gap. “Let’s go,” he said. “No one in Darkmouth knows we’re here. And the only person we know on the Infested Side is Dad. If we’re going to escape from this, we have to contact him.”

  Emmie agreed and together they made their way through the jutting stalagmites. After a few seconds, Finn heard the rule-quoting grumbles of a very unhappy Assessor follow behind them, his complaints bouncing about the high roof of the chamber where a hole high in the wall leaked in grey light and a glimpse of the Infested Side beyond it.

  “Here’s the plan,” said Estravon. “We use the radio, try and contact Hugo, and we don’t go further under any circumstances.”

  He almost walked into the back of Finn, who had stopped suddenly. “What’s wrong with you now?” he asked.

  Finn pushed Estravon’s torch down and pointed towards the smudge of light in the cave wall. Something moved there. A silhouette in the dull light. Accompanying it was a low growling that made Finn’s heart find a whole new rhythm of distress.

  “Turn the torch off,” he whispered to Estravon. “Turn. It. Off.”

  Estravon killed the beam.

  That’s when they saw the eyes.

  Whatever it was that was staring at them had only two eyes. Not four. Not a dozen. Only two. At least only two eyes that they could see. In the circumstances, this was the only comfort Finn could find. Because whatever Legend was attached to those eyes was staring right at him.

  He could feel his brain wanting to shut down and fill his head with happy thoughts. He felt woozy, and the tremor returned to run through his arm. He tried to push it all away and concentrate on not moving until the Legend stopped looking at him.

  “Can it see us?” whispered Emmie, at his shoulder.

  “I think it can see Finn,” Estravon whispered in response.

  In the light of the cave’s opening, the creature curved its back, appeared to stretch. Its eyes, vivid yellow with black slits, rose as if whatever Legend belonged to them was craning to see better. Then they disappeared. Its silhouette shrank and the gap in the wall widened. Finn, Emmie and Estravon stepped back reflexively. They could not see the Legend, but knew it was still in the cave with them.

  Estravon pushed his hands out in self-defence. Emmie carefully began to remove her pack of weapons from her back and pull quietly at its zip.

  Finn tried to keep calm and not think about prophecies and spectacular deaths or any kind of nastiness, but they all just kept flooding into his thoughts.

  Estravon turned the torch back on, giving Finn and Emmie a fright.

&n
bsp; “It might be able to see in the dark,” he said through gritted teeth. “But we can’t.”

  At the edges of the torchlight, on the floor of the cave, something glinted. Gold. Finn carefully reached down to pick it up, still keeping an eye out for the Legend. Whatever, and wherever, it was.

  He took hold of a chain, short and snapped, as if it had been torn away. Holding it under Estravon’s torchlight, he worked it through his fingers until he came to a fat locket. With his thumb, he sprang it open. Inside was a picture – faded but well preserved – of two people on their wedding day.

  Finn had no idea who the man in the picture was, but after a couple of seconds he recognised the woman. She had aged over the years, but her scowl was unmistakable.

  He handed the locket to Emmie so she could examine it while Estravon peered at it over her shoulder.

  Then he turned and almost jumped with fright.

  “It’s Mrs Bright,” said Finn.

  “You should wash your hands after touching that,” said Estravon, rummaging in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I have hand soap here somewhere.”

  “No,” said Finn urgently. “Mrs Bright. She’s here.”

  Emmie and Estravon looked up to see a woman, a floral scarf pulled across her head, standing a few metres away behind a waist-high stalagmite, staring at them with a look of frozen concern.

  “Yappy,” she said. “Is that you, Yappy?”

  “Mrs Bright,” Finn called, taking a step towards her. “Are you OK?”

  Estravon gripped his elbow and out of the corner of his mouth warned, “Careful. She could be booby-trapped.”

  “She just looks petrified to me,” said Emmie. “Are you OK, Mrs Bright?”

  Mrs Bright didn’t move, just called out again meekly. “Yappy? Is that you, Yappy?”

  “It’s OK, we’re all Legend Hunters,” said Emmie. “We’ll be able to help you.”

  “Something about this doesn’t feel right,” said Estravon. “And we’re not official Legend Hunters, so you shouldn’t introduce yourself as such.”

  “We’re going to have to do something,” said Finn, seeing the blankness of Mrs Bright’s face, probably made rigid by fear. He felt he needed to help her, to comfort her. “It’s OK, Mrs Bright. It’s me, Finn. Hugo’s son. You’re safe now.”

  He offered a hand to help her across the rough cave floor towards them. Mrs Bright reached out, almost robotic. Her hand touched his. It was stone cold.

  Finn smiled at her. Mrs Bright’s face broke from its blankness, forming a smile. But it was almost unnatural, as if she was practising one for the first time.

  “I’m not sure that’s actually—” began Estravon.

  “Duck!” shouted Emmie.

  Finn didn’t have time. Something fizzed by his ear, causing him to jump sideways, away from Mrs Bright, and, when he looked at her again, the blinding white fire of a Roman candle was glued to the wall by her forehead, burning fast and spitting sparks.

  Mrs Bright looked at it, flinched as the sparks showered across the side of her face. But she didn’t scream. Or drop. Or run. Instead, she began to grow, her back mutating, pushing outwards, her body rising, limbs thickening, headscarf disappearing, hands bursting into claws, skin into dirty green fur, until a Legend emerged, a rough mass of hair, limbs, claws and those yellow and black eyes.

  Beside it, the fizzing, sticky sparks cast a flickering flame on stone, stalagmites, dripping golden goo.

  And no humans whatsoever. They were already gone, the only trail being the echo of Estravon’s last shouted word before they ran.

  “Shapeshifter!”

  They crashed through a gap in the cave wall and into a narrow corridor, the beams of their torches bouncing around them as they searched for a way out.

  Finn led the way, the legs of his fighting suit scraping the stone as he pushed through. “How did you know it wasn’t Mrs Bright?” he asked Emmie, who was following right behind him.

  “When she smiled, the end of the gold chain was still stuck in her teeth,” she panted, forcing her armour through the gap. “Stuck in its teeth. Whatever. It was as if it had bitten into it. Or that she had been bitten into, I suppose. The light caught it and I just knew.”

  “We need a strategy,” said Estravon from behind Emmie. “We can’t just run away in a random direction.”

  From somewhere in the cave came the echo of a long, rattling growl.

  They reached the end of the tunnel, Estravon’s head bowed beneath the low ceiling, with Emmie complaining as the long skirt of her uniform snagged on a shard of rock. She paused to unsnag herself, while Estravon waited impatiently behind her, urging her to hurry.

  “I’m trying!” Emmie was saying as Finn pushed on through and emerged alone into a cavern and gloomy light.

  Here he found two things.

  The first was a way out. The second was standing in his way.

  Someone he had never, ever expected to see, here or anywhere else.

  Himself.

  Still bickering, Emmie and Estravon arrived a few seconds later to find a cave entrance half blocked by rocks, with long filaments of goo dripping from the ceiling on to a carpet of jutting stalagmites.

  They couldn’t see what was beyond because blocking their view, standing with their backs to the half-light of the entrance, were two Finns. Same height. Same school sweater. Same oversized fighting suit round their legs. Same cowlick of hair. And both rigid with bemusement as they stared at each other.

  One of the Finns was the real one. But both of them reacted with panic when Emmie hurriedly produced a chubby pistol with a spiked metal ball lodged in its barrel and pointed it straight at them.

  “No, no, no, Emmie,” Finn said in panic. “Don’t. I’m me.”

  “No, Emmie,” insisted the other Finn. “I’m me.”

  The real Finn felt indignant about this, disgusted at the brazen lie. He also felt more than a little embarrassed at how weedy he looked in half a fighting suit.

  Emmie switched her aim from one Finn to the other, no idea which was which.

  “That is astonishing,” said Estravon, glancing from Finn to fake Finn and back again. He spluttered a half-laugh in admiration. “They’re identical. He even sounds like Finn. Or Finn sounds like him. Whichever. This is incredible because Shapeshifters are extraordinarily rare. They feed off the likeness of other animals through touch.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Emmie, still moving her weapon between the two Finns.

  “And then they feed off their flesh,” finished Estravon.

  “Oh,” said Emmie.

  “What?” exclaimed the real Finn.

  “Help me, Emmie,” said the fake Finn.

  “Hold on, help me,” said real Finn, increasingly aghast at this impersonator and how he managed to act just as horrified.

  “What do we do?” asked Emmie, getting more agitated by the moment while waving a weapon of unknown power at the Finns.

  A flash lit up the cave as Estravon took a picture.

  Both Finns flinched at the white glare.

  “Stop,” said real Finn, trying to rub the flare from his eyes.

  “Stop,” said fake Finn, doing the same.

  “I’m recording this,” said Estravon. “For the report.”

  “No, don’t stop,” said Emmie and, still moving the weapon rapidly between the two Finns, she snatched the camera from Estravon’s hand.

  “Oi!” complained Estravon.

  “Smile,” she told them.

  “What?” the Finns said.

  “Smile or I’ll shoot.”

  So, under about the least jolly of circumstances imaginable, the two Finns attempted a smile. Emmie pressed the button on the camera and the flash burned through the darkness.

  “I thought I’d see which had the gold chain in their mouth,” she said. “Neither of them do. But I saw something else.”

  Estravon’s eyes widened. “I saw it too,” he declared. “That smile. It’
s not human. That’s not Finn.”

  Emmie pointed the weapon. Right at Finn. The real Finn.

  “No!” he gasped, raising a hand reflexively as she squeezed the trigger. Suddenly, she switched to the fake Finn and fired.

  The fat spiked ball shot from the weapon’s barrel, wedging itself between the plates of armour at the fake Finn’s knee.

  “Emmie?” it said, disbelieving, as it staggered forward. With its first step, the spiked ball burst open with a phip and piano wire whipped round its legs, up round its shoulders and round again. It pulled at it, stumbled, pleading, “Emmie?”

  “Oh no...” she said.

  “It’s the wrong one!” said Estravon. “I told you.”

  The unharmed, relieved and very real Finn dashed forward and grabbed the weapon from Emmie and quickly shot his doppelgänger again. The ball wedged itself in a shoulder this time. More wire shot round the Shapeshifter’s torso. Finn’s doppelgänger looked straight at him, its eyes glowing yellow.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” exclaimed Emmie.

  “I was never in doubt,” said Estravon.

  “That feels really weird,” said Finn, dropping the weapon to the ground. And it did. It felt utterly wrong. Like looking in a mirror only for the reflection to start snarling and slashing at you. “How did you know it wasn’t me?”

  “Easy,” said Emmie. “I haven’t seen you smile once since your dad disappeared. I think you’ve forgotten how to. So, I figured the one with the weird smile was you.”

  “That sounds like a guess to me,” said Estravon. “We cannot afford guesses in this place.”

  “Thanks, Emmie,” said Finn. “I think.”

  “No worries,” said Emmie, grinning.

  “You know we didn’t even have to do that,” Estravon pointed out. “A Shapeshifter can only speak the words it’s heard its prey say. All we had to do was ask a few quick questions of the two Finns and we would’ve found out quickly enough.”