The Sacrifice Box

by Martin Stewart

  ‘How are we going to “give it love”?’ said Mack.

  ‘Well, Mack,’ said Arkle, ‘when a teenage boy and a sacrifice box love each other very much, sometimes they –’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Lamb, wiping the corner of her eye with a knuckle. ‘But he’s right. What does that even mean?’

  ‘It means the things we give it can’t just be random things, and they definitely can’t be marked by any hurt or sadness. They need to be … connected. To us, and the bond we have.’

  Arkle nodded quickly.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know about … you know, the love thing? I mean, I guess I could put in one of my socks, but –’

  ‘Not self-love!’ said Sep as the rest of them recoiled. ‘Something about how you love us, as a group of friends! God!’

  ‘You’re a sick little dude,’ said Mack, scowling at Arkle.

  Clouds like fists had closed over the island, purple and orange with the sun’s last glimmer at their heart, and the world prickled under the swirl of a pregnant sky.

  ‘So we can’t do it properly unless we’re real friends?’ said Hadley.

  Sep nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s us screwed,’ said Arkle. ‘You can’t stand the sight of me.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Sep. ‘Is it?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well, this is awkward,’ said Arkle, his bottom lip curling.

  ‘No, I think –’ Lamb started, looking out the window – ‘sometimes I think you’re … kind of funny.’

  ‘I didn’t catch that,’ said Arkle, leaning forward.

  ‘Kind of funny,’ Lamb said reluctantly.

  ‘Oh. Thank you. I think you’re good at lacrosse.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘I don’t play lacrosse.’

  Arkle hit the side of his head, then fumbled for his dental floss.

  ‘I know, I meant ice hockey – field hockey! Oh my God, my brain is leaking! It’s the box doing this. I …’

  ‘I am enjoying this conversation,’ said Sep, ‘but we need to go. Now.’

  ‘Why?’ said Mack.

  ‘Because Barnaby’s standing on the bonnet.’

  They turned and saw Barnaby standing stock-still – legs apart, elbows bent, ready to launch. His eyes glowed brightly in the trees’ shadows, his mouth stuck in its chilling smile.

  ‘Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii–’ shrieked Arkle as Lamb threw the truck into gear and leaped on to the road. Sep grabbed his deaf ear and roared, his rotten tooth suddenly on fire. A post van swerved wildly out of their way, horn blaring as it plunged into a ditch.

  ‘–iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii–’

  Barnaby grabbed the wipers, wedging his puffy little paws into the hinges. Lamb swung the wheel, throwing him to the side, but he held on.

  ‘–iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii–’

  ‘Get rid of him!’ she shouted.

  ‘Me?’ Sep managed through his teeth, hanging on to his jaw. ‘What can I do? It’s not like he does what he’s told!’

  ‘Not you – Mack! Hit him with something!’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Mack, shaking his pale face. ‘I can’t.’

  Lamb rolled her eyes.

  ‘Jesus, take the wheel!’

  She wound open the sunroof and stood, lifting her hockey stick from the floor in a single movement. As she rose out of the truck Barnaby looked up, his eyes glowing on her skin.

  ‘–IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIII–’

  ‘Bye-bye, little bear,’ said Lamb – and smacked the teddy square in the face, knocking him into the trees that lined the road.

  She dropped into her seat and took the wheel from Mack’s rigid hands, winding the sunroof closed as a swarm of dragonflies descended on the car, smashing on to the windscreen in a burst of yellow and black.

  ‘–iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit –’

  They pulled free and drove in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,’ said Arkle, a string of floss hanging from his teeth.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hadley, ‘that was … badass.’

  Lamb flicked the hair from her eyes.

  ‘He’ll be back. Now can we go to my house? I need to get this truck off the road – it’s already scratched up, and the longer we drive around the more chance there is we’ll be seen.’

  ‘No,’ said Sep, looking out of the back windscreen to check Barnaby hadn’t somehow followed them.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Lamb shouted.

  ‘We need to go to Roxburgh’s house.’

  ‘No way, man,’ said Mack. ‘He’s mental.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Arkle, fumbling at his dental floss, ‘he nearly shot us last time!’

  ‘No, he didn’t! Maguire said we needed his help, and she’s right: he knows the forest, and that doll would probably have killed us if he hadn’t been there. So we’ll need him next time.’

  Lamb shook her head as Arkle began flossing frantically in the back seat.

  ‘I don’t like this. I want to go back to my damn farm, and I want to do this ourselves. I don’t trust that guy.’

  She was driving fast – too fast, Sep thought – and she touched her face as she changed gear.

  ‘Look, Maguire said he would help us, and we have to try and get there while there’s still a bit of daylight left – so we need to go, now!’

  The turn-off for the farm was approaching.

  ‘Lamb?’ said Hadley.

  Ptwing!

  ‘Aaaaaaaaargh!’ shouted Lamb.

  And she swung the truck off the road, on to the single-track path that led to the forest.

  43

  Storms

  Bubbles broke on the milk’s skin. Roxburgh stirred it briskly, thinking of the deaf boy and his friends. Chasing them away was the only thing to do, the only thing that would keep them safe – there was no warmth in their group, no real love; they’d nothing that might smother the box’s anger, as his friends had managed all those years ago.

  But they were headstrong kids, you could see it. And if they came back when he wasn’t there … He nodded to himself, then grit his teeth and swore.

  He’d have to track the offerings and destroy them. It was the only way to be sure. Somewhere out in the woods, Here’n’now would be waiting – and Roxburgh meant to be ready for him.

  The wind was nudging the shack like the nose of some insistent beast, each gust the turning of a great screw – twisting the air inside until his skin felt too small and his head too tight.

  He had sat and smoked through the receding daylight: wedged into the grimy chair, half listening to the radio’s murmur, watching the sickly light of its display climb the walls and drinking enough whisky to float his teeth.

  But still his leg hurt. His trousers were sticking to it.

  He poured the cocoa, drank it – burned his lips.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he muttered, startling himself with the noise.

  Lundy whined and drew deeper under the sink. The little terrier had spent the afternoon chewing her paws, and had refused to leave her basket.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ said Roxburgh. His throat hurt from the pipe smoke and he coughed painfully with the unexpected movement of his voice. ‘I’ve buried Biscay. She’s not hurtin’ no more.’

  Lundy whined at Biscay’s name and pawed the basket’s empty half.

  ‘You can’t hide there forever,’ he went on, almost willing the animal to speak back. ‘You’ll need to piss some time.’

  Lundy stared at him. Her eyes gleamed in the radio’s pale light.

  ‘We won’t hunt tonight, don’t worry. We’ll go in the mornin’, when it’s light.’

  The sun disappeared behind the clouds and the gloom of evening came, licking at the shack and pouring under the door frame.
r />   Roxburgh looked out of the window. The sounds of the forest had changed, as though smothered under cloth.

  He reached for his mug again, and froze as he saw his hand trembling in mid-air.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he said again, forcing his fist closed.

  He reached under the sink to grab the dog’s collar.

  Switching off the radio, he opened the door and shoved Lundy on to the leaves, then stood in the doorway and scanned the woods, the feeble lamp in his small window casting a watery smudge on the ground. The forest was still, lit by the unreliable shadow of day’s lurch towards night.

  The lamp clicked off.

  Roxburgh’s head snapped round as though stung. The shack was still.

  ‘Bloody electrics,’ he muttered.

  Lundy took a few steps – then froze, pressing herself to the ground, fur on end, staring back into the house. A low growl came from her belly.

  ‘Don’t be daft now. Come on –’ said Roxburgh, biting off his words. The forest made his voice small, as though he was calling from inside a locked cupboard. ‘Come on, dog,’ he said again through his teeth.

  Lundy urinated without moving. The water’s rattle was the only sound for miles, and as Roxburgh waited for her to finish he saw that she was soaking her own legs.

  ‘Damn it all,’ he spat. He threw the cocoa on to the ground and reached behind the door for his shovel.

  Lundy began to whimper.

  ‘When I tell you to hurry up –’ said Roxburgh, lifting her with his free arm and pressing his lips to the trembling head. He felt the little dog’s body solid against his side, her wire-brush hair alert and stiff.

  Away from his shack, even with his feet planted on ground he’d trodden a thousand times, the old gamekeeper felt untethered, like a sailor thrown overboard. He hefted the shovel in his hand and turned to the doorway.

  Something moved inside it.

  He tried to master his fear, tried to push himself forward – but he could not.

  ‘Hello?’ he said, into the dark.

  Ahead of him, in the blind pit of his little shack, the radio clicked on.

  Roxburgh’s skin crept around him. He stood perfectly still, trapped in thin fingers of gooseflesh, unmoving while the music for the shipping forecast dribbled out into the world, reedy as an old gramophone.

  Lundy began to tremble.

  ‘Come on, lass, come on …’ he managed as he forced himself to climb the steps of his home, turning the shovel’s weight in his hand.

  Dropping Lundy in her bed and raising his weapon, he felt the swirl of energy that comes from stillness being disturbed – from someone having just moved through a room.

  There are warnings of gales at Viking, Forties, Cromarty and Tyne, said the radio in a tinny voice, as though it was shouting from miles away.

  Roxburgh tasted blood, and realized that he had bitten through his lip.

  … dangerous new low expected thirty miles west, easterly and cyclonic …

  He walked towards the radio, sucking at the hot, coppery wound.

  … of fifty miles per hour, though more for a time …

  ‘These is my woods,’ he said, his voice weak to his own ears.

  He turned to look at the dog – saw his own face reflected in the window.

  And a pair of gleaming green eyes behind him.

  He spun round, swinging the shovel and smashing a lamp. There was a scrabbling at the back door, which swung open.

  Biscay’s body lurched into the shack, eyes green and bright, skin split by rot, her stomach open and heavy and stinking with worms. Lundy backed against the wall, howling and barking.

  And Roxburgh felt that heat – of real, uncontrollable terror.

  He screamed and fell, hands clawing at the dead dog’s rotting skin, and then there was something else, something on his back: tiny hands, thin string that smelled of wet dirt, and a chittering laugh he thought he’d forgotten. Here’n’now, he thought as the string cut into his windpipe and stopped his breath – Here’n’now.

  … severe storms likely, said the radio. Extreme caution advised.

  44

  Slipping

  ‘Just calm down, Arkle,’ said Sep. ‘There’s nothing to worry about – we’re nearly there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Arkle, nodding, a piece of floss still in his teeth. ‘Yeah, I guess, nothing to worry about; we’re nearly in the scary-death-murder-forest looking for the man with the shotgun. Oh, shit shit shit shit shit shit, I’m losing my mind. Mack, have you got anything to eat? I need some sugar to calm me down.’

  Mack patted his pockets. The truck buzzed over the cattle grid.

  ‘No, I –’ he said.

  ‘Seriously? This is the one time you don’t have anything? Can we put on some music or something? I can’t cope with the silence.’

  Mack leaned down to the stereo and turned a button. Shrill music filled the shadowy cabin, and they froze.

  ‘Is that the freaking Exorcist music? What the hell, Lamb! Why do you even have that?’ shouted Arkle. ‘Turn it off, turn it off!’

  ‘It’s on the radio!’ shouted Lamb. ‘Stop it!’

  Mack, panicked, pressed buttons as hard as he could. Hadley’s cassette shot out, spilling tentacles of whispery brown tape on to the floor.

  ‘Gah – have you got a pencil?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about the mixtape!’ Lamb shouted.

  ‘Well –’ said Hadley.

  Lamb flicked on the headlamps as night bloomed around them and two pale circles appeared on the road ahead. They should have made the world brighter, Sep thought, but instead they made the evening seem darker still.

  ‘I’ve got a pencil,’ he said, reaching into his pocket. ‘Let’s everyone calm down.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Arkle, putting his head between his knees as Mack wound the tape back into the cassette. ‘Holy shit. Something’s happening in my brain.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Sep.

  Arkle sat up, blinking quickly.

  ‘My head feels leaky. My brain’s full of leaks.’

  ‘Your eye’s twitching,’ said Hadley.

  ‘Well, maybe someone should put on some nice, happy music so we can sing along while we head towards certain death, all right?’

  ‘We’re not going to die, Roxburgh will –’

  ‘Happy music!’

  ‘All right … what about Bananarama?’ said Hadley.

  ‘Shit,’ said Arkle.

  She found another cassette.

  ‘Wham!?’

  ‘Double shit, that’s why they broke up. Come on, people!’

  ‘All right,’ said Sep, opening his Walkman. ‘The Smiths?’

  Arkle knocked the cassette out of his hand and grabbed his collar.

  ‘I am freaking out, September!’ he said, eyes wide and twitching. ‘Do you really think a vegetarian is going to make me feel better?’

  ‘We’re nearly there anyway,’ said Lamb. ‘Just deal with it and stop being such an asshole.’

  Arkle began rubbing his arms as though trying to keep warm. He took out another piece of floss and worked it through his teeth as he stared at Sep.

  ‘How ah you sho calm, Shep? Ah you ’ot shitting yo’shelf?’

  Ptwing!

  ‘Yes,’ said Sep, and the thought made him grab for his Walkman. He clicked the play button and listened to Morrissey’s tinny voice in the headphones round his neck. The insistent heart-like pulse of the box was swelling in his ear.

  Lamb turned the wheel and guided them to a halt.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said, killing the lights.

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Hadley, leaning against the back of the seat.

  The colours had faded with the sunlight, evening coating the world in a shifting silver film. It seemed to Sep that none of the shadows were where they should be, and he fell as they walked, placing feet on stones that didn’t exist and reaching for handholds that were only wisps of plant.

  They moved without
talking, lost in their own thoughts.

  The noise of the box had remained steady in Sep’s ear since Barnaby had landed on the car, and its ache had settled permanently into his tooth.

  He looked back at the town. The storm was closer now, boiled up in the pressure cooker of summer heat. He could almost feel it glowing in his mouth, like blood from a bitten tongue.

  Arkle moved closer to him.

  ‘You called me Arkle in the car, you know,’ he said. His eye had stopped twitching, but his pupils were glassy and wide.

  ‘I know,’ said Sep. ‘I figured I don’t like being called Septic, so maybe I shouldn’t force Darren on you.’

  Arkle grinned at him, then closed his eyes for a few seconds.

  ‘Thanks, Septic,’ he said.

  Sep looked down at his feet. A dark stain was splashed over the earth – liquid made gummy and thick by the dust.

  ‘That’s blood, isn’t it?’ he said.

  Arkle leaned down, his face inches from the mark, then swung up and fixed Sep with an uneven stare.

  ‘Where?’ he said.

  Sep peered at the bloodstain. In the gloom it looked almost black.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, look!’ said Arkle. ‘A critter!’

  Smiling wildly, he scooped up something that might once have been a grey squirrel, but was now red, dead – and inside out.

  ‘Put that down!’ said Sep. ‘Jesus!’

  ‘No way, Jose! I’m keeping her,’ said Arkle, cuddling the sticky lump.

  Dark shapes fluttered and hopped between the branches.

  ‘Arkle, that thing’s probably full of bacteria –’

  ‘Don’t make this about science!’ shouted Arkle. He started to dance with little wobbling steps, as though he was balancing on a couple of snooker balls. ‘Just go with it, Seppy, come on. Dear Mo-mee, dear Da-dee, you have plans for me –’

  ‘Darren, maybe it’s not the right time to dance,’ said Hadley unsteadily. She moved closer to Sep, and he caught her scent.

  ‘It’s always time to dance, Milky Bar Kid who’s strong and tough,’ said Arkle, his eyes closed. ‘The rhythm’s got me. You hear me, creepy-ass trees? It’s GOT ME!’