Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (31 page)

And I try not to think about the Spackle’s Noise and the fear that was in it or how surprised he musta been being killed for nothing more than being a fisherman or how the crunch felt up my arm when the knife went in him or how dark red his blood was flowing out onto me or the bafflement pouring outta him and into my Noise as he died as he died as he died as he–

I don’t think about it.

On we go, on we go.

Afternoon passes into early evening, the forest and the hills seem never-ending, and there comes another problem.

“Food, Todd?”

“There ain’t none left,” I say, dirt giving way under my feet as we make our way down a slope. “I don’t got nothing for myself neither.”

“Food?”

I don’t know how long it is since I ate last, don’t know how long since I really slept, for that matter, since passing out ain’t sleeping.

And I’ve lost track of how many days till I become a man but I can tell you it’s never felt farther away.

“Squirrel!” Manchee suddenly barks and tears around the trunk of a needly tree and into a mess of ferns beyond. I didn’t even see the squirrel but I can hear
Whirler dog
and “Squirrel!” and
Whirler-whirler-whirler–
and then it stops short.

Manchee jumps out with a waxy squirrel drooping in his maul, bigger and browner than the ones from the swamp. He drops it on the ground in front of me, a gristly, bloody plop, and I ain’t so hungry no more.

“Food?” he barks.

“That’s all right, boy.” I look anywhere but the mess. “You can have it.”

I’m sweating more than normal and I take big drinks of water as Manchee finishes his meal. Little gnats cloud round us in near-invisible swarms and I keep having to bat ’em away. I cough again, ignoring the pain in my back, the pain in my head, and when he’s done and ready to go, I wobble just a little but on we go again.

Keep moving, Todd Hewitt. Keep going.

I don’t dare sleep. Aaron may not so I can’t. On and on, the clouds passing sometimes without me noticing, the moons rising, stars peeping. I come down to the bottom of a low hill and scare my way thru a whole herd of what look like deer but their horns are all different than the deer I know from Prentisstown and anyway they’re off flying thru the trees away from me and a barking Manchee before I hardly register they’re even there.

On we go still thru midnight (twenty-four days left? Twenty-three?). We’ve come the whole day without hearing no more sounds of Noise or other settlements, not that I could see anyway, even when I was close enough to see brief snatches of the river and the road. But as we reach the top of another wooded hill and the moons are directly overhead, I finally hear the Noise of men, clear as a crash.

We stop, crouching down even tho it’s night.

I look out from our hilltop. The moons are high and I can see two long huts in two separate clearings on hillsides across the way. From one I can hear the murmuring ruckus of sleeping men’s Noise.
Julia?
and
on horseback
and
tell him it ain’t so
and
up the river past morning
and lots of things that make no sense cuz dreaming Noise is the weirdest of all. From the other hut, there’s silence, the aching silence of women, I can feel it even from here, men in one hut, women in another, which I guess is one way of solving the problem of sleeping, and the touch of the silence from the women’s side makes me think of Viola and I have to keep my balance against a tree trunk for a minute.

But where there’s people, there’s food.

“Can you find yer way back to the trail if we leave it?” I whisper to my dog, stifling a cough.

“Find trail,” Manchee barks, seriously.

“Yer sure?”

“Todd smell,” he barks. “Manchee smell.”

“Keep quiet as we go then.” We start creeping our way down the hill, moving softly as we can thru the trees and brush till we get to the bottom of a little dale with the huts above us, sleeping on hillsides.

I can hear my own Noise spreading out into the world, hot and fusty, like the sweat that keeps pouring down my sides, and I try to keep it quiet and grey and flat, like Tam did, Tam who controlled his Noise better than any man in Prentisstown–

And there’s yer proof.

Prentisstown?
I hear from the men’s hut almost immediately.

We stop dead. My shoulders slump. It’s still dream Noise I’m hearing but the word repeats thru the sleeping men like echoes down a valley.
Prentisstown?
and
Prentisstown?
and
Prentisstown?
like they don’t know what the word means yet.

But they will when they wake.

Idiot
.

“Let’s go,” I say, turning and scurrying back the way we came, back to our trail.

“Food?” Manchee barks.

“Come
on
.”

And so, still, no food for me but on we go, thru the night, rushing the best we can.

Faster, Todd. Get yer bloody self moving.

On we go, on we go, up hills, grabbing onto plants sometimes to pull myself up, and down hills, holding on to rocks to keep my balance now and then, the scent keeping well clear of anywhere easy it might be to walk, like the flatter parts down by the road or riverbank, and I’m coughing and sometimes stumbling and as the sun starts to show itself there comes a time when I can’t, when I just can’t, when my legs crumple beneath me and I have to sit down.

I just have to.

(I’m sorry.)

My back is aching and my head is aching and I’m sweating so stinking much and I’m so hungry and I just have to sit down at the base of a tree, just for a minute, I just have to and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

“Todd?” Manchee mumbles, coming up to me.

“I’m fine, boy.”

“Hot, Todd,” he says, meaning me.

I cough, my lungs rattling like rocks falling down a hill.

Get up, Todd Hewitt. Get off yer goddam butt and get going.

My mind drifts, I can’t help it, I try to hold on to Viola but there my mind goes and I’m little and I’m sick in bed and I’m
real
sick and Ben’s staying in my room with me cuz the fever is making me see things, horrible things, shimmering walls, people who ain’t there, Ben growing fangs and extra arms, all kindsa stuff and I’m screaming and pulling away but Ben is there with me and he’s singing the song and he’s giving me cool water and he’s taking out tabs of medicine–

Medicine.

Ben giving me medicine.

I come back to myself.

I lift my head and go thru Viola’s bag, taking out her medipak again. It’s got all kindsa pills in it, too many. There’s writing on the little packets but the words make no sense to me and I can’t risk taking the tranquilizer that knocked out Manchee. I open my own medipak, nowhere near as good as hers, but there’s white tabs in it that I know are at least pain relievers, however cruddy and homemade. I chew up two and then two more.

Get up, you worthless piece of crap.

I sit and breathe for a while and fight fight fight against falling asleep, waiting for the pills to work and as the sun starts to peek up over the top of a far hill I reckon I’m feeling a little better.

Don’t know if I actually am but there ain’t no choice.

Get up, Todd Hewitt. Get an effing MOVE ON!

“Okay,” I say, breathing heavy and rubbing my knees with my hands. “Which way, Manchee?”

On we go.

The scent carries like it did before, avoiding the road, avoiding any buildings we might see at a distance, but always onward, always towards Haven, only Aaron knows why. Mid-morning we find another small creek heading down to the river. I check for crocs, tho it’s really too small a place, and refill the water bottles. Manchee wades in, lapping it up, snapping unsuccessfully at these little brass-coloured fishes that swim by, nibbling at his fur.

I sit on my knees and wash some of the sweat from my face. The water is cold as a slap and it wakes me up a little. I wish I knew if we were even gaining on ’em. I wish I knew how far they were ahead.

And I wish he’d never found us.

And I wish he’d never found Viola in the first place.

And I wish Ben and Cillian hadn’t lied to me.

And I wish Ben was here right now.

And I wish I was back in Prentisstown.

I rest back on my heels, looking up into the sun

No. No, I don’t. I don’t wish I was back in Prentisstown. Not no more, I don’t.

And if Aaron hadn’t found her then
I
might not have found her and that’s no good neither.

“C’mon, Manchee,” I say, turning round to pick up the bag again.

Which is when I see the turtle, sunning itself on a rock.

I freeze.

I never seen this kinda turtle before. Its shell is craggy and sharp, with a dark red streak going down either side. The turtle’s got its shell all the way open to catch as much warmth as possible, its soft back fully exposed.

You can eat a turtle.

Its Noise ain’t nothing but a long
ahhhhhhh
sound, exhaling under sunlight. It don’t seem too concerned about us, probably thinking it can snap its shell shut and dive underwater faster than we could get to it. And even if we did get to it, we wouldn’t be able to get the shell back open to eat it.

Unless you had a knife to kill it with.

“Turtle!” Manchee barks, seeing it. He keeps back cuz the swamp turtles we know have more than enough snap to get after a dog. The turtle just sits there, not taking us seriously.

I reach behind my back for the knife.

I’m halfway there when I feel the pain twixt my shoulder blades.

I stop. I swallow.

(Spackle and pain and bafflement.)

I glance down into the water, seeing myself, my hair a bird’s nest, bandage across half my head, dirtier than an old ewe.

One hand reaching for my knife.

(Red blood and fear and fear and fear.)

I stop reaching.

I take my hand away.

I stand. “C’mon, Manchee,” I say. I don’t look at the turtle, don’t even listen for its Noise. Manchee barks at it a few more times but I’m already crossing the creek and on we go, on we go, on we go.

So I can’t hunt.

And I can’t get near settlements.

And so if I don’t find Viola and Aaron soon I’ll starve to death if this coughing don’t kill me first.

“Great,” I say to myself and there’s nothing to do but keep going as fast as I can.

Not fast enough, Todd. Move yer effing feet, you gonk.

Morning turns to another midday, midday turns to another afternoon. I take more tabs, we keep on going, no food, no rest, just forward, forward, forward. The path is starting to tend downhill again, so at least that’s a blessing. Aaron’s scent moves closer to the road but I’m feeling so poor I don’t even look up when I hear distant Noise now and then.

It ain’t his and there’s no silence that’s hers so why bother?

Afternoon turns into another evening and it’s when we’re coming down a steep hillside that I fall.

My legs slip out from under me and I’m not quick enough to catch myself and I fall down and keep falling, sliding down the hill, bumping into bushes, picking up speed, feeling a tearing in my back, and I reach out to stop myself but my hands are too slow to catch anything and I judder judder judder along the leaves and grass and then I hit a bump and skip up into the air, tumbling over onto my shoulders, pain searing thru them, and I call out loud and I don’t stop falling till I come to a thicket of brambles at the bottom of the hill and ram into ’em with a thump.

“Todd! Todd! Todd!” I hear Manchee, running down after me, but all I can do is try and withstand the pain again and the tired again and the gunk in my lungs and the hunger gnawing in my belly and bramble scratches all over me and I think I’d be crying if I had any energy left at all.

“Todd?” Manchee barks, circling round me, trying to find a way into the brambles.

“Gimme a minute,” I say and push myself up a little. Then I lean forward and fall right over on my face.

Get up,
I think.
Get up, you piece of filth, GET UP!

“Hungry, Todd,” Manchee says, meaning me that’s hungry. “Eat. Eat, Todd.”

I push with hands on the ground, coughing as I come up, spitting up handfuls of gunk from my lungs. I get to my knees at least.

“Food, Todd.”

“I know,” I say. “I know.”

I feel so dizzy I have to put my head back down on the ground. “Just gimme a sec,” I say, whispering it into the leaves on the ground. “Just a quick sec.”

And I fall again into blackness.

I don’t know how long I’m out but I wake to Manchee barking. “People!” he’s barking. “People! Todd, Todd, Todd! People!”

I open my eyes. “What people?” I say.

“This way,” he barks. “People. Food, Todd. Food!”

I take shallow breaths, coughing all the way, my body weighing ninety million pounds, and I push my way out the other side of the bramble. I look up and over.

I’m in a ditch right by the road.

I can see carts up ahead on the left, a whole string of ’em, pulled by oxes and by horses, disappearing round a bend.

“Help,” I say, but my voice comes out like a gasp with not near enough volume.

Get up.

“Help,” I call again, but it’s only to myself.

Get up.

It’s over. I can’t stand no more. I can’t move no more. It’s over.

Get up.

But it’s over.

The last cart disappears round the bend and it’s over.

. . . give up.

I put my head down, right down, on the roadside, grit and pebbles digging into my cheek. A shiver shakes me and I roll to my side and pull myself to myself, curling my legs to my chest, and I close my eyes and I’ve failed and I’ve failed and please won’t the darkness just take me please please please–

“That you, Ben?”

I open my eyes.

It’s Wilf.