‘But what if it doesn’t?’
‘What? But, Sep –’
He put his hands on her face.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Have you ever known me to misbehave – or let you down?’
‘No,’ she said after a moment.
‘So trust me. All right? Trust me.’
He hugged her. Her hair tickled his nose, but he let it sit there as she cried, thinking of the times she’d held him, in the quiet space that was only theirs.
‘Everything’s OK,’ he said quietly. ‘I promise.’
‘No, no, I –’ She wiped her face. ‘I need to go back on shift, so –’
‘So I’ll stay at Arkle’s. You like Mrs Hooper, remember?’
She laughed a little – and he knew it was going to be OK.
‘You be careful then. I trust you, my brave boy.’
‘I will,’ said Sep.
They held each other’s eyes.
‘I will,’ he repeated, then he wheeled the bike into the driveway.
In front of him were two shining eyes – little specks of light in the dark. His mum gasped, her hand on her chest.
‘That bloody fox,’ she said. ‘I nearly had a heart attack.’
The fox pawed at the path and moved forward.
‘Can I have that ham?’ said Sep.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, you know what I think about you feeding that animal – they’re vermin, Sep.’
The fox padded another step forward, then scampered back. It yawned – a wide stretch of pink and white – then licked its lips.
‘Please?’ said Sep. ‘I’ve been feeding him for ages. He’s my – he’s my friend.’
He kept his hand out.
She rolled her eyes, but gave him the ham. It was slimy and cold, and Sep tossed it on his hand as he held it out.
The fox came forward, slowly, reached out and took the meat. Sep held on tight, just for a moment, just long enough to run his hand through the animal’s fur. It was soft and warm and thick, and he felt the life inside it, hot and sharp, felt the animal jump at his touch.
‘Shh,’ he said, ‘it’s OK … it’s OK …’
‘Sep?’ whispered his mum.
Sep moved the fox’s fur again, letting it flow through his fingers, watching how the moonlight caught the layers of colour; then he tickled its ears and it rubbed against his hands. He felt his pulse thudding as he tried to contain the surge of excitement – then the fox backed off, its eyes flashing in alarm.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, smiling. ‘On you go.’
The big amber eyes blinked at him for another second – then the fox ran off, sprinting into the trees, prize gripped in its teeth.
Sep breathed out, felt his heart slowing down, and looked around his garden, at all the safe little spaces he’d made here over the years, behind the bushes and in the trees.
‘Never do that again,’ said his mum. She climbed the steps into the house. ‘Phone if you need me,’ she added before she went inside.
‘Your number still 999?’ said Sep.
She laughed, then blew him a kiss and closed the door.
Sep climbed on to his bike. Rust covered the frame like blisters, and when he settled into the saddle it whined shrilly. He kicked the pedals.
The chain was solid.
He stood up, forcing the greaseless wheels to turn and climb the hill, and, as he swung towards the farm and away from town and school and human life, he looked up at the sky and wondered how, on a spinning ball of rock, this madness had found him, now, at this exact moment in time.
He looked for the comet, but could not find it in the clouds. As his torn leg shot a white noise of agony into his brain, he wondered how he could ever have thought anything other than the sacrifice box was to blame; how he could have imagined this chaos could have come from such an earthly concern as space dust or fallout when it was focused on the five of them – that special five who’d filled one summer with so much happiness.
He swung off the road, the bell chiming on his bike as he rattled on to the pavement – unaware that the fox was ghosting through the shadows behind him, its soft paws silent on the ground.
48
Autopsy
Mario fixed the mask to his face and turned his lamp towards the stag. The animal’s breath came in quick bursts, and its heat shimmered in the cramped air. But the swivelling eyes were unresponsive, black and huge and bulging.
‘My great friend, what are we going to do with you?’ he said, swinging the lamp closer. The air was too heavy to reach the skylight, so the day’s heat hung around him like a wet curtain, pointed with the stag’s panicked stench. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead and blinked away the sweat.
The bite marks itched on his hand. Barkley and Mr Snuggles had been locked up in the chip shop’s cold store, hidden from sight in case Sep had come into the surgery. They were bound with surgical tape, but had been working at their bonds even as he’d carried them through, and they’d been tied in a hurry. He would be careful when he opened the door, he decided. And he would open it, soon – he was no closer to discovering the source of their strange re-animation.
He picked up his Dictaphone and leaned in close to the stag, steadying the rolling wedge of its head and keeping the antlers’ forks away from his face. The big neck moved at an odd angle, and he clicked on a little torch, shining it into the eyes with a yellowish glow.
‘Victim of crash with truck, red stag, fully mature: at least three legs broken and possible skull fracture,’ he said, a faint tremor in his voice.
He ran his hand gently along the stag’s flank. Its wail of pain pressed like thumbs into his ears, and when he lifted his hand he saw a stub of white bone, like a fresh bud, poking through a tear in the skin.
‘Has broken rib also,’ he said. ‘I am sorry, my friend, sorry,’ he soothed, wiping his sleeve across his forehead again. The stag bleated, mournful and low.
Mario put his lips to the microphone and was surprised to see his fingers shaking as he pressed the red button. The stag’s noise had been shockingly loud – and so angry.
He puffed out his cheeks and blew out two sharp breaths before leaning over the body again.
‘Shape of torso indicates spinal damage or major damage to shoulder blade,’ he said. ‘There is injury mid-thorax and denuded bone protruding through left side of chest. The skin is teared and ribcage is visible, also organs …’
He turned the lamp so the light sliced through the ribs. Under the glisten of tissue and fat the big heart was thudding in bursts of dark, twisting muscle, like a living fish tied in a knot. Behind it, the great bags of the lungs crashed against the bone.
Mario felt the animal’s power like an electrical charge in the room. The stag was huge, immense, and although he had worked with large animals in the past, he realized he was profoundly, deeply frightened. Something was not as it should be, and the wrongness of it jarred in his bones.
He felt the world shrink to his dark little room, with nothing beyond the circle of light in which he sat – nothing but himself and the beast.
He looked at his empty hand, saw four dark crescents had been dug into his palm. There was blood under his fingernails.
Mario blinked, tried to focus, and sucked at the boiling air.
‘One of antlers is cracked along base of pedicle. Neck seems potentially broken, is loose, maybe vertebrae dislocated.’
He peered more closely at the stag’s neck. The thick mane was dark and wet, and smelled coppery and warm. Mario parted the fur with his gloved hand and saw a wound about the size of a coin, gently burping bright blood like a hot spring.
‘Carotid artery appears to be damaged, maybe severed,’ he said, his voice shaking. The blood was coming faster now, a knuckle of it welling through the mane. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
‘This bleeding,’ he said, ‘we must stop it, my friend. Here …’
He lifted a scalpel and turned the stag’s neck
by pushing the antlers away, and as the blade broke the skin the animal wrestled against him with staggering power.
Mario eased another syringe of anaesthetic into its neck – felt its muscles relax under his hands. When it was still again he reached into the burning incision and forced an aluminium clamp on to the flesh, tightening it against the arterial flow, its quick pulse matching his own.
‘We will fix you,’ he said. ‘Your carotid artery is sealed, but is more perhaps in the chest – damage to torso means also artery broken here.’
He slit the stag’s skin further, lifting the thick, hair-plugged layer with his fingers and peering into the oozing mess below. The thick crimson pencil of the carotid artery was torn and punctured, like a burst fruit. He set to work with more clamps, finding the worst damage in the glare of the lamp, all the while maintaining a steady commentary into the Dictaphone.
As the stag moaned again he heard something else behind the sound – a soft movement, like a falling cushion. It came again, urgent and quick, the way a trapped bird moved.
He strained his ears into the silence. There was nothing except the bottle-top whisper of wind over the skylight, and the gentle sound of the sea beyond as the tide broke over the shore.
He realized his fingernails were digging back into their crescent wounds.
The light went out with a thump.
Mario leaped in fright and his scalpel tore the length of the exposed artery. As he stumbled in the dark, a burst of hot blood slewed across his face and hit the floor with a noise like tearing paper.
‘Oh!’ spluttered Mario, slipping as his heel streaked through the puddle, and knocking his head on the trolley’s steel leg.
Lights flashed in his vision. Above him the deer began to bleed out a warm stream from the tabletop that pattered on to his skin and splashed into his mouth. It landed in a halo around his head, tinkling lightly on the linoleum.
He counted silently, waited for the room to stop spinning.
The soft noise came again, louder. It was closer this time, and he felt a puff of air cool the blood on his face.
‘Hello?’ he said, fumbling for his surgical torch and casting a bright disc of light on to his cabinet. He climbed to his knees and moved the light over the shelves, the silhouettes of books and mugs twirling in the shifting beam, filling the room with thin fingers of shadow that gathered into a fist around him.
‘Hello?’ he said again.
The stag breathed out, heavily and finally, as though it was blowing out a candle.
His torch flickered and died.
‘Skatá,’ said Mario.
Something moved in the shadow. Instinctively, he moved to corner it as he’d cornered gerbils, cats and rabbits – when shining green eyes peered up at him.
Then leapt.
As Barnaby climbed on to his face Mario screamed, his howls of panic muffling on the bear’s stuffed fur, until after a moment’s agony the little bear vanished, and the big man was still.
Beside him, its casing split by the fall, his Dictaphone clicked off loudly as the tape ran out.
49
Pliers
Hadley was cycling into the farmyard when Sep arrived. Roxburgh’s little terrier was in her basket, wrapped in a shawl.
Sep squeezed his reluctant brakes as hard as he could, but nearly crashed into her before he stopped. She held his handlebars to steady herself, and they both laughed nervously.
‘Very cute,’ said Sep.
‘What?’
‘The dog,’
‘Oh,’ she said, and blushed. ‘Yeah, she is. I’m going to call her Elliot.’
‘Isn’t that a boy’s name?’
The storm began to break, its energy tipping over with an almost audible sigh and speckling them with the first drops of rain. Hadley tucked in the shawl more tightly.
‘I like boys’ names for girls.’
‘Elliot,’ said Sep, holding a finger on the dog’s wet nose. She licked his hand and whined happily. ‘How do you feel?’
Hadley turned over her hand so they could both see the cut on her palm. It was as vivid as ever.
‘Not great,’ she said, her hand trembling. ‘Scared.’
‘We’ll beat it,’ said Sep. ‘I swear.’
Hadley flicked her eyes at him, and Sep leaned in, eyes closing as his lips parted.
Then the farmhouse door opened behind them and he jumped a foot in the air.
‘Scare you?’ said Lamb.
‘Yes,’ said Sep. ‘Thanks.’
She turned back into the house.
‘Hurry up. Leave your bikes in the hall.’
‘Why are there only two? Who’s not here?’
‘Nobody, chill out – Darren stashed his beside the barn.’
They followed Lamb into the kitchen, where Mack and Arkle were already sitting, their faces shadowed by the low-hanging light. Arkle blinked slowly at them, his sombre expression reflected in the vomit he’d left on the table that afternoon.
‘Sep and Hadley,’ he said, then, spying the dog wrapped in Hadley’s arms, ‘and E.T.’
‘You don’t look good,’ said Sep.
‘That’s genetic – I have ugly parents.’
‘Does the box make you feel that bad?’
Arkle nodded slowly.
‘It’s like … you know when your mum wants some peace and quiet, so she gives you more Calpol than you really need?’
‘No,’ said Sep carefully.
‘Oh. Well, that.’
‘Have you been sick again?’ said Hadley.
‘I wish,’ said Arkle, closing his eyes as though contemplating nirvana. ‘That would be amazing. I’d hurl up all the dragonflies and Spike in a big technicolor yawn and I’d never feel sick again. By the way,’ he added, ‘this is spreading over the island now. It’s out of control. When I went back for my bike, all the power had gone and a dead cat was chasing my parents through the house.’
‘Where’s Rosemary?’ said Sep.
Arkle sat up straight.
‘Oh, no! I left her in the truck – is it well hidden, Lamb?’
Lamb popped open a can of drink and rolled her eyes.
‘It’s under the willow tree. But I’m more worried about the damn car than your dead lump.’
‘She’s not a lump,’ said Arkle, taking a sip of Spike. ‘She’s my fluffy cuddle monkey.’
‘Can I borrow, like, a T-shirt or something?’ Sep asked Lamb.
‘You want to wear my clothes?’
‘No, it’s just –’
He pointed at the vomit and blood on his T-shirt.
Lamb rolled her eyes.
‘There’s a basket with clean laundry beside the door. Take one of my dad’s tops – and don’t look at my underwear.’
‘I’d wear that,’ said Arkle.
Lamb hit his arm.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘How are we going to do this?’
‘We’re going to go back and make proper sacrifices – for each other this time,’ said Sep, rubbing his jaw as the pain moved back into his teeth. ‘Did you all bring something?’
He began to change self-consciously, hoping Hadley wouldn’t look at his topless body as he pulled on a white vest.
‘Of course,’ said Mack.
‘Yeah, yeah. Can I smoke in here?’ said Arkle.
‘Whatever,’ said Lamb, ‘my dad smokes constantly.’
‘Magic,’ said Arkle, sparking up and leaning back in his chair.
‘I brought a proper sacrifice. It was easy really,’ said Hadley, coughing. ‘Doesn’t it feel like this is what we should always have been –’
Her eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped over the table.
‘Shit!’ shouted Arkle, jumping to his feet as Sep reached for Hadley’s face.
The light went out with a bang, scattering hot glass on to their skin. They leaped back, their chairs toppling, and stood in frantic silence, only the glow of Arkle’s cigarette lighting the room.
‘Shit sh
it shit shit shit shit –’
‘Give me your lighter! There’s a candle on the windowsill,’ said Lamb.
Hadley stirred, blinking in the darkness.
‘Oh, God,’ she murmured, ‘I feel terrible –’
‘Shit shit shit shit shit shit,’ said Arkle, the red ember of his ash trailing across the room.
Sep tried to breathe, but the box’s voice was screaming in his ear – and his tooth had exploded. He pulled at his face, as though he could tear out the pain with his skin, and he howled in agony.
‘Sep!’ shouted Hadley, forcing her head up. ‘What is it? Oh, God, someone help!’
Mack grabbed Sep’s shoulders and held him against the tabletop.
‘My – tooth –’ said Sep. ‘The box – it’s in my tooth!’
Lamb spun the ignition of Arkle’s lighter, aiming the flame at the fat candle on the sill, but as it flared they saw the press of bloody flesh outside, the teeth and tongues of all the forest’s dead creatures working on the handles and frame, the slime of long-dead skin like slug-trail on the glass, and they screamed.
Lamb dropped the lighter in the sink, and the carnival of gore disappeared.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Oh my God.’
Sep arched his back with the pain. His rotten tooth had burst in his gum, and he bit down on it as hard as he could, squeezing out the agony.
Mack and Arkle were each holding down a shoulder.
‘Give him this!’ said Lamb, holding out a wooden spoon.
‘What’s he going to do?’ said Arkle. ‘Make cupcakes?’
‘No – he can bite on it! You need to force his jaw open!’
Sep writhed again, spots flashing green and yellow behind his eyelids.
‘Take – it – out –’ he managed, hissing the words between clenched teeth.
‘What? The whole tooth?’ said Hadley.
The window frame leaned in with a crack and the walls of the farmhouse thumped as more creatures joined the press on its sides.
Sep nodded sharply.
‘Have you got pliers?’ said Hadley.
Lamb was staring, dumbstruck.
‘Lamb! Have you got any pliers?’
The Sacrifice Box Page 23