Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (99 page)

“Me?” I say.

“Oh, yes, definitely you, Todd. I set the stage. But you sent them the messenger.”

“The messen–?”

No.

No.

I turn and run up the rubble again, binos back on, looking and looking and looking.

There’s too many, they’re too far away.

But he’s there, ain’t he?

Somewhere in that crowd.

1017.

Oh, no.

“I should say,
Oh, no
is right, Todd,” the Mayor calls up to me. “I left him alive for you to find, but even with your
special relationship,
he wasn’t very fond of you, was he? No matter how much you tried to help him. You’re the face of his torturers, the face he took back to his brothers and sisters.” I hear a low laugh. “I really wouldn’t want to be you right now, Todd Hewitt.”

I spin round, looking at the horizon on all sides. I spin round again. There’s an army to the south, one to the east, and now one marching down from the west.

“And here we sit,” says the Mayor, still sounding calm. “Right in the middle of it all.” He scratches his nose on his shoulder. “I wonder what those poor people on the scout ship must be thinking.”

No.

No.

I spin round once more, as if I could see them all coming. Coming for me.

My mind is racing.

What do I do?

What do I
do
?

The Mayor starts whistling, as if he had all the time in the world.

And Viola’s out there–

Oh, Jesus, she’s out there in it–

“The army,” I say. “The army’s gonna have to fight them.”

“In their spare time?” the Mayor says, raising his eyebrows. “When they’ve got a few free minutes from fighting the Answer?”

“The Answer will have to join us.”

“Us?” says the Mayor.

“They’ll have to fight alongside the army. They’ll
have
to.”

“You really think that’s how Mistress Coyle is going to play it?” He’s smiling but I can see his legs starting to bounce up and down now, energy coursing thru him. “She’ll see herself and them as having a common enemy, now won’t she? You mark my words. She’ll try to negotiate.” He catches my eye again. “And where will that leave you, Todd?”

I’m breathing heavy. I don’t got no answer.

“And Viola’s out there,” he reminds me, “all on her own.”

She is.

She is out there.

And she can’t even
walk
.

Oh, Viola, what have I done?

“And under these circumstances, my dear boy, do you really think the army is going to want you as leader?” He laughs as if it was always the dumbest idea anywhere. “Do you think they’ll trust
you
to lead them into battle?”

I spin round again with the binos. New Prentisstown is in chaos. Buildings burn to the east. People run thru the streets, running away from the Answer, running away from the Mayor’s army, and now running away from the Spackle, running all direkshuns with nowhere to go.

The horn blasts again, shaking glass outta some of the windows.

I spy it in the binos.

A great long trumpet, longer than four Spackle put together, carried on the backs of two of the horned creachers, being blown by the biggest Spackle I’ve ever seen.

And they’ve reached the bottom of the hill.

“I think it’s time you untied me, Todd,” the Mayor says, his voice a low buzz in the air.

I spin around to him, aiming the gun one more time. “You won’t control me,” I say. “Not no more.”

“I’m not trying to,” he says. “But I think we both know it’s a good idea, don’t you?”

I hesitate, breathing heavy.

“I’ve beaten the Spackle before, you see,” he says. “The town knows it. The army knows it. I don’t think they’ll be quite so eager to discard me and unite behind you now that they know what we’re up against.”

I still don’t say nothing.

“And after all this betrayal from you, Todd,” he says, looking right up at me. “I
still
want you by my side. I
still
want you fighting next to me.” He pauses. “We can win this together.”

“I don’t want to win this with you,” I say, looking down the barrel. “I
beat
you.”

He nods as if in agreement, but then he says one more time. “Things change, but they stay the same.”

I hear marching feet getting closer to the church. A troop from the army’s finally pulled itself together enough to come into town. I can hear them heading down a side road, towards the square.

There ain’t much time.

“I don’t even mind that you tied me up, Todd,” the Mayor says, “but you have to let me go. I’m the only one who can beat them.”

Viola–

Viola, what do I do?

“Yes, Viola, again,” he says, his voice slinky and warm. “Viola out there among them, all by herself.” He waits till I’m looking him in the eye. “They’ll kill her, Todd. They will. And you know I’m the only one who can save her.”

The horn blasts again.

There’s another
BOOM
to the east.

The feet of the Mayor’s soldiers getting closer.

I look at him.

“I beat you,” I say. “You remember that. I beat you and I’ll do it again.”

“I have no doubt you will,” he says.

But he’s smiling.

VIOLA
I think right at him, and he flinches.

“You save her,” I say, “and you live. She dies, you die.”

He nods. “Agreed.”

“You try to control me, I shoot you. You try to attack me, I shoot you. Got it?”

“I’ve got it,” he says.

I wait a second more but there ain’t no more seconds.

There ain’t no more time to decide nothing.

Only that the world’s marching to meet up right here, right now.

And she’s out there.

And I ain’t never parting from her again, not even when we’re not together.

Forgive me,
I think.

And I go behind the Mayor and untie the rope.

He stands up slowly, rubbing his wrists.

He looks up at another blast of the horn.

“At last,” he says. “No more of this slinking, secret fight, no more running after shadows and all this undercover cloak and dagger nonsense.” He turns to me, catches my eye, and I see behind his smile the real glint of madness. “Finally, we come to the real thing, the thing that makes men men, the thing we were
born
for, Todd.” He rubs his hands together and his eyes flash as he says the word.

“War.”

Who’s in the bunker?

Who’s in the bunker?

Women and children first

And the children first

And the children

I laugh until my head comes off

I swallow ’til I burst

–Radiohead, “Idioteque”

“War,” says Mayor Prentiss, his eyes glinting. “At last.”

“Shut up,” I say. “There ain’t no
at last
about it. The only one who wants this is
you
.”

“Nevertheless,” he says, turning to me with a smile. “Here it comes.”

And of course I’m already wondering if untying him so he could fight this battle was the worst mistake of my life–

But no–

No,
it’s gonna keep her safe. It’s what I had to do to
keep her safe
.

And I will make him keep her safe if I have to kill him to do it.

And so with the sun setting, me and the Mayor stand on the rubble of the cathedral and look out across the town square, as the army of Spackle make their way down the zigzag hill in front of us, blowing their battlehorn with a sound that could tear you right in two–

As Mistress Coyle’s army of the Answer marches into town behind us, bombing everything in its path
Boom! Boom! BOOM!–

As the first soldiers of the Mayor’s own army start arriving in quick formayshun from the south, Mr Hammar at their front, crossing the square towards us to get new orders–

As the people of New Prentisstown run for their lives in any and every direkshun–

As the scout ship from the incoming settlers lands on a hill somewhere near Mistress Coyle, the worst possible place for ’em–

As Davy Prentiss lies dead in the rubble below us, shot by his own father, shot by the man I just set free–

And as Viola–

My
Viola–

Races out on horseback into the middle of it all, her ankles broken, not even able to stand up on her own–

Yes,
I think.

Here it comes.

The end of everything.

The end of it all.

“Oh, yes, Todd,” says the Mayor, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

And he says the word again, says it like it’s his every last wish come true.

“War.”