She nodded, pulled her eyes away from Sep and pointed.
‘Y–yes, in the drawer there.’
Hadley pulled open the top drawer in the huge, antique dresser.
‘It’s full of rubbish!’ she said. ‘There’s just paper, and tape, and a square battery, and –’
‘You can never find a square battery when you need one, can you?’ said Arkle, puffing maniacally.
‘Shut up, Darren! Just help me look!’
‘I’m scared!’ shouted Arkle, throwing piles of cardboard and junk on to the floor. ‘There!’ he shouted. ‘Aha! Pliers!’
He handed them to Mack, still pressing Sep’s wriggling shoulders to the table, wide-eyed with fright.
‘You need to do it, Golden Boy – you’re stronger than me.’
‘I can’t!’ said Mack.
A thin ribbon of white twisted down the centre of the glass as it began to split. Teeth clicked against its surface.
‘You’re his friend!’ shouted Hadley.
Lamb grabbed the pliers.
‘You hold him,’ she said. Then, looking at the others: ‘Force open his jaw.’
She leaned down to Sep’s good ear.
‘You need to help me, Sep,’ she whispered. ‘When they open your mouth you need to point to the bad one with your tongue, all right?’
Sep grunted, the tendons in his neck as taut as pulled rope.
‘You ready?’ said Lamb, raising her voice over the racket outside. ‘One, two – go!’
Hadley and Arkle pushed down on the wooden spoon, forcing Sep’s jaw to open and sending a wave of fire into his brain. He felt his body seize up, a lump of stone pinned by Mack’s weight, and as Lamb shoved the oily-tasting pliers into his mouth, Sep used every shred of strength he had to point his tongue at the back tooth around which the storm spun.
Lamb locked the pliers around it – and pulled.
The seismic crunch of the root shook through Sep’s skeleton, and he heard its crack echo in the chambers of his head – but as the red, fresh, good pain filled his mouth the agony and the noise ebbed away and he opened his eyes, leaned forward and dribbled hot, spitty blood on the floor.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and took Lamb’s hand.
The window caved in.
50
Barn
A river of flesh and fur spilled into the kitchen, mouths and claws tearing at the worktops as the rain howled in.
Hadley heaved at Sep as they ran, Lamb slamming the kitchen door behind them.
‘The sideboard!’ she shouted.
She and Mack pulled it over the door just as the things inside smashed into it, dark claws reaching round its edge.
‘Slam it!’ she shouted, and they all leaned on the door at once, chopping the claws like carrots.
‘Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit –’ said Arkle.
‘Where do we go?’ said Hadley, holding Elliot’s head as the dog whined.
‘The barn,’ said Lamb. ‘We need to cross the yard, but it’s got the strongest door and stuff we could use as weapons.’
‘Have you already thought about this?’ said Sep.
‘Of course,’ said Lamb, pushing him down the hall. ‘You haven’t thought about where you would go in your house in a zombie apocalypse?’
‘No,’ said Sep.
‘I didn’t know girls thought about that stuff too,’ said Arkle. ‘Marry me, Lambert.’
The kitchen door cracked.
‘Go!’ shouted Lamb.
The top half of the door broke and the dead animals tumbled into the hall, their green eyes swirling in the dark as Lamb sprinted across the yard.
She pulled open the side door on the massive barn, and the others ran after her through rain that fell like steel cables, the barn’s trembling frame matching the roar of the thunderous sky.
Sep slipped on the shining cobbles and turned in horror to the toothy mass behind him. He saw some flesh-stripped cats reaching for him and kicked out, scrambling backwards – when strong hands grabbed him and dragged him quickly along the ground.
As the creatures fell away a badger-faced thing burst forward, locking its mouth on to his shoes and tugging him back with terrifying strength. He yelled as the bones popped in his feet, and as he kicked off his baseball trainers a high-pitched, motorized whine screamed past his ears and Lamb struck at the creature with a lawn-strimmer, its whirling blade tearing the skin from the creature’s forehead and flaying its bright eyeballs like peeled grapes.
Sep was dragged into the barn and Lamb followed, swinging about her with the strimmer, a welder’s mask covering her face – then she slammed the door, dropping a sleeper-sized bar across it as the creatures battered on to the other side.
Sep coughed and spat, leaning forward to drool on to the barn floor. He turned to thank whoever had saved him.
Hadley was kneeling beside him, Elliot tucked under her arm, her face tight with concern.
‘Hadley?’ he said.
‘God, that was close,’ she said.
He looked at her slight frame.
‘You nearly lifted me off the ground,’ he said.
She smiled.
‘You’re not so heavy.’
‘So what do we do now?’ said Arkle, shouting over the thumping door.
‘We wait it out,’ said Lamb.
‘How? They’re not vampires; they won’t vanish in the morning.’
‘Well, maybe they’ll go after someone else when they can’t get in!’
‘We don’t want them to go after someone else,’ said Sep, ‘we don’t want them to go after anyone! And –’
Sep moved his jaw. The noise had disappeared. Even though the creatures were on the other side of the door, a few feet away, there was nothing in his head. Lamb had pulled the rotted thing out of his body, and now the box couldn’t get to him. Which was good, except …
The world outside seemed suddenly draped in blindness, as if a thick fog had come over the island. It was as though Barnaby had been fitted with a bell, and now he was out there, somewhere – silent and invisible.
Sep looked around the barn. They’d played here, that summer, swinging on a tow rope from a sagging beam. It had been full of old farm equipment: pieces of rusted iron sharp enough to cut flesh; the engines, shells and tyres of vehicles put out to pasture; boxes of dangerous-smelling powders beside viscous bottles with yellow, crossboned labels. And a back door.
‘The other door,’ he said, dribbling blood on his chin. ‘Does it still work?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Lamb. ‘It’s a door – what’s to work?’
‘I mean, it’s not blocked or anything? We could get out that way?’
Understanding dawned on her face.
‘Yeah, we could,’ she said.
‘But those things are outside,’ said Arkle. ‘Why would we go out there if we could stay here?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mack. ‘He’s right; it’s safer in here. We should stay for now. Maybe we can get out later.’
‘But what if they were stuck inside?’ said Sep. He stood up and, balancing against Hadley’s shoulder, raised his voice over the snare of rain on the tin roof. ‘If we go round the back they’ll follow us through here – then we close the door and trap them.’
‘And we’d be even safer,’ said Lamb.
‘Exactly. Especially if –’ He sniffed the air. ‘You’ve got fertilizer in here, right?’
Lamb rolled her eyes.
‘It’s a farm,’ she said, ‘of course there’s fertilizer.’
‘What about antifreeze?’ said Sep, looking at the looming hulk of a tractor parked in the shadows.
‘Yeah, but –’
‘Oh, shit!’ said Arkle. ‘You’re going to blow the barn up!’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Sep. ‘You are.’
‘Oh my God.’ Arkle bit his lip. ‘This is my dream. I mean – a large-scale detonation. I don’t know what to say –’
‘Don’t say anything,’ said Lamb. ‘You’re not do
ing it.’
Sep tongued the pulpy space where his tooth had been. ‘We have to,’ he said, ‘otherwise we’ll either starve to death or they’ll break inside eventually and rip us apart. We have to do something.’
‘But not blow up my barn!’ yelled Lamb, grabbing Arkle’s collar as he started to rummage on the shelves for antifreeze.
‘I think Sep’s right,’ said Hadley.
‘Geek-on,’ muttered Arkle.
‘Mack?’ said Sep.
‘We are not taking a vote,’ said Lamb.
The things hammered on the door and it shook on its hinges.
‘I’m with Sep,’ said Mack. ‘He’s right most of the time, so he’s probably right now.’
‘Four to one,’ said Sep. ‘I’m sorry, we have to.’
‘Come on,’ said Mack as he lifted Lamb away. ‘It’s for the best – this thing’s about to fall down anyway.’
‘My vote counts for five!’ she shouted. ‘It counts for a hundred! Sep!’
‘Wait for us at the back door!’ called Sep. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can!’
Lamb’s howls of protest were snuffed out as they reached the door, and Sep looked at Arkle as he bent to examine the sinister-looking tubs and cans.
‘Can you do it?’
‘Hell, yes. It’s trying to stop myself that’s the hard part.’
‘How long?’
Arkle shrugged.
‘I’ve got plenty of galvanized buckets here so, I don’t know … Four minutes?’
‘Brilliant,’ said Sep, wiggling his bare toes. ‘Then I’ll create a diversion.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Distract them, like, divert their attention.’
‘I know what a diversion is, dickhead,’ said Arkle, heaving a tub of green pellets on to the steel table. ‘I meant how are you going to divert them?’
Sep handed Hadley a strimmer, then picked up the hedge-cutter and swung it like a bat.
‘Just a bit of gardening,’ he said.
‘Wait –’ said Hadley.
Sep pulled the switch and the cutters leaped into life. Hadley looked at him.
‘We can’t do this,’ she said. But she put Elliot on the workbench next to Arkle, and gripped the strimmer’s handles.
‘Just for a few minutes,’ said Sep, lifting the bar from the door. ‘We run through them, lead them to the top of the path, then run back, right? By the time they’ve followed us, Arkle will be ready and we’ll be straight out the other side. You will be ready, won’t you?’
‘Defo.’
‘This is crazy,’ said Hadley.
‘It won’t take long,’ said Sep. ‘Just pretend it’s field hockey – only the ball is a zombified badger’s face.’
‘This is crazy!’
‘Good luck,’ said Arkle.
He watched them run through the door and made sure it had slammed back in place before he returned his attention to the buckets he’d set out in a neat row. Elliot watched him carefully, her head cocked to one side.
The strimmer and hedge-cutter roared with reedy fury until the actions of their parts were stoppered by a wet, tearing sound – like a race car slowing on treacle.
Arkle delicately tipped bottles into the buckets, letting their contents fall gently. He stirred and prodded, and as bubbles broke on the surface and the smell began to sting his nostrils the sound of electrical motors returned.
‘Magic,’ he said, and the door burst open behind him.
Sep hobbled through, blood on his feet.
‘What happened?’ shouted Arkle as he rolled out the taper.
Sep gritted his teeth.
‘I cut my feet.’
‘Holy shit! Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Sep. His vest was stained with mud and splashes of gore.
‘That thing would have killed you!’ said Hadley. ‘I just bumped into you – if you’d had shoes on then –’
‘I’m fine, just keep moving!’ said Sep, throwing the hedge-cutter on the floor as Hadley grabbed Elliot and ran.
‘Will I light it?’ asked Arkle.
Sep heard the sprinting claws approaching the barn.
‘Yes! Now!’
Arkle flicked his lighter with a damp scratching noise – but no flame.
‘Come on, you’ve never let me down yet,’ he said to the little silver box, ‘don’t start now.’
He flicked the wheel again.
‘Sep!’ he shouted. ‘It won’t light! It won’t light! Lamb must have got it wet when she dropped it in the sink!’
He spun the wheel again and again, but no sparks came.
‘It’s OK,’ said Sep. ‘Try again.’
Arkle flicked his thumb.
Nothing.
The noise of the creatures echoed in the cavernous barn, drowning out the noise of the storm. Sep grabbed the lighter from Arkle’s hand and blew on it to dry the flint, spun the wheel.
Nothing.
‘Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii–’
Sep pulled the lighter apart, ripping out the fuel-soaked cotton and grabbing two stones from the floor.
‘You always made fun of me for being in the Scouts,’ he said.
‘It was the woggle!’ said Arkle, panicked tears streaking his face as the creatures burst through the door. ‘It’s such a funny word!’
‘Well, woggle this!’ shouted Sep, and struck the stones together.
They sparked, and the ball of cotton burst into flames.
‘Yes! Yes! Oh my God, how are you better at starting fires than me?’ said Arkle, touching the flame to the taper and breaking into a run, Sep following as the claws of the box-creatures ticked on the concrete floor.
They threw themselves through the door on to the cool, wet grass, and Mack slammed it behind them.
‘How long do we have?’ said Sep. He opened his mouth, letting the cool rain fall on his tongue.
‘Oh, like, six seconds,’ said Arkle.
‘Shit,’ said Lamb.
They ran together, across the yard towards the farmhouse, jumping over the low wall as the barn exploded in a fireball of brilliant orange, panels of corrugated iron scattering like seeds, streaming with smoke and spotted with tiny fires that hissed out in the torrents of freezing rain.
The barn collapsed, the roof thudding on to the flames inside.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Lamb, watching the smouldering wreckage. ‘The barn, I – I – what the hell am I going to tell my dad?’
Arkle lit a cigarette on one of the small fires that had landed around them, then exhaled smoke through a massive grin.
‘On the plus side,’ he said, ‘it’ll really distract from you smashing up his truck.’
51
Crabs
‘I’m just saying: maybe it would have been nice if someone had reminded me my bike was there before I blew it up.’
Arkle was pacing in his socks: a trace of his explosive had burned a hole in his Converse boot and left a scorch mark on his ankle.
‘It was you who left it,’ said Mack. ‘I don’t see how this is our fault.’
‘Don’t give me your shit, Golden Boy,’ said Arkle. ‘And, oh! Great! This is my last fag! Isn’t that just peachy?’ He tapped it from the packet and pulled it away with his lips. ‘Why do the worst things happen to the best people?’
‘You know,’ said Hadley, ‘Roxburgh’s dead. You just blew up Lamb’s barn. The box is draining my strength. Sep’s had a tooth ripped out, his feet all cut and he was bitten by a zombie dog.’
‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ said Arkle, lips tight as he leaned down to light his cigarette on the gas ring.
‘We need to go back to the box – now,’ said Sep. ‘We have to finish this.’
Lamb was staring into space, her face blank.
‘He just … blew it up,’ she said, then made a popping-bubble sound.
‘Seriously. We need to get out of here,’ said Sep. ‘Do you think there’s any chance someone didn’t
see that fireball?’
‘We’re definitely doing this now?’ said Mack. ‘I mean, it’s dark, and the rule says –’
‘The rule says not to open it after dark, right?’
‘Right, that’s what I’m –’
‘But you didn’t close it last time, did you?’
Mack furrowed his brow.
‘No,’ he said after a moment, ‘that doll came, and we ran away.’
Sep nodded.
‘That rule doesn’t apply to us now, does it? So we’re doing this on our own terms – tonight.’
They looked at each other. Each of them appeared scorched and bruised, and their singed eyebrows gave them an air of considered surprise.
‘Your new sacrifices, then,’ said Sep. ‘What have you got?’
Mack went to his pocket and produced a tight triangle of plastic.
‘Garbage?’ said Lamb.
‘No! It’s an empty popcorn packet.’
‘So … garbage,’ said Lamb, narrowing her eyes.
‘It’s not,’ he said, holding it up. ‘Look at the stripes – it’s Wilko’s popcorn!’
‘Dude,’ said Arkle.
‘You can’t even buy this any more! This is from that summer – it’s the popcorn wrapper from our movie night! I kept it!’
‘That’s perfect!’ said Sep. ‘Jesus, Mack, I can’t believe you did that.’
Mack shrugged, smiling happily.
‘I told you. I missed you guys.’
‘All right, what else have we got?’ said Sep.
Lamb dropped a pebble on the table.
‘It’s from the time we went swimming,’ she mumbled, avoiding their eyes.
‘What?’
‘I said it’s from the time we went swimming!’ she shouted.
Sep gave her a huge smile.
‘You big softy,’ he said.
‘Don’t –’ she started.
‘This is Sep’s book,’ said Arkle, reaching for his back pocket. ‘The Shining. I – I couldn’t read it. It was too scary and too long, but he gave it to me that summer, and I’ve always thought of him when I saw it under my bed.’
They looked at the crumpled paperback, sitting on the edge of the table.
Sep laughed.
‘I didn’t give you this,’ he said. ‘You must have taken it without asking me. I’ve actually been looking for it. Like, a lot.’
The Sacrifice Box Page 24