Arcadia

by James Treadwell

  It glares. It shows no sign of going away.

  “Hello,” Rory says. A muffled grumble of male laughter comes across the heath. Rory ignores it. He’s safely out of sight of anything but the bird.

  It twitches its domed head. Something about the movement reminds Rory of someone, of—

  His heart plays a fast little dance.

  “Lino?” he says.

  It just sits there. Or stands there, whichever birds do. It nibbles in its feathers.

  “Is that you?” Rory says.

  It blinks. Its eyes are brilliant orange stones. It manages to look simultaneously furious and bored. Rory realizes his question wasn’t very helpful.

  “If you’re Lino,” he says, “er . . . Hoot.”

  It looks at him like he’s a complete idiot.

  “Well, I don’t know, do I?” Rory says.

  It swivels its head halfway around and then drops almost noiselessly off the roof, unfurling striped wings. It flaps and glides over the matching tawny brown of the heather, then drops out of sight behind a little furrow.

  “Just a bird,” Rory says, cross with himself.

  A barrage of shouting comes from the camp, and some metallic banging. He sneaks a look around the corner of the hut. The nearest of the buildings around the dishes is about as far away as Briar is from Home, across the Channel. There are two much smaller dishes sitting directly on the ground nearby, not much bigger than the ones people put on their houses, angled almost flat to the horizon instead of pointing at the sky. If he could get up behind them, he thinks, he’d still be hidden from the buildings. It sounds like most of the people and dogs are on the other side of the camp, near the fire, which he still can’t see.

  It’s a horrible feeling going out into the open beyond the hut. He’s too frightened now to worry about his soaked scratched foot, his bruises, his tiredness. His heart’s pumping some kind of tingling ice all through his body. He feels electric. He passes a web of fence trailing lifelessly from a metal pole, one of a row of them. He can hear snatches of distant chatter now, and lots of barking. A bout of woofing is answered by a rough shout: “Shut up!” He keeps himself bent double. The backs of buildings are facing him but won’t the dogs sniff him out soon? He can’t stop in the open, though. He’ll get as close as he can, and then he’ll . . . and then he’ll—

  The owl swoops in front of his face. It gives him such a fright he can’t help squeaking even though he’s got to be as quiet as he can. It beats its wings jerkily, soaring and dipping, and then spins round and drops to the heather nearby, on his right.

  It stares at him. He stares at it.

  He can’t stop. He presses on, closer. Then the bird’s there again, right in his path, making the faintest whisper as it passes, swerving away, flapping up—it’s a beautiful soarer but an ugly flier—and twisting to one side before coming back to earth off to his right. It settles, and stares.

  Rory stares back. It probably isn’t for a long time, actually, but every moment crouching still and exposed feels fearfully long. He’s got to make up his own mind what to do. No one’s going to tell him whether he’s right.

  He turns aside and battles across the heath towards the owl.

  Now he’s moving parallel with the broken fence, completely in the open. The only cover would be if he got all the way to the nearest buildings, a particularly grim pair of rain-streaked one-story outposts squatting beside a medium-sized dish with a faded logo in its bowl. He’s just thinking about how far away they look when the owl lifts itself up and flits over to one of them in one ground-hugging guide, then drops onto its roof and sits there, a bit like a squat chimney.

  It stares at him.

  He steers towards it. What else can he do? An outburst of terrifyingly close barking sends his heart leaping into his mouth. He throws himself down in the heather but there’s nowhere to hide, he can’t stick his face in a carpet of gnarled twigs. Angry men yell at the dogs, but they don’t stop barking. The men are coming closer. They sound like they’re just on the other side of the pair of grimy buildings. He knots up with dread.

  The owl drops lazily, swings around the corner of the building, and goes out of sight. The barking gets even more frenetic, and the shouts even angrier. “Stop it! Shut it!” A dog yelps like it’s been hit. “Quiet!”

  “Only a flippin’ bird,” a second voice says, quite clearly. Both voices belong to men.

  “You hear that?” The first voice is enraged. There’s a thump and another pained yelp. “Only a bird. Stupid”—yelp—“animal.”

  Dogs and voices recede, grumbling. Perfectly silent, the owl reappears over the roof of the building, circles neatly, and plops back to its perch on the roof. It looks at Rory.

  “Lino,” he says to himself, and stands up. For the first time all day he feels a little spark of something like courage. He pulls himself upright and hurries forward. A little farther on and suddenly there’s firmer ground underfoot, chunks of tarmac under the litter of the moor. The weeds are soft nettles and grass. A few moments later and he’s under the cracked guttering of the nearer of the two buildings. He stands there for a long time with his back against the wall, breathing hard. When he looks up the owl’s still there, watching him.

  There’s a letterbox-shaped window above him, its frame warped and splintering. Some desperately tenacious weed has got a foothold there and sprouted a few mangy purple flowers.

  From inside the window comes a little moan of pain. Not a man.

  Rory goes numb all over. He stares at the owl. It gazes back, completely unsympathetically. Go on then.

  As quietly as he can, he edges around the corner. Now he’s looking in towards the main group of buildings. The column of dark smoke is rising on the far side, by the building with the curved glass wall. The smell’s much stronger, not just smoke but a thick cloying roasting smell as well. He catches his breath and ducks away as a man strolls into sight, coming past the fence around the building where Amber was. He was close enough that Rory could have seen his face if he’d turned to look. He had a dog on a leash, a big square-headed brown brute of a dog, and he was wearing a hood which looked like a dog’s head too. The dog starts barking as if it saw him, but there’s barking and yapping all around and the man didn’t turn his way. Rory takes a few good deep breaths and then starts around the back of the building.

  He’s safely around the next corner and halfway to the door when it occurs to him: what if one of them’s in there? But it’s too late for that. A burst of raucous shouting comes from somewhere not far enough away. He charges to the door—it’s half-open—and all but jumps inside the building, into stinking moldering darkness. His sock squelches on the floor.

  Someone inside has heard him, and goes quiet. He can feel it: the sound of someone holding their breath.

  He waits. No one moves. The smell’s revolting, like going into one of the abandoned houses on Home and finding the toilet dirty.

  It’s another narrow corridor. His eyes adjust gradually. The room with the broken window where he thought he heard someone would be at the far end. If anyone’s here, they’re as scared of him as he is of them. He tries to creep along carefully but he can’t help splatching on the floor. He pulls the collar of the shirt the Riders gave him up over his nose. The door at the end of the corridor is slightly open. He stops to listen and hears tight shaky breathing. Someone in there is absolutely terrified. He opens the door.

  “Oh my God,” Soph says.

  She’s backed up against the far wall, under the window, where a cold grey light drizzles down on her. She’s sitting on the floor with her hands behind her back, leaning against a metal filing cabinet with no drawers. There’s a rope tied around the cabinet; the other end of it’s behind her. She’s smeared with dirt and bruising. Her top lip is puffy. She looks terrible and smells worse.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He hurries across to her, holding his elbow over his mouth to take a breath. “Lean forward,” he says.


  “I told you to get away. These people are fucking crazy.”

  They’ve tied her hands behind her back. “I can’t reach,” he says.

  She sits up and shuffles herself away from the wall, wincing and swearing under her breath. The rope’s quite thick and the knot’s tight but crude. He starts pushing the loose end in. There are raw marks on her skin where the rope’s been rubbing.

  “Rory—”

  “Keep still.”

  “Listen to me, Rory. I want you away from here. Right now.”

  “I’m rescuing you.” He gets the knot loose. She shudders and sighs as her hands come free.

  “Oh, God.” Everything she says comes out in a wet whisper, like she’s fighting tears. “Oh, shit. Worth it just for that.”

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  “Bless you.” Her eyes are wet too. “It’s good to see you. One last friendly face. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Why not?”

  “My ankle’s broken, Rory.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  She’s shaking her head. She puts a hand on his arm. “I can’t walk. I can hardly crawl. It hurts like fuck. Leave me here, all right? You can’t let them find you.”

  In his head there’s the idea of escape, of rescue. He can’t make it into an actual Plan, it refuses to get itself organized like that, but he knows how it basically works. You go in, you find them, you run away. That’s what they’re going to do.

  “I’m not leaving you,” he says.

  “Look at me.” He does. Her long hair’s gone as wild as bramble. There are puffy purple bits around her eyes as well as on her lip. She looks only half human. “I don’t know what these crazies have planned for me, but I’m not having you around to watch it.” She clutches his hand in hers. “I mean it. I swear, I’ve never been as happy to see anyone in my whole life, but now you’re going to run as far away from here as you can, and you’re not going to stop running until your feet are in the sea.”

  He’s thinking of things like bandages and splints. Or a horse, he could put her on a horse like she did to him. “There’s got to be something—”

  “Listen!” She drags him close. He’s almost sick with the stench. “They made Perse and Wolf fight their dogs. OK? They even gave Perse his sword. They could see the stupid fucker didn’t know one end of it from the other. They set the really bad dogs on them. Really bad, really big. Understand me, Rory? Do you understand what happened?” He doesn’t need to try working it out, he can see it in her face. “They made sure me and El were watching—”

  “Is Ellie here?”

  “Fuck, Rory, I don’t know. They trussed her up same as me, dragged her off somewhere. Whatever they did to her it won’t have been good. I took the precaution of shitting myself. Desperate times, eh?” (Dispurut toimes.) She makes a weak quivery grin and for a moment she’s almost herself again. “No one wants a girl smelling of shit, you know? Someone comes in here with a bucket and sponge and I’ll get really worried. Ah!” She lets him go and clutches her leg. “Fuck, it hurts!”

  He’s trying to think. Wheelchairs, stretchers. Creating diversions. Tie a message to the owl. Get disguises. It’s hard to think through the horror and the smell but he has a weird certainty that he can’t just run off again. In fact he now has to rescue Ellie too. When all the other Riders panicked and ran for their horses in the dark, she was the one who came to find him first, and that’s why she didn’t have time to get away. There are things you can do and things you can’t, and leaving her and Soph here is one of those things you can’t do.

  “What if I get some of their clothes and—”

  “Rory, Rory!” She shakes him again. She’s shouting and whimpering together. “Those dogs ate the boys alive. You know what these crazies said? They said since we give them to the man-eaters they’d give us to their gods. Like they worship the fucking dogs. They’re not sane. If you don’t get out of here I’m going to scream. I swear I am.”

  “I’ll find Ellie,” he says. If she’s tied up somewhere he could free her too, then there’d be an adult to figure out how to get Soph away. He stands up. She’s watching him, her cheeks stained with filthy tears. “You stay here.”

  Soph almost laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, I reckon I’ll stay here.”

  “We’ll come back,” he says. “We’ll save you.”

  “You’re the most obstinate little toerag on the planet.”

  “We’ll put you on her horse.”

  “They killed her horse. They hung it upside down last night to drain the blood and now they’re fucking roasting it.”

  “We’ll . . .” Do something else. Ellie will know.

  “Rory,” Soph begins.

  “Stop trying to get me to run away. I’m not going to.”

  “I hate you,” she says, her voice cracking. “Do you know that?”

  A sudden explosion of barking makes them both freeze. A moment later and they hear a voice, very clear, very close, calling to someone else, something about getting her. Another moment and they hear feet scuffing.

  In that moment Rory feels terror like nothing he thought possible. It’s like someone’s shoved a wedge of ice right into his stomach.

  “Over there!” Soph whispers. She’s shifting herself back against the wall. Rory’s so dumbstruck he doesn’t even understand what she’s talking about. She’s nodding towards the shadows in the opposite corner of the room. “Rory!”

  He gets it just in time. There’s another filing cabinet lying on its side there. He dashes across and drops to the floor behind it, squirming into a dusty niche. Someone shoves open the outside door and starts down the corridor. He wiggles and writhes and curls his legs up, thinking, the dogs’ll know I’m here, the dogs—

  Heavy steps come in the room and stop. No barking. “Ah, fuck’s sake,” a man’s voice says, disgusted. “Like a sewer in here. Up you get.”

  “I’ve broken my ankle,” Soph says. She doesn’t sound brave or defiant. She sounds like someone who thinks they’re about to be eaten alive by dogs.

  “Hop, then.”

  “I can’t stand up.”

  “God.” The man’s voice is bored, grumpy. “Don’t tell me I’m going to have to touch you.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “Time to see the boss,” he says. “Meet the big dogs.”

  “You’ve got a knife there, haven’t you?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I don’t know who you are.” She’s very quiet, entirely desperate. “But you were just an ordinary person like me. Before all this started. I’m begging you. Please kill me now.”

  The man makes a short surprised laugh.

  “Please,” she says. “Or use the rope. You can say I did it myself.”

  The man chuckles. “Don’t think that’s an option, love. Come on then, let’s get you on your—eh?” Scuffling noises, and Soph bites back a gasp of pain. Rory’s legs are beginning to sting. He can’t move a single muscle. “Got your arms free, did you? What were you going to do, start crawling?—Oi!” A slap and a wince. “Hands off that! Fuck me. Got to keep an eye on this one.” A metallic clatter. Rory understands: she’s made a grab for a knife the man’s carrying, and he’s tossed it out of reach. “Shit, look at you. Disgusting. Right. Up.”

  He must have pulled her to her feet because she screeches in agony, deafeningly loud in the miserable little prison. The man swears. There’s a thump, and a long moan. He’s dropped her. They go silent, if you can call it silent when he’s breathing hard and she’s whimpering.

  “Going to need another pair of hands,” he grumbles. “And gloves, if I’m going to have to touch your filthy arse. I hate Australians.”

  Rory hears a kind of choked hiccup, which might almost be a laugh. “Me too,” Soph whispers, as the man stomps back down the corridor.

  He waits only until the footsteps are outside before unpacking himself from his hidey-hole. Soph’s staring at him.

  “Get the k
nife,” she whispers. It’s on the floor near the corner where he is. It’s a thick kitchen knife with a scratched and rusty blade. He picks it up, then realizes what she’s thinking, and drops it in horror.

  “You don’t have to do it,” she whispers. “Just give it to me and then go.”

  “No.”

  “Give me the knife. Give me the fucking knife.” He picks it up. The look on her face might qualify as the worst thing he’s ever seen, which given how the last couple of days have gone is saying something. She bares her teeth at him and begins shuffling his way. “Give me that fucking knife right now, you stubborn little sack of shit.”

  “I’m going to rescue you,” he says, and runs out the door, stopping his ears against her moan of despair. He’s going to save her. He’s got a knife, he’s armed, he can do it. There’ll be a Plan any moment now. He’ll attack them with the knife when they come back for her, something like that, but first he has to—

  Hide. A dog goes wild. Men shout, at the dogs, at each other. He sees them, right out there, in plain sight, two men now approaching the door. They can’t see him because he’s in the dimness of the corridor. He looks around in panic, sees a tiny side door, throws it open, pushes himself into a completely dark cupboard, and shuts himself in.

  The two men come by, coughing, muttering. They go to where Soph is and pick her up between them. They come back down the corridor, bumping, panting, cursing. Now, he’s thinking, as they pass his door. Now. Jump out while their backs are turned, stab them both, now now now. They kick open the front door and go back outside, leaving him in his cupboard, clutching the handle of the knife in a death-grip. Whatever was supposed to happen hasn’t happened. He doesn’t know how to jump out of a cupboard like a ninja and kill someone. He doesn’t even know where to start. There’s no Plan, there never was. Soph and Ellie are going to be eaten alive and he’s just a useless boy.

  23

  He goes back into the corridor and peeks outside.

  People are gathering. They’re coming out from the various different buildings under the satellite dishes, heading away from him, towards the fire. They’re all men, all dressed in layers of shaggy torn clothes and strips of fur, though some are younger and some older, some swaggering and some scurrying. A lot of them are pulling dogs, big dogs which snap at each other and strain at their collars. They’re a vicious army and he’s one ten-year-old with a kitchen knife and an empty head. He can see the two men carrying Soph, they’re just going out of sight beyond one of the buildings now. He can’t think of a single thing he can do. He can’t even see the owl. He looks up at the sky but no help’s coming from there. Only the vast empty dishes face it, eyeless monuments from a lost civilization, looking up to dead gods. It’s completely obvious that if he goes running over there with his knife to try to rescue Soph he’ll be grabbed by the first men to see him and then maybe they’ll feed him to their dogs as well. He understands now, properly understands, why Soph was telling him to run away.