The Hunted (19 page)

‘I won’t go! I won’t go! I won’t go!’

‘You’ve got no choice.’

‘I won’t …’ Ella beat her small fists against Malik’s chest. He winced and coughed, then let her carry on a few beats longer before grabbing her wrists and holding her still. He glared at her through his good eye, the white stained red round the edges.

‘You can’t stay here.’

‘I can …’

They were sitting on a platform high up in the treetops in the woods. It was several days since they’d left the farm and gone to hide in the hole. Ella remembered crawling out after listening to Malik’s story. She had had no idea what sort of time it might be, no idea how long they’d been down there, and it had been a shock returning to the real world. Since then she’d spent most of her time sleeping, woken only by hunger. That was how it had been. Day by day, just getting from one meal to the next, stretching out their rations, looking after each other.

Malik got stronger every day and was able to move around more and more for himself. Now he was even well enough to climb trees. He’d spent the morning showing Ella how to make animal traps and he’d found a rabbit in
one he’d set nearby. Ella was so hungry she forgot to be squeamish about it and they’d eaten it for lunch, roasted over a fire that he’d let her make. Malik had also found some bitterweeds that she happily ate.

Then they’d come up here to try and see what was going on in the world. The sun was sparkling down through the branches of the surrounding trees, which had fresh, bright green leaves bursting out on them. Through the leaves they could see out over the tops of the lower trees to the fields beyond. It looked quiet and peaceful, and for a long while they’d just sat there, taking it in, glad to be alive, trying not to think of all the bad things that had happened.

And then Malik had ruined it by announcing that he was going to take Ella to a town. They’d gone round and round in circles arguing and for the hundredth time Ella told him that she wasn’t going.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said, her voice husky from shouting.

‘Who said anything about leaving me?’ Malik asked. ‘I need you to look after me.’ He smiled at her with his ugly, twisted mouth and his one good eye.

‘But I thought you’d never go back to where people were.’

‘I’ve got no choice, Ella. We’re running out of food and I’m too weak and shonky to catch enough for us to both live on. We’ll go to Bracknell.’

‘Where Isaac went?’

‘Yeah.’ Malik nodded. ‘Provided he made it back there safely. He can stick up for us. He knows you, he knows me, he knows I’m not a threat.’

‘I’m not going.’

‘I’m responsible for you now, Ella. I have to make sure you’re all right. So don’t argue any more. We’re going. End of story.’

‘No. I said no.’

‘Ella. We’ll die. Don’t you see that?’

‘And if we go to a town it’ll be like before – they’ll be horrible to you. Do you think I wasn’t listening to your story?’

‘It’ll be different. I’ll be all right. I’ve got you. You’ve shown me that I can trust people –
some
people. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ve decided. I need to return to the world. I’m not an animal. I’m a person. It’ll be a good thing. A positive thing. I
want
to do it, Ella. It’ll be good for both of us.’

Deep down Ella knew he was right. It had been getting harder and harder as their supplies started to run low. She felt feeble all the time and cold and scared. There was always the worry that they’d be attacked again. She never felt completely safe, not even when they were down in their snug hole. So far they’d been all right. There had been a couple of occasions when a pack of dogs came sniffing by, but Malik got rid of them. The dogs half liked him and half feared him, but they were hungry too and wild, and if they got the chance they’d come in for dinner. When dogs were in a pack, they behaved differently.

‘When?’ she said, sounding grumpy and glum.
Grumpy Glumdrops
. That’s what her mum used to call her when she was in a bad mood, to try to tease her out of it. And it had always just made her worse. Grumpy Glumdrops. That’s who she was.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Malik. ‘No point in waiting any longer. I’m well enough to walk now. I’ve been thinking
about this ever since we had to leave the farm, planning it. You need to be back with people, not stuck with a ghoul like me.’

‘You’re not a ghoul.’

‘I’m hardly Johnny Depp, though, am I?’

Ella had to admit that there was a part of her that was lonely and a part of her that was bored, made worse by sitting thinking about food all day.

That and being attacked by grown-ups.

They hadn’t seen any of them so far. Maybe they’d all gone, marched off with the tall woman and her army. Ella wondered where they’d been going.

‘You’re right,’ said Malik. ‘I’m not a ghoul. Which is why I need to go and live with people again. I’ll have to do it sooner or later. If I don’t go to them they’ll come to me. So are you all right with it, Ella? Can we stop arguing?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Good girl. You’ll see. It’s the right thing to do.’

Next morning they packed up what they could carry, stowed the rest in the hole and set off for Bracknell. As they walked through the woods, Ella asked Malik how long he thought it would take them.

‘Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours, maybe three, as I can’t go too fast and we might need to stop now and then, but we’ll be there by lunchtime. It’s the start of a new life, Ella.’

‘If you say so.’ There she was, doing it again – Grumpy Glumdrops. Couldn’t snap out of it even though she knew this was the right thing to do.

It was a grey day to suit Ella’s grey mood and there was a thin, cutting wind that made her shiver. As they came out of the woods, the countryside looked flat. The wind was somehow hardly stirring the trees and bushes. They trudged on into a field overgrown with tall grass and weeds. She’d got to know the land around here quite well. Not so long ago she’d thought she might live here forever.

Already she’d forgotten what it was like at the museum. Holloway was a stronger memory, though not a good one. That was where Sam had been taken by the greasy mother in the pink tracksuit. Ella wished she could remember happier things about Sam, and not that awful
day. She could remember the mother better than him. His face was blurry. Like in a dream where things shifted and disappeared when you tried to touch them.

Don’t think about the past and don’t think about the future
, that’s what Malik told her and that’s how she was going to try to live.

She kept close to him, always scared when they were out in the open, even if it was daytime and the grown-ups would mostly be in their own holes. There were always the dogs, though, and other kids. She’d picked up on Malik’s fear of them, even though she knew it was stupid. She was obviously one of them. A child herself. They’d never mistake
her
for a grown-up. Not like Malik. Something had made his body grow and bulge and get bigger like a man’s. She was proud to be walking with him. He was strong and clever. He had all his tricks and traps and ways of beating the enemy.

‘Malik?’ she asked.

‘What?’

The grass was up to Ella’s chest and she tucked in behind him, walking in the path he’d trampled.

‘That explosion, back at the farm, when the grown-ups came through and you burned up all the ones who were attacking the barn.’

‘What of it?’

‘Was that petrol?’

‘Yeah.’ Malik nodded. ‘It was from the tank that the lads left behind. I rigged up some pipes and valves and stuff so that I could empty it into a trough that ran round the barn. It was for emergencies. A ring of fire. I’d hoped I’d never need to use it. Last resort sort of a thing.’

‘I wish they hadn’t attacked us. I wish we were still living there with the chickens.’

‘We can’t change the past, Ella, so no point going over it.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘
Don’t think about the past and don’t think about the future.
’

‘One foot in front of the other. Deal with problems as they come up.’

‘Burn the grown-ups with petrol.’

‘Yeah.’ Malik laughed. ‘Burn the grown-ups with petrol.’

They reached a road and Malik stuck to it for a while. Every now and then he would stop and listen and sniff the air, and once he told Ella to hurry and darted off to the side to hide in the long grass. All Ella could see from their little flattened patch was grass and grey sky. They stayed there and laid low for what felt like ages, and in the end nothing happened.

They set off again, and a few minutes later Malik went through the same routine. He wasn’t happy being on the open road and he was walking slower the further they went. His injured leg was obviously giving him trouble. He was limping badly. Ella could see that he was in pain and trying not to show it. So that he didn’t feel too bad, she started to say that she was tired and asked for frequent rest stops. Malik would gratefully sit down for a while and rub his leg.

And so they plodded on – stop-start, stop-start – Ella anxious to get there, but also anxious not to get there. Not sure what they were going to find. If they’d be welcome, or if the kids would treat Malik like all the others had done. Well, not if she could help it. She’d protect him. She’d fight anyone who was mean to him.

They’d been going for some time when Malik suggested
they stop and drink some water. Ella wasn’t particularly thirsty, but she realized that Malik needed another excuse to rest so she didn’t say anything. They moved off the road into some nearby trees and flopped down, Malik sitting back against a knobbly silver-grey trunk. He got his bottle out and took a small sip before passing it to Ella. She drank and offered it back to him, but he ignored her. He was staring straight ahead, but not seeing, just concentrating on listening. Listening and sniffing. She could see his nostrils twitching, going wide then narrow. His mangled, battered face started to work itself into a frown. Then he hopped up on to his feet and squatted there, head tilted to one side.

‘What is it?’ Ella asked and he shushed her. He was listening hard now, his head moving around like radar, trying to work out which direction the sound was coming from. And then he suddenly grabbed her forearm and gripped it painfully tight.

‘Run!’

He dragged her to her feet and pulled her along. Ella was fighting for breath, more frightened because she had no idea what it was they were running from. They pelted through the trees, Malik sort of skipping to keep the weight off his bad leg. Small branches whipped at Ella and scratched her face.

‘What is it?’ she gasped. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Malik grunted and Ella risked looking back. She could see figures among the trees, moving fast.

‘It’s people,’ she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. Now Malik looked back and swore.

‘It’s grown-ups, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Malik. ‘And something else. Something I don’t understand.’

Ella screamed as a father came crashing out of some bushes next to her and she cringed, waiting for him to attack her, but he ran past. He wasn’t interested in her. She realized now that the grown-ups weren’t running towards
her
, they were running
away
from something. Two more of them went past. Now Ella was really scared. Malik was hobbling and hopping and they were getting into a tangle of trees growing closely together, slowing them down. Another grown-up barged past and, distracted, Ella tripped and fell, pulling Malik down with her. She put her arms round her head to protect herself and looked up. There was no way forward and the grown-ups were having to get out of the woods into the open. She wasn’t used to seeing grown-ups during the day and she wasn’t used to seeing them run like this.

‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’

They heard weird yelps and a noise like thunder coming through the woods. A squealing sound. The howls of animals.

‘Dogs,’ said Malik.

‘Are they that scared of dogs?’

‘And something else.’

‘You said. What is it?
What
something else?’

‘I don’t know. And I don’t want to stay and find out.’

A mother came stumbling and careering along, fell face first next to them and hit the ground with a screech. When she pushed herself up on her arms, her face was a mess of dirt and pus and blood, teeth missing, her nose flattened. Malik kicked her out of the way and dragged Ella to her feet.

There was only one way to go. They had to run with
the pack and follow the grown-ups out into the open. Malik set off as fast as he could go, Ella leaping over roots and stones to keep up with him. And they were out of the woods, into another field, long grass holding them back. Tracks through it where the mothers and fathers had gone. And Ella saw that there were more grown-ups coming out of the trees on the far side of the field, joining the others in a swirling, confused mass in the centre, too spooked to go any further, and Malik and Ella were sucked in among them. And the noise of thunder grew and the squeals and howls, and Ella put her hands to her ears and screamed.

Then a line of horses broke from behind a long hedge, came galloping towards them.

They were being ridden by children. Armed with spears and clubs and carrying nets. They were shouting and blowing horns, dogs running at their side.

Ella raised a hand and tried to shout to them, her voice lost in the chaos of noise and bumbling bodies. She raised both hands, called out and was knocked to the ground by a fat mother. The breath went out of her and she felt light-headed and dizzy. As she tried to stand, another mother fell on her. It felt like she was at the centre of a shoal of fish being attacked by sharks. The grown-ups were being herded into a tighter and tighter ball. And more and more bodies were trampling on Ella, falling on her, crushing her. She couldn’t breathe – she couldn’t speak – she couldn’t see Malik.

Where was he?

What had happened to him?

There were bright flashes in her eyes, right inside her brain. Her vision was flickering and blurry. The stink of
the grown-ups, the hot, close heat of them, was like a foul gas in her nose and mouth. She was losing touch with reality. Thought she saw two fathers scooped up in a net.

Two golden twins on horses.

Malik rising up … a sword swinging down.

Malik falling.

Her fault. It was all her fault.

And she was dying here.

Someone had to help her.

She opened her mouth wide and it was like she’d opened a door and her soul was sucked out of her.

She felt a terrible emptiness.

And slipped away.