‘Well,’ said Arkle, stubbing his cigarette into the sink, ‘that act of casual theft made me think fondly of you for the last four years. I’m glad to sacrifice your property.’
‘Hadley?’ said Lamb.
Hadley stood with difficulty, leaning on her chair.
‘The mixtape from the box,’ she said.
‘What? It has to be something to do with each other,’ said Mack. ‘About how we’re friends.’
‘This is!’ she said. ‘I was surprised no one recognized it before.’
She pulled it out of her pocket and showed it to Sep. ‘Don’t you remember? The handwriting’s smudged, but you can still tell it’s yours.’
They all looked at him.
‘Mine? But –’
He picked up the cassette, reread the label.
‘I made this for you,’ he said, remembering. ‘We listened to it –’
‘On the beach. We toasted marshmallows.’
‘All right,’ said Arkle, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Last one. Sep, what have you got?’
Sep went to his pocket, felt the piece of paper inside.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I should.’
‘Come on,’ said Lamb. ‘It can’t be any more lame than my swimming pebble. Show us!’
Sep shook his head, backing away from the table.
‘I can’t. I’ve written something –’
‘What? That’s like a home-made Christmas present!’ said Arkle. ‘You can’t give it that!’
‘Yeah, that sucks,’ said Lamb. ‘You’re the one who said it’s all about love. How can you just write something?’
‘I know, but … I didn’t keep wrappers or pebbles or tapes – or steal things from your houses. Everything I feel about you guys is just … in my head. In my heart. All I could do was try and make that into something I could hold in my hands. It says everything I’ve ever wanted to say. Do you trust me?’
‘Are you going to cry?’ said Mack, looking at the ceiling. ‘Because if you are, that would just set me off, man, and I don’t think I can even –’
He broke off and fanned his eyes.
‘OK,’ said Arkle, ‘OK. Yeah! I trust you! I trust you! Let’s do this!’
Lamb looked at Hadley. She nodded.
‘We trust you,’ she said.
‘Good,’ said Sep, smiling gratefully at them. ‘Because we need to go now. Like, now now.’
‘Right,’ said Hadley, making a fist with her uncut hand. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Well …’ said Sep.
‘What?’
‘Just,’ said Sep, looking to the others for support, ‘it might kill you, Hadley – you could die just by going near it. Maybe you should –’
‘You’re not serious?’ said Lamb.
Hadley shook her head. ‘You need me.’
‘Yeah, Sep. If we’re going to make sacrifices for each other we all have to be there,’ said Lamb. ‘We have to do it together, or not at all.’
‘But she might –’
‘I can look after myself,’ said Hadley. ‘It’s my own fault I gave it blood. I’m going to do what I can to stop it, same as the rest of you.’
She pulled back her shoulders and gave him a defiant look.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you have to tell us if you need help – even if it means we go back and try another time.’
‘Fine.’
Lamb looked Sep up and down, then shook her head.
‘The state you’re in.’
‘I’m OK,’ said Sep, examining himself. His feet and the bite wound in his leg had stopped bleeding, but his white vest was spattered with gore, and he was covered in mud and scratches.
‘Wait!’ said Arkle. ‘What am I going to do?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Hadley.
‘Well, I’ve got no shoes, my clothes are covered in fertilizer and I blew up my bike.’
‘What shoe size are you?’ said Lamb.
‘Wait, can I have shoes too? I’m an eleven,’ said Sep, turning back from the doorway.
‘I’m a five,’ said Arkle.
‘A five?’ sniggered Mack.
Arkle gave him a warning stare.
‘Yes, Macejewski. A five.’
‘Darren I can help,’ Lamb said. ‘He can wear my hockey boots. Sep, my dad’s only a nine. I’m sorry.’
‘So I need to go barefoot?’
‘Class!’ said Arkle. ‘What about the other things?’
‘Borrow some more of my dad’s gear from the basket – don’t look at my underwear – and you can take my sister’s old bike. I’m pretty sure it’s in the shed.’
‘You’ve got a deal,’ said Arkle, lifting the lid from the basket. He nodded. ‘I’ll take these clothes, your boots and your sister’s bicycle.’
As he was changing, the others gathered in the courtyard. Sirens sailed through the sky, their alarms mangled by the rain that lashed the ground and splashed in the wet earth.
‘Are you all right?’ Sep asked Hadley.
She tucked Elliot into her basket and tightened the dog’s shawl.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of gone past that, hasn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t matter how we are – look at everything that’s happened because of us.’
‘I know.’
She pointed at his feet, slashed and bare.
‘Will you be OK?’
‘Like you said – I’ll have to be.’
She looked up at the stars, visible through a torn strip of cloud. Raindrops beaded on her glasses.
‘Do you still feel insignificant?’ she said.
Sep allowed the way she made him feel to flow over him in heady, perfumed waves, washing away all the stains of the past and leaving him whole and clean and strong. He smiled.
‘Not really.’
Arkle emerged from the house, clacking on the stone with Lamb’s studded boots, the sleeves of her dad’s rugby shirt rolled to doughnuts around his wrists.
‘I’m shitting myself,’ he admitted as they looked over. ‘If I die dressed like this they’ll think some buff guy shrunk in the wash.’
‘Well, saddle-up, short-ass,’ said Lamb, wheeling something round the side of the house.
‘Wait,’ said Arkle, ‘isn’t your sister older than you?’
‘Yeah, she moved to the mainland, like, five years ago.’
‘So what is she, a pygmy?’
Lamb handed him the little pink bike.
‘She took her racer with her. This is her old one.’ She put her head on one side and smiled at him. ‘I used to be so jealous of the tassels.’
‘This isn’t funny,’ said Arkle as the others laughed. ‘You know I saved our lives by blowing that thing up, right? I should be celebrated, not slagged off!’
‘That’s all there is. You want to walk?’
‘No,’ said Arkle, climbing on to the little bike and pushing off, pedalling twice as fast as the rest of them. ‘I just wish the basket didn’t have a pony on it, that’s all.’
‘He could have taken my dad’s bike obviously,’ whispered Lamb as she passed Sep, ‘but this is way more fun.’
The sirens had grown louder by the time they reached the gate.
Sep looked down towards the town. The tide was in, the water tight around the island. From here the bay looked closed and sharp. Like a claw.
He turned towards the forest track, and lightning split the sky with a jagged pink fork. They froze.
‘It’s dangerous to be near trees in a storm,’ said Hadley.
‘It’s dangerous to stay here,’ said Sep. He nodded to them and pushed off, ready to fight through the pain in his leg and his mouth to lead them against the box.
The treeline blew apart.
At first he thought it was a landslide, and fear sped his heart – then he saw the pincers, and terror stopped it.
‘Go!’ he shouted, stamping on the pedals and shooting off down the hill, away from the battalion of crabs, and he turned and saw the o
thers doing likewise, even Arkle speeding away with a tinkle of his bell. All except Hadley.
Her chain had slipped. She’d climbed from her bike and was keeping the frame between her and the crabs, Elliot clutched in her arms.
Sep jumped clear, leaving his wheels clicking backwards, and ran at the horde, lashing out with his feet and knocking away their terrible limbs.
‘Sep!’ she shouted, backing away down the path.
The sirens were closer, almost at the bottom of the hill.
He reached her, grabbed the bike and pushed it at the nearest crab. It backed off, moving its pincers like a lofted blade.
‘If we push them with the bike they’ll keep backing off!’ he yelled.
He stepped the bike forward, the wall at their backs, making a safe barrier between them and the grabbing claws.
‘Sep!’ shouted Arkle. ‘Are you all right? Did you get Hadley?’
‘We’re fine!’ shouted Sep, moving the barrier another step, ‘we’re coming back out!’
‘Hurry up! The police – your mum, she’s almost here! I can see the lights!’
‘We’re nearly at the top,’ Sep grunted. ‘Be ready to run.’
Hadley nodded, holding the dog against her chest.
‘Run!’
Sep shoved the bike on to the crabs’ massed spikes and turned, watching Hadley bolt past the last crab’s desperate snap, and as he went to follow he felt a pull, and turned to find his jeans snagged on the chain.
The first crab cut his chin. The second cut his arm. The third pulled out a chunk of his hair, and then he heard only the snap of their claws and Hadley’s distant cries as the weight of them tumbled over him, the stink of the sea thick in his nose.
He gritted his teeth, waited for the claws to find his throat, and thought of his mum arriving in her squad car to find him, bloodied and torn and still.
But then something else was there beside him, something small and strong, pushing snarling past him; and he grabbed the thick, warm fur of the fox, his fox, as it leaped in among them, its quick jaws snapping at their shells and legs.
He held on to it, pulled himself to his knees and grabbed the next pincer that came at him.
It closed violently, slicing off the top of his index finger.
Sep roared, tore the claw in half, then lifted the crab and swung it at the others.
But as he ran free he saw them crowding instead round his fox, their claws already stuck with its fur as it leaped once – then fell back.
‘No!’ he shouted.
Hadley grabbed him.
‘The sirens, Sep, we have to go!’
Sep turned away, closing his ears as they tore his fox apart.
Hadley stowed Elliot in Arkle’s pink basket, then jumped on to the back of Sep’s bike. They took off again, tears streaking across Sep’s face as they swooped away from the flashing blue lights and into the cover of the trees.
52
Surgery
They were deep in the trees that led to the forest. Rain had filled the land, stirring up the odours of earth and wood, and the stones gleamed with the clean smells of slate and moss.
‘Wait,’ said Sep, rolling to a halt. ‘What about Mario?’
‘What about him?’ Lamb shouted over her shoulder.
‘I’ve just realized – we’ve left him with a dying animal.’
Arkle jingled up beside Sep.
‘So?’ he said. ‘He’s a vet.’
‘Don’t you see? We keep getting attacked by dead animals – what if the stag dies then comes back to life? He’ll be trapped in there with it!’
‘Oh,’ said Hadley.
‘I need to warn him,’ said Sep, wiping his brow. Blood from his severed finger spilled down his face.
‘Holy shit!’ said Arkle. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yeah …’ Sep blinked slowly. ‘But I probably need to wrap this up before I pass out. I can get a bandage in the surgery.’
‘You’re going on your own?’
‘I won’t be – Mario will be there. Then I’ll come and meet you at the edge of the wood, just before the ravine.’
They looked uneasy.
‘You want me to come with you?’ said Arkle. ‘In case, you know, you pass out again.’
Hadley nodded.
‘I’d come, but you’d have to carry me twice as far then.’
‘She can ride with me,’ said Mack, and even in the throes of everything Sep felt a stab of jealousy in his stomach.
‘Cool,’ he said as Hadley climbed from his saddle and up behind Mack. ‘I’ll check on Mario, bandage this, and come straight after you.’
He tried not to think of his fox, but hoped, hoped, that it was dead and quiet, and wouldn’t open glowing eyes once the crabs had finished.
‘This way’s quickest; it’ll only take a few minutes.’
‘For you maybe,’ said Arkle, angling the tiny bike downhill. ‘I’m riding Twinkle Snowdrop here. That’s got to be tough,’ he added once they were away from the others, speeding towards the back of the town.
‘What?’ said Sep.
‘Watching your girl ride off with another man?’
‘She’s not my girl.’
‘She is – she’s got a geek-on for you. I told you.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Dude, I’m –’
‘Shut up.’
They rode in silence for a minute, picking their way carefully between the roots and stones, until they emerged on to the road beside the graveyard.
‘It’s so creepy. Jesus, it’s so creepy,’ said Arkle, crossing the street on to the other side, away from the tall dark gates.
‘There’s nobody here,’ said Sep, ‘don’t worry.’
‘Nobody alive!’ said Arkle, looking through the dark layers of neatly stacked headstones. ‘What if, you know, like Roxburgh, or –’
‘It’s fine – the gates are locked.’
‘What if they’re gate-opening zombies?’ said Arkle, the tassels on his handlebars fluttering as he sped up.
‘Stop saying –’ Sep began.
He looked into the darkness of the graveyard and felt the vast pull of its reservoir of decay. He imagined what might happen if the box was to grow further in strength – if it could reach its vile power into this space – and felt a surge of deep dark sadness overwhelm him.
He pedalled after Arkle as fast as he could, and a moment later they arrived at the little row of shops, leaning their bikes silently in the shadows.
‘I’m cacking myself,’ said Arkle matter-of-factly. ‘Like, seriously – I think my guts have given up. I can’t hack this. I know you’re a crab-fighting zombie-whisperer now, but some of us have delicate bowels.’
‘I’ll be quick, then we’ll get to the box as fast as we can,’ said Sep as they tiptoed towards the surgery’s front door.
The blood was running freely from his finger. He breathed in, and felt light-headed, as though he was being carried in strong hands.
‘Wait here,’ he said.
Arkle grabbed his arm.
‘Here?’ he whispered. ‘Here?’
‘Yeah. I’ll only be a minute.’
‘But – the –’
‘You need to keep an eye on the bikes – if anything happens to them we’re screwed.’
‘God, I wish I had another cigarette,’ said Arkle, kicking the fence and wrapping his arms round his chest.
Sep crept inside the silent, pitch-dark reception, ghosted across the floor and tentatively edged open the door to the surgery.
He strained his deaf ear, pressing his tongue into the bloody space in his gum – but there was nothing. No noise, no breathy whisper.
But the door had been open, and Mario always locked up. Always.
So he was still here.
With a sickening twist in his stomach Sep took a deep breath and moved into the room.
The stag was on the table. Its enormous legs were spindling off the sides, bones splintered like wood, hooves resti
ng on the floor. The room was boiling, and Sep gagged on the hot stink of fresh blood, dark puddles of it pooled on the floor.
His finger was throbbing, waves of pain roaring through his arm with pressure and heat, the severed tip burning in the air. He fought back a swell of nausea. He had to cover the wound, get some kind of antiseptic on it before it became infected – if an infection moved into his blood he could get septicaemia. Fever.
Death.
Swallowing the lump of his fear, Sep tried the light switch, easing it over noiselessly, and then flicking it up and down with despair when it clicked emptily, leaving the surgery drenched in shadows that were large and dark and altered beyond recognition. He looked, concentrated: the cabinet, the scales, Mario’s chair, the drawers of paper files; the shelves of tinctures and medicines on the wall.
And the stag, gigantic in the small room – a part of the outside world brought where it didn’t belong, the edges of its bulk bleeding into the darkness. Beneath the sharpness of its blood it stank of sweat and a dirty, wild musk, and Sep felt an ancient terror creep through his bones as he approached it, screaming at him to run.
But he felt more blood drip from his wound.
It needed a dressing, otherwise he’d eventually lose consciousness. He spotted the little box – top shelf on the other side of the room – and took a step towards it. The shadows moved as he did, turning round him in the dim glow from the street.
The stag’s ears shifted suddenly in the lights of a passing car, and he leaped back, thinking for a moment it had cocked them with living instinct. But as the lights spun away the giant ears remained still, and he breathed again.
Pocketing the antiseptic, Sep moved until he was level with the animal’s head. Its eyes were huge, bulbous and dark, and still shiny. The tongue was stuck out between the teeth – a great curtain of stinking meat from which hung thick drool in a stalactite of grey thread. Close to, the antlers were enormous, a bark-textured cage of short points, like blades sprung from the boughs of an oak.
Fascinated, he leaned towards the animal, for a fraction of a second forgetting where he was and why, fear nudged aside by the creature’s immensity and presence, and as he crouched down he noticed the other shadow, the one that wasn’t visible from the door, the one that didn’t fit into his memory’s roll-call of fixtures and furniture. A motionless body, huge and round, face up and still – one hand still reaching for the table leg, the other clasped to its throat.
The Sacrifice Box Page 25