The Dark Inside (25 page)

The sound of a boot kicking something soft. And then again.

‘Aggh!
OK,’ shouted Gudgeon eventually. ‘OK!’ he yelped. ‘You’re right. I ain’t nothing but a dopey old sod.’

‘You got that right,’ shouted Billy.

‘I’ll kill Webster meself. I’ll put things right between us on account of what I done.’

‘Yeah,’ said Billy, laughing. ‘Yeah, you bloody will. And killing Webster’ll just be the start of it.’

The two men were breathing heavily. And eventually a set of footsteps started up as one of them walked off. And then the other man stood up, brushed himself down, and started walking too. And
both sets of footsteps faded away in the dark.

When he was sure the men had gone, Webster peered up over the log. Nothing but trees. But then he saw the owl flying low, quiet as snow. It skimmed over them, and then circled back and began to
hoot.

Webster was already up, dragging James after him.

Shouts flashed behind them.

Footsteps cannoned up off springy turf.

James thought he saw ghostly figures moving ahead of them in the dark between the trees. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and looked again. His mother was there, holding out her hands to him.
Cook was waving and smiling. Gudgeon’s wife was sitting on a branch, together with the farmer’s grandson, and they were calling down. James cried out and looked away. Tried to turn
round. Webster gripped the boy’s hand tighter, dragging him on. But James pulled back harder. Slowing him. Weighing on his arm.

‘They’re going to kill you,’ sobbed James. ‘You’ll be dead like everyone else. You’ll be dead like Cook. And Mum. And Gudgeon’s wife. And the
farmer’s grandson. You’ll be gone like them. And I’ll be all alone.’

Twigs crackled close behind them. Webster did not look back as he pulled James on.

‘Do you want to go back to the wagon?’ he shouted. ‘Is that what you want?’ His voice raged. ‘Is that what you want?’ screamed Webster.

The shock of it started James running again.

Between the trees they saw a glowing orange dome in the sky. They heard distant laughter. Generators churning.

A pink balloon drifted up through the light, its string trailing, and disappeared into the dark.

They kept on running, towards the fair.

The hubbub swallowed them up. The smell of bark and leaves and damp faded. Now it was burnt sugar. Hotdogs. Salt and vinegar.

They stopped in a dark spot, hidden beside a white canvas stall with cheap prizes balanced on blocks of wood. Hoops clattered as they landed. Somewhere in the distance a cheer went off like a
firework.

They stood beside the stall for a long time, checking the dark behind them. Looking into the dribs and drabs of people moving up and down the grassy avenue under the lights in front of the
stalls.

Webster wanted to drift in among the thin crowd and try to disappear. But James worried that people would stop and stare at him because of the wretched state he was in. Or that someone would
recognize him from his picture in the newspapers and alert one of the policemen they had seen wandering up and down, radios pinned to their chests. James told Webster they would never be allowed to
see each other again if he was spotted.

‘I don’t have anyone else,’ whispered James, grabbing Webster’s hand and squeezing it.

‘Neither do I,’ replied Webster.

So the two of them moved on, picking their way round guy ropes and the backs of tents and generators, looking for a clue as to what they should do next. When they found an old white van, Webster
peered into the cab, but there was no key in the ignition.

He crept round the back of the vehicle. The two rear doors were unlocked. Three Winchester rifles with silver barrels and black wooden stocks lay on a sheepskin rug. Two white styrofoam cups
beside them on their sides, half-moons of tea in the bottom of both.

Webster closed the doors as the boy grabbed his arm and pulled him gently round to the side of the stall they were behind. James pointed into the thin lines of people walking up and down the
grassy avenue in front of them. The old woman was standing in the middle of everyone, her black shawl wrapped about her shoulders, one hand toying with the leather pouch strung around her neck.

No one seemed to notice her and Webster wondered if he might be seeing just her spirit. But, when Billy appeared beside her and started speaking, that idea died inside him. She was there in her
flesh and bones and skin.

Billy soon vanished again, but the old woman waited where she was, the world going on all about her.

Webster heard the popping of gunshots nearby. He followed the sounds until he was looking at a father, and perhaps his son, standing side by side in front of one of the stalls, a shooting
gallery. They were each firing a Winchester rifle with a silver barrel and a black stock at metal ducks, and pinging them down with pellets.

‘Watch where she goes,’ said Webster, and James nodded and kept his eyes on the old woman.

Webster returned to the white van. Opened the doors again. Took out one of the Winchester rifles. Nothing in the chamber or the cartridge. But he slid the gun beneath his coat anyway and went
back to the boy.

James pointed and Webster saw the old woman disappearing behind a stall where a steel wheel was churning pink candyfloss.

‘What are you going to do?’

But Webster said nothing. He kept low, skulking past the backs of the stalls. And all James could do was follow him. His mind was worn through. The broth he had been eating for however many days
nipped at the back of his throat.

Webster stalked the old woman, flitting behind the stalls as she moved down the grassy avenue among the punters. When she stopped to look round, Webster crouched down and pulled the boy towards
him.

‘I need you to walk out and let her see you.’

‘Why?’ said James, looking at the rifle. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I need you to distract her. Lead her back here behind the stalls.’

‘We should just go.’

‘I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.’

‘We should leave.’

‘If we do, they’ll keep on looking for us.’

James thought it through. He knew what Webster meant.

As he started walking out from behind the stall, Webster pulled him back, looking down into James’s eyes.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll be watching all the time.’

James nodded.

Thoughts flashed.

He stumbled out a little past the stall.

And then, a moment later, he turned away from the avenue and headed back into the dark. There was an old black car parked behind the next stall along and, as James passed by, he looked in the
wing mirror and saw the old woman’s reflection.

She was following him.

Something dark licked up his shins. He wobbled. His breathing was thin inside him. The old woman’s voice slipped into his head and told him to turn round. And he had no choice but to do as
she asked.

She kept whispering as he turned to look at her, the leather pouch twisting through her fingers. James took one step. Then another. He shivered as she licked her lips.

Webster drew up silently behind her and swung the rifle like an axe at the back of her knees. There was a thud. The sound of something cracking. The old woman cried out as she fell.

James felt the dark slip back down his shins and into the ground. His legs became his own again. He stood watching as Webster rolled the woman face up and ripped the leather pouch from her neck.
He planted his single black boot on her chest as she tried to stand up.

‘Anything but the answers and I’ll burn this leather pouch of yours and everything in it. Understand?’

She lay still and then nodded.

‘Tell me how to cure this curse.’

‘There is no cure,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you. There’s no way to lift the curse.’

‘There has to be.’

Webster leant down on the gun, pressing the butt of the stock against the old woman’s knees.

‘If there is then I don’t know one,’ she gasped.

‘You’re lying. Why do you want Billy to kill me? Why’s that so important? Is that something to do with a cure? Is that so you’d keep the boy cursed forever?’

The old woman groaned. Her black shawl had fallen from her shoulders and she seemed to be sinking into a gaping hole in the grass.

‘Tell me,’ shouted Webster and he raised the gun above her head as he stood harder on her chest.

‘Yoo’se got it right,’ said a voice. Billy emerged from the dark with his arms up, palms showing. ‘There is a cure.’

The old woman swore a string of bitter words.

‘What else am I gonna do, Ma?’ said Billy. ‘He’s holding the gun or en’t you noticed?’

But the old woman shouted out. Shook her head.

Webster jammed the gun down on the ground beside her head and she whimpered. He raised the gun again above her white rickety neck and stared at Billy.

‘So tell me the truth, Billy. If you want to save your ma.’

‘The maker has to kill himself and that way he’ll lift the curse from the one he’s attacked,’ Billy said.

Webster heard the fair. He heard his heart. He heard the old woman gasping. All in a heartbeat. And then he was shouting. ‘Where’s the other one? Where’s Gudgeon?’

‘He went round the other way. If you and the boy want to go then go. Good luck to you. You’re more trouble than you’re worth. I give you my word I won’t be coming after
you.’

The old woman was shuddering, trying to move from under Webster’s boot.

‘Ma! It’s over. Just lay still.’ Billy took a few steps forward and Webster raised the gun higher above her, ready to bring it down. Billy stopped. And then he turned his back
on Webster and stared directly at James, and held out his arms on either side of him, his palms upturned.

‘I’ll let the boy go. You can watch me. Then you can go too. Just like on the moor. Just leave my ma alone, you hear?’ Billy stood immobile. All James could see were his teeth.
Like a crescent of moon. ‘Mothers and sons are special, en’t they?’ he shouted at the boy.

‘Go!’ yelled Webster. ‘Go on, James.’

James turned and ran.

And he kept going.

And going.

Until he heard someone cry out behind him.

He looked back.

Webster was lying face down on the grass with Gudgeon standing over him.

The old man kicked him hard, and picked up the gun and glued the end of the barrel to Webster’s back, nailing him to the ground. The old woman was already on her hands and knees. She was
scrabbling at one of Webster’s hands, biting at it. And then she rose unsteadily to her feet, one leg bent at an ugly angle, the leather pouch dangling by its cord from her hand.

James blinked and it seemed to last a thousand years.

And then Billy was sprinting towards him.

‘Run!’ shouted Webster as loudly as he could.

The boy turned.

His legs moved.

His arms pumped.

But everything was weak and bloodless, and heavier than stone. He looked ahead, into the dark of the field stretched out in front of him, and he knew that he would be chased down. He was tired
of running into the dark and not knowing what he would find there. So he veered left. He looped back round the tents and stalls towards the fair, and the lights and the people milling up and down
the avenues.

And he knew that he was running back to Timpston.

Yet there was nothing he could do about it.

There was nowhere left to go.

James heard the old woman’s voice inside him. Each of her words was a lead weight dragging him down. The lights of the fair played over him and he reached out his arms as though trying to
pull himself towards them.

But the old woman was whispering to him.

And Billy was breathing hot behind.

Webster saw the boy slowing down. And he could hear the old woman muttering.

He kicked out at Gudgeon who flinched and tottered back, allowing him to roll over on to his back. Webster caught a glimpse of the stars and then Gudgeon was standing over him again, grinning,
before pushing the mouth of the gun hard into the socket of his right eye.

Webster grabbed the barrel with both hands to push it away and he heard a dry click as the trigger was pulled.

Nothing but the sound of Gudgeon swearing as Webster tore the gun free and swung it hard at Gudgeon’s knees, cutting him down.

Webster was up before the old woman knew what was happening.

As soon as he pushed her to the ground, her muttering stopped. And then he reached down and ripped the leather pouch from her hand.

And, when he looked up, he saw James running on again.

And then the boy vanished beyond the line of tents.

When James reached the grassy avenue of people, nobody noticed him at first.

He screamed.

People stopped and looked.

Ice creams melted over fingers.

Mouths ground to a halt.

Someone pointed at the half-naked boy in front of them.

James fell to his knees and began to sob as a small crowd gathered. Through the ring of shins around him he could see Billy at the edge of the avenue, standing by a white canvas tent. But, at
the sight of all the people, the man backed away and disappeared into the dark.

Someone pushed through the people, and crouched down beside James and held his hands.

It was Webster. He was whispering. Instructions tumbled out of him. James barely understood them. He was shaking. Then nodding his head. When he tried to speak, Webster shushed him.

‘Don’t be scared,’ he said so quietly that only James could hear.

Someone wrapped a coat round James’s bony shoulders. Voices rippled. Shouts rang. Cameras clicked.

When he looked up, Webster was gone. James looked around for him, but the man was gone.

The slap of his palms on the cold metal rungs made the whole structure ring. It was a long way to the top of the scaffolding and the rack of spotlights bolted there.

Despite the climb, his mind was perfectly calm. The simple plan mapped out inside him made sense. Everything seemed so clear, so perfectly resolved, as if it had been intended all along. His
breath barely moved as he reached hand over hand, and climbed steadily higher, thinking about the boy, imagining the life ahead of him.