‘Arkle,’ said Sep, moving to shush him as the box-noise began to howl, ‘why don’t we just –’
‘Oh my God,’ said Arkle, staring suddenly with wide eyes. ‘Something bad is happening, isn’t it?’
‘Yes!’ said Sep. ‘Something very bad, that’s why we need to keep moving, OK?’
A crow snapped its beak just above his head, and they looked up.
‘Why are there four of them now?’ said Hadley carefully.
‘And why can I see one of their ribcages?’ added Lamb.
Sep held his skull as though it might split and took a deep breath of fetid air, felt it shoot through his tooth in a white bloom of pain.
Arkle was nodding frantically.
‘Right. Right right right. Shit. OK, let’s go,’ he said, then sprinted head first into a tree.
‘Darren!’ shouted Hadley. She dropped to her knees beside Arkle’s prone body, her eyes half closed. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘It’s the box,’ said Sep. ‘He’s been saying all day his mind is slipping. I guess it finally slipped.’
Lamb touched Arkle’s neck, felt his pulse.
‘He’ll be all right. I think,’ she said. Then she touched Hadley’s shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’
Hadley nodded, then climbed slowly to her feet.
‘I’m fine. I just want to get this done.’
‘Me too,’ said Mack. ‘You want me to carry him?’
Arkle coughed, sat up and grinned. There was a string of dental floss hanging from his teeth, and his mullet was askew.
‘All right, Sep?’ he said, blinking as though he’d just woken up. ‘Everything good?’
‘Great, thanks. How are you feeling?’ said Sep, taking his hand.
‘Oh, I’m good. Sooooo good – I just don’t know what that weird humming is humming is humming for, you know? God, and my mouth is dry – it’s so dry.’ Arkle leaned over and gasped, his tongue pointy and long. ‘Have you got any Spike?’
‘We’ll get you some when we get back. Are you sure you’re feeling OK?’
‘I think … maybe … But it’s good good good. Thanks, Seppy Sep. You’re such a pal, you know? I missed you … I missed you so much.’
Arkle threw his arms round Sep’s neck.
‘You’re so clever,’ he whispered, his breath hot. ‘My Seppy Sep.’
‘Break it up,’ said Lamb. ‘Roxburgh’s house is this way.’
Sep prised Arkle’s hands away, then checked over his shoulder. The others were standing together, ready.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, pulling Arkle with him.
They went on, deeper into the forest, the wind whipping at them with growing strength, throwing the smells of dead things into their noses and tousling the feathers of the crows above.
45
Rosemary
The moon shone through the trees, scattering coins of light over their feet. The clouds above the gamekeeper’s shack were a flat, tarnished silver, and the grass moved like a rippling pond.
Sep blinked his hair away as it struck his eyes.
‘I thought you wanted to come here when it was light,’ said Lamb, looking around nervously.
‘Maybe you didn’t drive quickly enough,’ said Sep, snapping his head towards the sound of rustling leaves. ‘Jesus, you can’t bring that with you!’
Arkle was walking on lopsided legs, dragging himself along the hedge and hugging the inside-out squirrel. It hung wet and heavy in his arms, like a towel lifted from a washing machine.
‘I’m going to call her Rosemary,’ he said, a blissful smile on his face.
‘I’m serious – you need to put it down,’ said Sep.
‘You’re not my dad, shiny-shoes,’ said Arkle, his nose in the air. ‘And so, so, so what if I want a bagel?’
‘Arkle, you’re not making sense,’ said Sep. ‘That thing’s all rotten, and it was probably killed by the box. Who knows what it might do?’
‘You think that was the box too?’ said Hadley.
Sep looked at her.
‘What else would turn it inside out?’
‘Well, she’s mine now,’ said Arkle, wobbling as he leaned away. ‘I’m going to keep her forever, September October November December.’
Mack shook his head.
‘Just let him keep it.’
‘Come on, Rosemary,’ said Arkle, holding the glistening lump against his chest. ‘Can I have a bagel, though? For realsies?’
‘Sure,’ said Sep.
The forest’s night-time whispers – the creaks of settling wood and the skitter of falling briars – surrounded them. The shack was dark, its doors and windows closed.
Lamb bit the inside of her bottom lip.
‘Something’s not right.’
‘Well, we’ve come this far. We should –’
‘Sep, we came to get help, but Roxburgh’s obviously not here! This is too dangerous, it’s too dark and we’re too far from the truck. Let’s go back.’
Sep looked at the little house. It was obviously empty. But something tugged at his thoughts, like clothes snagging on a thorn.
‘But what if he needs our help?’ he said. ‘Like, he’s lying in a pool of blood and can’t reach the phone?’
‘He probably doesn’t even have a phone,’ said Lamb.
‘Whose point are you making?’ said Sep. ‘If he doesn’t have a phone we definitely need to help him.’
She shook her head.
‘This is dangerous, Sep – don’t be reckless. He’s not here. He’s probably wandering around the woods, shooting things and spitting.’
‘Me and Rosemary want to go to the car,’ said Arkle.
‘Fine. Well, I’m going to see if he’s in there,’ said Sep. ‘Who’s coming with me?’
Arkle tripped into Mack’s arms.
‘I’m going to take him to the car now,’ said Mack, lifting Arkle over his shoulder. ‘If something happens I don’t want to have to run while I’m carrying him. You can catch us up, right?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said Sep reluctantly.
Lamb shook her head, then followed Arkle and Mack.
Hadley looked agonized.
‘You can’t go on your own.’
A little knot tightened in Sep’s chest.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
He helped her over a puddle, holding her hand a moment longer than he had to, then they stood in the darkness, listening to each other’s breathing and peering through the gloom. The shack was square and black and surrounded by the stumps of trees.
‘If he’s really not there then we’ll leave, all right? I promise,’ said Sep. ‘I just feel like something’s happened to him.’
‘It’s so creepy,’ said Hadley. Her voice wavered, and she moved closer to him.
‘What?’
‘I said it’s creepy.’
Sep brushed against her arm. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Not really. I feel weak and dizzy, like all my energy’s leaking out of me.’
‘It’s the box; it’s trying everything it can to hurt us. That was something else Maguire told me: I was right about my tooth, but it’s not the crows that are making it hurt – it’s the rot.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The box makes things decay, that’s how it reaches into the world – all those dead things on the ground, and the stink that was on Barnaby. My rotten tooth is connected to that: I’m tuned to the box’s frequency, and my tooth is dragging the signal through my deaf ear.’
‘Bet you wish you didn’t eat so much rock now.’
Sep laughed and, as they approached the shack on delicate feet, Hadley slipped her hand into his.
‘How did you go deaf?’ she said.
He looked at her. The gloom reduced her face to a flat mask, and he saw only her eyes, nostrils and mouth.
‘You’re asking me now?’
‘I’m scared,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘Tell me something that’s not about this.’
Sep looked at Roxburgh’s door. Instead of being shut, as it had appeared, it was slightly open. The frail noise of a radio came from inside, like a wasp in a jar.
‘My mum was with this guy for a while when I was little,’ he said. ‘All I remember about him is that he shouted at her, and he was loud. One time he was so loud I started packing my ear with mud from the garden.’
‘So your ear’s full of mud?’ Hadley whispered.
‘What? No. It – it got infected.’
‘Oh.’
They laughed silently, and the world seemed real again, just for a second.
‘Are you ready?’
‘No.’
‘Well, let’s go anyway,’ said Sep, and he edged towards the steps.
46
Flight
The inside of the shack was lit only by the pale glow of the radio’s dial, which hit the broken furniture and cast long, angular shadows. There was a pot on the stove, a wooden spoon leaning on its edge. Sep sniffed. Every wall and surface was made with cedar, and alongside the smell of its sweet resin was the odour of an old man’s routine: tobacco and smoke, damp wool and muddy boots, and the steamy vegetable smell of soup.
And the forest, reaching into the place like a soggy fog, blanching everything with its damp green fingers.
‘This is disgusting,’ whispered Hadley. ‘And he’s not here. He probably hasn’t even –’
‘The radio’s on,’ said Sep quietly, reaching for the stove. ‘And that pot’s still warm. Something’s happened.’
‘Sep!’ she hissed, pulling his T-shirt. ‘You said we would go if he wasn’t here, and –’
‘Shh!’ said Sep, tilting his head. He thought of the transistor scanning the frequencies in the air, and closed his eyes, trying to let his tooth find the box’s signal.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Listen. Don’t you hear that?’
She listened, holding her breath to let the silence fill her head. A tiny scratching noise, like a dry leaf caught in the wind, came from the darkness on the other side of the tiny living room.
‘Sep!’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go!’
He squeezed her hand, then tiptoed across the space and stepped over a chair into a well of blind darkness. His foot touched carpet, and he breathed out the tension in his belly.
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Hadley.
Sep moved over to the radio and turned down the volume, his hand throwing a huge, sudden shadow in the display’s pale light. Hadley clamped a hand over her mouth.
The scratching noise continued. He followed it, moving further into the shack – when the radio winked out, smothering them in silence.
Hadley bit her lip, then followed him, walking as though the floor burned her feet, her eyes black with terror.
The scratching was coming from a small door beside a pile of clothes. Sep knelt and pressed his good ear to the wood.
Something on the other side was breathing, slowly.
Sep’s heart crept into his throat. He listened as closely as he could with his deaf ear, but the box’s noise was quiet.
He swallowed an acid-burp of fear, placed his hand on the door as softly as he could and turned to Hadley. She shook her head and waved wildly at him, but he nodded – and turned the handle.
Lundy spilled into the corridor, her fur spotted with crusts of blood. She scrabbled at Sep, trying to climb his legs with a desperate whine, and growling at the pile of clothes.
Sep fell backwards and held her trembling body, wrapping his hands round her chest.
‘Oh my God,’ said Hadley, her voice massive in the dead space as she sighed with relief. ‘It’s just the dog. Oh, thank God!’
Lundy growled a little, and Sep felt the movement of her lungs through his fingertips.
‘She’s terrified,’ he said, leaning on the clothes as he stood. ‘We need to take her with us, so we –’
His voice stuck tight in his throat. The wet smell in the cabin wasn’t just the forest’s heady bloom; there was something else. Something human.
It wasn’t a pile of clothes. It was Roxburgh.
Sep stepped away, gesturing at Hadley to go – but she stood frozen to the spot, her eyes bulging in fright.
Run, he mouthed. Run.
She shook her head, tears shining in her eyes.
Sep raised his leg to vault the broken chair – when Roxburgh’s body leaped and grabbed him, a sickly green light glowing in his eyes, his jaw hanging like a snake’s, too loose and too wide and showing too much of his stinking mouth. The sharp fingers closed on Sep’s leg and he heard a dry, dead growl beside him.
He turned to see the other dog – its body torn open, its guts dragging on the floor – burst forward and sink its fangs into the meat of his leg.
He screamed, ripping his leg from Roxburgh’s grasp and leaving his skin in Biscay’s teeth, then scrambled over the toppled furniture with the fingers grabbing at his shoes. He fell again, landing on his jaw and biting hard on his tongue, the sharp piece of rock in his pocket digging into his leg.
Roxburgh heaved himself over the chair, leaning down towards Sep with his mouth open.
Sep gripped the splintered rock like a dagger and brought it up into the Roxburgh-thing’s face, driving the point into its pale, green-lit eye with a wet pop. The thing hissed and fell, and Sep pulled himself upright, tucked Lundy under his arm and ran, his torn leg screaming its agony with every step.
‘Are you all right?’ shouted Hadley, a few paces away, her hand out for his.
‘Fine,’ gasped Sep between quick lips, afraid of the vomit that was climbing his neck. The pain in his back tooth was excruciating, the box’s noise whining into his gums like dental steel.
Something small and white and scorched appeared in the doorway, and Sep saw strings hanging from it like whispery tentacles. Roxburgh’s puppet, he thought – and ran harder, leaning on Hadley’s shoulder to keep his balance, his head swirling.
‘Keep going,’ she wheezed, taking a blast of her inhaler. ‘We’ve nearly caught up with the others, come on!’
Sep followed her, grabbing at her shape like she was a mirage, fighting to keep hold of the slippery threads of his consciousness, and as the others came into view he fell again, landing on the little dog, who squirmed free, howling.
He heard their voices as his eyes began to close, letting the sound of bickering – safe, human bickering – wash over him.
‘You’re going on the flatbed,’ Lamb was saying. ‘That thing’s getting nowhere near the seats.’
‘Her name,’ growled Arkle, hugging the furry mess and leaving a trail of watery dirt on his cheek, ‘is Rosemary!’
Sep’s eyes closed, and the last he knew was the bulk of Mack’s arms beneath him and the sky swinging like a lampshade as he was lifted into the air.
die
But it wasn’t him, it was … this
can’t just keep the
But I couldn’t leave
The floor was rocking under him, light was flashing in his eyes and Hadley was crying in his face.
‘Sep!’ she shouted, seeing his eyes slip open. ‘He’s awake! He’s all right! Sep, can you hear me?’
‘Urgh …’ said Sep. ‘Where are we?’
‘We’re nearly back on the main road,’ said Lamb. ‘You’ve been out for ages.’
Sep flexed his mouth. It tasted of vomit, his head hurt, and when he reached down he found his shirt was wet.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s OK,’ said Hadley, almost laughing. Lundy was in her arms. ‘You’re all right. My God, we were so worried –’
Sep realized his legs were over Mack’s lap, and he tried to sit up.
‘Stay still,’ said Mack. ‘Your leg’s cut pretty bad. It’s still bleeding.’
There was a knock on the back window and Sep jumped in fright – but he turned to see Arkle on the pickup’s flatbed, cuddled into the inside-out squirrel, smiling and w
aving.
‘Has he still got that thing?’ said Sep. His mouth hurt too. He went through all his body parts, trying to find one that wasn’t in agony, and decided his eyelashes felt all right.
‘He wouldn’t let it go,’ said Mack, ‘even when I threatened him.’
‘Where are we going?’ said Sep.
‘My farm,’ said Lamb. ‘This time we’re going to my farm.’
‘Sep needs a hospital!’ said Hadley. ‘He’s bleeding so badly, it –’
‘It’s fine, it’s getting better,’ said Sep. It felt as though he was speaking with a mouthful of rocks, and he wasn’t sure if the words sounded the way they did in his head.
Hadley’s face blurred above him, almost pixelating, her movements becoming blocky and slow.
‘How are you feeling?’ he said.
‘I’m fine. The minute we started heading away from the box I started feeling better! Sep? Sep!’
There was a massive bang, and they screamed as the truck veered over on its side.
The last thought Sep had as he slid on to the floor and out of consciousness was that they’d hit another car, and it was all over: they were caught; the truth would come out.
And it was somehow all his fault.
everyone OK?
My hand’s cut but
Came out of nowhere, I didn’t see it
all fine, everyone’s fine
kill me, he’ll actually kill me
Rosemary!
are we going to do?
Just leave it there
can do that, we have to
‘Look at it, though, it’s huge,’ said Mack.
The front tyre was torn to shreds, but the engine was still running: its throaty rumble punctuated by a sound like popping plastic. Little jabs of pain knuckled into Sep’s back and ribs, and he tried to turn on to his side, the stones shifting painfully under him. He’d fallen on the ground. The doors were open, and he was covered in fragments of broken glass. The others were talking. He heard Arkle laugh nervously, heard the ptwing of dental floss, Lundy’s low growl and the rumble of Mack’s voice.
His Walkman was lying beside him, shattered and broken, its silver insides spilling out. The tape had cracked in two, its label scraped away.
The Sacrifice Box Page 21