The Hunted

by Charlie Higson

  Everyone except the kids in the Slough section of the grandstand was laughing and cheering. Kyle was going to be disqualified, but surely the game would be over soon? He didn’t stop until he was right down at the bend, where he dumped Josa on the floor.

  And then Ed was almost knocked over as two of Josa’s boys came running in to try to free Kenton. They barged into Ed and one of them stood guard while the other started to kick Green, who was trying to protect himself with his arms wrapped round his head.

  The boy standing guard dared Ed to make a move. But he didn’t have to. Sophie came flying in and rugby-tackled the boy to the ground, giving Ed the chance to dash in and pull the kicker over by his leg. A major scrap looked like it was about to break out when suddenly there was silence. The music had stopped. Once the crowd realized it was over they broke out into loud cheering.

  Slough had lost five kids to the Ascot team, so their score was pretty low. Sandhurst had done the best. They’d got seven runners through, by the simple use of force. Ascot only had two, but they had the respect of having taken out four of the hotly tipped Slough team, plus the Bracknell boy who Kyle had taken down earlier and was sitting obediently where Kyle had left him.

  Kenton got to his feet, slapping dirt and grass off his clothes. He gave Ed a filthy look.

  ‘You ain’t heard the last of this, shitface,’ he spat, and Ed laughed.

  ‘You better go and see Josa’s all right,’ he said, and laughed some more as Kenton and his two mates trotted down the track to where Josa was yelling and screaming at Kyle and trying to pummel him. Kyle was casually keeping her at arm’s length and singing the Carmina Burana tune.

  Sean came over and high-fived Ed.

  ‘Nice work, Ed,’ he said. ‘That’s two more runners through than we’ve ever had before.’

  ‘Is your name Ed?’

  Ed turned to see that the Bracknell runner they’d caught was staring at him.

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Help me up.’

  Ed hauled the boy to his feet. He grunted with the effort, looked like he’d twisted his knee. No wonder he hadn’t tried to run on.

  ‘I was caught out in the open the night of the blood moon,’ the boy said, trying not to put any weight on his bad leg.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The night the grown-ups went through.’

  ‘I know what you mean. So?’

  The boy held out his hand and Ed shook it warily.

  ‘My name’s Isaac Hills,’ said the boy. ‘Someone said you were looking for a girl called Ella …’

  57

  This was stupid. Stupid fighting. When everything was going wrong, why did kids want to fight more? And it wasn’t just the boys, but the girls as well. Wasn’t there enough hurt in the world?

  Ella was sitting right up at the very top of the grandstand behind the Windsor kids, as far away from the fighting as she could get. She’d quite liked the horse racing, except the bits when they cheated and the fighting, of course. And she really hadn’t liked it when the grown-up ran out on to the track. That had been horrible. It had brought back bad memories.

  She’d felt safe since being at Windsor, safe but not happy. The castle there was probably the safest place she’d been since the illness started. Probably the safest place in England.

  She was lonely, though. She missed everyone. Sam and her friends from Holloway, Maeve and Robbie and Monkey-Boy, poor Malik …

  She’d been knocked out when the Windsor kids caught her in their nets and, when she woke up, in a bed at the castle, she’d lost a couple of days – and Malik.

  She hardly remembered being captured. Although that’s not what the Windsor kids called it. They said they’d rescued her. Saved her from a mob of grown-ups. Said she could have died.

  Ella sometimes wished she had died.

  It had all been her fault. What had happened to Malik. All her fault. He’d risked everything to take her to safety. She couldn’t go anywhere without bad things happening. Maeve and Robbie and Monkey-Boy. All her fault. In her worst moments she imagined she was to blame for everything – the disease, the grown-ups, her parents dying, Sam being taken, Maeve and Robbie and Monkey-Boy …

  Round and round in her head it all went until she was too tired to care any more. It was like she’d been at the bottom of a deep black hole and had climbed out and found herself in a world without colour. Nothing mattered to her. She couldn’t connect; stuff just went on around her. She was numb. Couldn’t feel anything.

  In different times Ella would have been very happy at Windsor Castle. It had reminded her of Buckingham Palace. Not surprising really, as it had been one of the Queen’s homes. Only this one was a proper castle like out of a fairy tale. A castle full of children.

  There was even a prince and princess there, the Golden Twins: Golden Boy and Golden Girl. She’d met them early on and they’d been nice to her. Nice but not really that interested. She was just a little girl who’d got caught in their nets, a shrimp, a sardine. She’d tried to tell them about Malik, but they wouldn’t listen.

  Most of the kids at Windsor had been kind to her. They’d looked after her and fed her and given her pills for her headaches. And she’d made a friend, a girl who seemed to be in charge of everything inside the castle, organizing the medicine as well as the food and the armour and the weapons and the people.

  She was a teenager who called herself Go-Girl. At first Ella thought her new friend was called Golden Girl, who she’d heard so much about. Thought that Go-Girl was the queen of the castle, and Go-Girl had pretended to get cross.

  ‘I’m not Golden Girl,’ she’d said. ‘I’m Go-Girl. Don’t you forget it – Go-Girl! I had the name first; Golden Girl stole the idea off me. I was always called Go-Girl back in London. We had a gang, we were going to form a band, we were like superheroes. Go-Girl was my rock-star name. There was me and The Fox, and Cool-Man and Shadowman and Magic-Man and one more, oh yeah, Big-Man. Mostly all dead now. But they can’t kill Go-Girl!’

  She tried to make Ella laugh, to trick her out of her mood. She really tried. But Ella stayed in her mood.

  ‘You know what?’ Go had told Ella. ‘Golden Girl even had the front to try and get me to change my name. Yeah! That’s right. Even though I had it first. I mean, do you know what Golden Girl’s real name is? Jessica Roberts-Wilding. Boring name. No wonder she changed it. And she was just copying me, but trying to go one better. Golden Girl.’

  Ella had said it was strange, calling someone Go-Girl, and Go-Girl told her that most people just called her Go. And that was all right. So that was what Ella called her. Go had said that she was going to adopt Ella and make her her own, and they went everywhere together. Except when Go had been riding in the races. She’d been in a sprint and the Big Kahuna, and Ella had cheered her on. Go wasn’t the best rider, and she hadn’t won anything, but she said it had been fun. She tried to get Ella excited about things, tried to make her have fun as well.

  It wasn’t fun.

  Nothing was fun.

  All her fault.

  Maeve and Robbie and Monkey-Boy.

  And Malik. She’d thought and thought and thought about Malik, how he’d been so ugly, so mashed up, like a wounded beast, but he’d had a brave heart and a good soul.

  She watched now as Go came walking up the steps between the rows of seats. She’d been a runner in the King’s Road and was all red-faced and sweaty and out of breath. She was sort of glowing as well, happy-looking. Alive. And Ella was jealous of that. She knew she had a permanently grumpy face because Go teased her about it. Called her ‘misery guts’. And Ella remembered how she used to call Malik Face-Ache. There was no hiding from the bad things. Always something there to remind her.

  ‘That was great,’ said Go, flopping down into the seat next to Ella.

  ‘Was it?’ Ella hadn’t wanted to sound quite as grumpy as it came out.

  ‘Yeah.’ Go sort of half hugged, half shook Ella.

  ‘It just looked like
fighting to me,’ said Ella.

  ‘It’s good to get it out,’ said Go.

  ‘Well, I think it’s stupid and dangerous.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Go, ‘if you didn’t like the King’s Road, you’re really not going to like what’s happening at the end of the day.’

  ‘Why, what is it? More fighting, I expect.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Go had a little laugh to herself. ‘It’s all fighting from now on. We go to the Colosseum and they let the gladiators out. For some people that’s what this is all about. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Are you going to join in?’

  ‘I’ll see – it’s pretty hardcore. I’ll check out the opposition first.’

  ‘That’s what the grown-ups are for, isn’t it?’ Ella asked and sniffed.

  Go looked at her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t stand it.’ Ella was crying. She hadn’t wanted to, but she was. ‘I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it. I don’t want anyone else I love to get hurt, or killed. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Hey.’ Go wiped Ella’s face. ‘It’s all right. If it bothers you so much I won’t go in for it.’

  But it wasn’t Go that Ella was thinking of.

  58

  ‘So this Isaac kid saw her?’

  ‘It’s weird.’ Ed was shaking his head. Still trying to make sense of it all. ‘He says she was living with a sicko on a farm.’

  ‘That’s more than weird,’ said Brooke. ‘That’s like …’ She thought about it. Gave up. ‘I don’t think there’s even a word for that.’

  It was the afternoon and the spectators had all moved round to the back of the grandstand to what Arno called the Colosseum: a large, oval-shaped arena with banks of seating all around it.

  There had already been one event, Smackdown, where kids armed with lengths of wood wrapped in foam rubber had beaten the hell out of each other, like some sort of gladiatorial combat. Ed and Kyle had played for Ascot and, as a result, the white team was now in second place, just behind Windsor. Something unheard of in previous race meetings.

  This was the first chance Ed had had to speak properly with Brooke. He’d had to join in Smackdown to keep Ascot near the top of the table. Isaac’s news had changed everything again, and not for the better. Ed had hoped to kill two birds with one stone here – find Ella and recruit an army. He was glad Ella was still alive, but if she was out there in the countryside somewhere, hiding, it was going to be that much harder to find her.

  ‘Isaac left her the morning after the night of the blood moon, when the wave of sickos went through.’

  ‘What about the others?’ Brooke asked, a note of desperation in her voice. ‘What about Robbie?’

  Ed kept forgetting that Robbie was a friend of Brooke’s. He’d been head of security at the museum and she’d been living there with him for the past year.

  ‘Nothing.’ Ed wished he had better news for her. ‘He only saw Ella. Not Maeve or Robbie or Monkey-Boy. He’s offered to take us back there to look for her after the races, but …’ Ed trailed off.

  Brooke squeezed his arm.

  ‘It’s never-ending, eh?’

  ‘We have to get back to London, Brooke. We’re needed there.’

  They were interrupted by the band parping out a slightly stumbling version of the Star Wars theme.

  The spectators were settling down all around them, ready for the next event.

  ‘What happens now?’ Brooke asked.

  ‘This is where they wheel on the sickos.’ Ed ran a finger down his scar. ‘I’m sitting this one out. I’ve fought enough of them in my time.’

  Kids were marching into the arena. Two from each camp. Mean-looking, grim-faced, serious. They all had weapons, real weapons this time, swords and spears, one with a spiked mace. And there, with his baggy white T-shirt already filthy from the day’s action, was Kyle, carrying his axe. Beside him was Sean. The crowd was cheering loudly, but the gladiators all looked like they were in a world of their own. Concentrating. Some wore pieces of body armour and helmets. Some of them looked like they were from a paintball site, though a couple had boxing helmets and a few had snowboarding ones.

  The two Windsor boys even had shields. Ed spotted Josa and Kenton, wearing the red of Slough. Sticking close to each other. Ed didn’t recognize any of the others. They hadn’t been in any of the races until now. These were specialists. Killers. The two Sandhurst guys reminded Ed of Ryan and his hunters. They were dressed all in leather – jacket, gloves, boots, even trousers – glittering with sharp studs and chains. One even had a string of dried ears hanging from his belt, just like Ryan. He was the only fighter who raised his face and acknowledged the crowd. An ugly, battle-scarred face, with missing teeth and a broken nose. He looked like someone who was good for nothing except this.

  ‘My money is on him,’ said Ebenezer. ‘He is going to punish the rest of them.’

  ‘Surely they’re not going to fight each other?’ Brooke was wide-eyed with disbelief. ‘Not with those weapons.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Ed put his arm round her shoulders. He had to admit, though, that he really wasn’t sure about this event. He had a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. The games had taken a darker turn.

  Arno stepped up to the barrier, climbed into the arena and stood in the middle. The King was sitting in a sort of makeshift throne in the centre of the seats, grinning happily and turning his head from side to side like a clockwork toy.

  ‘My lords, ladies, gentlemen and whatever the hell the rest of you are,’ Arno called out. ‘We here at Ascot Entertainments PLC and Extreme Sports Unlimited proudly present the highlight of our race meeting. The event you’ve all come here for. The Royal Tournament, presented in two parts. The champion of each part, gladiators and conquistadors, will be decided by you, the people. Although points are scored for kills and maimings. Who will be the champion this time in this battle royal?’

  59

  Kyle looked around the arena. His dad had brought him to Ascot once. He remembered coming back here to watch the horses being paraded round the arena before races so that punters could check them out and see which ones they fancied betting on. His dad had been showing off, telling Kyle all about ‘form’, which horses were fit, the right weight, running well.

  He still lost all his money betting on the wrong ones.

  Well, the arena was being put to a very different use today. When Kyle had heard what this event was all about, he’d begged Sean to let him join in. The fat kid, Green, had been going to fight with Sean, and Kyle could see that he was secretly glad to be out of it.

  Kyle asked Sean about the scary-looking guy with the shaved head who stuck to the King like glue. He’d seen how everyone was a bit scared of him. He was obviously handy. So why wasn’t he on the team instead of the likes of Green?

  ‘The only event he goes in for is the last part of the Royal Tournament,’ Sean explained. ‘Dunno why. Nobody questions him. Nobody ever really talks to him. He is what he is. Has his own way of doing things. Nobody even knows his name.’

  ‘Yeah? So what do you call him then?’

  ‘We don’t call him anything. As I say, he is what he is.’

  Kyle was high on excitement. This was almost a medieval tournament, like something from Game of Thrones. He’d always liked stories and films about knights when he’d been little, and Lord of the Rings. One Christmas he’d been given a Playmobil castle. Wondered where it was now. Would have loved to get it out of its box and set it up and have another battle. This was better, though. All the kids arriving at Ascot on their horses with their weapons and armour. The racing, the fighting. Shame there wasn’t gonna be any jousting. Maybe he’d suggest it for the next meeting.

  Not that he’d be here, he supposed. He’d be back in London by then, back at the Tower. So how about he got Jordan Hordern to set up his own races? His own Royal Tournament?

  That’d be well cool.

  Kyle was at home here. He li
ked fighting. It was that simple. All the other problems in the world disappeared when you were fighting. Nothing else mattered. It was just beat them before they beat you. His brain was clear in a fight. It was when the fighting stopped that things got complex. Confusing. Difficult.

  He looked across the arena and saw Josa and Kenton. They were gonna be well sore from this morning. He hoped they wouldn’t try anything stupid. Kenton had a club and Josa carried a narrow-bladed sword.

  Kyle realized the crowd had fallen silent. Arno was standing there with the King and old bald bonce, the nameless one. Arno waved his long stick in the air, like Gandalf on the bridge at Khazad-dûm, and the King started yelling something that Kyle couldn’t understand. Then Arno cut in.

  ‘His Royal Highness, King Loopy-Lou the Ninety-ninth, thanks you, noble fighters,’ Arno shouted. ‘I thank you, and the crowds gathered here today thank you, you mighty morons, you brain-dead dummies, prepared to suffer for our enjoyment. In a moment our merry band of musicians will give a crappy fanfare and then you will kick the bogeyman into touch!’

  Arno dropped his staff. Trumpets and trombones blared, tambourines rattled, drums thumped and the gates opened to let in the enemy.

  60

  A father limped into the arena carrying a length of metal piping, confused and blinking, his semi-naked body a mess of sores and boils and weeping gashes. Ed rubbed his scar, which had started to throb. He hated sickos. Hated them more than anything else in the world. He had no problem slaughtering them.

  So why did this feel different?

  ‘I’m not sure I want to watch this,’ said Brooke.

  ‘Remember the golden rules of this contest,’ Arno called out from his seat next to the King. ‘There are no rules. This is war now. And we can’t let any of them live.’