The Hunted

by Charlie Higson

  Ella couldn’t see anything at first. She had no idea what they were supposed to be looking for. Some grown-ups probably. Though she had never seen Scarface act like this before.

  And then she saw them.

  A group of kids striding through the fields, passing alongside the woods. They carried spears and clubs on their shoulders, and were laughing and chatting, one of them swiping the grass with a long blade as he went. They looked like kids just coming back from the sports field after a game of something, carrying their rackets and bats.

  Ella wanted to shout out to them. She raised her head, but Scarface clamped his hand over her mouth and squashed her down into the dirt.

  What are you doing? she wanted to say. She struggled, but it was no good, he was too strong. She could hardly move at all.

  What are you doing? They’re children. Only children. I can go with them!

  And then she remembered what Scarface was. What he looked like. They’d try to kill him. When he was just …

  What was he?

  He wasn’t an enemy, that was for sure. He could have killed her ten times over if he’d wanted. Instead he looked after her. She managed to wriggle round a bit and tap him on the arm. Got his attention, looked into his face, trying not to concentrate on his bad eye, the bloody one with the scars all round it. She tried to show him with her own eyes that it was all right, that she wasn’t going to shout out, that he could remove his big, sweaty, mashed-up hand. He didn’t let go, though, wouldn’t take the risk. He waited until the kids were long gone before freeing her.

  ‘I wouldn’t have done anything,’ Ella said. ‘Not once I thought about it. I wouldn’t have given you away. You’re safe with me.’ Even as she was saying it, though, she pictured herself up and running through the long grass towards the kids. Wished she was going with them. Scarface wasn’t her friend, he was a monster. A gnarly freak. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of her life with him. Looking at his ugly face day after day. She started to cry, and he tilted his head like a dog then got up and left her to it. Turning his back on her and staring off into the woods.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ella said, with a big sniff. ‘You must think I’m a baby.’

  Scarface gave a little shrug, slipped his backpack off, and then squatted down and waited for Ella to climb on. Halfway home she stopped crying and let her mind go empty and numb. Tried to pretend she’d never even seen the other kids. That life was the same as it had been this morning.

  That evening, as they sat with bowls of chicken soup, staring at the red glow in among the white ashes of the fire, she allowed herself to think about the children again. At least she knew now that there were others around. There was more out there than just grown-ups. There must be other farms. Other safe places. This wasn’t the end. Ella would wait. Maybe plan a way to run off, once she knew where the kids were. That gave her something to think about. Making a plan. Even if she never did anything about it, it would stop her from getting bored. She could lie there in the dark and have fantasies.

  She just wished she’d been able to see them better, to talk to them. Even if only for five minutes. One minute.

  She found a chicken wishbone in her soup and picked it out, sucked the scraps of meat off it and then, when Scarface wasn’t looking, held it behind her back and gently broke it. Made a wish, with all her heart, that she would see some more children soon.

  The next day she got her wish.

  But like all good things.

  It came with bad things.

  Very bad things.

  9

  It was better hunting the next day. There were two fat rabbits in the traps in the morning. There was a scarecrow in the field that ended up on the bone pile to feed the dogs. Scarface soon found a fresh trail and picked up a scent. Before midday they’d found their prey, hiding out in a house, but they weren’t finished there. Scarface picked up another scent and they were off into a small town, with posh houses among the trees, cars sitting in the driveways.

  After he’d dealt with the sickos in the town they set off for home. They were nearly there when Scarface suddenly got excited. He’d seen something. He paced round and round in circles, his good eye scanning the ground. Every now and then he’d stop and tilt his head up and sniff the air, and then he was off and moving quickly, not towards the farm, but back the way they’d come.

  Ella wanted to tell him they’d done enough for one day, but she knew there’d be no stopping him, so she tagged along behind, watching his heavy pack as it bounced on his back and trying not to get fed up.

  After a while he veered off into the big park. They jogged along the wide walkway that ran down the middle of it, trees lined up in neat rows on either side. The walkway ran dead straight. In one direction was a hill with the statue of a man on a horse on the top of it. In the other direction was the big castle she’d sometimes spotted off in the distance. And there, running down the path towards it, were three children.

  Scarface got his binoculars out and watched them go. He made a sort of disappointed sound in his throat, like mhmph, and lowered the binoculars.

  They looked in the other direction and Ella saw that a couple of scarecrows had appeared by the statue, standing there as if they were trying to stay as still as it was. And, as Ella watched, a group of grown-ups came over the crest of the hill next to them, stumbling along in a tight pack. Ella hoped Scarface wasn’t planning to attack them. It was different hunting ones that were asleep, or from behind. These ones would see him coming before he got close.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home, yeah? You can’t kill them all. Not today.’

  Scarface just sniffed and lifted up his binoculars again. Studying the grown-ups, who were walking steadily down the hill towards the start of the walkway.

  ‘Let’s go the other way,’ said Ella. ‘We’ve had a good day.’

  Scarface seemed to think for a moment, then put his binoculars away and started to move towards the hill, getting faster and faster as he went. For a tiny fraction of a second Ella had a fantasy of turning and running in the other direction, towards the children, towards the castle. It would be safe there. There would be other children.

  But she didn’t turn and she didn’t run. She was too scared to risk going off on her own. Too scared to leave Scarface. Instead she ran to catch up with him like an obedient puppy.

  In the end it didn’t really matter that the grown-ups saw Scarface coming. They tried to be ready, some even hurried up and stumbled towards him in a sort of charge, but he was too fast for them, and he had his knives, and he stabbed them as he ran past, then he turned and went back and stabbed them again. Ella didn’t want to watch, but she was running so she couldn’t shut her eyes. She hoped that was the end of it. The walking grown-ups were all knocked to the ground and bleeding. Scarface carried on, though, up to the top of the hill, and chopped down the two scarecrows and then stood against the skyline at the base of the statue, which was sitting on what looked like a pile of rocks and stones. As she got nearer, Ella saw that the statue seemed to be of some sort of Roman emperor.

  She ran the last few steps up the hill and over to Scarface.

  ‘Face-Ache,’ she said, sounding hot and bothered and grumpy, ‘can we please go home now?’

  She tugged at his sleeve. He ignored her. He was staring through his binoculars again.

  Then he made the humphing noise in his throat again. What was he looking at now? Bloody old grown-up.

  ‘What can you see?’ She turned and looked for herself. It was like all three of them were looking now, she and Scarface and the Roman emperor on his green metal horse.

  There was a long sweep of grass down the hillside, then woods and fields dotted about, roads and hedges and the odd building. And there, about as far away as Ella could see, was a dark, moving mass. It looked like a shadow on the land, slowly turning it black, eating it up, like when a cloud passes over the sun.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘What is tha
t?’

  Scarface passed her the binoculars and Ella put them to her eyes, fiddling with the wheel that adjusted the focus until she could see sharply.

  Even then it took her a few seconds to make sense of it. This big, blurry, moving thing.

  No. Not a thing. Not one thing. Lots of things. People … men and women, mothers and fathers, grown-ups. An army of them, tramping slowly and steadily towards her. They filled the ground they walked on. There must be hundreds of them. She wrinkled her nose. It was as if she could already smell them.

  How awful must that be? The stink. So many of them like that.

  And then Ella realized something.

  ‘The farm,’ she said. ‘They’re heading towards the farm.’

  10

  Ella didn’t think she’d ever run so fast. Down the side of the hill, nearly falling over as her legs ran away with her, and then cutting across the park towards some woods, Scarface holding back so that she could keep up with him, though she knew he would rather be racing ahead. He must be scared for his precious farm, his supplies, his chickens, his fire and his bed and his books. His whole world.

  She was glad of all the walking they’d been doing, strengthening her legs, but she soon had a stitch in her side and burning in her lungs. Her head was pounding, like someone was hitting her with a spade.

  As they ran, Ella couldn’t stop thinking about that big stain of grown-ups spreading across the ground, all the way from right to left, filling the world up it had seemed. Surely nothing could stop them, not all of Scarface’s traps. Even if he had fifty of them, a hundred. The only thing on their side was that the army had been going slowly, plodding along, only moving as fast as the slowest walker. The binoculars had made them look nearer than they were. It would be a long time before they got as far as the farm. Even so, they’d get there eventually, and then what? Would they go round? Or would they plough straight on through, not caring?

  What were they doing, marching along like that? She’d never seen so many of them all together in one place. She hated not being able to talk to Scarface about it. Just having thoughts rattling around in her head, getting bigger and scarier because she had no way of letting them out.

  As they got to the trees, Ella took a last glance across the familiar fields in the direction the grown-ups had been coming from. You couldn’t see anything from down here, though. All you could see was green grass, blue sky, wispy clouds, some birds. You couldn’t imagine what was coming your way.

  Then they were pounding through the woods, Ella desperate not to trip up. She could hear a weird sound, like screaming and wailing. She thought at first it was people, and then she realized it must be the dogs. They were spooked. She couldn’t see any of them, but she could sense them in the trees all around, so that she couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from exactly. They sounded like wolves in a horror film. She knew how careful Scarface was around them. He was scared of them, and if they were scared of something else then it was bad. Very bad.

  Ella saw some movement off to one side and was terrified that the army of mothers and fathers had caught up with them. But it wasn’t grown-ups, it was kids, five of them, charging through the woods like rabbits running from a pack of hounds. They were going much faster than her and Scarface and, as they crashed past, Ella saw their terrified faces. Were they scared because they’d spotted Scarface, or was it the thought of the army, which they were obviously running away from? In a moment they were gone. Ella didn’t even have the chance to call out to them.

  Scarface slowed down and stopped. He was thinking about something. He looked pained. Was he wondering whether to change his plan? Abandon the farm and run away? He turned to Ella.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. You have to save the farm.’

  Scarface suddenly scooped Ella up in his left arm and hurried on, clutching her to his chest, so that she was facing backwards, going faster than she could run by herself. They burst out of the trees back into the sunlight. Ella twisted round to see where they were going, and there ahead of them was the farm, across the other side of the field.

  And people.

  At first Ella thought they might be grown-ups and then she realized they were the children who had passed them in the woods. Three boys and two girls. They were moving towards the gate. The tripwires. Ella screamed, her voice high and thin and piercing.

  ‘No! No. Stop! There’s a trap! Stop there!’

  The kids turned, froze, not sure what to do. Scared. Ella wondered what she and Scarface must look like, charging across the open ground towards them.

  ‘Please!’ she yelled again. ‘Just wait. It’s all right.’

  But the kids were pointing and shouting something, eyes wide, mouths black holes in their faces, panicked. Ella looked back over Scarface’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh no …’

  The dogs were running.

  11

  They were streaming out of the trees from all sides, howling as they came. If she hadn’t been up high on Scarface’s shoulder Ella might not have been able to see them, only the waving of the long grass as they pushed through it. Some were getting close enough for her to be able to make out the yellow of their teeth, their wide, crazy eyes.

  ‘Faster. Go faster!’ she shouted, but Scarface didn’t need to be told. He’d moved on to the road and was sprinting, jolting Ella’s face into his body. She looked down and saw a dog running with them, a mongrel with its tail between its legs, its fur up all along the ridge of its back, showing its teeth and gums, whimpering and yelping.

  Ella twisted round and looked towards the kids at the gate. They hadn’t moved. Thank God. They’d listened to her. But they would have had a good look at Scarface by now. What would they be thinking? Especially now he had a gang of dogs coming with him. Which would they fear more? Ella’s warning or the things bolting towards them across the field?

  One of the girls obviously decided to risk the gate. She walked quickly towards it, and Ella screamed louder than she had ever screamed before in her life, shrill as a referee’s whistle.

  A boy hurried after the girl and pulled her back, and at last Ella and Scarface were there.

  ‘He’s all right!’ Ella shouted, wriggling down out of Scarface’s arms. ‘He won’t hurt you. He’s not an enemy. He’s been looking after me. But this is his home and there are traps.’

  Her words had come spilling out in a breathless tumble and she hoped it was enough. The kids were all armed and ready to fight. Scarface had his knives in his hands. He didn’t trust them any more than they trusted him. The mongrel was zooming around them, jumping up, and snapping and yapping. Scarface kicked it away and risked glancing back at the field. The other dogs were still coming through the grass.

  One of the boys pointed at Scarface.

  ‘We know who he is,’ he said. ‘He’s The Predator.’

  ‘Never seen him up close before,’ said another boy. ‘He’s even uglier than I thought.’

  ‘He’s a good person,’ said Ella angrily.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the girl who had almost got herself killed in Scarface’s traps. ‘Those dogs are going to massacre us.’

  They all turned now, weapons at the ready, set to take on the pack.

  The dogs were nearly on them, but they were slowing down, and at the last moment they began to split and turn to left and right, avoiding the farm, all except for one huge brute with a square head and short black fur. It charged towards the kids, who scattered. But the dog ignored them and ran on, not attacking but retreating. It went right past them, barking like mad, and stumbled straight into the tripwires. Ella didn’t manage to look away in time and watched helplessly as the pole came whipping out of the bushes and smacked right into the dog, taking it in the back of its neck as it jumped up to free itself from the wires.

  One of the other girls screamed and a boy laughed. The shortest of the three, the one who’d been mean to Scarface.

  ‘Did you see that? S
ick!’

  The dog died instantly and hung there on the spikes, its back legs twitching, as if it was still trying to run.

  ‘Close one, Sonya,’ said the tallest boy.

  ‘Ooh, I’d like to have seen that,’ said the short boy. ‘A Sonya kebab.’

  ‘Shut up, Harry,’ said Sonya.

  ‘Shut up, Harry,’ Harry repeated, mimicking Sonya.

  The dogs were still circling the farm, seeming to want to stay close to Scarface, but scared to come too close.

  ‘We’re screwed,’ said the third boy, who had a bow slung across his back, a bandage over one of his eyebrows and a big bruise covering half his face. ‘We can take our chances with the dogs, the grown-ups, or the Windsor bastards. But either way we are screwed.’

  ‘We should keep on running,’ said Sonya.

  ‘We should keep on running,’ Harry repeated.

  ‘If you don’t shut it I will smash your teeth in, Harry,’ said Sonya.

  ‘I will smash your teeth in, Harry.’

  ‘Just shut up, Harry,’ said the third boy, and he glanced at Scarface, not liking what he saw.

  ‘Instead of being a total jerk, as usual,’ he went on. ‘Why don’t you tell us what you think we should do?’

  ‘To be honest, I agree with Sonya,’ said Harry. ‘I think we should go on. When those grown-ups get here it’s gonna be well crazy.’

  The other girl, who had been quiet up till now, turned to Ella. She looked very similar to Sonya; they could be sisters.

  ‘We don’t know what to do. Whether to keep on running. Did you see them? The grown-ups?’

  Ella nodded.

  Sonya was staring into the distance.