The Hunting Ground

by Cliff McNish

  With a yawning dread, Elliott lifted his gaze from the words and refocused on the image reflected in the mirror. Until a moment ago he was sure the glass had only shown the outline of the door behind him. Now the entire mirror was one shifting, trembling weight of darkness. Something stood at the centre of that darkness, watching him.

  Elliott automatically raised his fists to protect himself, and turned.

  The room was empty.

  Shuddering, Elliott felt his entire world starting to dislocate. The only thing holding him together was the fact that he knew Ben was still inside the East Wing, and he had to find him.

  Staggering on, he came to a wall. It was covered in a dark scrawl of fresh black ink.

  Pick your weapon! Pick your piece!

  Elliott had no idea what the words meant and ignored them, heading into the next corridor. He stopped when he saw what was inside.

  Weapons. Dozens of them.

  Each weapon was laid out on a section of velvet cloth. Many were ancient hunting pieces Elliott recognised from the portraits. Flintlock pistols. Grappling hooks. Snares. Various knives. The items were not heaped together in a pile, but arranged and spread out so that he could see them clearly. To encourage me to choose, Elliott realised.

  Curiously, many of the weapons looked as if they might comfortably fit his hand. A long-poled staff. A bludgeon. A brass mesh packed with hooks.

  His eyes were drawn to a spiked mace, held inside a metal-studded glove. Elliott was deeply tempted to try the glove on. A whip also lay within tantalisingly easy reach. So did a length of rope. The rope was already knotted into a noose, as if only waiting for the right-sized neck.

  At the end of the display of weapons a message had been stuck on the tip of a narrow-bladed cutlass. Reading it, Elliott had no doubt that it was not Eve but the East Wing’s master himself who had left it for him.

  Pick your weapon, mister!

  Pick your piece!

  Gar land your limbs

  From my gutting feast

  Elliott shivered. An invitation, he realised. An offer to take what he wanted. As many weapons as he liked. And a strange compulsion almost led him to do just that, to load his shoulders with everything he could carry. Elliott had no idea where that compulsion came from, but he felt it luring him in as he plucked up a knife. He tested its weight. He’d never thrown a knife before, but suddenly he had a strong urge to do so, to snatch up the blade by the hilt and hurl it at the nearest wall.

  He stopped himself just in time.

  No, his instinct told him. Don’t. As soon as you accept the call to arms, that’s when the real hunt begins.

  Was Eve part of that hunt? Maybe. Elliott no longer doubted that she was working alongside the owner, just as Janey was. But what about Ben? He’d obviously planned the whole play-with-a-doll’s-house game with Eve. Did that mean that Ben, like Janey, was now his enemy as well? It didn’t matter, Elliott decided. It didn’t matter because even if Ben did help Eve, he wasn’t responsible. Cullayn was behind everything.

  I’ve still got to find Ben and get him out of here, Elliott realised. I’ve got to.

  On a whim he spat at one of the portraits, just as Janey had done in the diary. No reaction came, or so he thought. The reaction was on its way. It was only moments from arriving.

  ‘I won’t pick a weapon!’ Elliott snarled. ‘I won’t do it!’

  As if Cullayn had already known he would choose nothing, Elliott came across another note, seared into the wall this time:

  Every weapon you do not choose will be used against you and those you love

  A moment later, a sliding sound made Elliott glance up.

  Ben was waiting ahead of him, at a bend in the corridor.

  Gasping with a mixture of fear and relief, Elliott headed towards him. It was only as he strode forward that he realised Ben wasn’t waiting to be rescued. One of Ben’s feet was pressed against the wall, ready to push off. His other foot was toe-forward in the same way Elliott had seen from Cullayn in so many of the portraits – inviting the chase.

  As Elliott yelled out his brother’s name, Ben laughed at him.

  Then somebody or something – some great arm that was not Eve’s – snatched Ben away again, leaving the corridor vacant.

  ‘Not yet,’ said a lively voice.

  Elliott staggered up the corridor, then came to another crashing halt.

  Ahead, the floor descended. There it was: the small set of steps, and, beyond it, the dark passageway.

  Elliott’s heart tightened. Before he’d had no idea why this area terrified him so much. Now he knew the reason. One wall in the passageway was blank. No doors. No pictures. Cullayn’s secret room was here. Was this where the master of Glebe House was hiding?

  With his scalp crawling with fear, Elliott stumbled away. Several turns later he found the floor again descending towards a set of small steps …

  Seeing the dark passageway this time, Elliott felt as if he was on the verge of having the most terrifying thought in the world, but he wasn’t quite having it yet. He hurried on, bearing mostly left. He only stopped again when the floor descended. Ahead of him was a set of small steps —

  This time Elliott thrust his fist into his mouth to hold back a scream.

  Keep your eyes shut, he decided. Walk but don’t look. Maybe you’ll end up somewhere else. But he was too scared to keep that tactic up for long, and when he no longer dared to keep his eyes closed he found himself inside a corridor descending towards a set of small steps …

  This time Elliott screamed out loud. He couldn’t hold it in, didn’t even try.

  And he ran. It didn’t matter where. A shriek of pure terror followed, accompanied by the sound of pounding feet. Both belonged to him. The rhymes of the ghost children’s names – Nell, Leo, Alice, Sam – ran like a litany through his head, emerging out of his mouth in one unstoppably grotesque shriek.

  Only exhaustion slowed Elliott down. Even that didn’t do so for long. As soon as he could, he picked his feet up again and raced on, crashing ahead, the corridors blurring around him, the pictures on the walls all merging into one of the happy owner hunting a terrified boy up a tree-lined slope. Finally Elliott literally roared with fear, and that roar – the sheer surprise of it – sent a new slice of terror sizzling through him. But the sound of it also seemed to clear his head, and he realised that he could hear something new.

  A thump – and a voice.

  Elliott’s senses, already tautened to an electrifying pitch, made him scream when he heard it. He would have screamed at anything in that moment, and he screamed again when light flickered in blue-white beams in the corridor ahead.

  Something big was there. Definitely a man. For a moment Elliott was so scared that he didn’t recognise the sounds coming from the figure. But abruptly the shape widened and someone was there who knew him.

  Dad stood inside the East Wing’s entrance.

  Rushing forward, his long, powerful arms caught Elliott and pulled him to safety.

  18

  THE OPPOSITE OF CALM

  Elliott sank against the strength of Dad’s waiting shoulder.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he gasped, not caring what he looked or sounded like. ‘But Ben’s in there. Dad, he’s still in there!’

  Elliott was shaking so much he could hardly get the words out. He stuttered an explanation of the way Eve had dragged Ben into the East Wing. Dad was even more disturbed when Elliott described the change in Ben’s own behaviour – the way he’d helped Eve set up the whole episode with the doll’s house.

  Even in his own frantic state, Elliott could see how bewildered Dad was, how hard it was for him to come to terms with the true horror lurking inside the East Wing. But Dad was beginning to understand, to grasp it, and he’d have run straight in to find Ben if Elliott hadn’t stopped him by saying, ‘What’s that?’

  Out of the corner of his eye he’d spotted five sheets of paper. They were haphazardly flung across the East Wing’s entrance
.

  ‘Those weren’t there before,’ he told Dad, recognising the age-curled edges at once. ‘It’s another part of the diary.’

  ‘You sure?’ Dad ran across, studied the writing, saw it was Theo’s. ‘So we’ve been left another instalment,’ he growled, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he decided, throwing the sheets down. ‘No. I’m not wasting time on the diary right now.’ He headed towards the East Wing entrance.

  ‘Wait,’ Elliott said.

  ‘Wait for what?’ Dad demanded, aching to get to Ben.

  ‘We need to know what’s in the East Wing.’

  ‘We already know enough, Elliott!’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘We can’t just stand here talking!’ Dad shouted. ‘We’ve got to get Ben out. This is wasting time—’

  ‘Time is all there is in there,’ Elliott whispered, and something about the way he said it made Dad hesitate. ‘Let’s read the diary before we go in,’ Elliott pleaded with him. ‘Even if we’re together inside the East Wing, I don’t think we’ll ever find Ben unless Cullayn wants us to. The key to what’s going on is in the diary, I’m sure of it. We need to understand that before we do anything else.’

  Dad dragged his hands through his hair. Elliott saw how much he was itching to reject any arguments and get inside the East Wing.

  ‘But isn’t the diary itself just one of Cullayn’s games?’ Dad groaned. ‘How do we know he isn’t feeding it to us in chunks as a diversion? Games within games. Playing with us. Scaring us.’

  ‘To get us to rush in after Ben?’ Elliott said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it’s working, isn’t it?’ Elliott noted. ‘You’re about to go in. You haven’t got a clue what you’re up against, but you’re going to run in there anyway. I bet that’s what Cullayn wants. I bet he can’t wait.’

  Dad wavered. ‘All right,’ he murmured at last, physically holding himself back. ‘I’m listening. You think this diary might be … what? Someone trying to help us? Using the diary as a warning?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘But why give us the diary in pieces? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I don’t know why, Dad. But someone is doing it deliberately. You were surprised you hadn’t spotted the first part of the diary on that chair in the library, remember? It was obviously left for you. The other parts were left in places for me and Ben to find. Now this piece turns up. It can’t be a coincidence. Without help I don’t think we’re ever going to find Ben in there,’ Elliott said firmly. ‘I’ve been inside. So have you. I don’t think Cullayn’s even trying yet. He’s just starting his hunt. There’s worse to come.’

  ‘And you think the diary will tell us what to expect?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But how can we rely on it?’ Dad howled, shaking the paper. ‘Oh, come on then, quick, quick …’ With a grunt of frustration, he ran back to Elliott. Propping himself against a wall, he arranged the diary sheets in order. ‘It’s OK,’ he said softly, seeing that Elliott was still exhausted. ‘Let’s just read it together.’

  19th December. Janey was on the couch in the living room when I came downstairs today. Gazing at her more closely, I was shocked to see that she was having trouble sitting up. ‘It’s OK,’ she mumbled, shaking so hard she could barely get the words out. ‘I’m … I’m dealing with it. Trying to. Only … he’s got his hooks in me now, hasn’t he?’ She giggled, a scary sound. ‘I went in,’ she said.

  She clutched at her dress, not noticing the flower petals falling at her feet.

  ‘That was brave of me, wasn’t it, Theo, don’t you think?’ she murmured, grinning crookedly. ‘I woke up and decided to go straight into the East Wing. No more waiting. Just stuck my chin out and went right up to say hi to Vincent Cullayn. And you know something? It all went according to my plan. I got inside. He let me, of course, but I didn’t know that then. And the ghost children came with me as well. They followed me in. But not all the way.’

  ‘They left you with him?’ I said, appalled.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She smiled weakly. ‘He and I, alone. The hunter and the hunted.’

  I couldn’t get another word out of Janey, but later I almost forgot about her because of what happened with Eve. I’d heard a noise coming from her bedroom in the afternoon, and found her casually booting Katerina across the floorboards and mumbling stuff. Thinking she must have a fever, Mum got her straight to bed and called for a doctor. She stayed with her until about midnight, then left a bedside lamp on so Eve wouldn’t be scared if she woke.

  Hearing whispered rhymes from her room at about 1.00 a.m., I crept in. The first thing Eve did when she saw me was to switch the lamp off. There was a sort of rustling after that. Jumping for the lamp, I got it on in time to see Eve mussing her hair, getting dust out of it. When I saw her, she gave up trying to hide where she’d been and stared defiantly at me. ‘I’m going back in again as well,’ she told me. ‘Whenever I want to. Whenever I want to!’

  Then she smiled. I’d never seen that kind of smile from her before, and I knew it wasn’t Eve talking next.

  ‘She’s pretty, isn’t she?’ she purred. ‘Janey, I mean. You like her, don’t you, Theo? You really like her. What do you do? Find yourself smiling at night, thinking about her, wanting to be close to her?’

  ‘Who … who is talking to me?’ I asked, barely able to get the words out.

  ‘Goodnight, Theo,’ Eve said, and with a chuckle turned back into her pillow.

  *

  21st December. Although Janey refused to see me for two days, saying it was unsafe to get anywhere near her, I had to tell her about Eve. Arriving at her house, it was horrible to see the state Janey was in. She’d lost weight and her hair was unwashed.

  Seeing my anxious expression, she smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. She stood up calmly to face me, but somehow I knew it was the opposite of calm she was feeling. Then she laughed, knowing the pretence wasn’t working, and led me to her room. She tried to talk. Couldn’t. She looked so vulnerable in that moment, but refused to let me get any closer.

  ‘It’s Eve, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

  I could see how hard it was for her to ask. Because depending on what I said she might have to do something, and you could see she wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t ready for anything. When I told her what Eve had said to me, Janey’s hands grasped the mattress.

  ‘Cullayn knew my weaknesses, Theo,’ she whispered at last, breathing in a quiet, desperate sort of way. ‘He knew me better than I know myself. I thought I could show the others what might be done.’

  ‘And the ghost children left you in there,’ I said. ‘They betrayed you.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ she murmured. ‘It was me who had a failure of nerve. They didn’t follow me in because they knew I wasn’t ready. Sam, especially, tried to hold me back. I went in anyway. Couldn’t do anything when I saw Cullayn.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Too scared. Girl here lost her nerve. All gone wrong.’

  I walked across to her. Janey held back a moment, then leaned into me.

  ‘You know,’ she murmured hopelessly into my shoulder, ‘I think Cullayn liked the idea of me trying to hunt him down. He hasn’t had fun like that in ages. But, see, when I reached him and my first trick didn’t work I had no idea what to do next. I’d never seen him fight. I didn’t know what he could do. I wasn’t ready. But he was.

  ‘He came after me, Theo. He came after me, and he was like a storm, and I ran and I ran but I couldn’t get out. He’s strong. Stronger than you. Stronger than me. I should have listened to Sam. Five minutes Cullayn gave me. “Five minutes to midnight,” he said. That’s all it took to shake me to pieces. He told me I would die in there. But he was lying. He let me go. Do you know why?’ Her eyes blazed as she turned towards me. ‘Because he wants me alive. I’m more useful to him alive, see? Cullayn wants me out here in the world, helping him. An extension of his will. Oh, he’d love to have me at his bidding. He�
��d love that.’

  Janey dragged her nails across her face. ‘I should have sneaked in there,’ she said. ‘I should have watched how he moved, seen how to fight by studying him, instead of announcing myself like a little toy to be played with.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ she raged, fighting me off when I held her hands to stop her hurting herself. ‘He got to me, Theo. There’s a bathroom in the East Wing. Everything leads you to it. It has a round mirror. When you go in there, Cullayn’s waiting. He’s in the glass. It’s what he likes to show you just before he begins the hunt for real. And I saw him. And now I can’t stop seeing him.’

  She scrunched up her hair. ‘I was too open. I should’ve been shutting him out instead of letting him in. He’s in the East Wing, but …’ Janey balled her fists, shrieked ‘… he’s dug into me now as well. You can’t trust me any more. Don’t you see, Theo? He’s inside me.’ She jabbed her chest. ‘In here! ‘

  I stared into her hollow eyes.

  ‘He’s taken a chunk out of me,’ she choked. ‘I’ve given him something. I don’t even know what it is he’s taken from me, but he can do more than just whisper now. I’ve given him real strength. It’s someone like me he’s been waiting for all this time. And he’s using that strength. He wants everything, Theo. He wants to collect more children in there. He wants more and more power. Enough to leave Glebe House. To get out into the rest of the world. Absolute creative power to hunt wherever he pleases.’

  Janey couldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘The ghost children warned me,’ she said miserably. ‘They told me not to get too close to him. They kept saying it. But no, that wasn’t good enough for me, was it? I had to have a looksee, didn’t I? I wanted to get a good look at the legendary Cullayn for myself. And instead he looked at me. And that was that.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked, still holding her.

  She glanced at her trembling hands. ‘Don’t know. Nothing. Don’t know. There’s a thing, one thing. If I’ve got the guts to try it. Probably not.’ She grinned brokenly. ‘It’s my fault what’s happening to Eve, you know. All the time I’ve been in Glebe House, Cullayn’s somehow been using my gift to strengthen himself. I didn’t know, Theo. I didn’t! I should never have come into the house. But he wanted me to, he encouraged me – of course he did. He was always waiting to use me.’