The Hunted (12 page)

Somehow the last part was the hardest, getting over the bumpy ground to the actual den, too tired to even think. Ella had to leave the barrow behind because it got too hard to wheel through the trees. Instead she would pull the rucksack along the ground for a few paces, come back and help Scarface get from one tree to the next, then leave him leaning there and pull the bag a little further on. Then back for Scarface …

Somehow they did it, though. Got to the lightning tree, its big grey trunk split down the middle, but still growing. Scarface dropped down and sat on the ground. Ella looked around. She could see no sign of a hideout. She searched everywhere, in the bushes, in the shadows under the other trees, up in the branches, hoping they weren’t going to have to do any climbing. Nothing. When she looked back at Scarface, however, he was scrabbling about in a pile of dead leaves and fallen sticks.

‘Here,’ he grunted. ‘Help me. I can’t do it.’

Ella went to him and saw that he had partly uncovered a door of some sort that he must have taken from one of the farm buildings. It was covered with dirt and leaves and stones. They managed to lift it just far enough for Ella to see that there was a hole underneath. First she pushed in
the bag and then she helped Scarface slide in and drop down. He found the strength to hold the door up so that Ella could fit under it and she squeezed through. There was a short tunnel that they crawled along to where it opened out into a sort of burrow just large enough for the two of them.

Ella switched on her torch. They were right in among the tree roots that formed a cage around them. She saw bags and boxes tucked into gaps between the roots and some smaller animal holes going off to the sides.

‘I think badgers made it originally,’ said Scarface, flopping down on to an old mattress. ‘Or maybe foxes. I dug it out some more. I always knew it would be useful one day. You’ve got to think ahead.’

His voice was so quiet Ella could hardly hear it. It was a dry, rustling noise. She shone the torch in his face and he screwed his good eye shut.

‘What are you doing?’ he complained.

‘You need a new bandage,’ she said.

‘In the bag.’

Ella went to fetch the rucksack, undid the top of it and started to take stuff out. She was amazed at how much was packed into it: weapons and tools and clothing and food and drink. About halfway down she found a medicine kit.

She cleaned Scarface’s wounds again and wiped them with antiseptic. Then they drank some water and ate some stale chocolate in silence.

Ella started to shake so she lay down next to Scarface and wrapped herself in a blanket, waiting for the shaking to go away. She closed her eyes, hoping to sleep.

After a few minutes she opened her eyes and pointed
the torch at the roof. There were smaller white roots, like fingers, or claws, poking through the earth above her head.

‘Save the torch,’ said Scarface and she switched it off. It was dark now. She was still shaking. Scarface found her hand and held on to it.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘I can’t sleep,’ said Ella. ‘I thought nothing could keep me awake, but lying here now, I can’t sleep. My body won’t let me.’

‘Me either,’ said Scarface.

‘Tell me a story,’ said Ella.

‘What story?’

‘Your story. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know anything about you. You say you’re not a grown-up, so what are you? Tell me.’

‘OK. But it’ll be our story, though, yeah? You’ll not tell anyone else.’

‘There isn’t anyone else here … Except maybe a rabbit or a mole.’

‘Don’t even tell the moles.’

‘I promise.’

‘Good.’

‘Go on then. Who are you?’

‘My name’s Malik Hussein. I went to Rowhurst School in Kent. I’m fifteen years old. And most of the time I wish I was dead …’

‘I’d been hunting the night I found you.’ Malik’s voice was quiet and scratchy in the darkness. ‘I’d followed a group of grown-ups to the river. Got half of them and the rest got away.

‘I was on the bank of the river, under the motorway bridge where it crosses over, and I sat down there and I stared at the water and it was dark, black, and I thought,
What’s the point?
What’s the point of doing what I’m doing?
Night after night, day after day, hunting them down, killing them. And I was good at killing them. I’m the hunter. But I couldn’t see a point to it any more. There wasn’t a bit of me that didn’t ache, that wasn’t tired or hurting. I just thought there wouldn’t ever be an end to it and I would never be normal again. I was an animal. A kicked dog. Couldn’t go near kids, and I wasn’t a grown-up, despite what I looked like. I couldn’t see any point to life. It was just hard work and pain.

‘I was going to throw myself in the river. I thought about it, thought about drowning. Under all that black water. It would be an end to it all.
Jannah
. And then I saw another grown-up. He was one I’d been hunting for days, and he’d always got away from me. He was a big, ugly, dangerous bastard and I thought – well, at least if I can kill
him it would be one good thing before I died. I was like a dog who can’t stop chasing a stick.

‘So I followed him and he went over the bridge to Monkey Island, and I knew there were more of them about because I can smell them. I can sense them. Sometimes I think I can even hear them, inside my brain. Chattering. Squeaking. Whispering. But I know that’s just me being mad. I knew there were lots of them, though, and
they
were hunting too. There was blood in the air. There was killing that night. They’d found some kids. I knew that much. So I went over the bridge and into the hotel. There was one down in the lobby, the reception area, a mother, eating something. I took her out quickly then went up the stairs, following a trail of blood. Found another two in a corridor. They had your friend, the little boy.’

‘Monkey-Boy.’

‘Was that his name? Well, I put them out of action and was trying to help the boy when you ran round the corner, and I must’ve scared the crap out of you because you fainted. Like you just switched off. So then I had some work to do. Taking them all out, finishing them off and trying to keep you and your friend alive. And anyone else. I quickly found out there were no more kids in there – not alive anyway – and I brought you and the boy outside.

‘I’m sorry he died. I did what I could. Killed the rest of the grown-ups. And then … well, I couldn’t chuck myself in the river then, could I? Couldn’t leave you there all alone. There was nobody else around to look after you. So I brought you back here. I’d never let anyone else in my camp before. Thought I’d get you well and take you to Windsor or Bracknell. Leave you on someone’s doorstep.’

Malik stopped and made a noise. Ella realized he was laughing. For a while he said nothing and she waited for him to carry on.

‘I’m sorry about what happened to your farm,’ she said and squeezed his hand.

Finally he spoke again.

‘It was stupid of me,’ he said. ‘Trying to defend the place like that. All I did was get those kids killed. I should have come straight here.’

‘No,’ said Ella. ‘It was worth fighting for.’

‘I knew it couldn’t last,’ said Malik. ‘I knew I couldn’t hold it by myself. Sooner or later someone was going to come along and take it all away from me. A swarm of grown-ups, or more likely some kids. They’re spreading out more and more, the ones in Windsor and the ones at Bracknell. I tried to scare them away, but I always knew that one day there’d be someone brave enough to come take a look and, once they’d found the chickens in the barn, or the food, they weren’t going to let me keep it all for myself.

‘Never thought it would be quite as spectacular as what happened last night, though. That was mental. Never seen anything like it before, and I’ve seen a lot. Can’t remember all the people I’ve seen die. Friends and enemies and strangers. But I’ve forgotten so much as well. Sometimes I can’t even remember what I did the day before. My brain is full of clouds. I remember the start of it all quite clearly, being at school, down in Kent. The disease. When it all began to go wrong.

‘Do you remember the “Scared Kid” video? How we laughed when we first saw it, this kid terrified of real-life zombies or whatever. And then we realized it wasn’t fake.
He wasn’t being punked. And then how we were all scared after that. The most scared I’ve ever been.’

‘I don’t remember that time so well,’ said Ella. ‘It seems so long ago.’

‘You’re so much younger than me,’ said Malik. ‘I can remember it so clearly. How we got through the first bit of the craziness, stayed at the school. The teachers tried to help us, but when they got sick it all got worse. I ended up hiding out in the school chapel with some kids from my House. Funny thing was I’d never really been in there before. I wasn’t exactly a strict Muslim, but I knew chapel was boring, so I got out of it “
on religious grounds
”. A guy called Matt sort of took over, went a bit mental actually. Started raving on about God and the Lamb and how the Lamb was going to save us. I didn’t really listen, and then the silly bastard poisoned us all with, like, carbon-monoxide fumes, burning stuff in the chapel.

‘We nearly died. Probably would’ve done if my mate Ed hadn’t turned up with some other kids. Got the doors open and got us all out. All except one kid with asthma who died. Can’t remember his name. We decided to leave the school after that and head for the countryside. Seemed like a plan of sorts. When we set off, we were in quite a good mood, to be honest. It felt better, doing something and not just hiding, not just waiting for the food to run out or the grown-ups to come for us.

‘I remember walking along, chatting to Ed. I wonder what happened to him. He was a good guy. A good friend. Popular. Head of everything. A hit with the girls. Yeah, that’s what we were talking about – girls – if you want to know. I can’t remember exactly what we were saying, just a typical boys’ conversation like we’d had a million times
before. You know? Well, you wouldn’t know, I guess. You’re too young. And a girl. Anyway, it was silly stuff because we felt sort of safe. Being all together like that. With a plan. We were going to find somewhere like my farm. With food and animals, you know … So we were just chatting and walking, and then, out of nowhere, there were grown-ups.’

Malik paused, and when he went on his voice was even quieter so that Ella struggled to hear him.

‘They got me before I knew they were even there. Grabbed me and dragged me into a building, started ripping at me. Don’t remember much more after that. Not even sure I remember anything, to tell you the truth. I’ve sort of pieced it together from dreams and memories and what people told me afterwards. You know? Glimpses and pictures. Bits and pieces. Some other kids rescued me. I never knew what happened to Ed and the rest of the boys from my school. I hope they’re OK. That they got away. I tried to find out, but nobody knew.

‘The kids that found me weren’t from my school, you see. There was another school in Rowhurst. The local state school on the other side of town. Brockridge Park. The comprehensive. We never mixed with them. They were the rough kids. We were always told to keep away from them, but they saved me that day. The boy in charge, their leader, guy called Rav, he told me afterwards that, when they found me, I was so badly mashed up they thought I was dead. There’s been a lot of times since when I wished I had died.

‘They were looting my body apparently, when I grabbed hold of one of them by the arm, like something out of a horror film. Freaked him right out. Nearly
crapped himself. They didn’t know what to do with me, but there was a doctor nearby who helped some of them. This was right at the beginning, when there were still some adults who hadn’t got the disease yet. You remember, we all thought maybe some of them would be immune or something? So, anyway, this doctor, Dr Catell – Chris Catell – he was trying to help us kids.

‘He had a medical centre near where we’d been ambushed. And they took me there. He’d barricaded it up, you see. Made it safe. He had two nurses with him and they were doing what they could. At first he didn’t want to take me in apparently. Told Rav that it was a waste of time; with wounds like I had I was a goner. But Rav’s lot didn’t want me either, so they dumped me on his doorstep and when I didn’t die straight off he kind of had to take me in.

‘I can sort of remember it from there. This and that. Lying in one of the consulting rooms, all bandaged up like a mummy. This one nurse crying all the time. One of them was called Mel and one of them was Janey. I think it was Janey who cried all the time. Doctor Catell, unshaven, pumping me full of painkillers and antibiotics and stuff, cleaning my wounds, trying to stitch me up. It felt like all the nerves in my skin had been exposed, rubbed with grit. Like I’d been deep-fried. I remember a lot of screaming. He must’ve given me the most righteous painkillers he had. All pointless, he told me, but it seemed I wasn’t ready to die yet. The Koran says everything that happens has been planned by Allah. It’s all worked out.’

‘Fate,’ said Ella. ‘Isaac was going on about it. Something called a funny word, like Kermit?’

‘Kismet,’ said Malik and he chuckled. ‘
Kermit
. Yeah, it’s
all the same thing. Fate, kismet, Kermit, Qadar. That’s one of the main teachings of Islam – Qadar. It’s all written down somewhere, everything that happens to you. Like we’re all just characters in a book. So why do you think I wasn’t allowed to die? Why do you think that is? I sometimes thought it was because there was something Allah wanted me to do. That I had a purpose. Other times I thought maybe he was just laughing at me. And lots of times I lost any faith I might have had. Didn’t believe in anything. I’d have been happy to die back then, instead of screaming all night. Dr Chris didn’t know how I survived, said I’d lost so much blood I must’ve had only, like, half a litre left in me.

‘I don’t know exactly how long it went on like that, me lying there, him looking more tired every day, the one nurse crying, the other one going slowly nuts, the kids shouting out. Yeah, there were others. I wasn’t the only one. There were six of us in all, me and another couple of boys and three girls. Time just sort of passed. Didn’t know what was day and what was night, while Chris tried to look after me and the nurses, and his other patients.

‘Then one of the boys died and there were five of us, and then it was clear that a nurse had the disease, and Chris and the other nurse, the crying one, had to shut her outside. And she stayed out there, wailing and weeping and screaming and banging on the doors, saying she was all right, then making weird sounds and using made-up language. In the end she was just, like, grunting and swearing and sniffing at the doors and windows. And then one day Chris went out and hit her with something until she was quiet.

‘The other nurse cried even more after that. I never saw
her with dry eyes. She was nice, though. Nice but scared. Janey. Yeah, she was definitely Janey. We talked a lot. She wouldn’t look at me, though. That only made her cry worse. Not that she could see much of me. I was all over bandages, to tell you the truth. She’d talk about any kind of stuff. Her family, things she’d watched on the TV – she liked soaps – holidays she’d been on, her boyfriend, who was dead. And then one of the girls died. I’d never met her. And the doctor accused Janey of doing it and they had this, like, massive row, right in my room. Janey freaked out. Started climbing the walls and then she scratched the doctor’s face, and he held her down and injected her with something. She went still and he dragged her out by her hair and I never saw her again.

‘So now it’s just me and Dr Chris, the other boy and two girls. And I didn’t want to stay in that bed forever, waiting for bad things to happen to me. Of all the parts of me that the grown-ups had bitten and chewed, my legs were probably the least damaged. They hardly touched them. So, as soon as I could, I got out of bed and started trying to walk, hobbling round my little room. That’s when I got a shock, though. My legs weren’t too bad, but my arse hurt like you wouldn’t believe where one of the grown-ups had taken a chunk out of it. I made myself keep walking, though, and Chris let me leave my room.

‘I got to know the girls a bit. One had some kind of stomach infection, a split in her gut or something. She wasn’t much older than you. The other one, Abby, had a badly broken arm. I only met the boy twice. Tommy, his name was. He didn’t seem to be injured; he just sat in a chair all day, rocking backwards and forwards, humming
to himself. I don’t know if he was ill or he’d just wigged out. Chris wouldn’t talk about him. I think maybe he might have had something wrong with his brain, you know, like a tumour or something.

‘As I say, there was only the two times I saw him. After that first time the doc put him back in his room and said we weren’t to disturb him.

‘The power was off by then, but the doctor had collected a load of candles. He’d light a couple in the evenings and we’d play cards and read magazines, the same ones over and over, and I tried to walk around and get my muscles working properly. But my stitches would pull and I’d be bleeding, and the doc said he couldn’t keep giving me more blood, we were running out.

‘The girl with the stomach problem, she got sicker and sicker. Went back to her bed. She shouted a lot for painkillers and the doc was giving her all these, like, antibiotics, but she went green and died. Something burst inside her, the doc said. And we couldn’t bury her so she went outside like the others. Like putting the rubbish out.

‘I eventually grew the balls to look in a mirror for the first time. And, well, I don’t need to tell you what I look like. It was much worse then, if you can believe it. As well as the cuts and gouges, and the strips of missing skin, I was all swollen and bruised, and weeping with pus and crap. I’d been bitten and scratched and clawed at. One eye was blind. Bits of me were healing, but bits of me were gone and wouldn’t ever be coming back. I looked like someone put together from spare parts, badly put together, stitched up like Frankenstein’s monster.